i have gus valeho, joseph bryant, brenda barrose, felicia jones. cheryl thornton. theresa ruther, i'm sorry, i can't read

what they perceived as racial inequity in the work force and i want to recognize vice president joseph bryant and regional director david cannon for bringing this hearing to our office and helping us shape the topic and the questions that we will be hearing about today. as you know, particularly here in san francisco, african americans have faced a massive outmigration in the city. in the 1970s, african americans represented 13.4% of our city's population, and over the last 40 years, we have seen a very steady and rapid decline of our african american community in san francisco. as of july 1, 2017, the u.s. census borough that african americans are making up 5.4% of the city's population, which is an 8% decrease over 40 years. brookings institute in 2017 also published a report that found that african american employment levels have seen a significant drop over 40 years as well, made up 23% of the entire work force in 1976, by 2013, dropped by 50%, to 12.8%. members of s.e.i.u. have expressed concerns some is not just related to outmigration, but also racial discrimination, bias and promotion

i have gus valeho, joseph bryant, brenda barrose, felicia jones. cheryl thornton. theresa ruther, i'm sorry, i can't read handwriting. rutherford. carol powell, nicole christianson. dalfina hand i. shanet, brandon, david, james henis, apologize if i could not read your handwriting. it was not on the list of speaker cards that i have gotten yet. i'm sorry, but it wasn't here, and i will call your name when the card -- and mr. wright, i did not call your name up. >> i was here first before anybody got here, ok? >> i understand, but right now we were -- >> i was first. >> supervisor kim: i understand you were here first but going on speaker cards. so if you can fill one out. all right. let's get started. >> i'm going to start off by telling you discriminatory practices that you are talking about, i experienced over 50 years ago working for the city for muni. i didn't know nothing about illegal immigration. when i worked for muni revenue, moving hundreds of thousands a night, sometimes a million dollars a night. you got me working with some illegal aliens from the phil

and it wasn't until june that, finally, his doctor -- a guy from new york named bryant, joseph bryant -- examined this bump on the roof of grover's mouth. and bryant had some expertise in oral cancers, and he determined that it was, in fact, a cancerous tumor. he called it a bad looking tenant. it's funny, the word cancer, cancer had a stigma attached to it in the 1890s, in the 19th century, really well into the 20th century. and, in fact, the word itself was often avoided. newspapers would call it the dread disease or the decide that no doctor dare name, these sorts of things. so bryant called it a bad looking tenant and said it should be removed. and cleveland agreed to have this tumor removed, but only on the condition that the operation be conducted in secret. cleveland was afraid that if it came to be known he had cancer, which was considered a death sentence in 1893, that the markets would crash, that wall street would panic, and the depression would only worsen. he had other reasons too. he had personal reasons. about ten years before grant had died of an oral tumor, and his de