The Advocate

It's the unofficial slogan of San Leandro. Successive generations of local leaders have repeated it over and over in coffee shops, libraries, and city hall. We print it on banners and campaign mailers. It adorns our meeting rooms and street lights. It's seen as self-evident, a truth we hold without ever asking why, "a city where kindness matters." But does it? Whether we're looking at those sundown town times of the suburban wall, where crosses were burnt on Black family lawns and the police arrested gay men through entrapment, or the murder of Steven Taylor and citywide upheaval that followed during the pandemic years, San Leandro has continued to show that kindness is often the last thing on our minds. There are over 400 homeless people who live here. They're our neighbors, friends, and even family members. Yet, our Chamber of Commerce would have us send them to Oakland and Hayward or, better yet, book them a permanent stay at John George up the hill, if it

Come out this Monday, May 30, for a parent-led community-building event! We'll be at Halcyon Park from 5:00 to 7:30 PM. Food is potluck, and there'll be games, arts, as well as resources for SLUSD families. This is about celebrating our solidarity and building new relationships while eating some delicious food and having a good time. We hope to see y'all there!

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

This is reposted from the San Leandro High School's Social Justice Academy. Please come out on Sunday, April 18th to the San Leandro Marina Park (near the exercise equipment) to have a socially distanced celebration to honor the one year death anniversary of Steven Taylor and other victims of police terror. This event is brought to you by the youth of the Social Justice Academy and community organizers from Justice for Steven Taylor (J4ST). There will be music, booths, performers, and more! If you cannot make it, this event will also be live-streamed at tinyurl.com/HonorStevenTaylor. Save the date for Sunday, April 18th, @ 2:30 PM! Take note and take care.