Our friends and subscribers at the Coalition for a Better Oakland sometimes ask me, “What can I do to make Oakland better?” I don’t always have an easy or immediate answer. But today, I have a suggestion: Here’s something you can do, right now, to make Oakland better, and to help fight the forces that are trying to hurt our great city.
You can contact the San Francisco Chronicle and tell them, “Stop giving the cop-hater, Cat Brooks, a semi-permanent space on your editorial page to spew her lies and vicious propaganda.”
Ms. Brooks, for those who may not know, is the co-founder and public face of the so-called “Anti Police-Terror Project,” the most virulent cop-hating cult in the East Bay, and possibly in America. Calling itself “Black-led,” APTP has led the “defund the police” movement in Oakland, and Brooks has enormous sway over the City Council. APTP continues to call for abolishing the police-- yes, you read that right, abolishing. They routinely accuse cops of engaging in a “state sanctioned system of violence,” as if Black-on-Black violence isn’t the gravest problem facing the Black community. They want “public disciplinary hearings” for cops accused of wrongful acts—one thinks of the public lynchings that used to take place in the South for entertainment purposes. She repeatedly accuses cops of “brutalizing” people of color, although there’s no evidence of that. In many ways, Ms. Brooks is the Donald Trump of the far left, using the Big Lie to vilify her opponents, confuse the opposition, and draw the attention of a media addicted to extremist statements.
And yet, in recent months, Ms. Brooks seems to have an open invitation for long opinion pieces in the San Francisco Chronicle. Her latest screed appeared yesterday, and it’s typical Brooks. Right off the bat, she implicitly defends the Black men who are attacking elderly Asians in Oakland Chinatown. When Alameda County’s district attorney, Nancy O’Malley, called the violent attackers “ruthless and aggressive” (and does anyone doubt that they are?), Brooks, instead of agreeing with the obvious, attacks O’Malley, accusing her of “racial profiling.” (Everything, according to Ms. Brooks, is about race.) When Oakland decides to send extra patrols into Chinatown to protect innocent people, Brooks calls it “a city-wide crackdown on Black and brown children” (and why doesn’t she capitalize the “b” on “brown”?). No, it’s not the thugs who beat up old Asians that are “ruthless and aggressive,” it’s—you guessed it—“the Oakland Police Department.
Brooks claims to have sympathy for the residents of Chinatown. “I want our relatives [sic] in Chinatown to feel and be safe.” Brooks says she, too, feels afraid in Oakland. “I want to not be terrified every time that [her daughter] walks out the door.” Yet, somehow, Brooks’ terror is the result—not of the armed gangs who are preying on their neighbors with wanton disregard for their property, lives and rights—but of the Oakland Police Department, which Brooks’ own defunding efforts have done so much to undermine and eventually destroy.
These sorts of statements, besides being factually untrue, contribute to the violence we experience every day in Oakland. Brooks feeds into the misguided perception in minority communities that the police are the enemy, that white supremacy lies behind every impediment to Black advancement, and that Black people are entitled to break the law, because only in so doing can they bring about the revolutionary change that Brooks has determined they need.
Why does the San Francisco Chronicle give her free rein to publish her nonsense? Who at the paper loves Cat Brooks? Is it the Hearst family, which owns the Chronicle? Is it Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, the editor in chief? Is it Matt Fleischer, the editorial page editor? We can’t really know, because the paper’s internal processes are so opaque. But what we, and you, can do is let the paper know they’re wrong to give this radical so much free publicity.
Here’s Matt Fleischer’s email. Matt.Fleischer@sfchronicle.com
Won’t you please share your thoughts with him? Thanks.