The Advocate

Today was a frenetic flood of so many things to do, to say, to write, to read, and to hold that I literally dozed off in my chair with my laptop, cell, and headphones all right in the middle of listening to an important meeting. Today was a reminder that I only have so much time in a day and so many priorities I can tackle in it. Above all of those are my wife, my daughters, and our family together. Which is why it will be hard to step back, to take on less, to have to say no when I want to yell yes and jump right in. But when that happens, I have faith that there are so many other people in this community who have been and will continue to be there for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. I take comfort in knowing that we all cycle through different periods of life, from the vanguard to rearguard. For me, this is a period of quiet growth, of foundation building, and of preparation for the work still to come. I am taking my next steps to reach those next levels in my life. I can...

On Tuesday, January 18th, the San Leandro City Council will finally consider adopting a policy to end the sale of menthol cigarettes in the city. The meeting starts at 6:30 PM and the menthol cigarette ordinance is agenda item #12A, which you can find at https://sanleandro.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=907619&GUID=F5D283C4-1357-48C5-BDEB-525A681DA612. Here is the meeting agenda and the Zoom meeting link is https://zoom.us/j/506831637. You can view the draft ordinance at https://sanleandro.legistar.com/ViewReport.ashx?M=R&N=Text&GID=191&ID=4649781&GUID=6068FFC3-E264-443A-B5F2-D21F73E6EF6A&Title=Legislation+Text. There will be an opportunity for public comment, and speakers on this item will likely be given 1-2 minutes each to provide their comments. The Alameda County Tobacco Control Coalition has developed a participation packet with background information on this issue, as well as participation details. You can find that at https://docs.google.com/docum...

(Photo by San Diego Union-Tribune ) Content Warning: this post contains graphic discussions of bigotry and violence. Last month, a Woman of Color participating in our local Buy Nothing group was attacked in a textbook case of how social media fearmongering leads to real-world consequences. For those who don't know, Buy Nothing is a national organization made up of individual community chapters that serve as a place to share goods and services, from clothes to books, and yard work to housework, as well as almost anything else. I have included links to the full statements from the administrators of North San Leandro Buy Nothing below, but I want to directly share the series of events as reported by the victim: "On a porch pickup today (12/23) at 10:50am (to a house I have already been to) I was physically assaulted. My body is in pain and I can still feel burning where the man’s hands were wringing my arm. I was accused of stealing from the gifter’s porch which I explained to th...

(Some Birds Are Not Meant To Be Caged, By Ryger ) When I first started this series, my intention was to balance out the toxicity and bigotry of social media and the internet with words of wisdom. My goal was to put something positive and maybe even beautiful out there into the vast reaches of cyberspace. Now, as we begin our journey into 2022, I believe this will be my last entry in this series for a while as I refocus and reprioritize my endeavors. So, in honor of this particular ending and a simultaneous beginning, here's a quote I hope you love as much as I do. "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." — Albert Camus Here's to living in collective liberation! Take note and take care.

(Bell Hooks Unscripted, by Apanaki Temitayo) "Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power — not because they don’t see it, but because they see it and they don’t want it to exist." ― By bell hooks. Take note and take care.

(Artist and title unknown) "There is no real difference for users between a platform that has no policies against hate speech, incitement, and disinformation, and one which has such policies but does not enforce them." —V. Judah Khaykin. Take note and take care.

 *CONTENT NOTICE/TRIGGER WARNING: this post discussed racist police violence and contains links to images/videos of that content.* (“Stop Police Brutality” by Icy and Sot) On November 21, at around 11:10 AM, an unnamed SLPD officer tased an innocent and mentally ill member of our city's unsheltered community in another act of police brutality in our city. This happened within less than 30 seconds from when the officer first made contact with the victim. The officer was ostensibly responding to a complaint from a local business, the Downtown McDonald's, about an allegation of someone "acting crazy" and "throwing punches." However, no one was hurt. No property was destroyed. No one was armed. There was no reason or basis to assume the victim posed a danger to themselves or others. Even worse, despite assertions to the contrary by SLPD, the officer did not engage in deescalation or crisis intervention tactics. There is no evidence that the CATT program was call...