I sent the following email yesterday to Dan Kalb, the Oakland City Council member who’s running for the State Senate.
“Dear Councilmember Kalb,
I hope your recent, horrible experience at UC Berkeley teaches you something about wokeism.
It’s called cancel culture — when people aren’t allowed to express their views. It’s a highlight (or lowlight) of Progressivism, especially in Oakland, where the likes of Cat Brooks, Carroll Fife and others will not tolerate dissenting views. Of course, the Right does that too, but it’s worse with the wokes.
I’m just pointing out what should be obvious to everyone: The kind of politics that is practiced by the Oakland City Council (and at UC Berkeley) is on the way out, as more and more people realize it’s just the Left’s version of MAGA.
Steve Heimoff
Oakland”
The “horrible experience at UC Berkeley” to which I referred occurred last month. Kalb had been scheduled to speak on climate change at an environmental class. “The day before the lecture,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle, “instructor Kurt Spreyer sent Kalb an email asking him not to come after students submitted a letter to protest the council member’s appearance.” That letter accused Kalb, who is Jewish and a supporter of Israel, of supporting “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” and spreading “pro-Israeli propaganda,” according to the Jewish News of Northern California, which first reported the story. Spreyer acceded to the students’ demand and cancelled Kalb’s appearance.
This is the classic definition of cancel culture, a phrase used for when people “who are deemed to have acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner are ostracized, boycotted, or shunned. This shunning may extend to social or professional circles…”.
As I wrote Kalb, the Right also indulges in cancel culture. But it’s much more venomous on the Left in Oakland and the Bay Area, which is a hotbed of progressivism and hence of the kind of censorship Kalb experienced.
Kalb has been a reliable progressive on the City Council for the past decade. Perhaps his most egregious moment occurred in June, 2021, when he supported Nikki Bas’s resolution to drastically defund the Oakland Police Department by $18 million. Intense negative reaction immediately followed, with Oaklanders aghast that the City Council would act so violently toward the police at a time when crime was exploding; that summer would witness Oakland’s bloodiest year ever, with 132 homicides. Kalb, caught in the glare of the criticism, could only respond lamely, “Yeah, well first of all, any, what might be considered reductions or modifications, those don’t kick in for several months,” as if the police cuts would be any less harmful in the Fall than they would have been in the Summer.
Which makes it all the more ironic that this leading voice of wokeism in Oakland has now been targeted by his own people. As my colleague, Tracy Livezey, who sent me the Chronicle article, observed, “They’re eating their own again.” This is what inevitably happens when attempted coups collapse, and their remnants try to blame each other for the failure.
I sincerely mean it when I say to Kalb that I hope this is a teaching moment for him. Kalb, perhaps newly chastened, now faces a choice: If he’s elected to the State Senate, will he change his spots and become more reasonable? Or will he continue down the same fruitless, dangerous crime-enabling path he trod while on the City Council? Here’s his email address, in case you want to let him know your thoughts. dkalb@oaklandca.gov
Steve Heimoff