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ACLU Criticizes City Council’s ‘Inexcusable Failure’ to Adopt Recommendations Addressing Biased Policing In Independent Study of SDPD Data

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After pleas from the public for action on Monday, the City Council did not seize the opportunity to be a leader in addressing racial profiling.

By Norma Chavez-Peterson, Executive Director / ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties

The majority of the San Diego City Council demonstrated an inexcusable failure in leadership yesterday [February 27] in their decision to accept the 2-year independent study of police traffic stop data, but disregard its recommendations.

The Council had before them the results of an SDSU study, requested by former Councilmember Marti Emerald in 2015 to address community concerns about racial profiling by San Diego Police Department officers, wherein researchers independently examined more than 200,000 records of police traffic stops over two years. Among their findings was clear evidence of racial disparity in what happens after a driver is stopped.   [Read more…]

Subversive: How The Black Panthers Fed Kids For Free And Set A Model For The Government

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By Kelly Macias / Daily Kos

Last week, I wrote a story about how Republicans in Congress are trying to reform the free breakfast program in schools. This is not new. Republicans have been trying for quite some time to cut this and other similar programs like free lunch, citing concerns about fraud and wasted expenses. Of course, just like their claims of supposed “illegal voting” that needs to be stopped, they have no real evidence that fraud of this type exists.

If you look at their motives, this actually has nothing to do with waste and everything to do with the stigmatization of poverty.   [Read more…]

‘Playing Politics’ and ‘School Choice:’ Code Words for Bigotry and Ignorance

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Republicans on the San Diego City Council united yesterday to oppose an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit before the United States Supreme Court involving the rights of transgender students.

The brief supports Gavin Grimm, a transgender student suing a county district in Virginia for the right to use public facilities, including boys bathrooms, in public schools.

Support came from the council’s five Democrats. Council members Chris Cate and Mark Kersey abstained. Lori Zapf simply didn’t show up. Republican Scott Sherman, who is termed out, voted to oppose the motion.   [Read more…]

The MOXIE Theatre production of Blue Door

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Exploring Self-Identity through Conversations with Ancestors 

By Yuko Kurahashi

The MOXIE Theatre production of Blue Door by Tanya Barfield, directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, portrays a middle-aged African-American mathematics professor Lewis’s search for his identity and history by bearing witness to the paths of his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father.

Set in the bedroom of his apartment in 1995, Lewis opens the play with a monolog about his wife of 25 years (she never appears on stage) who has just left him, asking for a divorce. According to Lewis, his wife, who is white, is divorcing him because he would not participate in the Million Man March. This historical march held on October 16, 1995, was led by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan who called for black men to gather in Washington, D.C. to reflect and change their roles both in the private and public spheres. Lewis explains his unwillingness to participate in this historical event disappointed his wife.     [Read more…]

ACLU Sues City of San Diego, Demands SDPD Change Policy Allowing DNA Collection From Minors

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Social justice organizations, advocates and parents to convene press conference in Memorial Park on February 22

By ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties

The ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties (ACLU-SDIC) filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court against the City of San Diego. The long-standing civil rights organization seeks to change current San Diego Police Department policy allowing police officers to collect DNA samples from minors without a warrant or parental consent and challenge this unconstitutional stop.

The suit stems from a March 2016 incident during which a group of teenage boys walking in the Logan Heights neighborhood’s Memorial Community Park were unlawfully stopped and frisked by police officers. Without a warrant and without seeking their parents’ permission, the officers unlawfully detained the juveniles, including Jamie Wilson’s 16-year-old son, telling them they would be released only after they gave consent to collection of their DNA.   [Read more…]

How Black Women Helped Shape History And Today’s Democratic Party

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By Denise Oliver Velez / Daily Kos

If you are not aware that in recent decades black women have been the most reliable and solid voting bloc for Democrats, you should be. We proved it, once again, in the recent presidential election. That stance and practice has a history, rooted in the time when many black Americans had been Republicans and the Democratic Party was the home of racist, anti-black Dixiecrats who took extraordinary measures to restrict black voting rights.

Of course the political party that currently represents and practices racism with a capital ‘R’ calls itself ‘Republican’—and is now occupying the White House. The popular vote loser and liar-in-chief (aka Birther Trump) has placed slimy white supremacist Steve Bannon in a key position to aid, abet and undermine the Constitution. The R’s in the House and Senate are doing nothing to stop the turning back of the clock to pre-civil rights days, and are participating in the deconstruction of our rights while embracing an openly racist, sexist, xenophobic agenda—which they advanced for the eight years they blocked President Obama.

This is our first Black History Month under the new, illegitimate regime, and since voting rights are on the table and more voter suppression and gerrymandering loom large in the near future, I’d like to honor some of the women of our recent past who we should adopt as shining examples to emulate and inspire us as we fight for our future.   [Read more…]

‘Nevertheless, She Persisted.’ One Heck of a Resist Trump Tuesday

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Indivisible Gets Visible at Local Congressional Offices, National City Hearing

Mitch McConnell and his Republican friends in the United States Senate handed the resistance movement a gift on Tuesday night when they invoke an obscure rule to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren as she read from a letter by Coretta Scott King concerning the record of Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions.

The letter was addressed to then-Sen. Strom Thurmond in 1986. In it, King objected to Sessions nomination to be a federal judge due to his use of “the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens.” King continued, “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of this office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.”   [Read more…]

Trump Kicks Off Black History Month By Suspending Investigations of White Supremacists

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Or, As the World Spins, Day 12

I’m suffering from Post Traumatic Trump Disorder.

Jon Stewart called what’s going on “vicious chaos” recently and I have to agree. So today’s column is just a list of all things I wish I could write about but can’t figure out which one is most deserving.

So, since I last looked, the President of the United States has…   [Read more…]

Anti-Immigrant Sentiment and Anti-Semitic Acts Impact San Diego

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San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer made a statement on Tuesday indicating his disapproval of the executive order banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries where President Donald Trump’s companies do not have investments.

Though milder in tone than statements by mayors in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle (some of whom have actually joined protests), Faulconer’s statement does recognize that individuals affected by the order are essential parts of the community.

In making the statement, Faulconer sidestepped a potentially thorny confrontation with supporters of an online petition who were using his silence to promote the idea of San Diego declaring itself a sanctuary city.   [Read more…]

San Diegans Responding to Trump Muslim Ban With Airport Protests

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As of Noon Sunday, two thousand people have responded to a call on Facebook for a protest scheduled for Terminal 2 (International Arrivals) at Lindbergh Field starting at 5pm.

According to social media posts, the theme for the demonstration is #NoBan #NoWall.   [Read more…]

Voter Fraud Claims: Amping Up the Crazy With an Eye Towards 2018

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There is no greater threat to democracy in the United States than voter fraud. I am not, however, referring to the ballot box stuffing variety envisioned by the purveyors of online paranoia.

It’s the logic behind the claims on this subject being made by the President and his minions that counts. They all lead to the same conclusion: some people’s votes are more valuable than others.

Donald Trump admitted as much during an astonishing interview with ABC News by asserting that none of the claimed fraudulent voters cast ballots on his behalf. Nevermind that arrests in the 2016 elections involving actual presidential ballots involved people trying to cast votes for the GOP candidate.   [Read more…]

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