Marinwood Protest Justice for George Floyd

Youtube video courtesy of MadebyMaven

Please, Mr. Robinson, Don't Race on Me

Editorials

Please, Mr. Robinson, Don't Race on Me

Becky O'Malley

Sunday February 02, 2020 - 04:07:00 PM

Rigel Robinson on Twitter: "The defeat of #SB50 is a victory for segregationists and climate denial. Tenant advocacy groups did not kill the bill, the homeowner lobby did. The solutions to our housing crisis lie in robust tenant protections and dramatic densification — yes, BOTH.”

And who might this Rigel Robinson be? He’s the newish (2018) city council member from Berkeley’s District 7, the beneficiary of the 2014 gerrymandering which followed the 2010 census, which was calculated to engineer a student-majority district. He’s a recent post-student, 22 years old, but evidently his education so far hasn’t included much about history.

The tweet quoted above is deeply offensive to those of us who have been laboring in the progressive vineyards for more than a few years.

Let’s get something perfectly clear, Mr. Robinson:

Nobody races on me.

One more time, with feeling.

NOBODY RACES ON ME.

I was fighting segregation in Berkeley and Ann Arbor not just years, but decades and even generations before you were born, so don’t call you dare call me by that dirty name, the moral equivalent of the unmentionable epithets for people of African or Asian descent.

I take grievous offense at being called a segregationist by the likes of you. As do my peers. You owe us a major apology.

Thinking that SB50 would be bad law does not make us segregationists or climate deniers, and even being homeowners, if we are, does not make us demons. 

Among other things, you should know that many groups representing low income people, people of color and yes, tenant advocates came out against SB50. 

Google, if you must, the name of Damien Goodmon, just for one. Read his twitter posts. And take a look at this letter from some of the progressive groups which opposed SB50: http://allianceforcommunitytransit.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/SB-50-Oppose-Unless-Amended.pdf 

Didn’t you see the magnificent series of direct actions by Oakland’s Moms 4 Housing, including the one where they shouted down Senator Scott Wiener and Berkeley’s own Wienerite Nancy Skinner on the steps of Oakland City Hall? 

They weren’t fooled by SB50, the bill authored by Wiener, the single biggest recipient of real estate lobby campaign contributions in the California legislatures. 

SB50 is not about segregation. It’s all about capitalist gentrification, about handing over areas which are now home for elderly residents of previously red-lined communities of color to speculative developers of expensive apartments for well-off people who are predominantly young and of European or Asian descent. 

This includes South and West Berkeley. When I first came to Berkeley as an undergraduate in 1959, those neighborhoods were dominated by African Americans, many of them homeowners, who had taken the place of Japanese Americans displaced by internment in World War II. 

African and Asian Americans were not allowed to purchase houses east of Grove Street (now Martin Luther King), a form of segregation aided and abetted by local realtors. As a result, their family homes, both owned and rented, were predominantly in South and West Berkeley. 

This situation persisted through the 1960s, but thanks to the efforts of both Black and White Berkeleyans, people like Arlene Slaughter and William Byron Rumford, families of color who can afford the insane prices are now able to buy homes all over Berkeley. 

But in the last decade the older generation of Black homeowners and renters in South and West Berkeley have been pushed out, in part by predatory lending and foreclosure in the subprime mortgage scandal. Their children and grandchildren will not benefit from fancy high-rent apartment construction in their old neighborhoods. 

Evidently Councilmember Robinson wasn’t paying attention when Councilmember Ben Bartlett, whose family has deep roots in South Berkeley, lamented eloquently during a Council housing discussion that none of the proposed units would really replace the homes of families of color that were taken by eminent domain and demolished to build BART around the Ashby station. 

Yes, those were the despised single family homes, the kind now demonized by the Wiener gang. 

And even the promised small percentage of required inclusionary affordable apartments in proposed developments, if they ever materialize, won’t replace the cheery bungalows with room for some collards and tomato plants in their, OMG, Back Yards which used to be home to Berkeley’s African and Asian American families. 

All “single family home” really means is a collection of bedrooms which share a kitchen, a common living room and a bathroom and have direct access to the out-of-doors. Houses like these have been the backbone of the Berkeley flats since the 19th century. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed sharing my “single family” homes with all kinds of people, both here and in the Midwest. 

Historically Berkeley’s “single family” homes been shared by eclectic groups of students as well as by nuclear and mult-generational families of blood relatives. One of my undergraduate homes was a classic Berkeley brown shingle at Channing and Telegraph in which all the other residents were brainy girls from Taiwan studying physics and chemistry—I learned a lot about cooking and a few words of Mandarin from them. 

In segregated Ann Arbor in the 1960s as a White couple we were able to rent a house in a White neighborhood which we could then share with Black housemates. We spent our first few years there getting a fair housing law passed. 

Which brings us to Robinson’s equally offensive slur on those who question SB50 and its progeny. 

“Climate denial?” 

That’s nonsense. 

Many of us recognize SB50 and its co-conspiratorial brethren as the neo-liberal supply-side sucker play that they are. This does not make us climate deniers—quite the contrary. 

We grownups have been fighting to save the environment and protect the climate since before Mr. Robinson was out of disposable diapers (which we never used on our kids.) 

In the 60s I also lived in a 19th century 3-bedroom Victorian cottage on Blake Street in Berkeley with a rotating cast of roomates and a huge fig tree out back. That one was demolished in the 60s to make way for a cheaply built 3-unit apartment which is now visibly disintegrating into a soft-story teardown. 

There’s plenty of credible research to prove that the greenest building is the one which already exists. This is especially true of the remaining solid pre-1960 structures built of old-growth redwood which are still standing when their ticky-tacky new neighbors are falling down. Tearing them down to build luxury condos for the profit of speculators carries an enormous cost in non-renewable climate-altering resources. Developers won’t tell you that, however. 

