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Shooting This Afternoon in West Berkeley

Bay City News

Wednesday September 09, 2020 - 09:02:00 PM

Police are seeking information following a shooting Wednesday afternoon in West Berkeley.

Police were notified of gunfire reports shortly before 3 p.m. in the area San Pablo Avenue and Murray Street.

Officers investigated the scene and found evidence of a vehicle struck by gunfire. Around the same time, an area hospital reported that a man described as in his late teens had arrived with a gunshot wound. The injury was not considered life threatening, police said.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the Homicide Unit at (510) 981-5741.

Press Release: Mopeds Come to Berkeley

Matthai Chakko, City of Berkeley Public Information Officer

Tuesday September 08, 2020 - 11:31:00 AM

Service costs $1 per person and $0.35/minute per ride and also has low-income discounts

Berkeleyans can now sign up for a round-the-clock service that allows you to take one-way moped trips within much of Oakland and Berkeley and leave it parked at any legal space for the next rider.

These electric mopeds, run by Revel, allow licensed drivers, age 21 and over to take low-cost, short trips as simple as a ride to work, the grocery store, or to an outdoor gathering with members of your social bubble.

Electric mopeds now join bicycles and cars as options for Berkeleyans to take one-way local trips using shared vehicles at costs that are much lower than owning one's own.

These shared transportation options among households decrease sole vehicle ownership, increase sustainability, and eliminate a critical barrier to mass transit - the last mile. Shared use increases the time a single vehicle is used for travel while decreasing time stored on public streets for parking.

Using Revel mopeds

Before using the mopeds, you'll need to download the Revel app and create an account. After uploading your driver's license and photo, you'll watch a safety video and complete a short online safety exam before being cleared to drive. Once your account is confirmed, you can use the app to find, reserve, and unlock mopeds.

Trips cost $1 per person to unlock the vehicle and $0.35 per minute. Each moped can carry two people, and comes equipped with two helmets - which must be worn while using the vehicle. Vehicles are limited to a maximum speed of 30mph and must stay on local streets. The mopeds are not permitted on freeways, in bike lanes, or on sidewalks. Revel trips are covered by third-party liability insurance. There is a one-time $5 registration fee.

For those new to using mopeds, Revel offers free in-person lessons in North Oakland.

Parking

2020-08-26 FINAL_Berkeley_Service_Zone_8.13

Revel riders do not have to pay for parking at City of Berkeley meters, but you must park your vehicle in a legal parking space at the end of your trip and avoid locations designated as no-parking zones within the app. Mopeds should be parked perpendicular to the curb with the rear wheel at the curb.

Discounts available for low-income riders

Revel's access program provides discounted rates for anyone who is actively participating in or eligible for local, state, or federal assistance programs such as CalFresh, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP).

Access program members will receive a $10 account credit to offset the registration fee once their identify is verified and a 40% discount on vehicle unlock and per-minute rates.

City programs for shared electric vehicles help meet goals for equity, sustainability

Revel mopeds are part of the City's one-way vehicle share program, which launched in 2016 under the banner of one-way car share and was amended in June 2020 to include scooters.

With transportation responsible for 60% of Berkeley's greenhouse gas emissions, increasing electric vehicle usage is a core aspect of the City's overall climate strategy. Shifting more trips to walking, biking, and shared electric vehicles is one of the four primary goals named in the City's Electric Mobility Roadmap, which was adopted by Council in June 2020. One-way vehicle share supports City's strategic plan goal to "be a global leader in addressing climate change, advancing environmental justice, and protecting the environment."

This service furthers the City's ongoing efforts to improve transportation equity, allowing those who can't afford a car another option.

One-way vehicle share is one of a variety of tools the City uses to make it easier to get around Berkeley. Efforts like the Shattuck Reconfiguration and Pedestrian Safety project and Hearst Avenue Complete Streets project make Berkeley's streets safer for all modes of travel, including walking, biking, taking transit, and driving. Likewise, the goBerkeley program actively manages parking to increase parking availability and reduce the harmful effects of circling for parking.

Change in Police Role is Needed Everywhere

Carole Kennerly

Sunday September 06, 2020 - 01:15:00 PM

I imagine most readers have seen the horrific situation of the Black man in Rochester NY who needed mental health assistance and the police literally murdered him instead. The media indicated the police officers claimed they were simply adhering to their training. Reportedly, a video shows officers mocking the man and using police tactics "just short of a public lynching". The family's telephone call to the police for help for their mentally ill brother ended up in his death at the hands of the police.

Whatever else happens, local city councils/governments across the country must at minimal separate mental health services along with other social services from the jurisdiction of the police. I understand some cities have already made the change and other city governments are at some point in the process of change. That's good news.

The police with a gun(s) see all-too-often the answer to all problems as a gun, club, choke holds, knee in the back or throat--especially if it involves persons of color/African Americans and Hispanics specifically....

