Commentary

Profile: Sydney Kamlager Carries the Weight of All Black Women in California Senate

Kamlager says her office used the Budget Act of 2021 to help fund local programs, including art, healthcare and housing initiatives. About $400 million of the state’s $267.1 billion budget this year supports projects to which Kamlager and her team helped steer funding.

Published

3 years ago

July 30, 2021

Isabelle Price

Sen. Sydney Kamlager

In a faded photo from 1975, is a smiling woman, a formerly enslaved person, sporting a metallic gray birthday hat. In front of her is a 3-year-old state Sen. Sydney Kamlager.

“Gram was born a slave and freed by Lincoln. She carried her papers to prove her freedom every day of her life,” the California Senator tweeted, sharing her great-great grandmother’s photo with her followers.

Kamlager, the only Black woman serving in the California Senate, spoke with California Black Media about her career, what inspires her and the priorities she has fought for since her term began.

“It is a heavy and awesome responsibility, feeling like I am speaking for millions of women like me,” Kamlager said, talking about being the only Black woman in the state Senate.

“I don’t take it lightly and I’m trying to get more of us in there,” she said.

Kamlager says her great-great-grandmother is one of her greatest inspirations.

“When she was born, she was not free, and her DNA is inside of me. That’s the thing that motivates me, that this woman in my family was strong enough to live through that circumstance. It’s something that I wake up and think about every day,” said Kamlager.

Kamlager attributes her success to her parents and counts them as another source of inspiration.

“My parents were social justice activists in Chicago, fighting to make sure that community members had access to healthcare and housing,” she said. “I come from a family that was denied housing because they were interracial.”

Her life in public service started in Chicago, she says.

“I got my first taste of politics helping my grandmother work to get Harold Washington elected as the first Black mayor of Chicago,” Kamlager recalled.

She left Chicago to attend the University of Southern California. She was there when the 1992 Los Angeles riots broke out. That experience helped strengthen her resolve to enter public life, she says.

“It was the first time I saw what happens when a city stops listening to its communities,” she said. “The next summer, I spent time working to figure out how we could both rebuild L.A. and build bridges between communities.”

Kamlager’s journey to becoming a California elected official began in 2017 when she threw her hat in the race to complete the term of former Assemblymember Sebastian Ridley-Thomas. The next year, she won the special election in the 54^th district and was sworn into office in April.

Then, in November 2020, she announced her run for the state Senate when former Sen. Holly Mitchell resigned. Kamlager won that special election in March.

Now, as the state Senator representing the 30th District, criminal justice, health care, housing and racial equity are among Kamlager’s priorities.

“I spend a lot of time in the criminal justice space. I have a number of bills this year that focus on criminal and legal issues,” Kamlager said.

“One is AB 333 which is a due process bill as it relates to gang enhancement charges. Another bill AB 127 got signed into law by the governor this Monday which says that prosecutors can also attest to an arrest warrant of a police officer involved in a police shooting. And ACA 3 which is about taking involuntary servitude out of the state Constitution,” she continued.

The Senator also spoke about economics and how it impacts the lives of Black Californians.

“It is incredibly important to talk about the economics of Black America and Black California and to connect that to issues of housing, transportation, jobs and education,” Kamlager said.

For her, an important part of the Black economic power conversation is reparations.

“I’ve been incredibly supportive of the reparations task force that is moving along and making sure that some of these things get agendized,” she said.

Kamlager mentioned the ongoing inequity in the medical sector, an issue that the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare.

“I introduced a number of implicit bias bills to have training in our medical community because we saw who was getting treated and who wasn’t,” she said.

“I was very active in this year’s budget negotiations,” Kamlager continued. “I was instrumental in the work to get $30 million to our public hospitals, which we know were Ground Zero for so many of the COVID cases.”

Childcare providers were heroes who stepped up during the pandemic, she says. They took care of children as their essential worker parents soldiered on to make sure the economy and health care systems kept running.

Another one of her priorities is housing equity through efforts like Project Room Key, a state program created in response to the pandemic. It provides motel and hotel rooms for people experiencing homelessness.

Programs like that expose some of the same inequities they were designed to diminish, Kamlager points out.

“With Project Room Key, the majority of the homeless individuals that got placed during the pandemic were white, homeless individuals even though we know 62% of the folks who are homeless are Black,” she said.

The senator also addressed the rise of hate crimes.

“We can elevate the issues of African Americans when we are on the floor giving speeches,” she continued. “We have done that. We will do that. But there is an element of fear that is predicated on the history of this country, and it’s based on the fact that Black people, one, are feared, and two, are not valued.”

“Legislation doesn’t fix that, she added. “It is the collective energy and voices of Black Californians, Black Americans and their allies elevating those discrepancies and disparities so that folks are able to reflect on them.”

