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Excerpt From Sunshine/Noir II: Livin’ La Vida Logan

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Barrio Logan is one of the oldest neighborhoods in San Diego. It used to be one whole community called Logan Heights, named after congressman John A. Logan, but the creation of the Interstate 5 freeway that bisected the neighborhood changed that. Then the building of the San Diego–Coronado Bridge changed it again. Thousands were displaced from building the freeway and the bridge. Now Barrio Logan encompasses a relatively small patch of land sandwiched between the San Diego Bay and the I-5 freeway and north of National City and south of San Diego’s East Village.

Fewer than 5,000 people inhabit my barrio. Thousands more come during the day to work here in the shipyards, the Port of San Diego and the other companies that line the bay side of Barrio Logan. Of those 5,000 barrio denizens about 85% of them are non-white, most of which are of Mexican descent. But things are changing.   [Read more…]

Excerpt From Sunshine/Noir II: The Rock – Resistance Barrio Logan Style

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By Brent E. Beltran

Juanito held the rock firmly in his hand—almost too firmly, as his knuckles turned white from the pressure. He stood there shaking, and tears slowly fell from his reddened eyes. A wheezy cough escaped his tight lungs as the eleven-year-old stood on Harbor Drive facing the towering cranes that loomed over this toxic barrio. Every breath he took was a challenge. The setting sun cast a powerful glow of purples and oranges across the radiant, polluted sky.

He had grown up on these neglected streets, a Barrio Logan native in more ways than one. He stood there with rock in hand as semi trucks rumbled past, hauling bananas picked by people that looked just like him. The vehicles added more pollutants into the atmosphere as they traveled to various points north and east. That rock, smooth from centuries of ocean water beatdowns, weighed heavy in his trembling hand.   [Read more…]

Faulconer’s First Year: Mostly Doing Nothing, But Looking Good While Doing It

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By Doug Porter

Unlike the women performing on the field at Chargers’ games, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer is getting paid for his cheerleading efforts.

The local daily paper ran a puff piece on Sunday, celebrating Faulconer’s first year in office, reporting on the “nearly unanimous praise” for making San Diego a “vastly different place than it was under the tumultuous tenure” of he-who-cannot-be-named-without-contempt.

Largely airbrushed out of history was former interim mayor Todd Gloria, whose reward for leadership following the fall of Filner was to get booted out of the position of City Council President, lest he actually accomplish any items proposed during his tenure.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Racial Unconscious: History is the Narrative that Hurts

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…the insistence on what one might call “San Diego exceptionalism,” the notion that our city is somehow free of the same troubled history as the rest of the country, is at the heart of our city’s failure to truly serve the needs of all San Diegans. 

By Jim Miller

Last week, leading up to this week’s special focus on race and racism, the San Diego Free Press posted a story about a new report released by the Equal Justice Institute (EJI) that notes how, “Capital punishment and ongoing racial injustice in the United States are ‘direct descendants’ of lynching, charges a new study, which found that the pre-World War II practice of ‘racial terrorism’ has had a much more profound impact on race relations in America than previously acknowledged.”

This hidden history of racial terrorism in America is far more influential than many of us would prefer to acknowledge. As EJI Director Bryan Stevenson observes, “I also think that the lynching era created a narrative of racial difference, a presumption of guilt, a presumption of dangerousness that got assigned to African Americans in particular—and that’s the same presumption of guilt that burdens young kids living in urban areas who are sometimes menaced, threatened, or shot and killed by law enforcement officers.”

And if a lack of awareness or outright denial of the significance of our racist past is a problem in the United States at large, San Diego is certainly not immune though our civic religion—banal self-promotion by the tourism industry—would have us think otherwise. But underneath the official ahistorical pastiche of styles and fantasies designed to aid commerce and nature-packaged-as-spectacle there is another story.   [Read more…]

Lessons Learned in 2014: #FightforFifteen and #Icantbreathe

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By Doug Porter

Welcome to Day Two of the Starting Line’s summation of 2014. Yesterday the focus was on challenges not met in San Diego. Today we’ll look at some serious challenges rising to the forefront of the local and national consciousness.

Struggles for economic justice and ending racism (re) emerged as serious issues over the past year, and there certainly is every indication they’ll remain at the forefront in 2015. Taking the long view, it seems as though in the past we’ve ended up in the past settling for half a loaf in these matters; the symptoms got treated but never the disease.

Promises of hope and change have run into the politics of “No.” Often the personification of that attitude is the Republican Party, a convenient diversion from the reality that the underlying attitudes are part of our national consciousness. Entitlement based on race, wealth and class are as American as apple pie. Passing laws and declarations by elected leaders can no longer be regarded as a substitute for changing our culture.   [Read more…]

A Bakers Dozen: People Who Made San Diego a Better Place in 2014

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By Doug Porter

Today I’ll talk about individuals who are making a difference in a very nice way. They’re not politicians, just ordinary people doing extraordinary things in San Diego who deserve recognition. I wish I had gold medallions or fancy embossed certificates to give them. All I have are my words of praise.

