Soleil Ho was not a good restaurant critic. Take it from me—that was my field. She never captured the trust of readers the way her predecessor, Michael Bauer, did. Maybe that’s why she didn’t last long at the San Francisco Chronicle, where they now allow her to be a political columnist. She’s extremely woke. You can’t work for the Chronicle if you’re not. Her boss, editor-in-chief Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, was brought in by the Hearsts to push the paper to the left, because they were hemmorhaging subscriptions and ads, and the Hearsts figured that they could recapture the affections of progressive San Franciscans. It didn’t work, but the Hearsts, and Soleil Ho, haven’t got the memo.
Ho’s latest, from yesterday, is a full-throttled attack against Proposition 36, which she hates because it actually gets tough on criminals who are the constituency Ho is paid to defend. We’re all familiar with the criticisms of Prop 36 from progressives—it will increase incarceration, mainly impact Black and Brown communities, and so on--but Ho adds the interesting twist that Prop 36 will actually harm Asian-Americans. Ho presumably speaks with special authority on that topic, because she herself is of AAPI extraction.
The truth is, Asian-Americans are supportive of Prop 36. A recent L.A. Times poll found 53% support, 26% against and 21% undecided. Ho, to the contrary, says Prop 36 will “dismantle programs” designed to make AAPI communities safer, although she never bothers to tell us precisely which “programs” Prop 36 will “dismantle.” A close reading of Prop 36 does reveal that the measure could “reduce the amount the state must spend on certain services” in the areas of school truancy, dropout prevention and drug treatment. But I think we can correctly conclude that these “programs” have been utterly ineffective, and besides, progressive city governments, like Oakland’s, are pumping vast quantities of cash into dubious “anti-violence” programs that claim to do the same thing—with equally vapid results. It seems likely that the era of throwing tax dollars into “social equity” programs has ended. Such programs do not work as advertised, and may in fact do more harm than good, as when we end up with a Pamela Price and her get-out-of-jail policies.
Ho even goes as far as writing that “An increased focus on punishing individuals isn’t what many crime victims want.” That sentence must have caused her editor much discomfort. I can imagine the haggling that went on, with both of them eventually agreeing that the hedge word, “many,” would suffice to preserve Ho’s meaning, without making the Chronicle look like an outright liar. Yes, I suppose some crime victims don’t want their assailants punished. But most do. Wouldn’t you? I’ve been assaulted twice, and I want to see both my attackers in jail. Besides, it doesn’t really matter what crime victims “want.” They’re allowed to express their views at sentencing hearings, but the final decision is up to a judge, who is (or should be) interested in only one thing: Did the defendant break the law?
Ho, aware of the fact that most of her AAPI compatriots support Prop 36, finally is reduced to an absurdity: language difficulties prevent us from knowing the “real story” of how AAPI voters feel. In Ho’s universe, if there were better Asian-English translators, then we’d know how much our various AAPI communities oppose Prop 36. Well, I don’t buy that. That’s stupid and self-evidently wrong. Oakland’s AAPI communities are committed to recalling both Sheng Thao and Pamela Price and to passing Prop 36, all of which they know will make them safer.
Steve Heimoff