The Advocate

There comes a moment when each of us must ask ourselves, am I an observer or am I a witness? An observer watches, passively, consuming events from the sidelines as if they were an isolated island. A witness is active and affirming, participating in the world as it exists to provide information in order to create understanding. I choose to be a witness. "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Bernard Ashcraft has been a drum major for social and economic justice for over 50 years. First, as a navy corpsman protesting racism in the military, then as a local leader in San Diego during the Civil Rights Movement before moving to the Bay Area in the mid-90s to continue his work building more diverse, equitable, and inclusive organizations across the socio-political spectrum. He has made extraordinary achievements tackling disparities in public/private employment contracts for BIPOC workers and virule...

Extra extra! A fantastic event is coming up, hosted here in San Leandro by my synagogue, Temple Beth Sholom! It's a combination of a Buy Nothing event and a voter registration drive. For those who may not know, Buy Nothing is a hyperlocal gifting project to promote sustainable and affordable sharing within communities. The voter registration drive is sponsored by Operation: Big Vote, from the Big Tent Collaboration, organized by our very own Bernard Ashcraft to help get more San Leandrans to the polls for this critical election year. Flyers and more detailed information are available below: Temple Beth Sholom October 23, 12 Noon to 3 PM 642 Dolores Avenue, San Leandro Items Will Include: Men’s and Women’s Clothing Baby and Kid’s Clothing Halloween Costumes Kid/Young Adult Books Toys and Games Kitchen Items Arts and Crafts Please bring bags to take your items home in. Able to volunteer or have questions? Email MollyinSF at gmail dot com. Refreshments for sale – bring cash. Voter r...

Elections are one of our biggest opportunities and voting is one of our most important tools to choose the kind of world we want to live in and the people who will represent our communities. Come join us for a voter registration and outreach rally! The event will feature prominent guest speakers from the community, as well as Congresswoman Barbara Lee. We will be tabling and passing out information on voting in the June 7th primary and gearing up for the November general election, as well as helping people register to vote at outside of the San Leandro main library. Event details: Saturday, May 28, 2022 11 AM to 1 PM PDT 300 Estudillo Ave San Leandro, CA 94577 Sign-up for the event in advance at https://www.mobilize.us/bl22/event/463120/?force_banner=true&share_context=event_details&share_medium=copy_link. Remember: “there's no such thing as a vote that doesn't matter.”  I hope to see y'all there! Take note and take care.

CRT "is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies." "The basic tenets of critical race theory, or CRT, emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, among others." "A good example is when, in the 1930s, government officials literally drew lines around areas deemed poor financial risks, often explicitly due to the racial composition of inhabitants. Banks subsequently refused to offer mortgages to Black people in those areas." In San Leandro, we saw that in its choice to be a segregated sundown town with virulently racist redlining practices whose effects exist even today. "Today, those same patterns of discrimination live on through facially race-blin...