holowe

I have been on social media for a while now, and I’ve noticed that about every three and a half years, the heightened discourse over politics simmers for some weeks, and hits its fever pitch in late summer. This boiling over coincides with the hot, restless nights, shootings, and political conventions.
People who have been typically cordial start to take on a political surrogacy; my team is the best, and the other is about to cause WWIII, the apocalypse, or the destruction of America. If you love the other side, you’re an idiot. If you like the other side, you’re stupid, so I need to re-educate you, and let me bring my other social media friends in on the frenzy to show you just how much of a tool you are.
I get it, people have very strong views of their right and wrong. Most folk are able to see the other sides to arguments, and while they read others’ posts, unless something is blatantly obvious, they tend to keep it moving…maybe you’ll get a “like” out of them. Yet, I have some Facebook friends—and for goodness sake, even Linked In connections– that are out there to initiate discourse, to just plain vent, or to start a culture war. A post every couple of weeks about a thing said by a politician or a societal wrong, like a shooting doesn’t qualify. I consider those as public announcements. But there are some of them that say things that you can tell they picked up from the local barbershop or AM radio.
To you: No matter what I think about what you say, even if it is asinine, bigoted, backward, insensitive, or having varying levels of stupid all over it, you will still be my friend on Facebook.
Unless……you have personally called me out and justified your position based on your moral high ground. Lately, I have seen some of you upping the ante, driving full speed into the fog, making the leap that my support for any position differing from yours also means that I cannot be a Christian. And to take it a step further, most of these positions are coming from the Right.
I voted for Bernie, but you didn’t want to hear that. You see, you laughed at a man who wanted to create more taxes for the wealthy, and you angrily scoffed at his socialism solutions. Get that; you and I together are part of a faith that celebrates a belief in a socialist afterlife, in which all have mansions with the almighty, all are fed and clothed, and loved. While on earth, together we value the teachings of Christ, a descendant from our Lord who walked with the poor, admonished the rich, and was murdered by the powerful…yet your ‘faith’ leads you to the conclusion that any course that drives us closer to parity is in fact, a pathway to being unequal. But you didn’t debate me on that Christian/Christ/Money is the Root to Evil/It is easier for a rich man to find a needle/ thing when it came to wealth and God. I let it go; because that would be me on my moral ground, and I don’t want to go there with a person who see today’s Jesus as a conservative white male dot com CEO.
Now there is no more Bernie for me, and you are coming after me with a vengeance. You see the writing on the wall…no Bernie, he is defecting to Hillary Clinton for President. You start dropping post after post about Hillary–lying Hillary, murderous Hillary, sneaky Hillary, Hillary who wants to see your kids turn gay, Hillary who wants to take away your guns, but also wants to keep killing babies with abortion…..and then it gets nasty. The people who show up at the Democratic Convention are Devil Worshipers. Hillary is evil, Hillary is Satan; Democrats for siding with Hillary and what she stands for are evil. No Democrat or Hillary voter can be a real Christian.
Wha? The Non Democrat supporters now have a lock on faith too? I supported Bernie, and dude is at best an agnostic…but I wasn’t evil then. Now, because I am titling Hillary I am evil and I have lost my faith?
Let’s be perfectly clear: your last guy standing is Donald Trump. He has never walked by the measurements of faith that you use to challenge me. He has been accused of rape, he has been endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, and his political platform speaks to racial division and bigotry. He has thousands of lawsuits against him for business practices, and most of his comments are significantly misleading to downright lies. He has never held office and doesn’t understand public policy or government, but wants the biggest job in the world; he doesn’t want government intervention in business or taxation, yet he got his start evicting people in subsidized housing, has declared bankruptcy four times and has stolen public funds from city budgets through non-payment of debts, and he won’t release his tax statements as there is a likelihood that he is doing business with a foreign entity that is a US enemy state, and he has donated virtually nil to charity.

Yes, but he is still better than Hillary.

That might be a funny punchline if told correctly, but that is all.