Please let your local government know how you feel about ensuring mental health services are not part of the policing jurisdiction. Of course, that means such an adjustment/change has budgetary implications. Whatever budget monies in the police department are dedicated to social, mental health services must be transferred to the new department assuming those duties.

I also think all police departments should be relieved of so-called routine automobile (traffic) stops which so often leads to police harassment and shooting deaths of the driver and/or passengers--including children. Usually, the subject of the traffic stop is about a "tail light out", license plate problem or suspicion the auto is stolen ("Driving While Black especially if a luxury auto)...Instead, cities should incorporate those traffic duties into another department or create a new department. Budget costs should be subtracted from the police department no longer handling traffic duties.

This policing madness must stop...

P.S. The media indicates that a 800 plus member police union endorsed Trump and a smaller police union endorsed Biden. Making change will not be easy given the powerful political role police unions across the nation play--but we must keep pushing for justice and equity--even within policing in our country.

Sally Katorski Sachs
1934-2020

Saturday September 05, 2020 - 01:09:00 PM

Sally K. Sachs was born in Buffalo, NY, in September 1934, and died on June 26, 2020.

She received her primary and secondary education in Buffalo public schools and was valedictorian of her high school class. She was awarded a scholarship to Syracuse University in New York State. In addition to her academic work, she starred on their College Quiz Bowl team.

In 1955 she married Rainer Sachs and they went on to have four daughters, before divorcing in 1978.

After completing her studies, she and her family spent some years in Hamburg and London , but returned to the U.S, where they lived in New Jersey – first on an army base and then in Hoboken. They then spent four years in Austin, TX, ultimately settling in Berkeley CA. Sally appreciated Berkeley, and was active for 30 years in the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, serving as president for 2 years.

Sally was employed by the IRS where she worked until her retirement.

Sally had many talents. She liked to sketch and draw, and continued this hobby throughout her life. She was knowledgeable about music and attended many concerts. She enjoyed gardening and grew fruits and vegetables in her yard. She read a lot and retained a great deal of what she read and learned. Sally was independent in her thinking and her actions. She was very straight forward, principled and a good citizen.

She enjoyed travel and made trips within the US, to Europe and to Mexico.

Sally's youngest daughter, Margaret, died in 1995. She is survived by 3 daughters: Anna Magda Sachs, Eliza Sachs and Carol Sachs, grandchildren Olaf Davis and Iona Marsh, a sister Barbara K. Zain and her partner of more than 30 years, Luis Flores.

Sally's life will be celebrated on Monday, September 7. For details of the online event, email sallysachsmemorialATgmailDOTcom

Donations in Sally's name can be made to Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association http://berkeleyheritage.com/ or to

ACLUaction.aclu.org/give/now

Opinion

Public Comment

Race is not a Noun, It is a Verb

Steve Martinot

Saturday September 05, 2020 - 12:23:00 PM

What is Racism?

Racism is a social process. It is a structure in which individuals act in demeaning or exclusionary ways toward people of color in mutual empowering relation with social institutions that dehumanize and inferiorize them. Through the conjunction of both levels of such derogation of people, a white racialized identity is constituted for white people. It is that identity that is socially bestowed upon whites to varying degrees. And its self-generating context is white supremacy.

For individuals, racism takes the form of prejudice, a panoply of pre-judgments of other persons, eliciting certain pre-established attitude toward them. Racial prejudice is not a result of social experience; it is instead the source of experience of real people. Prejudice has non-experiential origins. White people are told who people of color are by other white people, and in particular, by those who instruct them as to what it "means" to be white. Each white child in a white supremacist society is made white through explanations of who black people are. White people are defined through black people. They essentially live in dependency on black people for their identity as white.

When white people encounter people of color, it is through those "instructions," and the stories by which those instructions are concretized. When face to face with an actual person of color, a white person will tend to experience that other as if they were a character in those stories. The gratuitousness and irreality (irrelevance) of such white “pre-judgments” are often astounding. Sometimes, the fear or anxiety is palpable (e.g. when a white woman in an elevator grasps her handbag in both arms when a black man enters).

It is often these stories that are responsible for the difficulty white people have in addressing race. They not only refer to a non-real world, but they take up residence deep inside white racialized identity.

This means, however, that white prejudice against black people (for instance) does not actually refer to black people at all. It refers to the narratives by which a white person was taught what it meant to be white in the first place. The paradox of racism, then, is that black people do not exist for whites except as invented by that racism. For a white person to examine racism, then, they would have to begin with how they themselves as white were invented by the racializing process. To understand white racialized identity, one would have to begin with a cultural background that was itself a product of white racialized identity.

But it is important to understand that though white racism and white identity are aspects of the same phenomenon, neither element can be considered "programming." Of the many modes of whiteness that a person learns – some liberal, others supremacist, and still others in between -- each white person is left to decide how, and with which group of white people, they will live their whiteness.

