Today’s Chronicle front pager—Oakland recovery faces perfect storm: Investors pull back amid concerns about affordability, safety—may shock readers in San Mateo and Concord. But for those of us living in Oakland, it’s merely the latest drumbeat of doom, in a city whose moorings are rotting away with each passing day.
For the Chronicle, Northern California’s biggest newspaper, to report on this news must be difficult, because the paper has been a staunch supporter of Oakland’s progressive government, and of its defund-the-police efforts, which together have brought havoc upon our city. But then, the Chronicle is merely one of the liberal media outlets that have consistently misled the people over the years.
Another is Oaklandside, the online outlet partly funded by Google. “Why does the leader of the Pamela Price recall have armed bodyguards? We investigated” is the headline on their latest rambling story, co-written by Darwin BondGraham, a progressive writer at the publication.
My first reaction was, why wouldn’t Brenda Grisham have bodyguards? I wish I had bodyguards, and Brenda—co-leader of the Recall—has a far more important and visible job than mine, and more enemies, too. She is particularly vulnerable to unhinged progressives who imagine they’re doing the Lord’s work. Price supporters include some truly thuggish types, and Brenda’s fears are eminently reasonable.
But Darwin considers himself a crusading investigative reporter in the Bernstein-Woodward style, and so he inflicts this 2,000-word diatribe on us and pretends it’s earthshattering news. It’s not. What it is, is another thinly-veiled mudslinging attack on the Price recall and its supporters.
Why does Darwin care that Brenda is defending herself from being attacked by some woke nutjob? This is Oakland, Darwin. Lots of bad people. Lots of guns. Lots of anger. Lots of egg-you-on encouragement from “leaders” like Price, Fife, Bas and Car Brooks, who insinuate that violence in their Holy War is justifiable. Brenda, who lost a son to gun violence, is entitled to protection, and you, Darwin, would be a better journalist if you turned your attention to Price’s criminal-aiding philosophy and stopped with your insinuations against good people.
Look, Price and her supporters, including Darwin, can defend her all they want. Price can continue to grant interviews to friendly publications, such as Mother Jones magazine, which published this smarmy swoon-fest about her. Price can continue to insist, as she always does, that she’s simply a “victim” of anti-Black woman haters who “spread misinformation to stoke people’s fears.” But perception is reality, as the old saying goes. People in Alameda County don’t believe Price or her martyrdom fantasy. Rather, they feel she’s hiding her real agenda, which is a revolutionary one to overthrow our existing institutions, including law enforcement and free enterprise, and replace it with an authoritarian, far left regime that puts racial matters above everything else, including public safety. Price, for whatever reasons, cannot understand that people are legitimately concerned about, not only her practices but her motives. People believe she’s so obsessed with “social justice” that she’s willing to allow criminals of color off the hook, while at the same time escalating her war against her lifelong enemy: cops.
Oaklandside, the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED and other news outlets turn to young, underpaid journalists who tend to be kneejerk woke. I suppose there’s no longer such a thing as objective reporting, but it’s really appalling, the extent to which these outlets promote woke policies which are threatening their own lives and safety, as well as those of the rest of us. It’s true that people tend to get more “conservative” as they get older, but we really don’t have the time for people like Darwin BondGraham to learn on the job. They help to define the narrative that defines reality. We’re currently in the midst of a tremendous struggle to understand what is true and what is a lie. At stake is nothing less than the survival of our city, Oakland. I’m asking the local media to put aside your biases (against cops, against law and order, against public safety) and join our movement to save Oakland from the destruction that woke politicians have inflicted upon us. Someday, Darwin, your grandchildren will ask what you did in these parlous time. You don’t want to have to tell them, “I supported Pamela Price.”
Have a wonderful, safe weekend. Back Monday.
Steve Heimoff