Commentary
Posing as a Sports Project – Commentary
One of America’s richest men and an avid Trump supporter, billionaire John Fisher, wants to build 3,000 luxury housing units on the most valuable piece of public land in Oakland, the A’s stadium project, but his proposal has a lot more to do with real estate profits than it does with baseball.
Fisher wants to use the land for condominiums, hotel, and retail development along with a stadium for the A’s. There is much opposition among Oaklanders, and it centers on two problems.
First, the Port of Oakland, where the stadium project is located, is the reason that Oakland is in a better position economically than the old industrial cities of the Midwest. The Port generates 70,000 stable local jobs which, unlike factory jobs, cannot be moved to another country. And because of the historic politics of the local longshore union, many of those good-paying jobs are held by Black workers. Oakland cannot afford to limit its industrial engine because a developer can make a bigger profit from putting high-end condos in the same neighborhood. Furthermore, the new jobs promised by stadium advocates will either be temporary (construction) or low-wage (vendors, clerks and so on).
The demands of wealthy residents, who would inhabit the Fisher project condos, will ultimately overpower the needs of Port industry which can be noisy and dirty 24 hours a day. Decades of urban development have taught us that industrial and residential uses do not mix in the same neighborhood and industry inevitably loses out.
Second, Oakland already has a stadium. It’s in East Oakland, and Oakland families lost their homes to eminent domain fifty years ago when it was built. The Coliseum can be used as it is or it can be redeveloped. That’s what Oaklanders want, as indicated by several polls, and it is, after all, our city.
In answer to this opposition, the Oakland Council mandated a “community benefits” process, meaning that representatives from various groups get together and create a list of things residents might want in exchange for letting Fisher take over their land and build his project. Those serving in this capacity are to be much appreciated.
We do need to consider, however, what is the worth of “community benefits” when, in exchange, we may see maritime job loss, the further gentrification of West Oakland, economic harm to East Oakland, huge increases in traffic and pollution, and the creation of 3,000 housing units that nobody in Oakland can afford to live in. What “benefits” could possibly make up for those losses?
Other cities have done community benefits agreements on projects. Many of those were failures; the items negotiated with the community never happened. The One Hill Project in Pittsburgh and the Atlantic Yards-Pacific Park project in Brooklyn are two examples.
The City Council should vote to a) allow the use of the East Oakland Coliseum land to billionaire Fisher on condition that he actually built a stadium there – not sell his development rights to someone else, and b) reject Fisher’s proposal to take over the Port of Oakland land to build a playground for the rich.
The best thing for us, as a multi-racial working-class city, is 1) To keep the Port humming without Fisher’s interference, while making environmental and equity improvements in Port operations; 2) Refurbish the Coliseum in East Oakland; and 3) Ask some of our Democratic politicians to end their flirtation with major Trump supporter, John Fisher.
Kitty Kelly Epstein, PhD is a professor of education and urban studies, an Oakland resident, the host of Education Today on KPFA; and the author of four books, including her latest “Changing Academia Forever” (2020)
Activism
Chauvin Trial Shows Need for Broad Focus on Systemic Racism
Officer’s Conviction Necessary but Not Sufficient, Greenlining Institute Says
Activism
When I See George Floyd, I See an Asian American
A modern-day lynching is specific and symbolic all at once. If you know Asian American history, then you know Asians in California, Chinese, and Filipino, were lynched in America.
You watching the trial of the now ex-Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin, the person I call the “knee man?”
That’s what he was. Chauvin’s on trial for the murder of George Floyd, but I’m wondering how the defense is going to play this. Say that Chauvin’s knee acted independently?
The evidence is piling up. In Monday’s testimony, no less than the Minneapolis Chief of Police Medaria Arradondo said that Chauvin’s actions were in violation of “our principles and values that we have.”
In other words, the placing of the knee to the neck of Floyd, who was face down with hands cuffed behind his back, was “in no way, shape or form part of police policy or training.”
If you’re a juror and hear the chief come down on Chauvin, how can you possibly not find the officer guilty?
The defense has said it will focus on Floyd’s fentanyl drug use, presumably to link that as the real cause of death. But the prosecution on Monday brought out Dr. Bradford Langenfield, the Emergency Room doc who pronounced Floyd dead. He noted the length of time before Floyd got any breathing aid, and said Floyd’s death was more likely caused by asphyxia, or a lack of oxygen.
From the drugs or the knee?
The defense will claim it wasn’t the knee, which at times was also on Floyd’s shoulder. Is that enough reasonable doubt?
Remember it was when Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s neck, not when he was walking around with drugs in his system, when Floyd said, “I can’t breathe.”
So far, the trial’s most compelling moment came when Darnella Frazier, the teenager who took the cell phone video we all have seen, recalled her trauma at witnessing of Floyd’s death.
“When I look at George Floyd, I look at my dad, I look at my brothers, I look at my cousins, my uncles because they are all Black. I have a Black brother, I have Black friends. And I look at that and I look at how that could have been one of them,” Frazier said. “It’s been nights, I stayed up apologizing and apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more. And not physically interacting.”
Van Jones on CNN said Frazier had witnessed a lynching.
“When you have a lynching, which is what this was,” said Jones, “you aren’t just torturing the individual who you’re strangling to death, you’re torturing the whole community.”
A modern-day lynching is specific and symbolic all at once. If you know Asian American history, then you know Asians in California, Chinese, and Filipino, were lynched in America.
As my friend Ishmael Reed told me on my amok.com vlog, don’t let the media play “divide and conquer.” This isn’t a Black vs. Asian thing.
All BIPOC are fighting a common foe. All people of color have been under someone’s knee at some time in America. It’s our common ground, our shared past in America’s racist history.