White people gravitate toward other whites with whom they have social or prejudicial affinity. In part, their choice may be initiated by the stories they have heard, and in part, their choices may depend on persons they have grown to respect as persons; but more generally, it has to do with the predominant form of racism in their immediate social environment. Each choice of group (or prejudice level) engenders different tasks of membership. What a white person is actually choosing is what kind of white racialized identity they wish to have. After deciding which white group they wish to relate to, their behavior toward black people will then be governed by that choice. In that sense, racism is a relation between whites.

What this implies is that attitudes toward and stories about black and brown people, in their process of constructing their white identity, are enlisted as scripts about white comportment in different social contexts. Robin Diangelo, in her book White Fragility, says that the fabrications about black people, which constitute white knowledge of them, are the root of anti-black racism. [94] Our analysis here would suggests that was only half the story, the historical half. The fabrications about black people are also the effect of anti-black racism, designed to engender and testify to the sanctity of white racialized identity in the present. It is by living these narratives that white people make themselves white.

More to the point, this implies that black people (and other people of color) are enlisted as a kind of "theatrical" prop to deploy in one’s chosen relation to other whites. The objectification or hostility to which people of color are subjected is thus rarely without a functionality with respect to white people’s relations to each other. That is what it means that racism is a relation between white people for which black people are the means.

How is a white person going to address "racism" if they look at racism’s effects on black people instead of examining how race and racism function among whites, as the means of creating them as white?

White Racialized Identity

What is white racialized identity? And how is it different from a white identity that is not racialized? Does white identity valorize one’s whiteness as “who one is,” or does one live one’s white privilege, entitlement, and white group membership as the process by which white identity is formed? And in a white supremacist society, does a white identity actually exist that is not racialized?

Entitlement is a proactive sense of having priority over others. It represents a position of assumed "license" to speak for others. Yet, often, it does not assume itself as somethng of overwhelming importance. It is rather like taking a turn on a game board, and moving according to the throw of the dice. It becomes important when someone else contests one’s opinion or judgment, often leading the entitled one to drop into "dominance" mode. Thus, under the surface, entitlement refers to mastery, and elicits the meaning of the root "title" as referring to ownership (aka enslavement).

As highlighted by police brutality, white entitlement is actually the (cultural) licensing of impunity. Whether in the form of police arbitrarity, or vigilantes chasing and killing people, or white passers-by calling the police on a black family enjoying themselves in a park, impunity is an inherent aspect of white racialized identity. Among other things, it seeks to ensure that all white behavior toward racialized persons will appear as a defense of white society. This is true for white liberals as well, witness the Moynihan Report (1965, written in the wake of the Harlem and Rochester uprisings of 1964).

Privilege, on the other hand, is what being white looks like from the perspective of those disempowered, dispossessed, and discriminated against by racism. White privilege is the spoils of entitlement, the residue left over from the civil war that dismantled the direct commodification of human beings. When the police racially profile someone on the street, they are exercising their entitlement as opposed to their law enforcement duties. When they leave white people alone in the same environment, they are extending the privileges of common entitlement. "Privilege" names the way whites live the power granted by the systemic nature of the racism that entitles them.

Sparing whites the feeling of being privileged is a trick performed by white supemacy. Most whites feel entitled, but few feel they have privileges (unless they have been thinking about it). For instance, legislation equalizing opportunity between blacks and whites (affirmative action) was interpreted by many white people as an attack, and they condemned it as a quota system, deploying the privilege to ignore Jim Crow as itself having been a 100% pro-white quota system.

Impunity may cause problems when exercised in excess, perhaps by producing unwanted social disturbance. When an armed KKK motorcade assaulted a black community in North Carolina, and the people fought back, also with guns, it led the police to hint to the KKK that they had gone a little too far (Monroe, NC, 1957). But in general, the injustices committed by police and courtrooms and paramilitary gangs appear as "normal" collateral for privilege and entitlement, which simply "happen" to white people.

Racial privilege is what doesn’t happen to black people. And that is something white-identified people generally refuse to see. Conversely, white supremacy happens to black people, and doesn’t happen to whites. These are the axes of racialization, the core of its social presence.

Let us put this in more colloquial terms. It is white supremacy that a black person addresses when they say, “oh god, why do I have to put with all this stuff?” And it is white privilege that a white person addresses when they say, “oh god, I’m so glad that stuff doesn’t happen to me. I must be doing something right.” Across the color line, privilege makes white people white, and white supremacy makes black people black. What is difficult for a white person to grasp is how white supremacy is what makes white people white as well as entitled. One way it makes white people white is by valorizing the narratives about black people which, when accepted, become a comfort zone. To extricate oneself from all that -- which would mean to see people of color as sovereign individuals and relate to them as such -- can be painful. Indeed, society as a whole would have to undergo a transformation of its most basic assumptions on justice and equality, just to recognize the autonomy of others.