I am strongly tempted to go all Grandma on Berkeley Councilperson Rigel Robinson and demand that he have his mouth washed out with soap for calling those of us who dispute his facts by nasty names. 

The dapper bow-tied clergyman who prayed before the impeachment hearings (I didn’t get his name) somewhat wistfully quoted the scripture passage that “the truth will make us free.” If only. 

In the age of Twitter, no truth need be invoked before stupid snap judgements like these can be instantly promulgated by any agitated politician, from the President of the United States right down to a local councilmember. But if an aspiring pol like Robinson wants to enjoy progressive support in his next race, wherever it might be, he might be wise to watch his language before he presses Send in the future. 

Marinwood Parks and Recreation discusses banning Outsiders.

Racism at American Pools Isn’t New: A Look at a Long History

Racism at American Pools Isn’t New: A Look at a Long History

In 1964, several white and black protesters jumped into a pool at the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Fla., in what The New York Times described as a “dive-in.” A white police officer in plain clothes later jumped in to arrest them.CreditCreditHorace Cort/Associated Press


By Niraj Chokshi
Aug. 1, 2018


The poolside confrontations keep coming.

This summer, a black boy was harassed by a white woman in South Carolina; a black woman was asked to provide identification by a white man in North Carolina; and a black man wearing socks in the water had the police called on him by a white manager of an apartment complex in Tennessee.

The encounters, some captured on video, have prompted widespread anger and resulted in consequences for white people involved. But they are hardly new: The United States has a long history of people of color facing harassment and racism at swimming pools.

Pools are supposed to be places to relax, but ever since they exploded in popularity about a century ago, they have served as flash points for racial conflict — vulnerable spaces where prejudices have intensified and violence has often broken out.

“That’s the most intimate thing,” said Greg Carr, chairman of Howard University’s Afro-American studies department. “I’m in this water, you’re in this water, it’s in me, on me.”

Here’s a look at the resistance black Americans have faced in trying to access pools.
Mixing the sexes and separating by race

In the 1920s and 1930s, pool construction accelerated as cities built lavish public facilities, Jeff Wiltse, a University of Montana history professor and author of “Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America,” said in an interview.

In many cities, white and black people historically swam together, separated by sex. But norms began to shift as pools multiplied, with men and women increasingly swimming together, eliciting racist anxieties.

In 1931, Pittsburgh debuted a new facility at the popular Highland Park, featuring a sandy beach with two large pools, according to the book. But, unlike the city’s other pools, men and women could swim together there.

On opening day, thousands showed up, including many black residents who were asked by pool attendants to provide “health certificates” proving they were disease-free. Several later complained to an official, who assured them access going forward.

When about 50 young black men arrived the next day, attendants let them in, but a larger crowd of white poolgoers jeered and attacked them, according to a newspaper report.

That white resistance to integrated swimming was rooted in a fear of interracial contact between men and women, Dr. Wiltse said. The violent opposition continued for weeks, peaking when several hundred white youths severely beat about 40 black swimmers, The New York Times reported.

The opposition persisted for a few summers, spreading even to single-sex facilities, according to the book.





The New York Times, Aug. 21, 1931.


___
Fighting for the right to swim

In 1949, a St. Louis official determined the city could no longer segregate pools, concluding that, like other citizens, black residents “have a right to use public property,” according to a Times report.

The next day, about 50 black swimmers showed up at a luxurious facility at Fairgrounds Park and were attacked by almost 200 white teenagers carrying baseball bats and heavy sticks, the report said.

The clashes spread, and Mayor Joseph Darst ordered pools to be resegregated the next day.

The following year, a local N.A.A.C.P. chapter successfully sued the city over the policy, according to reports, previewing the broader civil rights movement.

Mayor Darst, who was white, agreed to comply with a judge’s order to integrate pools, according to “Contested Waters,” but he also decided to resegregate them by sex.


The fight was not limited to pools, either.

In the 1960s, black protesters organized “wade-ins” to demand equal access to the beach in Biloxi, Miss. Fierce resistance led to what an Associated Press article published in April 1960 by The Times described as “the worst racial riot in Mississippi history,” involving “gunfire, stonings and street clashes.” By 1968, though, a federal court would rule the beach must be open to all.

[Sign up for our Race/Related newsletter to join a deep and provocative exploration of race, identity and society with Times journalists.]

___
Images that captured the nation’s attention

In 1964, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference started a campaign in St. Augustine, Fla., to support local protests against discrimination and raise awareness of the civil rights movement.

It included sit-ins, marches and what The Times described as a “dive-in” at the Monson Motor Lodge, where several white and black protesters jumped into a pool, a moment memorialized in famous photographs.

One image, published on The Times’s front page, showed a white police officer jumping into the pool to arrest protesters. Another showed the white motel manager, James Brock, dumping muriatic acid, a cleaning agent, into the water near visibly distressed swimmers.


mage
In 1964, several white and black protesters jumped into a pool at the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Fla. The white motel manager, James Brock, dumped muriatic acid, a cleaning agent, into the water near visibly distressed swimmers.CreditBettmann, via Getty Images


The images took on near-instant significance. President Lyndon B. Johnson mentioned them in a phone call the following day, according to a recording of the call. The outrage, he said, underscored the need for civil rights action.


“Our whole foreign policy and everything else could go to hell over this,” he said.

The day of the call, the Senate passed a compromise bill prohibiting discrimination in the workplace, at public facilities and polling places, and elsewhere. Within weeks, Mr. Johnson signed the bill into law, enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

[Catch up on a discussion on Facebook about pools and racial tensions with a Times journalist and experts.]

___
Mr. Rogers encourages shifting attitudes

Five years later, the television personality Fred Rogers weighed in, in his understated way.