Now, you have told me that to even question this suggests that there is a problem with me. My problem is that I cannot look past the particular candidate and roll with the whole Republican Party. Even if he needs help, I need to support this Party. See, the Party will handle everything, and the Party is moral.
Then they do either of two things; they are acknowledge ‘yes, he is a flawed candidate, but…’ HOLD up: Al Gore was a flawed candidate: Trump makes Bill Cosby look like the better choice in giving out Halloween drinks to white sorority girls at a rave party. Or two, they absolutely ignore the reality that Trump is their candidate, and start off every comment with the number one issue for religious conservatives: abortion. In the Pachinko machine of morality, as soon as you cast a position on abortion, you get slotted down a path. There are 50 more important platform decisions that affect all US citizens than this one, but they won’t let you think of that. Abortion is it brother. You don’t believe that a person (I said a person, because a man who sides with the woman is also included) should have one for any reason; you get the nod. You don’t believe exactly that; you get put at the line of indecision, and get placed at the equivalent of the kids’ table of Christianity on Thanksgiving. You believe a great deal more about not infringing into someone else’s body, and you are a worse sinner than the person having the procedure. You see, you know better….better? What am I to do about someone doing something with their body that I cannot control? That my faith and current law tells me I should not control? It does not matter; your lack of verbal commitment to the cause makes you a murderer. You are in alignment with a political party who believes in murder. And then they let their Facebook friends gang up on you. These people start calling you everything short of nigger, and you say to yourself, I gotta see who this nutcases are. When you see the profiles of their friends, they do not look like the America you know; they don’t act like the America you want. Then you go though their pages, and you see the race comments about Obama, or Black Lives Matter, or the jokes—and there are so many jokes– which range from chicken eating, to being monkeys, to bad grammar Mexicans…and then it gets to the guns and the flag and eliminating all of those who don’t fit their bill of Americans.
And I say to myself; so now we have it. In my compromise posts—and as I look back over the years, they all were compromises to ease the peace– I have told you that as a black man who can trace my roots to slavery, I have a hard time with the prospect that the only way to stop abortion is to enslave the pregnant women. I have a hard time with your candidate that believes you change immigration laws and do not believe in the ability of others because of the color of their skin. I have a hard time with a man who doesn’t disavow the Klan, and there is strong evidence that his father was aligned with the KKK. I have a hard time with a man who puts out falsehoods that 87% of whites murdered are because of black men, when the numbers are almost inverse with white on white murder. I have a history of understanding what it is like to see blacks being called rapists and murderers, and I have a hard time with a man who labels others as such. We haven’t even gotten to his lack of vision, his lack of civility and his absence of details to make this a constructive conversation. When I throw out facts, or analysis, or reason, or the decency card, you fall asleep. But why do I need explain myself to you? There is nothing sacred about my beliefs as to yours…why do I owe you an explanation in the first place? You don’t back down, you don’t see it any other way, you don’t apologize. I am wasting intellectual arguments on you. I have born my soul to get you to understand to hear you only say ‘eh, sounds like a cop out;’ ‘you aren’t doing enough;’ ‘that still doesn’t cut it..’ Why do you feel so superior, even with an inferior argument, time after time? Then it hits me, you cannot ever be inferior to me, and religion is just a part of it.
I have to quit you. You are a manager of people; you are a counselor; you are a teacher; you are an adviser, you are a coach. You work with people all the time; that is your job. Life must be pretty lonely for you; all of these people you meet are liars, idolaters, sinners. You are not casting any stones; you are just reading it how it is. I have no idea how you can work with people that while you are looking at them, secretly you wish you could banish them, stone them, or send them to hell yourself. How can you possibly help someone to which you cannot understand them, or you believe that their very existence is an abomination? You are living the ultimate lie.
You didn’t like MLK, because he was a liberal and a ‘racist’, but you sure use him to your advantage when it comes to dismantling affirmative polices for underserved….’what about the content of one’s character?’ ‘What about giving someone an opportunity based on their ability?’ you say. But when it needs to be put into practice, in your camp, you stare at the ground. Was Sarah Palin among the best or the brightest? Is Trump? You call yourself a Christian and you can understand what it was like to be Moses, but you cannot understand what it is like to be black in America (particularly funny because you have not made the logical leap that Moses was black). You have been silent about police brutality, yet when cops get murdered, you tell the world that we need to heal and stick together; your friends yell that blacks are being evil, and you say nothing. You distort the facts that tell us police are of all stripes, their killings in the line of duty are the lowest they have been in almost 50 years, and nearly 3/4ths of those killings are by white offenders. When you are faced with a rebuttable truth, you are Judas.
Your guy is not enough of a problem to see that he is presents a big issue to me, and yet I am the liar. A lie is to spread a falsehood; the notion that you can accuse one candidate as the liar while being in bed with a person who has lied about everything astounds me.

If I vote for Hillary, I won’t be doing it to start a revolution; I will be doing it to stop one from Trump.
But when I unfriend you next week, you won’t be hearing it.
Goodbye Melania.

