The Advocate

(Image credit: Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle .) The image above is of some random White goyishe dude spraying "Free Palestine" in graffiti, defacing a synagogue during Black Lives Matter protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The number of alleged progressives I've seen talking about this and missing the point about why defacing a synagogue is wrong is just fucking wild. But the number of my fellow Jews defending it!? Like, goyishe antisemitism is kinda expected, but the internalized antisemitism from antizionist Jews? Whew... Hard to tell if the perfect misunderstandings are intentional or genuinely ignorant. Like, there's disagreement about Israel's and Palestine's rights to exist - which are real problems! - and then there's a hate crime. Done by some random White dude gentile. We saw this same shit in May at Beth Israel in Los Angeles, where there were no flags. Indeed, that's exactly how we know its never been about the flags. Defacing synagogues for the ac

In 2005, our city council approved the implementation of a red light camera program over the concerns of residents and local leaders. The rationale seemed beneficial on its face – automated cameras to help catch people running red lights, improve traffic safety, and cut costs related to traffic enforcement. The program has been repeatedly extended, with frequent praise on its effectiveness from SLPD Chief Tudor, Mayor Cutter, and other city officials. The reality has been far different from what we were promised. To start with, San Leandro's red light cameras were installed at intersections with enough vehicle traffic to generate sufficient revenue to pay for their annual cost. They were *not* installed at the intersections that were the most dangerous. In fact, when one red light camera location was found not to generate enough citations, it was removed! This is a common problem with red light camera programs, not just in San Leandro, but across the country. You can watch a short

(Image credit: Banksy) In the midst of all the discussions taking place about the problems facing San Leandro in the here and now regarding racism and policing, I think it's important we take a step back to look at part of how that happened. Well, it was on purpose. See, San Leandro was, as far back as the early 1900's, a sundown town. Look through the entry for our city by Bay Area historian, James W. Loewen. His holistic work is available here . What is a sundown town, you ask? Sundown towns, occasionally known as sunset towns or gray towns, is an all-White municipality or neighborhood in the United States that practices a form of racial segregation by excluding non-Whites. This is usually accomplished via some combination of discriminatory laws, intimidation, and violence. As a result, entire sundown counties and sundown suburbs were also created by the same process. The term originally came from signs posted that demanded Black people, and sometimes other racial minority g

Latest draft. Beware: it gets dark in my head. These are my digressions: the pseudo-pop psychobabble of 22 year-old hipster chicks persuading collar-popped bros to trade in those polos and yolos and lokos for PBR mustachioed fixie apropo cutoff jorts made DIY for $88.99 at the cookie-cutter knock-off conveniently located 'round the corner from their gentrified ghetto-fab $4,000 per month apartment, complete with homeless cranks passed-out beneath window-barred taquerias serving those highwasted fashionistas (and their exposed underbuttcheeks) because this is cultural appropriation faster than you can say "National Geographic" These are my digressions: the flowetry of Jared Washington who the prison warden calls Tyrone Farraconvict he missed a stop & frisk but not the DWB down International Blvd so now he's got a nickel that turned into a dime for possession of long since legalized Mary Jane while Mr. Corporate So&So's bleach blonde spawn pleads affluenza f

( Credit: Gawker ) The SLPOA distributed a press release recently that was picked-up by several outlets. See https://www.ktvu.com/news/san-leandro-police-union-concerned-about-increase-in-violent-crimes. Let's break this down piece by piece. Where is SLPOA getting their stats from? Accordingly to city officials, such as city council member Benny Lee, SLPOA is getting their stats from https://cityprotect.com. If so, then we need to have an honest conversation about that website. All data it receives is taken from law enforcement's own reporting. It doesn't give aggregate numbers, but a data visualization. So SLPOA's numbers are coming from SLPD directly and not the website. In fact, those numbers are coming from data SLPD hasn't publicly disclosed because they don't match with what SLPD is supposed to report publicly. (See below.) This is concerning because SLPOA is not supposed to be using city resources for their own agenda and SLPD is not supposed to have two

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