In a 1969 episode of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” he invited Officer Clemmons, a recurring character played by the black actor François Clemmons, to join him in soaking his feet in a wading pool.

“They didn’t want black people to come and swim in their swimming pools,” Mr. Clemmons said in “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” a 2018 documentary about Mr. Rogers. “My being on the program was a statement for Fred.”

The two recreated the scene when Mr. Clemmons returned to the show in 1993. In that episode, Mr. Rogers, an ordained Presbyterian minister, helped Mr. Clemmons dry off his feet, evoking a biblical gesture.
WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? - Official Trailer [HD] - In Select Theaters June 8CreditCreditVideo by Focus Features


___
Taking the fight to the Supreme Court

As segregationist policies unraveled, many white Americans in cities retreated to suburbs with private or community-managed pools. But prejudices persisted.


In 1962, T. R. Freeman Jr., a black economist for the Agriculture Department, rented a home in Fairfax County, Va., which included swimming club access. After Mr. Freeman’s membership application was denied, the white man who rented him the home, Paul E. Sullivan, protested on Mr. Freeman’s behalf, and had his own membership revoked, according to The Times.

Both men sued and the matter reached the Supreme Court, which found in 1969 that pool access was a property right that could not be limited by race.

From the 1970s to 1990s, cities faced with shrinking populations and rising budget deficits stopped building new pools or maintaining existing ones, Dr. Wiltse said. Public pool attendance dropped, and private pool construction increased drastically.

___


Protesters outside a swimming club in a mostly white suburb of Philadelphia in 2009.CreditMark Stehle/Associated Press

A city camp’s thwarted summer plans

In 2009, a northeast Philadelphia youth camp struck an agreement to bring a group of predominantly black and Hispanic children to a swimming club pool in a mostly white suburb.

On their first visit, several children and the camp’s director reported hearing “disparaging” remarks, according to a lawsuit filed at the time, including from a white woman who said: “What are all these black kids doing here? They might do something to my child.” Before a return trip, the camp’s contract was revoked, according to The Times.

The club said the pool had become unsafe with so many children in it, but the camp argued racism was to blame.


A state commission investigated and sided with the camp and, after the Justice Department intervened, the club agreed to a settlement.

Simone Manuel with her Olympic gold medal at the Rio Games in 2016.CreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times

Simone Manuel wins the gold in 2016

When Simone Manuel, at 20, became the first African-American woman to win an individual event in Olympic swimming, the significance was not lost on her.

“I’m super glad with the fact I can be an inspiration to others and hopefully diversify the sport,” she said then. But “I would like there to be a day where there are more of us and it’s not Simone, the black swimmer.”

Last year, U.S.A. Swimming, the sport’s national governing body, found that 64 percent of African-American children have no or low swimming ability, compared with 45 percent of Hispanic children and 40 percent of Caucasian children.

“Just imagine all the untapped potential,” Lia Neal, an American swimmer of African and Chinese descent who has won bronze and silver Olympic medals, said in an interview.

“It’s great that we can use our platform and inspire kids who look up to us because they see themselves in us,” she said. “But we’re also not an easy fix for racism.”


In an interview, Ms. Manuel said she experienced prejudice when she was 6 years old and a swimming teammate told her that he would not play with her on the playground after practice because she was black. Years passed before she told her parents.

“I think I was protecting them from any negativity about their raising an accomplished black swimmer,” she said. “I guess for me, I didn’t really think I was different. It’s just a very innocent age. To think that someone that age could think like that is very disturbing to me now.”
Video



2:03Swimming While Black: Then and Now
From 2017: Black children drown five times as often as white children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Harlem Honeys and Bears, a senior synchronized swim team, is trying to help by offering free lessons for young people.CreditCreditNeeti Upadhye/The New York Times. Technology by Samsung.


___
Poolside confrontations continue

In 2015, Dajerria Becton, a 15-year-old black girl, was at a pool party in McKinney, Tex., when a white police officer responded to a fight and disturbance. The officer grabbed her by the hair, pointed his gun at others in attendance and shoved her to the ground as she called for her mother.

The episode, captured on video, drew national attention and sparked protests and a lawsuit. The officer resigned and the city paid Dajerria and her family nearly $185,000.
Video



0:46Video Captures Texas Pool Party IncidentFrom 2015: A video shows a police officer detaining a girl on Friday and pulling a gun on other teenagers after a disturbance at a neighborhood pool party in McKinney, Tex.


This summer, in South Carolina, a white woman, 38, was charged with assaulting a black boy, 15, at a neighborhood pool, telling him and his friends to “get out.” In North Carolina, a white man lost his job after calling the police on a black woman who refused to show him identification at a private pool where she had an access card.


And white female managers at apartment complexes in Memphis and Indianapolis were disciplined after they confronted black male poolgoers. In one incident, the poolgoer was wearing socks and dipped his feet in the pool. In the other, he refused to provide his address to prove his residency, though he displayed a pool access key.

[Read more about other recent, high-profile incidents where black people engaging in everyday activities have had the police called on them for the thinnest of suspicions.]



Karen Crouse contributed reporting, and Doris Burke contributed research.
A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 4, 2018, Section SP, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: A Place to Relax, With a Long History of Racism. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

"Call the Police and Fine the Mariachis" remark defended by Marinwood CSD

Part one and two of the  "Fine the Mariachis" remark by current Marinwood CSD director Sivan Oyserman in June 2018. I bring it to their attention and am attacked by Isabela Perry.  A year later in 2019 Marinwood CSD finds an excuse to ban booking events to "outsiders" who largely are Latinos celebrating family events.It has cost the district thousands in lost revenue and was done silently to avoid public scrutinity.  It is discrimination by a handful of entitled people and does not represent the average resident.