What Makes White people White

Most cultures are not based on being racializing, though many have been xenophobic. But those resulting from European colonization in the Americas have been. In each case, the colonizer sought an "objective" way of discerning the difference between colonizer and colonized, something other than mere appearance. Color could have been used, except for fact of its continuity. Continuity means that between any two people of different color, a third could always be found whose color would be between them. That implied there were no natural divisions in the human species based on color. Color could not be used to define race.

For colonial purposes, an additional factor was needed to produce a significant difference between colonizer and colonized, at least for administrative purposes. The colonizers brought in heritage, the fact that the children of mixed parentage (European and indigenous) would have a color other than white. The insulation of whiteness from mixture (for administrative purposes), and the definition of heritage levels (European, Creole, indigenous, etc.) produced "race." And "race" produced structures of racialization to rationalize colonialism. In racializing people, color was racialized as well, and integrated into the colonizing process. It was racialization that transformed color into a marker for what then wouldn’t exist without that marker.

(When the English first arrived in Virginia, they did not originally think of themselves as white in any racialized sense. The idea of a white identity only developed in the 1690s, after the codification of slavery. It became a cultural identity after 1720, with the founding of the slave patrols, after which "race" was defined by European naturalists: Linneaus, Buffon, etc. (Cf, Steve Martinot, The Rule of Racialization).

If "racial division" exists only by definition, then it is not inherent in people. It is added socially to them after they are born. White people are not born white. They are made white by white supremacist society. And similarly, black people are not born black, but are made black by white supremacist society. Bestowed by a racializing culture derived from colonialism, "race" was inherently a hierarchic structure in which whites were hegemonic. Though racialization occurred differently in different countries according to the specifics of their colonization, each developed a mode of white supremacy.

It is another reason white people have trouble talking about race; they are made to live something that is given them by others without their knowledge, and told to believe it is real (an admission that it is not). It has a reality, but it is based on colonialism.

In sum, we can no longer consider "race" a trait, characteristic, or anything to do with inherency. The word "race" cannot be considered a noun. It is something that one group of people does to others. In the US, race is something that white people do to others they define for themselves as not white. That means the word is a verb. The verb is “to racialize.”

Let us follow the metaphorics of this grammatical structure to its various implications. White people, as the racializers, occupy the subject position of the verb. They have, through that position, the power to define those they place in the "object" position of the verb. They can do so because, as colonizers and later racializers, they have seized the power to do so. Treating the racialized as objects rather than humans is a direct result of white racialization of those people.

Racialization only goes in one direction. Other people don’t racialize whites. They do not have the institutional power behind them to do so. They may resist racialization by forming communities of resistance around the racial identity given them by white supremacy (or alternatively, by the commonality of original origin, such as Africa). But that is not a form of racializing whites. It is an attempt at autonomy within and against the racialization to which they have been subjected.

In other words, where white privilege is what being white might look like from the perspective of those who are “deprivileged” or marginalized, racialization of others (people of color) and the production of white racialized identity is what “acting white” accomplishes practically.

Acting white” subsumes all those practices and attitudes by which white people differentiate themselves from people of color, while at the same time inferiorizing them, without saying or doing anything overtly "racist." Most white people tend to be as blind to how they act white as they are to white privilege. When a white person patronizes or excludes a person of color by ignoring them, they may detect an anger or coldness on the part of the other in return, without comprehending where it comes from.

It takes concentration to discern how one may be "acting white." In order for a white person to talk about "race," they would have to know how to talk about “acting white,” and not only about the position they put other people in. The injustices that are inherent in the hierarchy that acting white establishes are as injurious as overt racism, but more difficult to respond to because not overt. Nevertheless, acting white means one is not, as a white person, a bystander to the processes of racialization. Instead, one is actually participating in that structure.

Ultimately, while it is not possible for black or brown people to be racist against whites, it is possible for them to act in a racializing manner toward other people of color, that is, to “act white,” mimicking the racializing actions of white people. For instance, the brutality of black cops is in general indistinguishable from that of white cops. White liberalism provides a model for black and brown liberalism. These instances imply that the dominant division of society under the force of racialization is between the racializers and the racialized. One sees this fairly clearly in the history of race superseding class division in the US. Class relations show themselves thereby to be racialized. [Cf. "The Racialized Construction of Class in the United States." in Social Justice, vol 27 (1); Spring, 2000.]

In large part, the unconscious nature of acting white is what has allowed the processes of racialization to continue endlessly. In recent times, we have seen its further unfolding. After 911, Middle Eastern and Islamic people were racialized, to be shunned as a group, fired from their jobs, attacked in their religious worship, and even shot as they walked down the street by whites suddenly incensed by their presence. Latinx immigrants have been racialized as "illegal" persons, shunned as a group, forced to work jobs white people won’t take, paid less in wages, and then blamed for economic problems like unemployment.

