Local News & Views

Let there be no mistake. Shooting and killing an unarmed Black woman, who professed to be pregnant in Houston, Texas, or “bagging” a small in stature 12-year-old in Sacramento must be called out for what it is. These actions are more reflective of the practices of “slave catchers” and “Jim Crow” era law enforcers than of proper urban policing techniques focused on de-escalation and by governments truly committed to empower police officers to “protect and to serve” our entire community.

Supporters of Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein are determined to write out of history the fact that, as mayor of San Francisco at the time, she infamously fought to keep the flag of slavery and KKK race terror flying in front of City Hall.

Ashley Gjovik exposes the influence of a powerful corporation against the need for accountability and public safety on her journey to save her life. The challenges she encounters are ongoing for many people in the Bay Area, and they may not even know it yet. Her single victory has been the fight itself, which has lead her to become a devoted and zealous environmental justice advocate.

San Francisco is the first locality in the nation to lift all outstanding driver’s license holds for individuals who miss traffic court dates. A report found that residents from Bayview Hunters Point had their licenses suspended at a rate of more than three times the state average.

When Bree Newsome pulled down the Confederate flag from in front of the South Carolina statehouse in Columbia on June 27, she gave brief, heroic expression to an anger felt far beyond the Lowcountry over the bloody massacre in Charleston 10 days earlier. The young Black activist’s exemplary act of protest recalled a series of events three decades ago, not in a bastion of the Old South ruled by Republican nut jobs, but 2,500 miles away in liberal San Francisco.

The indomitable Dr. Ahimsa Porter Simchai continues to expose the deadly injustices, today in the form of Strontium-90, threatening residents around the Hunters Point Shipyard Federal Superfund site.

The family of Gregory Johnson Jr. is still actively searching for answers concerning his death in the basement of Sigma Chi Fraternity House on the San Jose State University campus on Nov. 22, 2008. Pictures of a jagged scar on the back of Gregory’s scull that indicate a blunt force injury and the fact that a paramedic pronounced Gregory dead rather than taking him to the hospital are just some of the revelations Denise and Gregory Johnson Sr. are questioning.

We have been abandoned here with no way to warm ourselves, our vehicles, or to dry out our clothing or bedding. Everything we own is soaking wet and we are dying from exposure.

Treasure Island residents live surrounded by deadly radiation and chemicals in the soil and groundwater around their homes. The illnesses they cause can continue and even kill after the families leave the island. Two weeks ago, this beautiful 10-year-old was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Now his mother sits beside his hospital bed praying he survives.

Segregation happens when people in power, many of whom identify as liberal, diminish the opportunities of those most in need through the redirection of resources.

On Treasure Island, new highrises are sprouting skyward but no one seems to be paying attention to the danger from the ubiquitous radiation.

“Imagine you taking (the COVID-19 virus) home to your mama, grandmama, sister. You’re gonna be responsible for that death, the loss of one of your loved ones,” said Kev. “Hopefully somebody like me getting it will wake people up.”

The housing crisis, a shelter in place order and the National Guard: It’s not just coronavirus and disaster capitalism that we need to resist in these unsure times but the increased criminalization of people simply trying to survive.

San Francisco’s African American community has shrunk by half since 1970. Of the families that remain, nearly a fifth live in public housing or get a rental subsidy. Now, a city effort is turning public housing into a key front in the battle to improve educational outcomes for African American kids.

Twenty years ago, the city of San Francisco moved thousands of its homeless and low-income residents into former military housing on Treasure Island, a small artificial land mass whose 55 years as a Navy base left it covered in toxic radiation. Today, construction on the island has it on track to becoming a bustling, upscale extension of the city. The problem is, some of those residents from 20 years ago are still there. So are thousands of others who have moved in since. So is the radiation.

Driverless cars are taking the jobs of  tens of thousands of people in the local shared car economy as well as habitually stopping traffic during rush hour and in emergency situations.

I hope the Black community in the Bay Area will share their stories of that time to finally tell the full story of our key involvement in the 504 sit-in and what came out of it that helped the Black disabled community and the Black community, covering all sides of the story – racism, ableism, a sense of accomplishment, self-pride, empowerment, frustrations etc. I’ve provided below some ideas on how to help with this exhibit.

The little girl in the photograph is happy. The little girl sitting on Daddy’s lap knows she is loved, knows she is wanted. The same little girl is on the telephone four years later – desperate, terrified, traumatized, begging for help. The little girl is Sophia Grace Hope Merrill, Barry White’s daughter. When Sophia fell into San Mateo County’s child welfare system, Barry thought that maybe everything would be OK because she was placed under the care and supervision of his sister, Ka’misha Crittendon. Barry White was wrong.

In the wake of the brutal police execution of Mario Woods by San Francisco police in Bayview Hunters Point, many are asking where is California state Attorney General Kamala Harris? She was elected with the hope and expectation, naive as it may be, that she of all people would be out there weighing in and demanding justice for Mario. Sadly Harris has thus far been pretty much absent from the fight.

Police in Vallejo, California, have released body cam footage of the fatal February shooting of African-American rapper Willie McCoy while he was sleeping in his car outside a Taco Bell. Police said at the time McCoy made a sudden move, but the footage shows he simply moved his hand to scratch his shoulder and clearly posed no threat, yet all six officers present opened fire on him.