"Fines for loud Mariachi Bands" in Marinwood

Current Marinwood CSD director Sivan Oyserman advocates fines for loud Mariachi Bands in June 2018 while serving on the Parks and Rec Commission.  John Tune complained of the loud noises from the Marinwood Community Center on weekends. Of course, controlling noise is always a legitimate concern but issuing fines because you don't like the TYPE of music is discrimination. Sivan Oyserman's calling for the police and issue fines is mean, entitled behavior of a brat.

 In April 2019, after a crime incident at a Latino family gathering ALL EVENT BOOKINGS were halted quietly and "solved the loud Mariachi music problem". We believe this is discrimination and against Marinwood community values.

  We must not allow an intolerant few on Marinwood CSD board destroy the opportunities for family gatherings in our Marinwood Community Center.

The Marin IJ and the Troll Journalist Noah Griffin

Noah Griffin holds a Confederate Flag in front of the Dixie school museum to "prove " that we are all racists and Confederate sympathizers.  His obnoxious smears continue to be published in the Marin IJ.  The Marin IJ bans all commentary challenging Griffin's narrative.

Marin Voice: The history we honor and the art we destroy

By NOAH GRIFFIN |
July 13, 2019 at 10:44 am


Embers once thought dead oft sleep beneath the ashes. I’m sure that’s what the Dixie School District Board of Trustees thought when they deep-sixed two decades of effort to change the Civil War-era nomenclature which has haunted Marin for more than 150 years.

Dixie changes name to Miller Creek Elementary School DistrictThey were wrong. A dedicated group of activists led by Kerry Peirson and trustee Marnie Glickman succeeded in changing the name Dixie. It is now Miller Creek. Even that alteration was not without its controversy.

While the originally proffered name of Miller Creek was first seen as an acceptable alternative to Dixie, it was voted down not once but twice by the current board only to resurface at time of this week’s vote, circumventing the process of the board’s sanctioned naming committee.

By this time, many in the community had moved on, rejecting the name Miller Creek on the grounds it indirectly pays homage to James Miller who designated the original Dixie school in the first place from which the district took its name.

The board disingenuously stipulated that Miller Creek should not be taken to refer to James Miller but for the nearby watershed. Opponents charged it was “Dixie by proxy” as the watershed was named for Miller.

It’s akin to replacing a “Robert E. Lee School District” with a “Lee Creek School District” and then denying the two weren’t related.

Marin can take cold comfort that at least it grappled with the issue more sensibly than what seems to be taking place at George Washington High in San Francisco.

In the case of the Washington High murals, the Works Progress Administration commissioned art depicts the founding father in all his complexities. A farmer, surveyor, plantation owner and “Indian fighter.” Opponents of the mural persuaded school board members in a 5 to 0 vote to spend $600,000 to paint over the murals. They claim portraying enslaved African Americans and defeated Native Americans is demeaning to students of color, damages their psyches and distorts other aspects of their history not portrayed in the mural.

As I understand it, the commission formed to study the matter included no people opposed to destroying the murals. In doing so, the board failed to honor the understanding of muralist Dewey Crumpler, who painted a more revolutionary portrayal of modern day freedom fighters alongside the Washington mural with the understanding the original art would not be touched.

In the district formerly known as Dixie, no change-the-name supporter ever demanded they tear down the original Dixie School House or rename it. Put up a plaque and explain the history which now can’t be denied.

Unlike the Dixie deniers who disclaimed the Civil War history, the Washington murals depict it and, in so doing, the discussion should invite an embrace of the artists, writers and the creative minds to come to terms with both the shortcomings and triumphs of history. We don’t do that by concealing our country’s legacy. We do it by putting our ideas, understanding even feelings up for debate.

In doing so we open ourselves up to the views of others, including those who have pondered these issues while creating literature out of past events.

We need to listen and look closely at the issues. We can’t do either by censoring thought or erasing art.

The silver lining in the Dixie controversy is, after a series of healthy hearing and community input, the true history emerged. The community was educated and a resolution allowed the district to move forward.

At Washington High, the fight is far from over. With the national attention focused on the issue, there could yet be another outcome based on overwhelming public opinion to keep the murals.

History will win out.





Noah Griffin
Noah Griffin of Tiburon is a public affairs consultant, speaker and musical performer. He is a former public member of the IJ’s editorial board.

Editor's Note:  As reader's know,  Save Marinwood was an early supporter of changing the name of the Dixie School district in order that we could honor the Miwok that inhabited the land for 4500 years.  A large settlement "Cotomko'tca was on the grounds of  Miller Creek middle school.  To us, there was an obvious problem with naming the school district "Dixie" in 1863.  It was the same year as when we were embroiled in the Civil War, Lincoln freed the slaves, Gettysburg was fought and thousands of Americans were dying. Two weeks prior to Marin County naming the district "Dixie" , Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address. Naming it "Dixie" in 1863 for any reason was an exercise in poor taste.

Though we remain strongly for the Dixie name change from the beginning of the discussion, we never endorsed the "Change the Name" tactics of calling our community racist.  It was a deliberate attempt to hold the community hostage to political correctness and grossly unfair to the residents.  Noah Griffin continues the attacks.  

Why does the Marin IJ allow him to troll our community and ban all community comments and letters to the editors that provide our point of view?

My Working Class White Privilege

Students support Segregation

Marin Voice: Dixie name-change issue ‘a wake-up call for Marin’

Marin Voice: Dixie name-change issue ‘a wake-up call for Marin’

By NOAH GRIFFIN |
PUBLISHED: January 11, 2019 at 10:00 am | UPDATED: January 12, 2019 at 7:49 am


Each year a service organization to which I belong pays for and passes out hundreds of dictionaries to Marin third-graders. On the walls of many classrooms are pictures of American heroes. Inevitably one sees an image of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

As Marin County grapples with the quandary of a Dixie School District in our midst, I wonder what Marin is willing to do of a concrete nature to honor the memory of the martyred civil rights leader.