If white people were to abandon their continual racialization of others, it would mean (among other things) that they would no longer be white. And it would mean that black people would be released from their racialization to be members of society in equal standing with whites. To give up acting white is not obtained by looking inward but by seeing the other as a free, self-respecting person.

This may be a hard transformation for white people to live with. It creates a real necessity to develop an alternate basis upon which to arrive at a non-racial identity (not white). There is no such thing as a white identity that is not racialized. But our knowledge that race and whiteness have had an historical beginning directly implies that it can also have an ending. That is not beyond the realm of possibility.

Corollaries

There are a few corollaries to this way of accounting for "race." One is that the subject-object construction is the real relation that white people have with people of color. Second, white privilege is not given by social institutions, but is a benefit attached to the activity of racializing. Third, racism is not primarily expressed in those derogatory events in which it is discernible, but in the ordinary events of whites living as racializers, to which the racialized have little or no response.

Finally, it must be said that it is possible for a white person to relate to others in a non-racializing way. It is possible to abandon acting white, and thus to abandon one’s white racialized identity. But that indicates the most essential reason why it is hard for white people to talk about race. To do so would put their racialized identity in jeopardy.

For whites, then, the project of being an anti-racist would have to include relocating oneself outside the entire system of coloniality and its system of racialized power relations that have produced that identity.

Support the Adeline Community Initiative!

Friends of Adeline

Saturday September 05, 2020 - 12:48:00 PM

Development of the Ashby BART station must reverse the displacement of African Americans and the severe housing crisis for low-income, working-class, and unhoused people.

What we demand: Speak out in support of the following at the Ashby BART station:

100% affordable housing at Ashby BART. Any housing on BART land must be 100% affordable for extremely low-, very low-, and low-income people.
Commit real money to affordable housing. Dedicate funds to build the housing our community needs.
Guarantee a future for the Ashby flea market and its vendors at the Ashby BART site.b

Development of the Ashby BART station must reverse the displacement of African Americans and the severe housing crisis for low-income, working-class, and unhoused people. The City of Berkeley is creating an Adeline Corridor Plan, but we need a plan that is about the people in our community, not just streets and buildings. Our vision is for an Adeline Community Initiative – the People’s Plan. Why Create an Adeline Community Initiative?

South Berkeley is one of the few affordable, racially diverse neighborhoods in Berkeley. While the diversity of the area has decreased dramatically over the last 25 years, it continues to be one of the most diverse areas of the city. According to city data, we’ve gone from being nearly half African American in 1990, to less than 20% African American today. The African American population in the city overall has dropped from 20% to under 8% during that same time. A significant number of residents who live in South Berkeley are renters or low-income homeowners and are at risk of displacement if housing costs increase. Two-thirds of residents in our community are renters, and 20% of the population is below the poverty line. Median household income in South Berkeley is nearly $17,000 less than the city overall. Nearly half of the population in the area are housing cost burdened (pay more than 30% of their income on housing costs), and nearly one in four are severely cost burdened (pay more than 50% of their income on housing costs).

African American displacement threatens important cultural, civic, and historical institutions in our city. It is unfathomable to have a Juneteenth celebration in South Berkeley without African Americans living in the community. Many of our businesses and institutions – the Berkeley Community Flea Market, numerous historically significant African American churches, the Berkeley Black Repertory Group, Black-owned businesses such as Imhotep Chiropractic, and the future African American Holistic Resource Center – rely on local African American residents in order to continue to operate. Displacement of the African American community threatens the continuation of these beloved and important places and events.

The City’s Adeline Corridor Plan will likely worsen these trends. A recent study in Chicago found that speculation and property values increase as a direct result of upzoning (zoning for increased density and height). These costs will be passed on to tenants and new homeowners. There is some evidence that this is already happening – between 2012 and 2018, the median home price in zip code 94703 (which includes most of the Adeline Corridor area) more than doubled, from $517,000 to $1,140,000. This increase was 7% faster than anywhere else in the city. Improvements to the streetscape will also likely cause housing prices to rise. In Atlanta, the development of the city’s Beltline increased housing values by as much as 26%. Similar effects have been seen in New York City around the High Line. While we welcome safety improvements, the effect of street improvements on affordability must be addressed.

Our vision is for an Adeline Community Initiative. We envision development that strengthens and brings together the communities along Adeline, and that does not continue the division of redlining and segregation. We envision homes that are affordable for low-income residents and those who’ve been displaced from our community or onto the streets. We envision economic development that prepares youth and adults for good-paying jobs and strengthens vulnerable populations. We envision a neighborhood with sustainable infrastructure that provides health care and facilities, parks and recreation. We envision a community that supports and nurtures the arts, which are integral to our community’s culture, while recognizing that improvements in public space and art must happen in concert with anti-displacement measures to prevent them from contributing to gentrification. The enhancement of South Berkeley, our racial and ethnic diversity, our economy, our culture, our sustainability, and our healthfulness must be at the heart of the new development of the Adeline Community. This is why we created the Adeline Community Initiative.

