I think it funny when white people that love to call others racist (so not to have the light shown on their own beliefs and actions) get called out for being racist. Happening right now in San Francisco. By SF standards Mayor London Breed is a moderate (that term moderate should be in quotes but I digress). Many of the progressives on the Board of Supervisor don't support her actions. Now these progressives are being called racist by the City's black leaders for not supporting Breed. Can't make this up.
(For the record I don't think there's anything racist here. It's normal SF politics and the Mayor happens to be black.)
Opposing SF Mayor London Breed? That’s ‘racist,’ black leaders say
A group of African American faith leaders, community organizers and civil rights activists gathered Monday to slam members of the Board of Supervisors for their repeated opposition to Mayor London Breed’s policies — casting their dissent as “racist politics” that hurt black people in San Francisco.
At a small news conference organized by the Rev. Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco NAACP, the group took aim at a nameless “clique” on the board that has sparred with the mayor over a handful of recent proposals, including expanding the number of people with mental illness who are compelled into treatment and closing the city’s juvenile hall, which both Breed and Brown oppose.
Brown declined to name any specific supervisor, but he did take aim at a recent proposal — submitted by Supervisor Gordon Mar — that would block any mayor from appointing candidates to the office they’re seeking within 90 days of an upcoming election for the position.
“We have an opportunity to stand up and stop this racist action,” said Dan Daniels, coastal area director of the California NAACP, who participated in the conference alongside other representatives of the NAACP and the San Francisco African American Chamber of Commerce.
Mar’s measure came in the wake of Breed’s controversial decision to appoint Suzy Loftus as interim district attorney to replace the outgoing George Gascón, just a few weeks before election day. Breed has taken heat from many who claim she tipped the scales of the election in favor of her preferred candidate.
Each of those measures, Brown said, “impacted in a greatest measure, a deeper sense, African Americans. We were saying that, as leaders, it’s time that those alliances (on the board) cease and desist, and make sure they are more than just proclaimers of progressive measures.”
He also excoriated the board for failing to seek advice from the black community on issues of importance to African Americans, which betrayed “an indifference to a particular race.”
But Mar took issue with the premise.
“The status quo has not worked for black and brown residents, and where the board has disagreed with the mayor, it's been to challenge that status quo and push our city to be and do better,” Mar said in a statement.
Some of the policies embraced by the supervisors, Brown said, have contributed to a yawning income disparity between African Americans and whites, forcing black people to flee the city in droves. And despite making up less than 5% of San Francisco’s population, black people constitute 35% of the 4,000 people health officials have identified as being homeless, drug addicted and psychotic. Opposing Breed, Brown said, was a tacit endorsement of policies that continue to degrade San Francisco’s black population.
Breed said she had no knowledge of, or input on, the news conference. But she agreed that the board has frequently failed to adequately involve African Americans when crafting policies that affect them. Breed is up for re-election in November, though she faces little opposition.
“Part of the frustration is that we’re tired of having people who don’t understand these experiences trying to push policies that are going to impact our community, as if they know what’s best for us,” Breed said. “They don’t even have enough respect for me and my own personal experiences to even have a conversation with me before they propose something that’s going to affect the African American community.”
Supervisor Shamann Walton — the only black member of the board — was indignant at the claims raised in the news conference, slamming the current leadership of the city’s NAACP chapter in a statement as “out of touch with the true needs of the black community in San Francisco today. The NAACP is a needed organization that should be the lead on black issues, but not under the current leadership.”
He charged the local chapter’s leadership with opposing initiatives to help black people, including the closure of juvenile hall. Walton, who spent time in juvenile hall as a youth, frames the institution as a pathway to incarceration. He’s been among the most vocal champions of shuttering it, advocating for services and counseling instead of incarceration.
“At a time where we have a black mayor, several black department heads and a black supervisor, you would think that we could put together an agenda that moves to make real change and help make San Francisco better for the few of us that remain,” Walton said.
“We need to call out the discrepancies that exist between ass-kissing versus fighting for real change.”
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Opposing-SF-Mayor-London-Breed-That-s-14521748.php
