The thing to understand about Cat Brooks is that truth doesn’t matter to her. Propaganda is her thing. Her worldview is so distorted that she’s actually able to write that “Gavin Newsom’s decision to send California highway patrol officers to Oakland…is a lazy attempt to suggest action while endangering the people of Oakland.”
She wrote this for something called “48 Hills,” an online extreme leftwing publication that claims its “progressive” mission is “to amplify marginalized Bay Area community voices.”
If by “marginalized” they mean intellectually dishonest, then Brooks has found the right platform.
Look, Newsom is sending officers and license plate readers to Oakland because Sheng Thao begged him to. So I guess, in the Gospel According to Brooks, that Thao is endangering the people of Oakland. Thao—no friend of the police—was compelled to ask the Governor for help from the crime wave bringing Oakland to its knees.
If only Thao had said the same when she was on the City Council, maybe we wouldn’t be in the position we’re in. It’s funny how achieving power can alter one’s perception of reality! Thao is discovering that she actually has to find solutions as mayor, instead of merely taking potshots at the police in order to suck up to her woke friends—people like Cat Brooks.
So kudos to Madame Mayor and to Gov. Newsom for doing what they can to help us fight crime in Oakland. But for Brooks, fighting crime is the same thing as White supremacy, in the same way that fighting Jews is the same thing as nazism. And, like the nazis, Brooks lies to justify her contempt for the law. How does having more police “endanger the people of Oakland”? It’s exactly the opposite! And yet, there are ignorant people out there who believe it. Do you know who police actually endanger? Criminals! Not law-abiding civilians like you and me, but carjackers, muggers, murderers, shoplifters and other denizens of indecency. Those are the people we want to feel endangered! Maybe if they feel imperiled enough in Oakland, they’ll go someplace else to practice their hellish activities.
Brooks is, after all, embarrassed by the total failure of her “defund the police” crusade. The entire nation has rejected that insanity, except for a dwindling cadre of Black Panthers, race baiters and Maoists. You’d think that any thinking human being would know that “defund the police” has been left in the trashbin of history. But Brooks still feels the need to defend it. “Oakland’s emergency was not created by the Defund movement,” she lies. Then she lies again: “I am terrified for the people of Oakland. California Highway Patrol is an agency marred with countless instances of racial profiling, harassment, assault and murder against Black and Brown Californians.”
This is slander. How many people have been murdered in Oakland so far this year? The number is in the scores. How many of the victims were Black or Brown? We can safely estimate that the majority of murder victims were people of color. We can also infer that the majority of victims were killed by other people of color—not by the Highway Patrol, not by OPD, but by maniacal criminals. And yet, here’s Cat Brooks, repeating the same tired, stale smears that police are wantonly sweeping through “the community,” killing people of color at will, for no reason and without consequence.
Haven’t we had enough of this lying? It’s like Trump talking about his landslide victory in 2020. No foundation in fact, easily disproved, completely crazy and wrong. And yet, just as Trump has millions of voters convinced he’s telling the truth, so too does Brooks have people in Oakland and beyond who believe the crap she peddles. Brooks is the Typhoid Mary of disinformation, the human equivalent of malware.
Perhaps the most disgusting thing Brooks wrote in her 48 Hills piece is her insinuation that crime is soaring in Oakland because OPD is on “an unofficial strike,” in other words that cops are deliberately holding back on law enforcement, thus allowing crime to flourish. Brooks offers no proof of this smear—indeed, there exists no such proof, and every rational person knows it. But that’s how Brooks operates: through innuendo, smear and outright lying. Her goal, as a propagandist, isn’t the dissemination of fact; it’s feeding untruths to ill-informed people, the same crowd who voted for Pamela Price.
* * *
Fife: “Turn Children’s Fairyland Into Homeless Housing”
When Carroll Fife found out that her plan to build a huge homeless camp at the old Oakland Army Base wasn’t going to happen, she started looking for a replacement location.
“I knew there had to be someplace else,” Fife told me recently, as we sipped tea together. “Then I was in the park with my niece, and we walked past Children’s Fairyland, and I thought, ‘That’s it. That’s where we’ll build the new camp. We’ll call it Fairyland Village.’”
Dumbfounded, I asked Fife, “Are you serious? Children’s Fairyland is an Oakland institution. Generations of kids have enjoyed it.”
“That’s exactly the problem,” Fife replied. “Do you know what Fairyland really is? A last vestige of White privilege. All those White fairy tale racists: The Old Man in the Shoe. Jack & Jill. The Jolly Roger Pirate. Alice in Wonderland. Peter Rabbit. White, white, white. All they do is indoctrinate children into the ideology of systemic racism.”
Fife pointed out the obvious advantages of Children’s Fairyland for a gigantic homeless camp. “The ground isn’t toxic, like at the Army Base. It’s close to downtown and residential neighborhoods, so the campers can panhandle and break into cars. There are already restrooms, although we’d have to raise the toilets a few inches to accommodate adults. And there are plenty of structures to live in: The Jolly Trolly, The Wonder-Go-Round, The Magic Web, The Flecto Carousel, even The Gift Shop. Put some mattresses in them and turn them into little condos. We could even slaughter the animals—Pepper and Pixie, the miniature horses, Brownie and Cookie, the dwarf goats, Gideon and Chiquita, the tiny donkeys, and Oatmeal and Raisin, the Baby Doll Sheep—and provide protein-rich meals for our new residents. We had many talented BBQ masters at the Wood Street encampment, and they could be the cooks at Fairyland Village. Of course, some of our homeless brothers and sisters are Vegans, but they could forage in the Gardens at Fairyland.”
Trying to be polite, I said, “It sounds like a great idea. How soon do you think it could happen?”
“Well,” Carroll mused, sipping her Orange Pekoe, “It depends on a lot of stuff. Of course, some parents will be opposed.”
“You think?”
“I know. But there will always be White people opposed to progress. Besides,” she added, “those little White brats don’t really need their own attraction in Lakeside Park, which is stolen Ohlone land anyway. That land can be used for greater purposes. And what could possibly be greater than providing equity for the unhoused?”
I had mixed feelings about Fife’s project, but I didn’t want to get in a big spat with her, so I just wished her good luck.
[The preceding was satire.]
* * *
RECALL UPDATE
I met yesterday with Carl Chan, who gave me an update on the Recall. Basically, the organizers (Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce and the Oakland chapter of the NAACP) are working as best and as fast they can. The bureaucracy of a Recall, with miles of paperwork, is daunting and time-consuming. SAFE (Save Alameda For Everyone) is just starting fundraising, but they’re currently short on cash. Their main objective now is to file for the Recall with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters (more paperwork). The Registrar will then officially notify Price that she’s the subject of a Recall, and SAFE will go public with announcements and signature gathering, which will cost $150,000 a month—and if there are any errors in filling out the paperwork, the process halts but the expenses continue. Until then, Carl begs for our patience. He knows the website is incomplete, and promises it will be improved as soon as possible. I believe him. No one is more passionate about recalling Price than Carl Chan! He’s a dynamo and he will get it done.
Steve Heimoff