When I read about Oakland’s new Downtown Specific Plan, announced the other day by Sheng Thao, I thought “Super-great. Downtown definitely needs a re-do.”
The plan, in development for ten years, would “increase density and vibrancy in the city’s core” by building 29,000 new housing units, millions of square feet of commercial and industrial space, and inspiring “a renaissance of light industry” to a 1.45-square mile zone between Pill Hill and Jack London Square. The plan also includes art and dance zones, bike lanes, and greenways. Good news is so rare in Oakland these days that this announcement really lifted my spirits.
But then, midway into the story, I was jolted back to reality by this sentence: “After receiving feedback…that the proposals could be a gentrification plan, [planners] changed course, adding a focus on racial and economic justice…hiring an equity consultant, analyzing disparity data, and convening numerous focus groups with residents.”
And there you go. Never, in Oakland, let a good idea go without crippling and corrupting it with DEI politics.
I wonder who the negative “feedback” was from. No doubt the same meddlers who demand that people of color dominate the process, as they do with everything the city does, from hiring to transportation to parks to the school district. And how about that “equity consultant”? Maybe Carroll Fife has a friend who isn’t already on the city payroll.
Can you name a single city project that has ever been improved by including a “racial and economic justice” component? Let’s face it, these equity projects are nothing more than blatant payoffs to the City Council’s and Mayor’s woke allies. They see a chance to get their snouts into the public trough, and next thing you know, we have yet another secretive bureaucracy about which we know little to nothing, except that political grifters are being paid off and the public is getting ripped off.
Let’s be very clear on this point. Oakland is one of the most ethnically, racially diverse cities in the world. There can be no excuse for awarding preference to any particular group in city contracting or services. I mean, we don’t single out Jews, or Gays, or Indian-Americans for favoritism. The City Council may believe they can get away with these stunts politically, but on legal, moral and common sense grounds, they’re way out of line. Of course, until the voters send them a clear message that their racialized games will no longer be tolerated, they’ll continue to abuse their power and pretend that all they’re doing is listening to “the community.” But that “community” is nothing more than a badgering group of loud complainers, often backed by service unions, eager to personally profit, who take over meetings and demand that every program include money for “equity.” They have way too much power in Oakland, and if you want to know the root cause of why we’re in such dire straits, it’s because of these racialized extremists.
Let me offer but one example. Oakland has an official Oakland Department of Transportation (DOT) “Race and Equity” team. You might wonder what transportation has to do with race, and the answer is, Nothing. But then, everything in Oakland is racialized. As reported on Oakland’s official cable TV channel, KTOP, the DOT recently sponsored an event called “White Fragility: Why it’s so hard for whites to talk about racism.” (Really? They can’t fix pot holes but they have time for this nonsense.) Nikki Bas was there, of course. The event placed what they called “White racism” at the epicenter of Oakland’s problems. The speakers blamed Oakland’s problems on whiteness, which was ironic, since the audience seemed comprised of well-to-do White people.The keynote speaker, Robin DiAngelo, who is White, called White people “oppressive, oblivious, arrogant and ignorant,” even as she said she wished she were “less white.”
Does anyone reading this believe that White people are responsible for murder, theft and assaults in Oakland? Are White people to be blamed for drug-addled zombies who roam our streets? For shops shuttering, for home prices plunging, for Oakland’s latest budget deficit? But because the wokes have no answer at all for these city-destroying things, all they can do is blame their traditional enemy, White people. And self-hating White people eat it up, especially in the Hills.
Let’s get one thing straight about “gentrification.” It’s not a dirty word. If by “gentrification” is meant the improvement of entire neighborhoods, which has always been the norm for American cities, then I’m all in favor of it. Our woke government can continue its decades-long efforts to keep Oakland trashy, dilapidated, dangerous and politically racialized, as it is now. Or we can elect a new government that will restore Oakland to its historic destiny of being a great city and be truly inclusive of everyone. The choice, my friends, is ours, and we can begin by recalling both Pamela Price and the hapless Sheng Thao.
P.S. I am remiss in not thanking my readers enough for your continued interest. You’re truly the reason I write. If you didn’t let me know you like this blog, believe me, I’d retire it. I don’t write it 5 days a week for me, I write it for you. So thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Steve Heimoff