Back in 1992, Sistah Souljah, a Black hip hop singer, said in an interview, “Why not have a week and kill white people?” Her remark met with widespread, immediate criticism that summer. Bill Clinton, the Governor of Arkansas, was then running for President, and he’d come under some criticism himself for various things. So, at a campaign event, he took on Sistah Souljah, comparing her to David Duke, the white supremacist. His remark went over well with white voters, and he went on to win the election by a wide margin over George H.W. Bush.
Ever since then, the term “Sistah Souljah moment” has come to mean “a politician’s calculated public repudiation of an extremist person, statement, group or position that is perceived to have some association with the politician's own party.” Gavin Newsom, who also is facing an election this November, had his own Sistah Souljah moment yesterday, when he announced (with Libby Schaaf by his side) his new program, Care Court.
The details are fuzzy, but probably the part of the plan that will receive the most attention and criticism will be its “centerpiece: a system of court-ordered mental health care for people suffering from psychosis who have lost their ability to care for themselves. It would bring them before a judge, who could place them in a mandated treatment plan that would include psychiatric treatment, medication and housing.” This means, in effect, that, for the first time, some mentally ill people on the streets—who often are homeless—will find themselves involved in the criminal justice system, with the possibility of forced incarceration.
Advocates for the homeless already are going ballistic. The ACLU, for example, came out swinging against Care Court. “We won’t solve homelessness, mental health, or substance abuse problems by locking people up and drugging them against their will,” the organization said. The Western Center on Law and Poverty similarly claimed, “Forcing people into temporary hospitalization will not help individuals move out of homelessness when there are not enough services or housing units to begin with.”
I’m calling this Newsom’s Sistah Souljah moment because it runs contrary to the popular notion—advanced chiefly by Republicans—that Newsom is some kind of out-of-control socialist progressive. The Governor is a liberal in most respects, but he’s never been a flaming wokester. His re-election this Fall is a near certainty, but in such a volatile political climate as the one we’re in—and with pro-Republican sentiment apparently mounting across the country—Newsom can never be 100% assured of victory. He reads the tea leaves as well as anyone, and is aware that voters have had it with crime and homelessness, and tend to blame him for not doing enough to end them. Newsom watched the San Francisco School Board recall and learned from it. He watched Eric Adams’ mayoral victory in New York City and learned from it. He watched the President of the United States denounce “defund the police” and learned from it. He and his top advisors must have realized, at some point, that Newsom needed to do something to distance himself from the Democratic Party’s woke wing—and how better than by threatening to lock up crazy homeless people?
I welcome the Governor’s move. For years, I’ve called for something similar. We can’t shy away from the forced detention of ranters, naked homeless people defecating on the streets and mumblers in rags talking to ghosts. That road leads to the dissolution of civil society. People—I mean ordinary people, like you and me—don’t like it, and want something done about it. The problem is that groups like the ACLU (which I support) and local pro-homeless advocates have always intimidated governments from truly doing anything about compelling these people into treatment. The advocates always stress that “forced treatment” doesn’t work but “voluntary compliance” does. Well, that may sound good, in theory, but too many crazy homeless people are not “voluntarily complying” with the law, and we should no longer permit them to roam our streets.
Care Court, like I said, is pretty fuzzy right now. The details are yet to be worked out. And despite Newsom’s implied threat, it’s not clear that the Courts—the real courts, not Newsom’s Care Court—will allow forced incarceration, with all its civil liberty implications. And, finally, the plan still must be approved by the Legislature. Still, Care Court is a good first move—and should help Newsom be re-elected by a large majority.
Steve Heimoff