Countless of you are watching a cavalcade of condolences being shared about ESPN Sport Anchor Stuart Scott today, and are wondering why is his situation so tragic, other than the obvious nature of his death. One social media friend posted ‘I didn’t know who he was, I guess I should watch ESPN more to relate to men, LOL’. I have to admit, the LOL part pissed me off, and I wanted to understand why I was so upset with her.
I searched my own emotions, and came to the conclusion that there were three reasons why the level of support has been so high today for Stuart Scott.
Born in 1965, he is among the oldest Generation X black men, and those of us who are within a decade plus or minus him have a strong familiarity with his historical experiences. What most of you Gen Y’ers, Millennials and Gen Z kids don’t know and cannot feel is that we know a lot about history; we are the last generation that stayed home and watched reruns of 1930 movies like Shirley Temple and The Three Stooges, and we played outside, made things, and listened to The Bee Gees, The Spinners, Duran Duran, and Ice Cube. We remember writing, we remember when there were no personal computers—and we recall when they were introduced. We still remember pay phones and black and white TVs, we remember when racism was still calling you a nigger and not the “N” word, when South Africa was segregated and so was our political ceiling.
Now, throw in someone who was fine with being cool enough to tell the suits that he wasn’t going to change his jargon for fear of scaring off middle America, someone who was fine with being a black Greek, someone who could drop hip hop references mid segment as freely as We-Shall-Overcome-Negro speak, and it was like us being on TV. We were sure he had some baggage as we all do, we knew was that he was divorced. Even with this rather typical piece of life’s trials, never did you hear of it. He was that cat on TV with glasses AND an earring. And really, who these days speaks for us about non essential topics? Steve Harvey? Charles Barkley? What may be missing from the narrative is that sport is essential—not just to men, but to the progression of an aging republic with an insatiable appetite for blood. When the mundane crossed over into societal whispers, we would dial in to find out what Stu would say. He was brilliant enough to allow for other people not in the club to be able to relate to him. He made them feel welcome, and his idioms were a nod to his culture, while being an introduction for others. And he opened this genre of keeping it real/keeping it classy for the rest of us; it allowed white guys to be sillier and more free in their delivery, and it allowed for us to have more blacks on TV. He opened the door for more copycats, and he was fine with it.
In his acceptance speech for the ESPN Jimmy Valvano Perserverance Award, Scott told the world that he occasionally called his sister just to cry. He told everyone how much he hurt, and gave a physical description of the steps he took to stay alive. He was open, and honest. His vulnerability was further evident when he said these last words on stage to the audience: “have a great rest of your night and have a great rest of your life.”
He was in our age demo, and that always made us realize our own mortality. We all know people who have died, but we usually expect those people on TV to live ripe old ages; certainly they have some ‘Magic Johnson’ secret lab hookup to manage their illnesses. Death at 49 is just criminal, and yet, a dozen of my social media friends have made that journey earlier than that. We also see this illustrated dynamically, as we see this man decay and wither of in front of us. We see so much crap on TV, we become jaded to truth; but death has a way of separating the real from the Khardashian, leading the path back to our own longevity or lack thereof. At least a dozen of you social media friends have experienced cancer in the last 2 years; about half a dozen more have died. It is a nasty, evil disease that takes healthy people and wrecks their bodies while in many instances, allowing their minds to have full consciousness.
Being a father of two girls, we put ourselves in his situation, a man with no other reason to live than for his children–and knowing that this man and his girls will miss the expected treasures of existence: graduation, fights over dates, adulthood and everything associated with it; another Christmas. At the end of it all, just coming from a holiday season, we wonder how it felt to know that it was his last and to recognize that they all knew it. When he died, it was like part of us did too. You don’t need to be a sports fan to realize the loss; you simply need to be human.