We demand the City adopt an Adeline Community Initiative to:

Create Community-Owned, Low-Income Housing

1. Dedicate all housing on publicly-owned land for low-income people. Any housing on BART land must be 100% affordable for extremely low-, very low-, and low-income people.

2. Establish a goal that half of all housing in our community, both new and old, is affordable for low-income people, and include family-sized, 2-3 bedroom units. Create a Housing Balance District for South Berkeley, which would only allow market-rate housing to be built once we’ve met our goal for building the low-income housing we need.

3. Developers should not be allowed to pay a fee to get out of building the low-income housing we need. Low-income housing should be built on-site, in every project built in the neighborhood.

4. Dedicate one-third of our Housing Trust Fund to South Berkeley, with at least a minimum of $50 million over 10 years. Create a preference for community ownership housing models, including community land trusts and housing co-operatives.

5. Pass the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase policy, which gives tenants the opportunity to buy their building if the landlord chooses to sell.

Reverse the Displacement of African Americans and Low-Income Residents

1. Pass a Right to Return/Local Preference policy, which gives people who are at risk of displacement or have been displaced preference for new, low-income housing built in the neighborhood, at a price they can afford. Create a Coming Home Day for people who’ve been displaced to come back and learn about how they can move back.

2. Provide a site and funding for the African American Holistic Resource Center.

3. Guarantee a future for the Ashby flea market and its vendors at the Ashby BART site.

4. Prohibit the city from targeting African American homeowners with code violations, causing evictions and loss of homes. Create a fund to help people make needed repairs.

5. Prioritize city funding for South Berkeley nonprofits and religious institutions that provide essential services for both low-income and African American residents.

Support People Over Profit

1. Remove South Berkeley from the federal Opportunity Zone, or, if that’s not possible, create an Anti-Displacement Overlay Zone to protect our neighborhood from speculation, and a moratorium on market-rate development until the Overlay Zone is in place.

2. Pass a vacant unit tax to stop speculators from holding homes empty for profit.

3. Require community benefit agreements to make development meet community needs.

4. Increase funding for services that support unhoused people in our community, including nonprofits, religious centers, mental and public health services, sanitation, and housing.

5. Pass the Fair Chance Housing policy, which prohibits discrimination against people with criminal records by landlords. And enforce the new law that prohibits discrimination against people with Section 8 vouchers.

Trump's Reality TV Show

Jagjit Singh

Saturday September 05, 2020 - 12:45:00 PM

Maryanne Trump Barry, President Trump’s sister, the retired Federal judge warned Americans that her younger brother is a pathological liar. This warning was echoed by Trump’s niece, Mary Trump and Jon Bolton, Trump’s former national security advisor.

In the age of KALJUG, criminals, like Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, , , , are pardoned while scores of African-Americans are languishing in jail charged with extremely minor offenses or the inability to post bail. I hope Americans will examine objective fact-checking that occurred during the convention where there were so many obvious and blatant lies. In addition, we must remember that the White House is a national symbol. It is the “People’s House,” paid for by all Americans; it does not belong to a political candidate like Donald Trump and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and others who blatantly violated the provisos of the Hatch Act which forbids Federal property being used for political purposes.

Glaringly absent from Trump’s reality show was any reference to the raging pandemic which has taken the lives of 180,00 Americans resulting from his incompetent leadership. Earlier Trump dismissed the deadly virus as a hoax, his favorite four letter word he uses constantly to dismiss unpleasant news critical of his failed leadership. Right on cue, the sycophants clicked their heels and saluted their leader terrified they might offend him which would trigger a Twitter tirade and end their careers. The tragic unprovoked shooting of Jacob Blake in the presence of his 3 young children by a racist cop was not mentioned. But the 17 year old white supremacist, Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two protestors was lauded as a hero. VP Pence dutifully echoed his master’s racist tirade.

The great spiritual leader, Nanak defined GOD as “TRUTH”. but the truth was absent in the war of ugly words uttered at the RNC.

If a buzzer rang or a bleep machine masked out every time a lie was uttered by President Trump or his obedient minions I wonder how much of the speeches would be heard. Perhaps the TV networks could use the same rating approach to monitor FACEBOOK, QANON conspiracy theories and FOX news which more closely resembles Pravda, the former propaganda arm of the Russian Communist Party.

For more go to, http://callforsocialjustice.blogspot.com/

September Pepper Spray Times

By Grace Underpressure

Saturday September 05, 2020 - 02:18:00 PM

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Columns

New: ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Mentally Ill Black vs. Mentally Ill White in Police Encounters

Jack Bragen

Monday September 07, 2020 - 09:12:00 PM

Daniel Prude of Rochester New York was slain under heinous and humiliating conditions by local police officers. He was Black and he was having a mental health crisis. Black mentally ill people are often treated worse than white mentally ill people. While I don't have hard evidence to back this assertion, I believe it to be true. And this is based on what I've seen in news coverage and on what I've observed firsthand.