One way is to rid ourselves of the name Dixie. School board Trustee Marnie Glickman, the only Dixie board member to publicly support the name change, has gone on record, stating: “We have a moral obligation to teach our children about history. Dixie is a synonym of the Confederacy. It is a reminder of slavery, segregation and lynching.”

In the past few weeks a phalanx of public officials, respected community leaders and organizations have stepped forward to join the movement to change the district’s name. In addition to Congressman Jared Huffman, they include state Sen. Mike McGuire, county schools Superintendent Mary Jane Burke, county Supervisors Kate Sears and Dennis Rodoni, San Rafael Mayor Gary Phillips, Marin Community Foundation President and CEO Thomas Peters, the Marin Human Rights Commission, the Marin Democratic Central Committee, the Marin Green Party and the Marin Interfaith Council. For a complete list of supporters, now over 1,500, visit changethename.net.

Despite the snowballing avalanche of public support, there are still elected officials sitting on the sidelines, some trying to have it both ways. When you walk into Assemblyman Marc Levine’s office, you’ll see prominently displayed a Black Lives Matter placard. Unwilling to take a public stand on this issue, he told me and others who met with him that we should end our discussion by thanking him for meeting with us and that he would let us know he would think about the name-change issue. It’s now been several weeks.

Marin Supervisor Damon Connolly, himself a former Dixie School Board member, wrote a letter to the district board, stating, “We can do better.” Yet when asked directly, his staff wouldn’t say whether he’s for or against the name change. He reminds me of a politician who once said: “Some of my friends are for the issue, some are against. And I’m four-square for my friends.”

Not taking a stand is taking a stand. Quoting Dante: “The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who in times of moral crisis, preserve their neutrality.” I’m certain the newly elected Dixie trustees are weighing that thought. It was pointed out in a recent IJ editorial they sidestepped the issue in their endorsement interviews, which did not go unnoticed.

This issue is a wake-up call for Marin. It holds up a mirror to ourselves. It allows us to see who we really are rather than how we would like to see ourselves. Evidence of the skittishness of the “We Are Dixie” contingent is their unwillingness to attach their names to their website. How proud of their stance can they be?

Marin has deep-seated issues it must address, well beyond a mere symbolic step such as a name change.

Just in the past two weeks the principal of Miller Creek Middle School within the Dixie School District issued a letter to parents concerning “an increase of hate filled speech including racial slurs, imitations of accents, perpetuation of stereotypes, name calling based on physical characteristics and sexual orientation and use of the n-word.” This taking place in a county judged the most inequitable in the state.

Clearly there is much work to be done. On Jan. 15, the day of King’s birthday, 10 names will be submitted to the Dixie Board of Trustees, which is legally bound to act upon them by Feb. 24. Please show your support that evening by attending the meeting at 6 p.m. in the district office, 380 Nova Albion Way in Terra Linda, and honor the memory of Dr. King in the process.  See article HERE

EDITOR's NOTE:  The conversation will be helped for both sides if we stop talking about groups of people as if they are one entity. We all speak for ourselves and no one has right to speak ":on behalf of my community" or "against another community". We are neither collectively good or bad. Although I want the name change for Dixie too, it is time for the "Change the Name" folks to point out specific acts of racism. Are there white supremacist organizations operating in the district? If so, name them and apologize to the rest of us who want a welcoming community for all of us.

It seems that some are more interested in agitating the community than actually having heart to heart discussions and coming up with a better name for the future.

Is the Dixie School District Teaching Staff Too White?.

From Dick Spotswood Column in the Marin IJ on 10/07/2018 HERE

Even if the contentious issue of the name of north San Rafael’s Dixie School District is resolved, don’t expect the district’s board, parents and teachers to revert to quiet times. Elected Dixie school Trustee Marnie Glickman Curtis, a backer of the name change movement, has tweeted: “We want teacher diversity in Marin and Dixie School District where 92% of the teachers are white.”

It’s an interesting contention. Should there be racial and sexual identity quotas for a school district’s teachers and workforce? The teachers’ union might have some thoughts on that concept. If there are quotas, are they based on the racial and identity mix in the district’s population or the state or national demographic composition?

There’s always the next cause. Some folks are programmed to make promoting social and ideological causes their life’s work. Since perfection can never be obtained in this human institutions, their efforts become a virtual perpetual motion machine. Others – meaning most of us — are exhausted by the never-ending conflict and prefer concentrating on the basics, including excellence in education.

==============

Editor's Note:  Marnie Glickman is doubling down on her "Dixie School District is Racist" rant.  Does she want racial quotas for the teaching staff? Will someone tell her that that we welcome diversity in our community and it is not nice to judge people by the color of their skin?   I support the change of the Dixie school district to a better name but I cannot abide racial demagogy.  She looks "melanin deficient" to me.  Perhaps she should step down from the school board to allow someone else to serve that meets her standards of racial diversity.  Enough is enough.  To truly honor diversity we need to get beyond labels and accept each other as individuals regardless of skin color.

Dixie School Board discusses changing the name of the District on September 9, 2018

The Slants Know What it Takes to Win a Supreme Court Case

The Slants Know What it Takes to Win a Supreme Court Case

The Slants speak with Reason a year after winning the right to use their own name.

Zuri Davis|Aug. 31, 2018 10:20 am

Facebook/The SlantsContrary to popular belief, you probably won't see any country music stars by simply walking down Nashville's Music Row. But if you swing by Bobby's Idle Hour on 16th Street Ave., you just might catch a musician or two. This is where Simon Tam and Joe Jiang of The Slants, an all-Asian-American dance-rock band, perform on Thursday evening.

Tam, the band's founder, casually mentions his Supreme Court case onstage. "We were fighting against the U.S. government for the right to use our name," he says.

