Oakland: A reality check

Readers have often heard me gripe about the San Francisco Chronicle for being so woke. Actually, the newspaper’s coverage of Oakland has been decidedly schizy. On the one hand, they delight in shocking news about murder and crime, portraying Oakland, accurately, as one of the most dangerous cities in America. But then there’s their editorial department, symbolized by opinionators like Justin Phillips, who portrays Oakland as a wonderful place populated by virtuous people of color, and ruined only by crooked, violent cops paid by out-of-town billionaires.

What’s been missing from the Chronicle’s narrative is the unrest and shock of the average Oaklander, who knows that Oakland isn’t the progressive utopia Phillips presents. And this is why I was amazed but pleasantly so by their headline this morning on the front page:

OAKLAND RESIDENTS: CHAOS AT WORST EVER

At last, I thought, the Chronicle has discovered the voice of the people! And then I read the article. It was a big nothingburger. All the reporter did was to trot out the usual local naggers, like Cat Brooks, who predictably blamed all of Oakland’s problems on “state terror.” The reporter slogged through the usual litany of homelessness, lack of affordable housing, the current budget crisis and crime, but otherwise there was nothing new, nothing we don’t already know. Nothing about how unpopular wokeism has become, or on the likelihood that the deeply unpopular Sheng Thao will be recalled. It was, in other words, just more of the same crap from the Chronicle.

Had the article’s headline really carried over into the story, the reporter would have called me, or Seneca Scott, or LeRonne Armstrong, or any member of the Coalition for a Better Oakland for that matter. Any one of us would have given him the real story. But the Chronicle has stubbornly come to the defense of Oakland’s failed progressive leaders so many times that the paper can’t bring itself to admit their horrible mistake. This is what happens when a news organization, wittingly or not, allows itself to be taken over by a warped ideology. It’s no longer reporting “the news,” but becomes a megaphone for propaganda.

Yes, the chaos in Oakland is at its worst ever. You can feel it in the air, even on the days of beautiful weather we’ve had lately. You wake up in the morning, go for a stroll, and come across overturned garbage containers, bus stops with smashed windows, zombies roaming the streets, indescribably filthy tents surrounded by rotting garbage and junk, human feces on the sidewalk. You turn on the news and hear, once again, about the latest mass shooting. You hear the scream of an ambulance nearby. A firefighting truck rushes by; you hope it’s not heading toward your neighborhood. Should you happen to find yourself down at Frank Ogawa Plaza, you look up at the tall, majestic edifice of City Hall, such a beautiful Beaux Arts masterpiece, but filled now with incompetence, racial grievance and malfeasance, from the mayor on down. And you think: This is the face of chaos. This is what a generation of lunatic “progressivism” has wrought.