I can come up with more examples. A Black man was holding a screwdriver (in a completely nonthreatening manner) in front of his home and was having mental health issues. Police killed him.

"People with Untreated Mental Illness 16 Times More Likely to Be Killed by Law Enforcement" --Treatment Advocacy Center Website.

I have not seen a lot of studies done about Black vs. white mentally ill people and how they are treated by police. However, I have been in police encounters. And in my experience, police have not usually treated me in an unfair manner or used excessive force. This is probably in part because I'm white. Generally, it has not gone any farther than some mildly hostile words.

Yet, before I was diagnosed, police did not have computerized access to the fact that they were dealing with a nonviolent mentally ill man.

I need to say this: Police should not be thought of as stormtroopers. The vast majority have joined because they've wanted to have a good impact on their communities. While I've experienced police harassment many times, between the 1980's and up to 2000, police officers have also come to my aid when I would otherwise have been harmed by a person or situation.

It is tragic that Black people may feel that there is a need to fear police forces rather than believing they should call when there is an emergency.

Right now, on both sides of the Black Lives Matter conflict, we need to build bridges and not put up barbed wire. Police need to get off this polarized perception that Black people's lives don't matter. But also, the public should realize that police are also members of the public. We are a nation in which there is no distinction between the citizens of the U.S. and the government of the U.S.

If police are murderers, it is because they are citizens who are murderers. If one cop is a murderer, it doesn't make another cop a murderer. We are seeing a lot of publicity of police at their worst. Yet it doesn't achieve the television ratings when they are doing their job, part of which is to protect the public.

We need drastic reform of police behavior and of the criminal justice system, (which fails to dispense justice, and makes good people out to be criminals). Police need to be hired differently, trained differently, and disciplined differently than they currently are. If there are problems, it doesn't make police bad people. It means that police forces are being mismanaged.

This is not a good decade to be mentally ill, to be Black, or both. If mentally ill, we had better be cooperative with treatment because our lives could depend on it. If Black, this guideline is even more true. Although this is wrong, it is the current circumstance.

Jack Bragen is author of "Instructions for Dealing with Schizophrenia: A Self-Help Manual," "Schizophrenia: My 35-Year Battle," and "Revised Short Science Fiction Collection of Jack Bragen."

THE PUBLIC EYE:The Biden-Harris Wave

Bob Burnett

Friday September 04, 2020 - 04:26:00 PM

In 1936, Franklin Delano Roosevelt won his second presidential election, garnering 60.8 percent of the popular vote. Until now, that was the largest margin of victory in any presidential contest. But Joe Biden has a chance of defeating Donald Trump by a similar percentage.

Coming out of the Republican National Convention, Trump is at the peak of his popularity. Trump will steadily drive away voters until his base remains -- slightly under 40 percent.

Consider this: 68 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction (https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/direction_of_country-902.html). Biden has an overall lead of 7.3 percent in the polls (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/ ). Trump remains unfavorable (43 percent approve versus 52 percent disapprove). Meanwhile Biden has a net favorable rating (46 percent favorable versus 40 percent unfavorable). (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trumps-favorability-perceptions-covid-19-response-stagnate-post/story?id=72705268) (By the way: Kamala Harris is viewed more favorably than Mike Pence.)

The latest Economist forecast gives Biden 88 percent chance of winning the electoral college (https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president ).

Trump is campaigning with a multiple disadvantages. He's in poor health. Donald is no longer the outsider, the novelty. He does not have an unpopular opponent. Furthermore, Trump has to account for four simultaneous crises, happening on his watch: the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic recession, racial injustice, and global climate change. In the next 60 days these crises are not going away.

1.COVID-19 pandemic: The RNC treated the pandemic as if it was a crisis that had been solved. Unfortunately, It hasn't been solved and is likely to get worse when flu season starts in October. By November 3rd, 250,000 Americans will have died from the virus. Trump can't wish this away and most voters blame him for the crisis. (The latest ABC News/Ipsospoll found: "A clear majority of Americans (63%) disapprove of Trump's oversight of the public health crisis -- a steady trend since early July.")

2. Economic recession: Republicans act as if the economy is growing but last quarter it shrank at a rate of 32.9 percent. Trump pretends we are in a V-shaped recovery but it's actually a K-shaped recovery where only the richest 1 percent are benefitting. Republicans don't appear to care about the millions who are losing their unemployment benefits or facing eviction. As the weeks go by, and Trump presents no plan to deal with the recession, increasing numbers of voters will be angry.

