Pamela Price told a local media outlet, SF Bay View (which calls itself the National Black Newspaper), “I ran for District Attorney of Alameda County in response to the startling racial disparities in our County with respect to adult and juvenile prosecutions.”
Any competent, conscientious journalist would have interrupted Price right there to note that, since the majority of crimes in Alameda County are committed by Black people, doesn’t it follow that there would be “racial disparities” in the number of criminal prosecutions? (See, for instance, here. The data is a little dated, but it shows that, while Black people accounted for 11.7% of the total population of Alameda County, they constituted 36.5% of arrestees.)
But this fact was ignored by the person who interviewed Price, JR Valrey, who describes him/herself as “The People’s Minister of Information,” an anachronistic, rather Ruritanian title from the discredited Communist and Black Panther glory days. Whenever I hear someone using that kind of wording (the way Price refers to herself as Minister of Justice), I realize we’re dealing with an unreconstructed revanchist who never matured beyond her 1970s-era “up against the wall” revenge fantasies. Frankly, Valrey and Price both are undeserving of any particular attention. But since Price currently has power, and Valrey is the kind of suckup we have way too many of in our local media, it’s worth dissecting his puff piece on “Madame D.A.”
Valrey gives his game away almost immediately, when he calls OPD “the biggest mafia in Oakland.” This isn’t journalism, it’s identity group smear, the kind we’d expect from Fox “News.” The interview is filled with startling misrepresentations that are almost humorous in their absurdity. For instance, when Valrey asks Price about her decision to reopen old cases of alleged police misconduct—cases Price’s predecessor dismissed as unprosecutable—Price stated that there have been two different kinds of public reaction:
1. “Some members of the community were very supportive of our decision.”
2. “Others were critical of which cases we chose to pursue and have demanded that we include more or particular cases.”
In other words, Alameda County’s 1.6 million residents either were “very supportive” of Price, or their only criticism was that Price isn’t reinvestigating even more police officers! There’s no hint here that many people (myself included) criticize Price for reopening these cases in the first place, a political stunt to deliver on a campaign promise. Each of the officers already has been thoroughly investigated; there was never enough evidence to charge them. But for Price, that’s not good enough. Police, in her view, have to be guilty of something. If they’re not found guilty, then something has gone wrong with the system. And Valrey—well, again, any competent, conscientious journalist would have stopped Price and pointed out, as I just wrote, that Price is relitigating old cases for her own political benefit. But I doubt if this even occurred to Valrey.
Nor did it occur to Valrey to ask Price for proof of her assertion that “most of the attacks against me appear to be racially motivated and organized by people who do not live or vote in Alameda County.” Another lie. I personally attended a big anti-Price rally, called by the friends and supporters of Jasper Wu, the 23-month old toddler who was murdered by Black hoodlums in Oakland. As far as I could tell without checking everybody’s I.D., the hundreds of people who attended and demanded Price’s recall were locals, mostly Asian-American, including civic leaders and clergymen. To impugn these right-minded citizens, the way Price did, by implying that they’re “racially motivated” is disgusting, and further evidence of her Trumpian tactic of smearing her political opponents to deflect the spotlight of guilt from herself. It’s also a sign of anti-AAPI bias, if you ask me. But the fact that, once again, “Minister of Information” Valrey did not contest any of her assertions is proof of his utter unfitness as a journalist.
A final instance of Valrey’s incompetence: Price said that “The loudest [anti-Price] voices in the media are not representative of our community.” Another lie and smear. I’m a loud anti-Price voice, I live in Oakland and have for 36 years, so if I’m not “representative of our community,” who is? Price seeks to disenfranchise me and people like me, because we oppose her racist policies. This is what she does: spread disinformation, and then depend on the credulity and intellectual vacuity of her interviewers to let her get away with it.
Steve Heimoff