The bassist was referring to Matal v. Tam, which was ultimately decided in his band's favor last year. The high court ruled that federal Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) could not prevent the band from trademarking its name, even if it did "disparage...persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute." When Tam sat down with Reason's Meredith Bragg a year ago, he explained that the group picked its name, in part, to reclaim an old anti-Asian slur. Both the name and the band were designed to put Asian Americans front and center in an industry that often left them in the background.

So what's it like to win a Supreme Court case? Tam reflects on the legal battle with Reason after his set.

Regulations, he learned, can do more harm than the thing being regulated. For example, the PTO used offensive imagery—even pictures of Miley Cyrus pulling her eyes back to make a stereotypical "slant"—to explain to a group of Asian Americans that they were really the ones disparaging a community. "The government thought they were doing us a favor by denying us rights," Tam says.

The court decision's biggest impact, he says, may just be to have ended a legal battle that nearly spanned a decade. He calls the case "the most frustrating thing in the world," adding that the "system is not designed for you to win." Tam advises anyone thinking of challenging the government to start "thinking like an artist and an activist." The politically and legally inclined tend to think within the realm of possibility, he explains, while artists think more creatively.

Earlier this month, the band formed The Slants Foundation, a nonprofit seeking to provide resources to "Asian Americans looking to incorporate activism into their art," in an effort to help other artists.

Days before entering the Supreme Court, The Slants released their album The Band Who Must Not Be Named on Martin Luther King Day. The band set up an impromptu concert at the D.C. memorial dedicated to the civil rights leader, and there Tam saw a quote from King: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." Tam agreed, but he also found himself thinking that the arc bends only when people work to bend it.

"It requires people who are intentional. It requires persistence. And it requires a community that's willing to stand up and say 'It doesn't matter how challenging this battle it. It doesn't matter what kind of hill we have to climb. It is the ultimate goal that's worth it. Even if it isn't addressed in our generation, it's still worth fighting for,'" he says.

Should the Dixie School District change its name?

Should Marin County's Dixie School District change its name?

By Wayne Freedman

Friday, August 31, 2018


SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (KGO) --

You'll see the name "Dixie" thrown around a lot in affluent San Rafael, Calif., on new schools and particularly on an old one. Few who live in liberal, Democratic-voting Marin County would say it's racist. But "woke"? Depends on who you ask.

"It's a reference to slavery," said activist Kerry Pierson of the name "Dixie."

"It is an insult. If you had the Hitler School -- it was named for somebody else named Hitler -- would you keep that? I doubt it," Noah Griffin said.

Both men are referring to the Dixie School District, with 2,000 students on four campuses. They, along with Dixie School Board Member Marnie Glickman, have issues with the name.

"In the 1860's, people in Marin knew what Dixie was. It was the national anthem of the Confederacy. The lyrics were on the front page of the newspaper," Glickman said

The issue traces back to the Old Dixie Schoolhouse, built in 1863 and now a museum in San Rafael. As the story goes, when James Miller donated the land and built it, he used friends from the south for labor. Miller is rumored to have named it Dixie on a dare, as a tribute to the south.

Democratic Marin County voted against the name Abraham Lincoln twice.

Marnie Glickman of the Dixie School Board and others do not oppose Dixie as the name of a museum. That's history. But they say having the district named after it is a different matter. So now they want the district to find a new name, a move similar to the removal of Confederate statues in the south.

"This is important because we are part of government. We are a school district," Glickman said.

A little less than 3 percent of students in the Dixie School District are African-American. That proportion matters little, said Griffin: "We need to be sensitive to all of the students in Marin County."

This issue is now on Superintendent Jason Yamashiro's radar. "Names mean something. History means something different to different people," Yamashiro said.

"Do you see a connotation between the name Dixie and the Confederacy?" we asked.

"I do," he said.

Should Mariachi Bands be Fined for being Annoying in Marinwood Community Center?

Marinwood Community Center hosts many quincineras, wedding and family celebrations where Mariachi Music is played.

On June 26, 2018. I attended a Parks and Recreation meeting in Marinwood Park and filmed it.  During a discussion of events at Marinwood Park, one commissioner complained about the "loud Mariachi music" on the weekends.  She suggest that we fine the offenders 

 if we receive two complaints.  

Several other commissioners quickly nixed the idea.  

What do you think?  

Should the CONTENT of SPEECH or MUSIC be fined or banned in Marinwood Park if some people find it offensive?  

I know my answer but I am interested what others think of this idea.

A little cultural understanding goes a long way.

White Men tell us how "Redevelopment on Steriods" aka SB827 will be good for communities of color.

In California’s gentrification debates, white men from liberal media silence people of color

NOTE: I’m white. That doesn’t mean I can’t call these writers and media corporations on their structurally racist bullsh*t.

Through April 20, there were 29 articles in total published about California’s proposed YIMBY upzoning bill, SB 827, across Vox, the LA Times, the NY Times, NY Magazine, CityLab (run by The Atlantic), and Slate. Every single one was written by a white person, or multiple white people. Excluding the two pieces written by the LA

All the people who wrote articles on SB 827 for Vox, the LA Times, NY Times, NY Magazine, CityLab, and Slate. (The two women are from the LA Times’ Editorial Board)

Times’ Editorial Board — 7 out of 9 members are white — these articles were exclusively written by white men.

Such overwhelming whiteness in these big media corporations is of course a huge problem in itself. But at the very least, these authors could’ve looked to the knowledge and experiences of organizations rooted in communities of color that have been fighting gentrification and a permanent housing crisis for decades.

Yet, in a shameful collective display of white arrogance, worries about gentrification and displacement were minimized or disregarded entirely as the writers nearly unanimously put forth supply-side analyses of the housing crisis.

My (extremely charitable) interpretation of why this happened: these white authors are blinded by their race and class.

