The Advocate

Some of you may have noticed today in San Leandro that along Parrot Street, between E. 14th and Hays, are some giant letters spelling out an important message: Black Lives Matter. This effort was undertaken by local residents, activists, and organizers in order to highlight the need for racial justice in our community. Indeed, many of our elected officials were spotted participating, glad-handing, taking photos, and canvassing. Whether for themselves or because they truly believe that Black lives matter is unclear. Because, see, in the days and weeks prior to this, they have seemed more interested in delaying, obfuscating, and actively preventing justice from being carried out in the murder of Steven Taylor. (And the assault of Emerald Black, and previous acts of murder and brutality against BIPOC residents by SLPD, and regular abuse against our homeless population, and local animals mistreated by our officers rather saved by trained animal control agents, but I digress). True, the cit...

(Credit: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection ) I'm one of many community activists here in San Leandro and I just put together this post to help address a lot of questions, confusion, and even frustration or anger people may have regarding the recent push to defund the SLPD, or the police in general. To start with, I hear you. In my city, a slim majority of our elected officials defied the calls from activists to delay the budget vote and review where budget allocations originally marked for SLPD would go. Instead, the mayor and a few city council members felt it was more important to just pass a budget than to do the harder work of revising the budget to help prevent further police violence. If you listen to the meeting (link here ) you can hear for yourself that this decision was solely made by 4 city council (including the mayor) members against the wishes of community members that participated in public comment, wrote letters, and have been advocating for justice against pol...

The coronavirus pandemic has done what generations of activism, reform, social justice, equity work, solidarity, dialogue, and diverse coalitions could not - have not done. It has upended the tea table . The cracks, crevices, faults, fissures, chasms, and precipices have been enlarged and inflamed. What we once thought was impossible - whether because of the status quo, the cost, the apathy, or whatever - has suddenly, profoundly, become not just possible, but imperative. Not just reachable, but downright doable. The shibboleths of our socio-political reality have been revealed to be little more than cobwebs and dust. Not even the death throes of an old system or its corpse. The detritus. In the past couple of weeks, I've seen more radical change implemented at an institutional level than in all my of my education and career. Some that bent the arc of history towards justice. Others designed purely to satisfy the avarice of hegemons. Regardless of what happens - or, actually, beca...

When I first heard they were making a new movie based on the Clown Prince of Crime, I was immediately repulsed. I thought that the well of Joker takes was dry, with the best vintages reserved by Ledger, Nicholson, and Hamill. It felt like another Spider-Man reboot circa Andrew Garfield. As the release date approached, I saw the varied reservations from my fellow social justice class members, as well as a few comic purists, mental health advocates, and Jared Leto stans. They ranged from issues with the problematic centering of White male suffering to the breaking of DC canon. For my part, I tried to ignore them. I figured I would see the movie when I saw it and didn't really care for it otherwise. Recently, a close friend invited me out to see the film. So, I went. (Spoiler alert.) What I saw was nothing less than a cinematic masterpiece that filled me with horror and dread. It was a great movie. It was a terrible movie. It was too real... It was way too fucking re...

(Credit: Zdzislaw Beksinski, Untitled, 1994) Slowly, very slowly, working on my 3rd book. Another collection of poetry that has somehow shoved my novella to the back of the queue. Here's a small, not-final-draft piece: fear shapes thought like whetstones sharpen knives and bars paint prisons and the edge of a cliff beckons as if it were a lover’s whispered gesture irrationally as dreaming it begins with a small pebble of anxiety cragged as an old face then lovingly polished to a fine smooth rounded goose-flesh-down dread and how that uncertainty creates a certainty of what i am worrying will happen as if reality were nightmare's despondent whim how powerless i am in my terror the irony is palpable that i can put pretzels to shame with the twists but not so strong as metal more like a spider's gossamer and just as creeping across my face i suspect with a bondsman’s surety cashing in my doubt like the zealotry believes with such despair as only lost hope could ever know ...

(Photo credit: Black Music Scholar ) I'm not Christian. I'm definitely not Black. I don't believe in Jesus; certainly not as the messiah or my personal lord and savior, at any rate. I can't exactly relate to the Black American experience on a personal level (other than in very limited circumstances). My upbringing was deeply segregated from the musicality and pathos of spirituals. That's why it's probably going to feel weird for  some  people that a White Jewish boy is a fan of spirituals. Yet, I love 'em  —  Take My Hand Precious Lord, His Eye Is on the Sparrow, Wade in the Water, Sing Low Sweet Chariot, Down By the Riverside, and so on. But there's something about those songs that just speaks to my heart, despite the lack of any substantive rationale. The field hollers, camptown verses, folkloric lyrics, subversive interpretations, and endlessly creative instrumentation. They've got sorrow, hope, laughter, weeping, joy, love, life, death,...

(By Banksy) Every day, I read and watch the news. My eyes bounce from MSNBC to Mother Jones, from Fox to Vox, from WaPo to HuffPo, from NYT to JDF, from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram to even fricking LinkedIn. The world is full of sad shit. People die. Lives are ruined. Monsters and villains run amok. Communities crumble from disparities in wealth, health, diversity, equity, equality, liberty, tolerance, justice, and peace as our planet literally cooks us all alive in a polluted mess. Every day, I read and watch the world, wondering what the hell is happening, feeling like the problems are too big for me to comprehend, let alone solve... So I tear my eyes away. I look at my family, look at my career, look at myself. I look away in fear, feeling powerless. I look away in shame, embarrassed that I am part of oppressive systems. I look away in exhaustion, expending so much energy merely to keep myself even. I look away and laugh, if only because I was never very good at crying. (H...