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Can We White People Be ‘Woke’ to Our Privilege? If So, How and Why Should We?

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It starts with realizing everything you have been taught was skewed from the perspective of white males – the educators, the faith leaders, the doctors, the historians and the politicians. Everything I had been taught was controlled by a white patriarchal society.  

My journey began a few years ago when I met DeRay McKesson, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement. He explained the concept of white privilege to me. This is the concept that just because my skin is white, life has been immeasurably easier for me than for people of color.  

This fluke of nature automatically raised my social status above those born to parents with different skin pigment. It has nothing to do with how hard I may have worked. It has to do with understanding that my accomplishments were easier to achieve because I’m white.  On the flip side, my failures were not as significant because as a white person, my safety net was bigger and stronger.   [Read more…]

Don’t Shoot: Thoughts on AB 931

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I was just about to write down my thoughts on a meeting I attended a little while back, but I thought I’d check my email first so I could really settle in with what I wanted to say.

One particular email in my inbox got my attention right away: news the San Diego City Council hadn’t taken a step that was necessary in the process of readying an amendment regarding the creation of a Commission on Police Practices for placement on the November ballot.

They just let it drop. And although that’s shocking to me, I’m not the least bit surprised because, and I can only speak for the years I’ve been in San Diego since 1962, our City Councils, on the whole, have never been about much of anything beyond empty “America’s Finest City” kind of platitudes.   [Read more…]

Sen. Kamala Harris’ Remarks on Identity Politics Given During Netroots Nation Address | Video Worth Watching

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Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) spoke at the Netroots Nation convention in New Orleans. During this portion of her speech identifying some “difficult truths” and after some observations on the role of black women in electing Doug Jones to the Senate, her remarks addressed the issue of what has sometimes been referred to as “identity politics”. [To listen to the entire address, when this four minute segment ends, click on the “replay” arrow in the lower-left corner of the video box]   [Read more…]

Truth and Justice in San Diego Takes Second Place in Quest for Police Oversight

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Two recent episodes give proof to my belief that the Police Department is the most powerful government agency in San Diego with the least amount of taxpayer oversight.

This is nothing new. America’s Finest City has gone through decades of scandal and corruption being followed by hollow promises of reform. The point I’m making today is that things still haven’t changed, despite two changes of leadership, lawsuits, and political posturing.

What makes these political games more serious than say, the machinations around Civic San Diego, are the practical implications and applications for those with less privilege (and more melatonin) as they live their lives.   [Read more…]

Responding to the Unconscious Bias and Racism at National City Council Meetings

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By Mark Lane and Shane Parmely

We went to the Tuesday, July 24, National City Council meeting to speak out against the police brutality that left Earl McNeil brain dead.

For almost six weeks, we’ve peacefully and loudly protested at the National City Council meetings. For six weeks, we’ve asked the National City Police Department (NCPD) to release the videotapes pertaining to the in-custody death of Earl McNeil. For six weeks, we’ve been ignored by the three men who control the National City Council and the NCPD. For six weeks, we’ve been treated to excessive force and violence by the NCPD.

And last week, after an hour of the police, including Chief Manny Rodriguez, repeatedly and openly pushing us and other people attending the meeting, we sat down on the floor and were subsequently arrested.   [Read more…]

Will San Diego Become the Largest City in the State to Ban Styrofoam?

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Councilman Chris Ward appeared before the Ocean Beach Town Council last Wednesday night and urged OBceans to support his efforts to ban styrofoam.

He explained his proposal passed the Council’s Rules Committee unanimously on July 11 and is heading to the full Council sometime this fall.

And if San Diego does pass it, the city will become the fourth city in San Diego County to ban food and beverage containers made of styrofoam – also called polystyrene. Others include Solana Beach, Encinitas and Imperial Beach.   [Read more…]

An Open Letter in Support of SB 1186 to Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher

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By Shahid Buttar / Electronic Frontier Foundation

Dear Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, 

We live in dangerous times. The rights of people of color, immigrants, workers, women, and asylum seekers are threatened every day. As history has repeatedly shown, one of the most powerful tools of oppression is surveillance. California has the opportunity to ensure public control and oversight of the spying technologies that law enforcement is most likely to abuse. Right now, the power is in your hands to ensure it moves forward.