SB 827 was dubbed “Urban Renewal 2.0” by the Black Community, Clergy, and Labor Alliance (BCCLA), and was vehemently opposed by nearly everysingle tenants’, anti-gentrification, and low-income advocacy organizationacross the state that took a stance on the proposed legislation. A coalition of 37 progressive grassroots organizations from LA, for example, argued that the bill would “exacerbate the very issue it seeks to remedy, especially in low-income communities and communities of color.” Meanwhile, it was supported by reactionaries like the California Apartment Association, the California and LA Chambers of Commerce, and tech CEOs.

But this was not the picture presented to the millions of readers of these mainstream liberal publications. The authors of these articles consistently framed SB 827 as a courageous and progressive approach, if perhaps slightly flawed, that would make huge advances towards ending California’s housing crisis — if only those cranky NIMBY (“Not In My BackYard”) homeowners would get out of the way.

These authors think of themselves as objective arbiters of truth, but their worlds — the newsfeeds they scroll through each day — are filled with other upper-class white people and their perspectives. Matt Yglesias is more likely to engage with worthless pundits like Josh Barro and this economist from the Koch-funded Mercatus Center than he is to read material published by Causa Justa, Right to the City Alliance, or Defend Boyle Heights (check out this article).

They live in a lily-white bubble, and this shapes how they learn about issues and whose knowledge they consider legitimate, resulting in the shallow, white-centric understandings of gentrification and the housing crisis that we get from these pieces.
A “housing bill” or a “displacement bill”?

Right off the bat, the framing of SB 827 as a sweeping solution to the housing crisis, and the near-universal presumption that this bill would actually make things better, shows what perspective these journalists are writing from.

Headlines abound with language like: “SB 827, a sweeping new bill that addresses California’s housing crisis” (Vox); “Sacramento’s sweeping housing bill” (LA Times); and “momentum builds for radical action on housing”(CityLab). Even otherwise nuanced takes on the damaging impacts of SB 827, like this one from Liam Dillon at the LA Times, is misleadingly and patronizingly titled “A major California housing bill failed after opposition from the low-income residents it aimed to help. Here’s how it went wrong.” You have to read past “major” housing bill that “aimed to help” these ungrateful residents opposing SB 827, before getting to a hint of the bill’s failure.

The presumption that SB 827 would actually improve the housing situation seems to underlie most of the reporting beyond the headlines. For typical examples of this, look at the first few sentences from these two articles by the LA Times and NY Times — though the winner in this category is surely this article by Henry Grabar of Slate, which says explicitly in the headline that SB 827 would “solve state housing crisis.”

It’s not that these characterizations are plainly wrong. They could be true, but only from the vantage point of those that can afford to live in the new units that would result from SB 827.

For others, this bill spells intensified displacement and the loss of their communities, as argued by the Western Center on Law and Poverty, Housing California, and the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation: “SB 827 will fuel the displacement of low-income communities and communities of color by investors and speculators who seek to build higher-income developments. Even with the March 1st amendments, nothing in the bill prevents or mitigates both the direct and indirect displacement that will occur as a result of the proposal.”

But not once do we see SB 827 referred to as a “gentrification bill” or a “displacement bill.” It’s clear whose opinions are really being reflected in this coverage.

Even when concerns about gentrification and displacement are mentioned, they tend to be mid-way down the article, and they certainly don’t capture the stakes involved in what is fundamentally a life-or-death struggle for entire communities. The journalists act as if mentioning opposition from poor people and people of color is a box they have to check before moving on.

(Finally, some articles act as if there is no opposition at all from low-income communities, completely ignoring their existence. See these two from Matt Yglesias, and pieces by Thomas Edsall and these three YIMBYs that were given platforms by the LA Times and CityLab.)
“Capitalism works for me, so it will work for you, too”

Another troubling pattern involves the supply-side understandings of gentrification and the housing crisis that we get from nearly every single author. Look at how the default framing in all these articles is that the current crisis is caused fundamentally by a lack of supply. “Almost everyone agrees”that California has an “acute” or “longstanding” or “severe housing shortage” due to the “basic problem [that] it is difficult to build housing in California.”

Meanwhile, they ignore inconvenient facts that seriously complicate this interpretation, like Oakland, New York City, and San Diego County all possessing more vacant homes than homeless people, and the state of California sitting on a surplus of 300,000 units for renters with above-moderate incomes. They don’t ever mention the role of AirBnB in taking units off the market and driving up rents, nor the foreign investors and Wall St. firms (like the private equity giant, Blackstone) pouring billions of dollars into urban housing markets. (Here’s a notable exception from Benjamin Schneider.)

Ultimately, they completely discount alternative analyses that argue forcefully that capitalist institutions — and the system of capitalism itself — built on a political economy embedded in white supremacy, lie at the root of the crisis. For example, this 80-page report from Right to the City Alliance states plainly that “corporate and individual control of property to maximize private gain is the fundamental problem with the current housing model.”

BCCLA’s statement also directly refutes these supply-side theories: “It is an insult to your own intelligence and to our history of struggle to suggest that the powerful financial interests that every day evict us, engage in predatory lending, and rob us of our limited wealth are suddenly in favor of policies to break up their lucrative system that profits from our continued oppression and exploitation.”

But capitalism has been good to these white guys. They worked their way up our so-called meritocracy and now have jobs writing for big media companies. Again we can see how their race and class shape how they see the world, and lead to their analyses that tell us the way to solve the housing crisis is to expand the reach of the market, that we shouldn’t focus on the people and corporate institutions making a killing off of squeezing and displacing poor people, and that strategies like rent control actually do more harm than good. Meanwhile the profit (and eviction, and displacement, and resegregation) machine keeps on spinning.
Who wins?