Here is the disingenuous part of it, his sports celebrity; there are at least two worlds in American sport; and Scott introduced America to the quiet world two decades ago. Yet, there is no reason for the separation other than the bigotry of America. For the sake of argument we will talk about the collisions with the English speaking space of the major sports; Baseball, Basketball, Football (and if you had to twist my arm I’d throw in Hockey, and if you’d break my legs I’d say Soccer). Add in their collegiate counterparts, and toss in Golf, Tennis, and Olympics to round it out, and there are a myriad of avenues to which women and minority men should be welcome in today’s modern sport. I am giving NASCAR, fishing, hunting, billiards, gambling, and bowling to the rednecks, X-games to the stoners; equestrian and all things cerebral to the snobs . Print media, social media, radio talk shows, TV Sportscasting, play by play, have thousands of working positions, hundreds at front line presence. With the maturation of the 24 hour sports cycle, these avenues have not produced that diversity kaleidoscope black people expected. Sure, there are a lot of black men (and some women) on those themed sports to which they have played–America likes to talk to a past hero/heroine–but these folk are only around as long as the season. Moreover, they tend to be flanked by people who have not been sports professionals, almost as if they need someone to do the real work while they shuck and jive their way through segments. BUT, if it weren’t for the fill ins, virtually no blacks and women would be around at all.
The 15 shows on three local radio sports networks in my LIBERAL BAY AREA have two black male co-hosts; one show has two white male co-hosts and the other has one white male co-host and another chime-in guy. The total number of talk show hosts in total on these shows number about 40.
Of the half dozen nationally syndicated shows run on these networks, none of them have blacks; yet there are about 10 on air personalities for these shows. The just-in-time TV sports specific pre-game/post-game shows fare much better both locally and nationally, averaging about 15-20% for baseball and as high as 50% in football and basketball.
Sport in America is the one area that allows for the most level playing field; it is about performance at the purest level. Politics and bigotry are existent, but one’s ability to have a 42” vertical, ability to hit a 32 foot shot, or run a 4.4 40 represents qualified measurements. The 90 mph fastball doesn’t care what school you attended, or what you think about abortion. Sport is also the gateway where people from divergent backgrounds coalesce to commune, celebrate, commiserate and complain. A rich doctor from the suburbs can sit next to an inner city janitor and share the same exuberance for a player or team. This meeting place is where friendships are made during halftime.. “You know, Leroy isn’t a bad guy…..Ted is alright….”
But sports talk is not about the issue of communicating who, what, when, where, and why the on the field actions went the way they did. Sports talk is not about the numbers and records and championship implications. Sports talk is not about educating the population. Sports talk is only about white men talking to other white men about black men. These are the modern day gigs for the male society gossip page. These ‘Dr. Lauras’ rant about the athlete’s ethics or lack thereof, their personality flaws, their intellect, their finances, and their performances off the field.
Unlike the on-the-field requirements of excellence, the other written, social, auditory, or visual media have no real standards. And it shows. Most of these hosts show no real talent to capture the imagination, show fairness in reporting, or add a new insight in the psyche of the organization of the athlete. They end up being highly paid automatons and tend to regurgitate similar themes to each other, or extend themselves to stand out by pushing the limits with gimmicky rudeness and matter-o-fact analysis. There is a lot of staying power in being a pompous ass, and there is safety in castigating a brash black wide receiver in Ocho-Cinco for abusing his wife, but no security in calling out a white Superbowl winning quarterback in Roethlisberger for being accused of raping under age women.
Most of all, they talk about the athlete’s ability to conform and fit in with their standards of societal interaction. Many of these hosts have had no interaction with non-white people until after college, and almost none of them were reared in inner city and/or impoverished areas that included the guys. They simply don’t understand them. When these athletes exercise community leadership and publicly complain about the realities of societal ills, typically these non black hosts are much harsher in their analysis of the black athlete. Scott not only gave us a fair shot, he provided a visual and oratorical alternative.
There is no alternative to wit; we have no new person on the inside who can tell it like it is; there is no go to person to get the scoop from the athlete in his words; there is no more cool; there is no one dropping the funny. ESPN is a machine, but the machine is fed on personality driver entertaining show hosts; they are the Saturday Night Live of Sports talk. And like SNL, when a superstar is gone, all you’re left with is a bunch of no names straining themselves to bring the funny.