With each year, civil rights advocates have watched technology advance amidst a climate of growing secrecy, allowing authorities to collect more and more personal data from more and more people and store it indefinitely, without parameters for how it can be used, with whom it can be shared, or what to do if it is misused or abused. We ask you, as chair of the California Assembly Appropriations Committee, to pass S.B. 1186 out of the committee without further amendments.

We have reached the point where unchecked surveillance may pose a public safety risk as great as the ones the technology is meant to address.   [Read more…]

Proposition 6: Carl DeMaio’s Endless Initiatives Strategy, Part One

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The first phase of former Carl DeMaio’s plan to save the Golden State’s Grand Old Party (and himself) will appear on the November 2018 ballot as Proposition 6, the “Voter Approval for Future Gas and Vehicle Taxes and 2017 Tax Repeal Initiative.”

If approved by voters in November, the measure would amend California’s Constitution to require any gas and car tax added after January 1, 2017 be approved by voters and would repeal SB 1, the gas tax and vehicle fee hike signed by Governor Jerry Brown in 2017 after it gained a two-thirds majority in both legislative houses.

Regardless of whether this year’s measure succeeds or fails, there’s another one waiting in the wings for the 2020 election. DeMaio told the Sacremento Bee he’s calling phase two the “Robin Hood initiative — stealing our money back.”   [Read more…]

The Creeping Privatization of Public Libraries

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By Susan Grigsby / Daily Kos

At 17,566, there are more public libraries in the United States than there are Starbucks coffee shops. And just like at Starbucks, patrons have access to free wi-fi. But unlike Starbucks, public libraries will usually provide the free use of a computer as well as internet access.

Perhaps it is their very ubiquitousness that makes them such a tempting target for libertarians like the Koch brothers and right-wing economists like the one who recently suggested a takeover of libraries’ functions by Amazon.

Forbes quickly pulled the controversial op-ed by contributor Panos Mourdoukoutas, an economist and academic who felt that many of the functions of the local library, like free Wi-Fi, and movie rentals are already being filled by places like Starbucks and services like Netflix. Why shouldn’t Amazon open stores to provide books to the public? His argument included the fact that public libraries cost taxpayers money (gasp). It would be so much nicer for him if he did not have to contribute a couple of hundred dollars every year to American literacy. The American Library Association reports that the actual annual cost is $36.96 per person.

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QAnon Shock Troops Amplify Trump’s Lunacy

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By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos

Sometimes “deplorable” just isn’t deplorable enough. That’s the case with a core set of Donald Trump supporters who have come together around a new conspiracy theory that’s … not Pizzagate. Because it’s worse. And, as the Washington Post reports, this new conspiracy is already spilling from under the rocks of alt-Reich websites, into living, screaming Trump rallies.

Believers in “QAnon,” as the conspiracy theory is known, were front and center at the Florida State Fairgrounds Expo Hall, where Trump came to stump for Republican candidates. As the president spoke, a sign rose from the audience. “We are Q,” it read. Another poster displayed text arranged in a “Q” pattern: “Where we go one we go all.”

Who or what is QAnon? It’s the handle for a racist troll who pretends to be “a government agent with top security clearance” working with Donald Trump to take out the “Deep State.”   [Read more…]

Why Does It Feel Like We’re Losing If There’s So Much Winning?

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Is your head spinning yet? Mine is. As a certified news junkie™ I had a hard time digesting today’s headlines. 

It’s a good day to remember that the only real way out of the mess we currently find ourselves in includes voting on November 6th.

Let’s start with Law and Order, White House Edition…
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San Diego’s Deplorables: National City Councilman Jerry Cano

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National City Councilmember Jerry Cano isn’t up for re-election until 2020. His seat on the city’s governing board should be on the November ballot, regardless.

An elected official who actually cared about doing a good job would have stepped down by now. That’s not going to happen in National City.

Last week we learned Cano’s allegation about Councilwoman Mona Rios engaging in inappropriate conduct turned out to be spurious, according to an independent investigator hired by the city attorney. The councilman ultimately rescinded the complaint after refusing to cooperate with the inquiry.   [Read more…]

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