That’s why to paraphrase Darnella Frazier, when I see George Floyd, I see an Asian American. And so should you.
Emil Guillermo is an award-winning Bay Area veteran journalist and commentator. See his vlog at www.amok.com
I’m all for recycling. The good kind. Paper. Plastics. Just not the hate.
But what do we have with us in Atlanta?
It’s Vincent Chin, you know the Asian American killed in Detroit in 1982 with a baseball bat by
a white auto worker angry at Japanese imports taking over the market.
But Chin was Chinese, not Japanese. Details.
That’s why I say Atlanta was Vincent Chin with the names changed.
Soon Chung Park, 74, worked at Gold spa.
Hyun Jung Grant, 51, the single mother who worked at Gold Spa to support herself and her two
sons.
Suncha Kim, 69, a Gold Spa worker.
Yong Ae Yue, 63, a worker at the Aromatherapy Spa.
Xiaojie Tan, 49, the owner of Young’s Asian Massage.
Daoyou Feng, 44, an employee at Young’s Asian Massage.
Those six names strike the discordant history of the hateful treatment of Asian Americans in this
country, from the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 19th Century to today.
Asian Americans know hate and racism from their first day in America.
President Joe Biden recognized it. And now suddenly, Biden has become one of the most
pro-Asian American presidents the U.S. has seen since Reagan signed the bill giving Japanese
Americans redress.
Think about that. Did either of the Bushes, Clinton, or even Obama do anything that addressed
Asian American existential angst like Biden?
One thing for sure, the last president was the absolute worst. He slurred Asian Americans and
made us targets.
In contrast, Biden has shined a light on us and made us visible.
He selected Vice President Kamala Harris, who is half South Asian of Indian descent.
As he began his presidency, Biden signed an unusual executive order making sure everyone in
the country knew that the attacks on Asian Americans were wrong and “un-American.”
He came out strong for us in his first national television address a few weeks ago.
And then, after meeting with local AAPI leaders after last week’s shootings in Atlanta, Biden
once again elevated our status simply by showing everyone he has our backs. His remarks are
worth remembering because they put him on record, as he described the impact of Trump
administration rhetoric on the AAPI community.
“It’s been a year of living in fear for their lives,” Biden said of all AAPIs in the country. “Hate
and violence often hide in plain sight and often are met with silence. That’s been true throughout
our history. and that has to change.
“Because our silence is complicity. We cannot be complicit. We have to speak out. We have to
act. For all the good the laws can do, we have to change our hearts.
“Hate can have no safe harbor in America. It must stop. And it’s on all of us, all of us together, to
make it stop.”
Strong words, from no less than the president of the United States.
It’s enough to unite Asian Americans. Is our fear enough to unite a country?
Not with Republicans like Texas Congressman Chip Roy, who couldn’t find the empathy at last
week’s Judiciary Subcommittee hearing to change his heart and join in condemning the murder
of eight people in Atlanta, six of whom were Asian American women.
“My concern about the hearing is that it seems to want to venture into the policing of rhetoric,”
said Roy, a Trump backer who was trying to defend the ex-president’s “China Virus” and “Kung
Flu” remarks.
Asian American voters, a third of whom voted Republican for Trump, should remember this. The
Republicans who remain hell-bent on defending Trump’s big lie–that he won the 2020
election–see “China Virus” as a matter of Trump’s free speech.
And what of the thousands of AAPIs victimized by his hateful turn of phrase?
Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) let him have it.
“This hearing was to address the hurt and pain of our community, and to find solutions,” Meng
said in a rare show of emotion and passion. “We will not let you take our voice away from us.”
That’s where we are today.
People are angry. And only the Democrats truly seem interested, not just in stopping the hate but
in recognizing it.
This week, Meng and Sen. Mazie Hirono continued to campaign for their Covid Hate Crime Bill
that would have the Justice Department conduct fast reviews of possible hate crime cases. This
was thought up long before the shootings in Atlanta, but it would seem to be perfect timing. The
the bill also sets up an online reporting system in different Asian languages that would stop the
undercounting of hate crimes and make it easy for AAPIs to report them.
Robert Aaron Long, 21, the Atlanta shooting suspect, has been charged with eight counts of
murder and one count of aggravated assault. Long has admitted to the shootings but told police
he was just a religious man battling sex addiction. The shootings Long told police, weren’t
racially motivated.
That’s what they all say.
Ronald Ebens, who killed Vincent Chin with a baseball bat, said the same thing.
Ebens did get off without spending time in jail. Long is being held without bail while the police
continue to investigate.
That does nothing for Asian Americans, still grief-stricken and angry. Hate crime enhancements
could easily be applied if the new Georgia state hate crime statute that expands coverage to
include sex as well as race, is used.
But if that’s not forthcoming, it would definitely send Asian Americans a harsh message of our
real value in this country.
It will also test the community’s strength and courage. What will our response be then? Will
others in the BIPOC feel our pain, join us in alliance, and speak with one voice in unison against
these crimes?
Or will AAPI be left wondering how we get justice for our six sisters killed in Atlanta?
Soon Chung Park.
Hyun Jung Grant.
Suncha Kim.
Yong Ae Yue.
Xiaojie Tan.
Daoyou Feng.
They are our dead, the latest in the sad narrative of Asian Americans in this country since the
19th Century, the agonizing history of recycled hate.
Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He’s a veteran Bay Area media person and a
former host of NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Go to his blog at www.amok.com for an
interview with Oakland playwright Ishmael Reed about Reed’s new play on the exploitation of
Jean-Michel Basquiat.
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THE DISTINGUISHED JARENA LEE AWARD PRESENTED TO OAKLAND SENIOR PASTOR
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