I miss him terribly, already.

I was inspired to write tonight because some minutes ago, a ‘facebook’ feed appeared on my page.  I hope you like my little story.

Last month, the one term Mayor lost a re-election bid. Insult.  The Mayor is as much as $125k in debt. Injury.  She ain’t alone.  There are at least 3 more with 5 figure bills.

Why do they owe so much?  Is the ante up required to match the special interests making the race to hard to run?

That is a blogable argument that speaks to several issues; the issue tonight is a problem of the candidate and not the process.

Many an advisor charges too much; I have seen a lot of people who were unqualified to fill my shoes make a ton of money from candidates.  They don’t know the community, they don’t have a plan, they don’t know how to communicate, but people pay them because they have a brand name.  Election night, I saw one guy walk away with two hundred thousand after giving his candidates no vision, and even less support.  Trickery at its finest.  It’s horrible to be an exhausted candidate and trust in an advisor, only to find out that person didn’t give the effort AND took your money.  In a washed society, even minorities tend to think that the white man’s ice is colder….

In this atypical weather pattern that started in November, when it rains it pours.  August deserts are December flood zones.

A scorpion is freezing on the banks of a disappearing hillside.  The rains are closing in, and in minutes, there will be no more higher ground to climb.  No where to run, the scorpion began to panic.  Certain loss was eminent.

Meanwhile, a frog was basking in the new lake like it was Christmas morning and New Years’ Eve all at the same time.  He swam past the scorpion several times but paid him no never mind until he heard the claws snapping towards him.

“Help me!” The scorpion yelled to the frog.

“Wha” the frog croaked back.  “You’re a scorpion!”

“So, so what!  I am going to drown; you have to help me, a fellow creature.”

“If I help you, you’re going to hurt me,” the frog countered.  “So sorry, but helping you is a sacrifice I can’t make for free, the cost is too great, and I’m not sure if you deserve my help…”

“Hey, here’s my promise: you help me get to the other side of the water, and I promise to pay you back when you need it….please trust me.”

The frog thought about it, figured it was the right thing to do, and maybe he could establish a new relationship in the process.  ‘It is good to have friends in high places’, he thought.

“Get on my back scorpion.”

The scorpion complied quickly, and as soon as he was settled, the shore was gone. Minutes later, in the middle of the stream, there was no turning back. In the pouring rain, the frog forged their way to the other side of the water, when all of a sudden “OW, hey that hurt!  Why did you stab me in the back you scorpion?  Now we both are going to drown!”

“Sorry frog, it’s my nature” was it’s only reply.

In some capacity, I helped several people in the last election. I was the advisor, understanding and making policy, introducing them to many of you, providing strategy, sitting in for them in meetings and forums, doing research and writing position papers.  Hearing them bitch and moan about life, lack of support, and the ignorance of the electorate. Most were in various stages of the process; new and energized, older and principled, and some in between.  But 3 of them were crooks, and fortunately I dropped two of them off my back in transit.

However, the third politico stabbed me in the back after making it to the other shore.

In evaluating whether or not I decide to help someone, I usually try to assume what they could do for most people, the greater good.  You cannot seek to find the nun or the scout in this process; incremental change is the best that we can realistically expect, but we can always hope for that moral change agent.  Fortunately for us, they do exist you just have to find them, and it gets real old turning over a lot of stones for them, and most of us give up and settle for 4^th best.  Fortunately for Oakland, these crooks I tried to help did not win.  If we do have crooks in office this session, it’s not because of me.

In my case, crook #3 had the temerity to tell me that they couldn’t pay me our contracted agreement; not $2000..not $20.  The problem is, unless you don’t give a frying fig what I think, or you’re a dolt, or you’re so self absorbed as not to care, you probably shouldn’t post pictures of a 5-star vacation at the same time crying broke.

Should I expose the fiend?  Should I be saying to myself, ‘see you in court when you get back baby…?’

God, I need to put a harness on my back next time……..

http://www.businessinsider.com/best-private-high-schools-america-2014-11?op=1

The last time I checked Head Royce was higher and CPS was a lot lower.
What does this mean that so many schools are located in Oakland, SF and SJ? It seems that rising tides would lift all boats. In other words, the super capable kids and quality faculty that didn’t make it into these elite schools and are forced to attend the next level schools in Oakland should be raising the bar on these other schools…is that happening?

What does this mean to black families?

Are you afraid of sending your boys out on prom night?

http://www.yourblackworld.net/school-administrator%E2%80%99s-tweet-about-the-%E2%80%9Cnightmare%E2%80%9D-of-white-girls-dating-black-boys-sparks-protests/

http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2014/11/18/arts-not-dead-15-new-projects-and-spaces-in-the-bay-area/

50% of the people in America live within 50 miles from where they grew up; I live one freeway exit from where I was born.  There is a certain sense of pride that locals have that newcomers don’t understand; it isn’t that you aren’t equal, it isn’t that you can’t lead; it isn’t that you couldn’t possibly care as much for my city as I do.  It’s three things: it is what I know from my very inception to the world and the basis for my identity, I didn’t come here to find something that was missing elsewhere for me, and I am not using my entry point in this space as a jumping off to somewhere else.  That can be said for half of the citizens all around this country.