Most voters feel the economy is in bad shape. The New York Times reports: "Most polls now find Americans are evenly split on whether they approve of [Trump's] handling of the issue. Gallup, for example, found Mr. Trump enjoyed a 48 percent approval rating on the economy this month, down from 63 percent in January." (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/us/politics/trump-economy.html )

3. Racial Injustice: Trump does not believe that Black Lives Matter and refuses to acknowledge the tragic death of George Floyd and the maiming of Jacob Blake. This attitude will cause him to lose support in the Black community. Trump is betting that going all out on "law and order" will sway most white voters; it won't. (By the way: the ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 62 percent of respondents believed the shooting of Jacob Blake was: "A sign of broader problems in the treatment of African Americans by police.") The latest Quinnipiac poll found: "Fifty percent of likely voters say having Donald Trump as president of the United States makes them feel less safe, while 35 percent say it makes them feel more safe."

4. Climate Change: On night three of the GOP convention, a major hurricane slammed into Louisiana, while wildfires torched the west. Trump refuses to acknowledge climate change as we're heading into what promises to be a ferocious hurricane season.

Trump has failed. He will fall further behind in the polls because he is playing a losing hand.

On November 3rd, voters have a chance to not only defeat Donald Trump but to dramatically change the face of American politics. Here are 5 key states where this can happen:

Arizona: What was once a reliably red state has become "purple." Recent polls have Joe Biden ahead of Donald Trump.

Arizona has one Democratic Senator (Sinema). Five of nine congressional districts are represented by Democrats. In 2020, the incumbent Republican Senator (McSally) is challenged by an outstanding Democratic candidate (Kelly). In addition, Arizona Congressional District 6, represented by a Republican (Schweikert) is challenged by a strong Democrat (Tipirneni).

In addition, Democrats have a good shot at taking over the Arizona legislature: Currently, Republicans enjoy a 31-19 advantage in the Arizona House and a 17-13 advantage in the Senate. (The Republican governor is up for reelection in 2022.)

Georgia: Another "red" state that has become purple. Recent polls have Joe Biden ahead of Donald Trump.

Georgia has two Republican Senators up for reelection: Perdue and Loeffler. Perdue is in a tight race with Democrat Jon Ossoff. Loeffler is in a complicated race that may pit her against either a Republican (Collins) or Democrat (Warnock). Five of fourteen Congressional districts are represented by Democrats. However, one Republican district (GA 7) is open and a Democrat (Bourdeaux) is favored to win.

Flipping the legislature is a long shot. The Georgia Senate has 56 seats: 35 Republican and 21 Democratic. The Georgia House has 180 seats: 105 Republican, 75 Democratic. Nonetheless, Democrats think they have a shot. (The Republican governor is up for reelection in 2022; there are rumors that Democrat Stacey Abrams will run for this seat.)

Montana: In 2016, in Montana, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 20 points. In 2020, in the latest Montana poll, Trump leads Biden by 4 points. That's not to say that Montana will suddenly become "blue" but it does illustrate that it's in play. And, there are three close races.

Montana's Republican Senator (Daines) is being challenged by Democrat Steve Bullock -- the race is a tossup. Montana's single House seat is in play; Democrat Kathleen Williams appears to hold a slight lead. Montana's State House is also in play; Republican Gianforte holds a slight lead over Democrat Cooney.

North Carolina: A legitimately "purple" state. Recent polls have Joe Biden slightly ahead of Donald Trump.

North Carolina's Republican Senator (Tillis) is being challenged by Democrat Cal Cunningham -- Cunningham holds a slight edge. The existing Democratic Governor (Cooper) holds a substantial lead over his Republican challenger. There are two open congressional seats that could go to Democrats: NC 2 (Ross) and NC6 (Manning).

Democrats forced North Carolina to be redistricted. As a result, control of the state legislature is in sight. Demos need to win five seats in the state senate and 6 seats in the house.

Texas: What was once a reliably red state has become "purple." Recent polls have Joe Biden tied with Donald Trump.

There's a Senate seat in play but the Republican incumbent (Cornyn) seems to have a comfortable lead over challenger (Hegar). There are 36 congressional seats: Democrats hold thirteen of these. Four additional seats are in play: TX 21 (Davis), TX 22 (Kulkarni), TX 23 (Ortiz-Jones), and TX 24 (Valenzuela).

Democrats also have a fighting chance to take control of the Texas Legislature.

Summary: Supporters of Joe Biden are scared. They're afraid that Donald Trump will steal the election. They're afraid that Trump will do something awful. (Newsflash: Donald will do something awful but it won't be enough.)

We can't let our fear paralyze us. We must do everything we possibly can to defeat Donald Trump.

vWe must unite to seize a historic opportunity. Donald Trump is a threat to Democracy. Each day, more and more voters understand this. The tide is running in favor of Joe Biden, and Democrats in general. We must do everything we can to take advantage of this moment.

Bob Burnett is a Bay Area writer and activist. He can be reached at bburnett@sonic.net