Get Boudin-ed, or Boudinized: verb; to get run out of office like Chesa Boudin
Give credit to that crusading figure from the 1970s, the Black Panther’s Angela Davis, for introducing a neologism that’s likely to quickly become relevant. Davis long ago faded from the headlines but the Oakland native is still out there, along with her fellow radicals Cat Brooks, Carroll Fife and Pamela Price, breathing new life into a Black Panther ideology that long seemed dead.
Davis, hoping to re-energize her political relevance, is trying to thwart what she warns will be an attempt to Boudinize Pamela Price, Alameda County’s new District Attorney. Davis recognizes that Price, with her criminal-coddling, anti-cop views, is going to upset a lot of people (the same way Boudin upset San Franciscans), and that a recall is a distinct possibility. So Davis is mounting a pre-emptive effort to keep that from happening.
She told the Chronicle, “We [Price] supporters have to persuade the members of our communities to show her our support when she stands against those who think that safety and security in our communities can only be achieved by jailing” criminals.
So we’ve been warned. We now have further clarity (as if any were needed) about whom we’re up against: a radical cult of prison abolitionists, police defunders and social revolutionaries who aim to up-end life, including public safety, as we know it.
Davis’s book “Are Prisons Obsolete?” answers her own question with a resounding “Yes.” It is an appeal for abolishing prisons and releasing thousands of bad guys back onto the streets.
Then there’s Davis’s friend and associate Cat Brooks, the leading voice in Oakland for abolishing the police. That Brooks is a Black Panther advocate is something she doesn’t attempt to hide. The Panthers “shaped who I am and how I think, they shaped my character and how I carry myself,” she said in a 2019 video.
As for Carroll Fife, she made it clear, in this Mother Jones interview published shortly before she was elected to the City Council, that she views herself very much in the Black Panther tradition which, after all, was born in Oakland. And finally, we come to Pamela Price herself, a devotee of the Black Panthers. During the campaign Price touted the support she got from former Black Panther chairwoman Elaine Brown, while Angela Davis herself attended Price’s swearing-in on Jan. 2.
So we now see the contours of the political battle ahead. It will be an all-out, no-holds barred attack by revanchist Black Panthers on the police, on prisons, and on our safety, led by the most woke, leftwing regime in Oakland’s and Alameda County’s history. Those of us who desire security, safety and normalcy, who correctly see these people as a threat, have got to gear up for the coming fight.
Where to begin? By taking the first steps to Boudinize Pamela Price. It’s very early in the game. Price and her allies haven’t yet had the chance to do anything overtly stupid or dangerous. But they will, quickly, because they’ve been waiting for this moment for decades, and are impatient to get going.
We don’t know exactly where Price’s first blow will land, but we can form an idea by looking at this seven-point, hundred-day agenda prepared for her by her allies at the Ella Baker Center:
End youth criminalization and transfers to the adult court system.
Decline to charge low-level misdemeanors and felonies
Increase and prioritize the use of diversion programs.
End the use of sentencing enhancements.
Commit to review all requests for resentencing.
Take immigration consequences into consideration in reviewing cases.
Hold police officers accountable for illegal conduct.
It’s clear that these represent the first steps toward decarceration, or emptying the prisons, and toward greatly increasing the number of dangerous miscreants on our streets. A renewed war on the police is also inevitable. “Free the criminals, lock up the cops” is Price’s theme, as it was that of the Black Panthers.
This election has been a turning point: the inmates are in charge of the asylum. I urge all of you to begin thinking of recalling Pamela Price. Keep your eyes on her: often these radicals do their work under cover of darkness. I assure you that Davis, Brooks, Fife and Co. already are circling the wagons around their new District Attorney. Be on your guard. Watch, listen and analyze. Get involved in politics like you never did before. Contribute a few dollars to the Coalition for a Better Oakland, the only grass roots group in town that’s actively supporting cops and fighting the wokes. We’ll do our best to keep you informed. Our sisters and brothers in San Francisco knew what to do with their rogue District Attorney, Boudin. We can do no less with ours.
Steve Heimoff