Now how does it differ in the city; in this city of Oakland?  For reasons that cannot fully be explained in this post, much of the differentiation is the difference of Oakland on the national landscape.  SF ran out all its black people; SJ never really had any.  Of the 6 cities west of the Mississippi that have the 3 major sports teams, for now, Oakland is the only city on the west coast that can make that boast.  There are so many firsts here; the terminus for the Transcontinental Railroad, the Black Panthers, Amelia Earhart departing for the Pacific Ocean.  This is not a sister city to San Francisco; it is the step-sister middle child to San Jose and San Francisco.  Throw in the highest crime rates, devastating fires, earthquakes, military closures, school takeovers, and the fall of MC Hammer, and you have the makings of the armpit of the Bay Area.  But as bad as Oakland has stunk it up, it has been the base of janitors who come from the basement of the down trodden to spruce–no Oak it up.  At a time when the perception was that Oakland was a city filled with a bunch of minorities and deviants not worth saving , we always had a comeback.

Now, Oakland is becoming the place-to-be, slowly but surely, and the people who have paved the way are growing increasingly dispassionate about the folks who will be reaping those benefits.  Oakland is on the edge of its own Pygmalion, and we long timers want to make sure that we don’t miss the ball at the expense of an Alamedan via San Franciscan via Ivy League grad via Midwest transplant.  At the same time, nothing is better than watching your kids achieve greatness and prepare themselves to be responsible, capable adults.

At the national level, it is rare to get someone who represents this persona; the stage is just too big.  Presidents don’t represent the people; neither do Senators.  It is common to get people in the House of Representatives who do match the pulse of the constituency; but the Mayor should be the people.

With that, Libby Schaaf is my 2^nd choice for mayor.

There is something to be said for going through the traditional channels, and paying your dues.  There is something to be said for having Oakland leadership come out and support you.  If we want to address the argument about being there, working for Oakland at every level, and understanding how to govern, Schaaf is a front runner.

The first thing that turned heads in 2010 when she joined the City Council is that she began her tenure being objective and challenging her old boss in Ignacio De La Fuente over issues of fairness and governance.  Schaaf blew everyone away, because we figured that it would be business as usual, and she would be a rubber stamp to the De la Fuente-Perata machine.  She wasn’t.

Schaaf also represents a decidedly different direction in Oakland; the younger demographic that is weighing the balance between urban life, career development, and family obligation.  We haven’t seen a working woman; hell, a working person ever have to juggle that at the highest levels in Oakland—yes Quan has kids, but never a career, and a successful husband—gotta love the energy and the sense of urgency from a candidate that understands the people.

Schaaf is very clear in articulating her position: what she thinks, what she has done, what she will do.  http://libbyformayor.com/issues/government.pdf  What a novel notion; tell the people what you would like to do.  Again, we see Schaaf taking the time to treat the citizens as adults, and be specific about what her goal are.

Challenge:  Schaaf is going to need to do some fence mending.  Seriously.  Having a history in working for the first Latino City Council member as his Chief of Staff, working for the Port of Oakland, Governor Brown, former California State Senate leader Don Perata, one gets to be a political animal.  You know the community like no other, you cut deals with other councilmembers, you know the city at a fundamentally different level than your administrative counterparts.  Growing up in Oakland during the time that she and I did in the 70’s and 80’s, that was a magical time of integrated leadership, integrated neighborhoods.  Unlike today, if you were white in Oakland in 1980, you were hear BECAUSE of the diversity that was enriched largely through its black population; not because Oakland was cheaper than San Francisco, not because you want to create a viable, competing gay outpost to SF, not because you want your ethnicity to take over since it is your turn.  Yet, only one black group and no Hispanic community based groups endorsed her campaign in a major way.  For a lifelong resident, she should have many, many significant relationships with these groups.  If Schaaf had shown her real strengths as I know them and made an early attempt to engage these constituencies, this race wouldn’t even be close.

Finally, one thing that Schaaf is…..is HUNGRY.  You can tell that this is where she started but not where she plans to end; if she is seeking higher office—and she will—the one saving grace in all of that is she is prepared to perform at a high level, if for no other reason than to ensure she gets promoted.  Again, I like someone who understands the need to produce.

