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The Color of Surveillance in San Diego

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People of Color Have Privacy Rights Too!

By Christie Hill / ACLU of San Diego

Earlier this month, we learned that three San Diego neighborhoods are unknowing hosts of a new surveillance technology called ShotSpotter. It works by detecting the sound of gunshots and sending information to the police to allow them to respond to the area where gunshots were detected. We learned that the San Diego Police Department acquired ShotSpotter with no public input and only limited input from city council. There is no publicly-approved policy for how SDPD will deploy this technology that can potentially be used to surreptitiously listen-in on conversations within earshot of a ShotSpotter device.   [Read more…]

What to Do About a School Named After Robert E. Lee?

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By Lucas O’Connor

I’m not from San Diego.

I grew up in Arlington, Virginia, surrounded by the Lee-Custis Mansion, Lee Highway, Washington-Lee High School, and Jefferson Davis Highway. A place where schools and streets co-mingle presidents and traitors. Raised in a house a mile and a half from the intersection of Lee Highway and Lincoln Street with no apparent embarrassment or irony. Maybe it’s a perfect metaphor.

I know a little bit about what it means to be raised as though the Confederacy is an awkward family footnote we try not to bring up at Thanksgiving, even in an otherwise liberal bastion like Arlington (Obama twice won by 40 points there). I know growing up that way warps you. There’s no way around it. When these people are not only normalized, but memorialized, it’s a struggle to grasp the enormity of what they did.   [Read more…]

Sweet Memories of Perry Elementary

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By Ernie McCray

There’s a school that means the world to me: Oliver Hazard Perry Elementary. It’s the first school to which I was assigned after earning a teaching degree.

It was a place of colorful personalities: a teacher who sang opera beautifully and wore a hairpiece that could be identified as a wig immediately; a school nurse with a drawl as southern as any character’s on Hee Haw; a lovely and entertaining secretary who made the school office as funny and lively as The Carol Burnett Show…

It was a place of uncommon camaraderie where we: put potlucks together practically every other week; dined together monthly at fine places to eat; played volleyball after school; partied wildly at the drop of a hat, with lampshades on the head and stuff like that…   [Read more…]

Language Interpreters Are California’s Lifeline

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Lack of Interpreters is a Life and Death Situation for Many

By Lorena Gonzalez

There are more than 50 languages spoken more comfortable and proficiently than English by the residents in the South Bay and Mid-City San Diego neighborhoods I represent. Throughout California, this challenge is shared by more than 6.5 million Californians, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.

Ordering food. Asking for directions. Attending school. Interviewing for a job. Filling prescriptions. Rescheduling appointments.

No situation involving a language barrier is as frightening, though, as one that risks the life of a loved one.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Pushback on Gun Control Proposals Reveals Sad Truths About the U.S.

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Like many Americans, news of children being killed at an elementary school, was overwhelming for retired teacher Roseanne Holliday a resident of Del Mar. She wanted to do something, anything, to make sure a tragedy like the Sandy Hook shootings never happened again.

After several days of thinking it over, she posted a sign on her property with the message “Stop Del Mar Gun Show and Sale”, and included her email address. Feedback from that sign led to a meeting with over 50 people and launching of a petition urging the Del Mar Fairgrounds to drop its involvement with the Crossroads of the West Gun Show.

  [Read more…]

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