As I’ve been reflecting on the past year one thing that stood out was the leadership shown by women in activist causes around San Diego. Despite many not-so-good things happening in the past year, their dedication to causes near and dear to progressives was outstanding. Oh, and there is one guy on this list. It just worked out that way.

On Tuesday I presented a list of people who ought to be on Santa’s Bad Boys & Girls list. Today it’s the Good Girls and Boy list. Today’s list is not meant to be in any order, nor is it inclusive. You are welcome to suggest additional names in the comments section.   [Read more…]

UCSD’s CHE Cafe Facing Eviction Next Week

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By Doug Porter

A ruling by Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal yesterday may well mean the end of the road for the C.H.E. Cafe, a student run cooperative at UCSD.

The co-op will have five calendar days to vacate once a written order is signed by the judge and the university files a writ of possession, meaning the group could be evicted by the middle of next week.

Supporters of the C.H.E.were vague about their future plans when speaking with the news media following the court decision, saying they were considering further legal actions and promising to continue protest activity and lobbying.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s “Business and Industry Leaders” Plead for Taxpayer Subsidies

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By Doug Porter

The debate about proposals to increase the minimum wage in San Diego continues today. Yesterday the Chamber of Commerce and San Diego County Taxpayers Association held a press conference featuring the release of a ‘study’ predicting doom, gloom and increased poverty unless they were allowed to pay lower wages.

The study, as I predicted yesterday, was a joke, starting with its assumptions (failing to acknowledge San Diego’s higher cost of living) to its solutions (a state earned income credit). A small group –the Coalition for Labor & Community Solidarity– protesting the conference was ignored by local media outlets, with the exception of NBC7.

This morning the pro-increase Raise Up San Diego held their own media event, featuring a handful of small business owners explaining why they support San Diego City Council President Todd Gloria’s proposal for an initiative on earned sick days and a minimum wage increase throughout the city.

While I appreciate the back and forth between people who sign paychecks, I remain concerned about what’s being left out of this conversation.   [Read more…]

2014 Primaries: It’s #Ididnotvote by a Landslide

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By Doug Porter

Yesterday San Diego non-voters elected a district attorney personally embroiled in a criminal case, a county clerk supported by anti-gay bigots and a supervisor known for using taxpayer dollars to support religious causes. Call it a resounding victory for apathy and a defeat for advocates of the two tier/jungle primary voting system as a near-record low number (I’m guessing 22%) of voters cast ballots.

Approximately 12% of the city’s registered voters agreed with a corporate campaign almost completely based on lies to overturn a five-year-long community planning process. Incumbents were triumphant everywhere.

There will be runoff elections in November for San Diego City Council District 6 between Carol Kim and Chris Cate, the 52nd Congressional District between Carl DeMaio and Scott Peters, along with Mary Salas versus Jerry Rindone vying for the Mayor in Chula Vista. A stealth campaign by teahadist Donna Woodrum for a seat on the San Diego Community College Board failed to unseat Maria Nieto Senour.   [Read more…]

Junco’s Jabs: San Diego’s Maritime Industry Feeding at the Electoral Trough

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“Yes” on B & C is the Way to Support the Barrio Logan Community

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By Ernie McCray

Here we go. Same old same old politics in San Diego. The “Big Boys” have to get their way. They want us to vote “No” in opposition to a plan that was created to make a community healthy and safe. And mayor, Kevin Faulconer, who has billed himself as an “independent” leader, has, as such, been going around talking about how when Propositions B & C are voted down, “it will be our opportunity to pass a plan that works to protect our families, to protect our economy.”

Hey, dude, we already have a plan to keep toxics, pollutants, carcinogens and flammable chemicals, a safe distance away from Barrio Logan schools, playgrounds, and homes. So what does your plan look like? Oh, you don’t have one? And a new plan can’t happen for at least a year?

The Barrio Logan community worked diligently for years to bring about reasonable land use and zoning changes and it happened. It’s on the books right now. There’s a five-block buffer zone that bans new residential and industrial suppliers, while allowing such existing uses to remain in place and expand by no more than 20 percent.   [Read more…]

One-Day Art Show Highlights Fight Against Toxic Pollution in Barrio Logan

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“Until Our Last Breath” features more than 20 barrio artists at Chicano Art Gallery

By Mia Bolton

Artists, residents and friends of Barrio Logan, with the help of Chicano Art Gallery, join forces this Saturday for a one-night-only art exhibit to tell the story of how corporate greed and pollution affect the health of Barrio Logan community members.

The exhibit, Until Our Last Breath: Barrio Artistas Contra San Diego’s Toxic Maritime Industry, features original paintings, drawings and sculpture from local artists and many Chicano Park muralists, such as Victor Ochoa, Mario Torero, Berenice Badillo, Armando Nuñez, Stephanie Cecilia Cervantes, Hector Villagas, Patricia Aguayo, Mario Chacon and Isaias Crow.   [Read more…]

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