I watched a superb documentary last night, “L.A:. A Queer History,” that showed the history of the gay rights movement in Los Angeles, stretching all the way back to the 1930s. For those of us committed to gay rights, it was painful to see the injustices of the past, but inspirational how far we’ve come, from the horrible entrapment of the 1940s-1970s to legal gay marriage today (and thank you to Gov. Newsom for that!).
I couldn’t help drawing comparisons between that gay movement and our struggle today against the oppressive wokeness here in Oakland. Like the gay community of old, we are confronted with a system of persecution that stifles the existence of citizens like you and me, who ask only for protection to live our lives in safety. We want to be free to openly walk the streets of our city without being assaulted, while they want to defund the police.
For many years, if you were working in the gay movement, you felt hopeless. The odds were so much against gaining acceptance that sometimes you wondered if it was worth the struggle. But in a matter of years, everything turned around. Mayor Gavin Newsom started marrying same-sex couples, and the sky didn’t fall. Eventually the Supreme Court recognized gay marriage, the military halted its dreadful “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, and gay people emerged as fully protected Americans (although we’re still under attack by the MAGA-DeSantis haters). Equality all happened so quickly—and that, too, reminds me of our current situation in Oakland.
Sometimes it seems like we’ll never be able to derail the woke train. But there’s change in the air. People are fed up with the enabling of criminals, fed up with racializing every aspect of life, fed up with being shamed by activists. This doesn’t mean we’re turning into rightwing extremists; it means that we’d like to see peace, cleanliness and order restored to our city. More and more voters are realizing that elections do have consequences. Oakland and Alameda County last November elected the most radical slate of extremists in history; we’re now seeing the results.
We’re heading into a long, hot summer, the time of year that traditionally is the most violent. Let’s see how the voters are feeling by Fall. Attitudes can change quickly and unpredictably, as we saw in the gay rights movement. The wokes will do everything in their power to prevent progress, but History has a funny way of upsetting everyone’s calculations.
Steve Heimoff