I was interviewed the other day by a reporter from Politico who’s working on an article on the Pamela Price recall. (The article hasn’t been published yet.) He was asking me why I support the recall. As I went through my mind for all the individual actions Price has taken that are so objectionable, I realized it really comes down to something that isn’t an action: it’s the messaging Price sends out that is the key the damage she causes.
What do I mean by messaging? All kids learn very quickly that certain things are allowed and encouraged, and certain things are not allowed. If you do things that aren’t allowed, you get spanked and punished. If you do things that are allowed and encouraged, you get rewarded. These messages can be subtle, but in a kid’s rapidly developing mind, they’re very real and clear, and kids adjust their behavior accordingly.
The Price message is that committing crime isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all (her message goes), if Blacks have been the victims for centuries of racism, Jim Crow, redlining, white power and police brutality, then it’s only natural they’d develop retaliatory techniques, to achieve equity and “fight the power” (in the words of rapper Public Enemy). Given that Black people have so little means at their disposal to fight the power, Black people have to seize other means of achieving equity, and if that means going outside the law, that’s perfectly acceptable. So when Pamela Price ran on campaign promises to “end mass incarceration,” to “evaluate unfair prosecutions,” and to “stop over-criminalizing our youth,” these words had portentous meaning to knowing ears. What Black youth heard was “Don’t worry, I’m not going to be tough on you babies. In fact, if you break the law, I’ll keep you out of jail.”
As this new message washed over Oakland and Alameda County, we’ve seen crime hit all-time highs. As the S.F. Chronicle reported yesterday, Oakland “continues to grapple with surging reported crime rates that were already higher than most other big cities. As of early July, Oakland’s homicide count was up by 80% compared with 2019 and reported assaults and robberies were up by about 40% and 20%, respectively. Property crime jumped too, particularly car-related crimes: Car break-ins were up by nearly 90%, while vehicle thefts had more than doubled.”
Analysts have struggled to explain this phenomenon, blaming it on the pandemic, with its resulting school closures, job losses, social distancing and economic collapse. Still, all other California cities experienced the same things, yet none of them comes close to Oakland’s explosion of violence. So there has to be another explanation.
This is where Price’s messaging comes in (and, of course, it was preceded by decades of preparatory messaging). If you’re a young kid, thriving on hip hop’s violent lyrics, raised by a baby mama, cutting school, and anxious to prove your manhood to your friends even as they’re anxious to prove theirs to you, then when Price’s message hits your developing brain, it injects powerful motivating fuel. You don’t have to obey the White man’s rules. They’ve been developed over centuries to perpetuate White supremacy and keep you down. The way to rise up is to squash the White man’s rules and live by your own code. And I, Madame D.A., will protect you.
I tried to express this to the Politico reporter during our phone interview, but I knew—having been a reporter myself—how difficult it can be for an interviewer to take in long, complicated answers. I could hear him typing furiously on his laptop, trying to keep up with me, so I slowed down and stopped speaking when I sensed he was lagging behind.
Pamela Price’s danger and threat comes from the messaging she communicates to the greater population—a message that certain elements within the Black and Brown communities are exempted from societal norms due to the racism they’ve experienced for 400 years or whatever. This is why too many Black kids and others believe it’s okay to ransack an Apple store, or to break into a car, or to smack an old Asian on the head and steal her purse: you’re not really committing a crime, you’re giving payback to the racist society that robbed you, your parents, grandparents and ancestors of dignity and opportunity. In that sense, you’re actually a hero.
For this malignant message to come from our county’s highest law enforcement officer, Pamela Price--well, one can hardly blame a ghetto kid from aspiring to be a criminal. “Pamela Price says it’s okay, and she’s the District Attorney!” Yes, she is—for the moment.
Steve Heimoff