Ultimately, the narratives coming out of these large media corporations benefit the powerful white people and white-dominated institutions that make enormous sums of money actively investing in real estate. They also serve to comfort a large portion of their readership, white yuppie city-dwellers who, instead of being made to feel like they’re partaking in a destructive system rooted in “capitalism, white supremacy, and colonialism,”can simply think of themselves as rational consumers in a housing market with artificially constrained supply.

I’m not saying this is conspiratorial. Matt Yglesias doesn’t ignore the existence of people of color that disagree with him and write trash takes on gentrification because he’s in cahoots with real estate interests and gentrifiers. And the larger problem of the whiteness of corporate media is in large part structural, a product of these media companies existing as capitalist institutions and being accountable only to their shareholders.

But we should be aware of who profits when all these white writers refuse to even consider arguments that label racial capitalism as a fundamental part of the problem, and downplay concerns over displacement. There are material consequences when these are the narratives seen by influential people that read these liberal publications. In this case, real estate investors win, and poor people and people of color lose.

Update 2:23pm 5/10/2018: This piece has been edited to include specific reference to “A major California housing bill failed after opposition from the low-income residents it aimed to help. Here’s how it went wrong” by Liam Dillon. -Knock Editors

Editor's Note: In general, I think there is far more ignorance of cultures than outright racism. The author does have valid points that much of the coverage is from elite, college educated urbanists who ASSUME their plans improve lives. They are not listening.

California Senator Wiener, "Single Family Homes are Racist" SB827

Don't Judge Blacks Differently

Does race trump truth? In a confrontation between police and perpetrators, what is more important? Facts or skin color? When protests morph into riots, do we excuse bad behavior based on race? If we do, how are we ever going to end racism? Chloe Valdary, a student at the University of New Orleans, confronts these critical questions and offers a compelling answer. 

Are the stone pillars on Las Gallinas "Hidden Monuments to Racism"? (East Bay Express says "Yes")

Hidden Monuments to Racism

Berkeley and Oakland have them. And so does the region’s environmental movement.By Robert Gammon @RobertGammon


Photo by Darryl Barnes
Stone pillars that guard Berkeley’s Claremont neighborhood are reminders of its racist heritage.


Residents of Berkeley's Claremont neighborhood and Oakland's Upper Rockridge district pass by monuments to racism every day and probably don't realize it. It's not that the monuments are physically hidden; they're quite visible. But the monuments don't openly celebrate racism — like a statue of Robert E. Lee. Instead, their history is hidden, at least to those who don't know the story of how the neighborhoods began.

The monuments are actually large dual stone pillars that mark the entrances to the neighborhoods. The Claremont monuments guard the corner of Claremont Avenue and Hillcrest Road, and the white pillars of Upper Rockridge tower over Broadway at Rockridge Boulevard.

Both neighborhoods were created about the same time in the early 1900s by developers intent on establishing white-only areas. The developers attached racial "covenants" to the deeds of homes that forbid them from being sold or rented to people of color.

"No negroes, no Chinese, no Japanese can build or lease in Rock Ridge Park," stated a 1909 advertisement in the San Francisco Callnewspaper, referring to the neighborhood now known as Upper Rockridge.

"They would run ads that said, 'No Negroids and no Mongoloids' and all that nonsense," said Oakland historian Dennis Evanosky.

In 1916, Duncan McDuffie, developer of the Claremont neighborhood, convinced the city of Berkeley to create some of the nation's first zoning laws. Berkeley's laws initially were based on race because McDuffie wanted to also keep the nearby Elmwood district all-white due to the fact that it didn't have deed covenants. A year later, the U.S. Supreme outlawed race-based zoning, and in the following decades, racial covenants expired. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, didn't outlaw the enforcement of them until 1948.


Today, McDuffie is mostly celebrated because of his environmental record: He helped establish both the California State Parks and the East Bay Regional Park systems. But his racist legacy of exclusionary zoning continues in Claremont, Rockridge, Elmwood, and other neighborhoods. During the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, Oakland and Berkeley adopted exclusionary zoning rules — similar to the ones McDuffie originally advocated for — in many of the cities' mostly white neighborhoods, only allowing single-family homes on most streets in order to block the construction of apartment buildings, which might rent to low-income people of color.

Those zoning rules are still in effect in 2017, and neighborhoods like Claremont and Upper Rockridge remain predominantly white. The big stone pillars serve as reminders of that racist heritage.

North Berkeley also has a street and an entire neighborhood named after virulent racist environmentalists: Joseph and John Le Conte. "It's pretty disgusting when you think about it," Evanosky said.

During the Civil War, the Le Conte brothers, who were both academics, helped build munitions for the Confederacy. They were also slave owners. Joseph Le Conte once wrote that freeing the slaves and allowing Blacks to vote was "the greatest political crime ever perpetrated by any people."

But after the brothers moved west, John Le Conte, a physics professor, became president of UC Berkeley, and Joseph Le Conte landed a professorship of geology, natural history, and botany at the university.

Joseph Le Conte also co-founded the Sierra Club with his close friend John Muir and succeeded Muir as president of the organization. McDuffie served as the ninth president of the Sierra Club and also was chair of Save the Redwoods League.

Le Conte Hall on the UC Berkeley campus is also named after Joseph Le Conte, as is Le Conte Elementary School in Berkeley. In 2015, some parents and activists pushed to rename Le Conte school, citing Le Conte's racist history, but opponents argued that the name should remain because of his academic and environmental accomplishments. It's still called Le Conte.

Editor's Note:  Are the monuments on Las Gallinas "Monuments to Racism"?  The East Bay Express says "yes".  Notice the author also calls "environmentalism" racist.   This is part of the regional war on suburbia fought by the housing activist crowds.  Single family zoning is said to be racist and they want to abolish it in Marinwood/Lucas Valley and elsewhere.

Malcolm X on liberals and conservatives