50% of the people in America live within 50 miles from where they grew up; I live one freeway exit from where I was born.  There is a certain sense of pride that locals have that newcomers don’t understand; it isn’t that you aren’t equal, it isn’t that you can’t lead; it isn’t that you couldn’t possibly care as much for my city as I do.  It’s three things: it is what I know from my very inception to the world and the basis for my identity, I didn’t come here to find something that was missing elsewhere for me, and I am not using my entry point in this space as a jumping off to somewhere else.  That can be said for half of the citizens all around this country.

Now how does it differ in the city; in this city of Oakland?  For reasons that cannot fully be explained in this post, much of the differentiation is the difference of Oakland on the national landscape.  SF ran out all its black people; SJ never really had any.  Of the 6 cities west of the Mississippi that have the 3 major sports teams, for now, Oakland is the only city on the west coast that can make that boast.  There are so many firsts here; the terminus for the Transcontinental Railroad, the Black Panthers, Amelia Earhart departing for the Pacific Ocean.  This is not a sister city to San Francisco; it is the step-sister middle child to San Jose and San Francisco.  Throw in the highest crime rates, devastating fires, earthquakes, military closures, school takeovers, and the fall of MC Hammer, and you have the makings of the armpit of the Bay Area.  But as bad as Oakland has stunk it up, it has been the base of janitors who come from the basement of the down trodden to spruce–no Oak it up.  At a time when the perception was that Oakland was a city filled with a bunch of minorities and deviants not worth saving , we always had a comeback.

Now, Oakland is becoming the place-to-be, slowly but surely, and the people who have paved the way are growing increasingly dispassionate about the folks who will be reaping those benefits.  Oakland is on the edge of its own Pygmalion, and we long timers want to make sure that we don’t miss the ball at the expense of an Alamedan via San Franciscan via Ivy League grad via Midwest transplant.  At the same time, nothing is better than watching your kids achieve greatness and prepare themselves to be responsible, capable adults.

At the national level, it is rare to get someone who represents this persona; the stage is just too big.  Presidents don’t represent the people; neither do Senators.  It is common to get people in the House of Representatives who do match the pulse of the constituency; but the Mayor should be the people.

With that, Libby Schaaf is my 2^nd choice for mayor.

There is something to be said for going through the traditional channels, and paying your dues.  There is something to be said for having Oakland leadership come out and support you.  If we want to address the argument about being there, working for Oakland at every level, and understanding how to govern, Schaaf is a front runner.

The first thing that turned heads in 2010 when she joined the City Council is that she began her tenure being objective and challenging her old boss in Ignacio De La Fuente over issues of fairness and governance.  Schaaf blew everyone away, because we figured that it would be business as usual, and she would be a rubber stamp to the De la Fuente-Perata machine.  She wasn’t.

Schaaf also represents a decidedly different direction in Oakland; the younger demographic that is weighing the balance between urban life, career development, and family obligation.  We haven’t seen a working woman; hell, a working person ever have to juggle that at the highest levels in Oakland—yes Quan has kids, but never a career, and a successful husband—gotta love the energy and the sense of urgency from a candidate that understands the people.

Schaaf is very clear in articulating her position: what she thinks, what she has done, what she will do.  http://libbyformayor.com/issues/government.pdf  What a novel notion; tell the people what you would like to do.  Again, we see Schaaf taking the time to treat the citizens as adults, and be specific about what her goal are.

Challenge:  Schaaf is going to need to do some fence mending.  Seriously.  Having a history in working for the first Latino City Council member as his Chief of Staff, working for the Port of Oakland, Governor Brown, former California State Senate leader Don Perata, one gets to be a political animal.  You know the community like no other, you cut deals with other councilmembers, you know the city at a fundamentally different level than your administrative counterparts.  Growing up in Oakland during the time that she and I did in the 70’s and 80’s, that was a magical time of integrated leadership, integrated neighborhoods.  Unlike today, if you were white in Oakland in 1980, you were hear BECAUSE of the diversity that was enriched largely through its black population; not because Oakland was cheaper than San Francisco, not because you want to create a viable, competing gay outpost to SF, not because you want your ethnicity to take over since it is your turn.  Yet, only one black group and no Hispanic community based groups endorsed her campaign in a major way.  For a lifelong resident, she should have many, many significant relationships with these groups.  If Schaaf had shown her real strengths as I know them and made an early attempt to engage these constituencies, this race wouldn’t even be close.

Finally, one thing that Schaaf is…..is HUNGRY.  You can tell that this is where she started but not where she plans to end; if she is seeking higher office—and she will—the one saving grace in all of that is she is prepared to perform at a high level, if for no other reason than to ensure she gets promoted.  Again, I like someone who understands the need to produce.

There is something beautiful about being in the most integrated community in America.  In some ways, it represents the best of what our country has to offer.  Hang out in front of Lake Merritt on a weekend and you’ll see hundreds of people enjoying themselves.

It doesn’t mean that everyone is some hyper mixed amalgam of each other; it does mean that its pretty difficult to go for a long distance and not find people from different backgrounds, living in the same environment.  It also suggests that your family, your friends, your work associates, and your places of community are likely to be ethnically from all over the place.

The more you are involved with other people, the more likely you are to make decisions based on the content of the character and less on the perceptions of others.  That’s because it will be harder to find individuals to place into a stereotypical box.  There are so many places in this country; heck, in this Bay Area, that you are more likely to catch Ebola than you are to catch a brotha.  There is something very calming about walking around and people not being surprised to see one of ‘you’ present.

Yet, there is an ugly side to diversity of this sort: it is the certainty of pissing someone off who is different from you.  It can be the saying of an outdated phrase, the introduction of a newcomer who doesn’t recognize the history or contributions of the people already there, the alienation of choice (like having a playdate or birthday party for your child and not inviting the only ‘other’ kid in class), or exercising your particular beliefs that are in direct conflict with someone else’s.  In politics, it is the ignoring of a particular group, and it is the inclusion of a group when they want to be left out.

In politics, if you hold a press conference and some ‘ism’ isn’t there, they are going to call you out for not welcoming them.  If you challenge someone from that same ism, someone is going to call you a bigot or a racist.  Unlike a monolithic, homogenous group—the great state of Vermont, the national Republican Party, the Nation of Islam—you can be insulated and survive if you make a mistake about an outsider, because the group doesn’t have the same visceral concern as the entity being singled out.  But try that in Oakland, and you are vilified.

What you do after you make the conflict occur is your measure of character in a pluralistic society.  If you chose to make the conflict happen on purpose, because you have the need to stir up change, it is not going to go well for you.  Yet there are times when you find out things that you cannot ignore any longer, and you have a moral obligation to address that fight, even if it costs you.  That is the sign of leadership.

With that, I am supporting Courtney Ruby as my 3^rd choice for Mayor.

Courtney gets the nod for a variety of reasons; she understands the issues, she has demonstrated an ability to work in a complex environment, she has a vision for funding her administration issues.  If for nothing else, she took the elected position of City Auditor seriously.  In a decidedly union controlled city government, she went after the elephant hiding in the corner of the room under a lampshade and turned on the light.  She has discovered millions of dollars being wasted in city government.  Ruby actually ran the numbers to find cost savings, $9 million in public works, $2.5 million in parking fees, $3 million in payroll: http://www.courtneyruby.com/do-the-math-oakland/, and has asked for whistleblowers to help expose mismanagement.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how you could be a candidate for Mayor and not try to find a comparative advantage in speaking to the numbers against a mayor that doesn’t understand numbers.  There were 20 Mayoral debates over the last 3 months, and very rarely was the issue of the actual financials of the city ever articulated by most of the top candidates.  Why?  Because the candidates never bothered to get the specifics from the city auditors office.  For all of the grandstanding the Mayor and other candidates have had, in the year head start these candidates had on Ruby by entering the race late, only Tuman went to her to ask about the city’s financials.

Far too often, much of the electeds take themselves and not the role of the position to heart.  Ruby practices what she preaches.  For years, she lived in a rough neighborhood in East Oakland; she joined local community based organizations, and as a single person, she adopted two biracial black boys, all without fanfare.

Challenge: the character she possesses in working behind the scenes, not tooting her own horn, and not defending herself when allegations of racism were levied against her has not served her well in the race for Mayor.  Her high road has been interpreted as soft or an admission of guilt.  Additionally, serving as the city’s accountant does not translate into serving as the city’s cheerleading chief officer.  Ruby needed to make her case to the community, and she needed to be out ahead of the pack; there simply may not be enough time for her to fully articulate herself, despite being elected twice in citywide elections as auditor.  Ruby showed her toughness by being the candidate with the most to lose in this race; if she loses, she’s out of office—unlike Libby Schaaf, would could conceivably run for City Council in the At-Large seat in the case of a Kaplan win for mayor (Kaplan would need to give up her seat prematurely, leaving the window for a special election), Ruby has no other place to go.  I admire someone who is willing to give up an easy incumbent win and take the chance to lead at a more visible level.