Isabelle Price

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Oakland Post: Week of April 17 – 23, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 17 – 23, 2024

Published

5 days ago

April 19, 2024

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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Commentary

Opinion: Surviving the Earthquake, an Eclipse and “Emil Amok.”

Last Friday, a 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook New York City, reported as the “biggest earthquake with an epicenter in the NYC area since 1884” when a 5.2 quake hit. A bit bigger. The last quake similar to Friday’s was a 4.9 in 1783.Alexander Hamilton felt it — 241 years ago. That’s why New Yorkers were freaking out on Friday. They were in the room where it happens.

Published

7 days ago

April 17, 2024

Oakland Post

In New York City, the eclipse was about 90 percent visible. Good enough for me. Though a full solar eclipse is a celestial rarity, blockages of any sort aren’t generally celebrated. My one-man play is about growing up with the eclipsed history of American Filipinos and how I struggle to unblock all that.

By Emil Guillermo

I’m a Northern Californian in New York City for the next few weeks, doing my one-man show, “Emil Amok, Lost NPR Host, Wiley Filipino, Vegan Transdad.”

I must like performing in the wake of Mother Nature.

Alexander Hamilton felt it — 241 years ago.

That’s why New Yorkers were freaking out on Friday. They were in the room where it happens.

And it just doesn’t happen that often.

Beyonce singing country music happens more frequently.

When I felt New York shake last week, it reminded me of a time in a San Francisco TV newsroom when editors fretted about a lack of news an hour before showtime.

Then the office carpeting moved for a good ten seconds, and the news gods gave us our lead story.

On Friday when it happened in NYC, I noticed the lines in the carpeting in my room wiggling. But I thought it was from a raucous hotel worker vacuuming nearby.

I didn’t even think earthquake. In New York?

I just went about my business as if nothing had happened. After living near fault lines all my life, I was taking things for granted.

Considering the age of structures in New York, I should have been even more concerned about falling objects inside (shelves, stuff on walls) and outside buildings (signs, scaffolding), fire hazards from possible gas leaks, and then I should have looked for others on my floor and in the hotel lobby to confirm or aid or tell stories.

Of course, as a Californian who has lived through and covered quakes in the 4 to 6 magnitude range, I tried to calm down any traumatized New Yorker I encountered by taking full responsibility for bringing in the quake from the Bay Area.

I reassured them things would be all right, and then let them know that 4.8s are nothing.

And then I invited them to my consoling post-Earthquake performance of “Emil Amok, Lost NPR Host…”

It was the night of the eclipse.

ECLIPSING THE ECLIPSE

For example, did you know the first Filipinos actually arrived to what is now California in 1587? That’s 33 years before the Pilgrims arrived in America on the other coast, but few know the Filipino history which has been totally eclipsed.

I was in Battery Park sitting on a bench and there was a sense of community as people all came to look up. A young woman sitting next to me had a filter for a cell phone camera. We began talking and she let me use it. That filter enabled me to take a picture of the main event with my iPhone.

For helping me see, I invited her and her boyfriend to come see my show.

Coincidentally, she was from Plymouth, Massachusetts, near the rock that says the year the Pilgrims landed in 1620.

In my show she learned the truth. The Pilgrims were second.

History unblocked. But it took a solar eclipse.

Next one in 2044? We have a lot more unblocking to do.

If you’re in New York come see my show, Sat. April 13th, 5:20 pm Eastern; Fri. April 19, 8:10 pm Eastern; and Sun. April 21st 5:20 pm Eastern.

You can also livestream the show. Get tickets at www.amok.com/tickets

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He does a mini-talk show on YouTube.com/@emilamok1. He wishes all his readers a Happy Easter!

Oakland Post

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Commentary

Commentary: Republican Votes Are Threatening American Democracy

In many ways, it was great that the Iowa Caucuses were on the same day as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We needed to know the blunt truth. The takeaway message after the Iowa Caucuses where Donald Trump finished more than 30 points in front of Florida Gov. De Santis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley boils down to this: Our democracy is threatened, for real.

Published

1 week ago

April 16, 2024

Oakland Post

It was strange for Iowans to caucus on MLK day. It had a self-cancelling effect. The day that honored America’s civil rights and anti-discrimination hero was negated by evening. That’s when one of the least diverse states in the nation let the world know that white Americans absolutely love Donald Trump. No ifs, ands or buts.

By Emil Guillermo

In many ways, it was great that the Iowa Caucuses were on the same day as Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

We needed to know the blunt truth.

The takeaway message after the Iowa Caucuses where Donald Trump finished more than 30 points in front of Florida Gov. De Santis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley boils down to this: Our democracy is threatened, for real.

And to save it will require all hands on deck.

It was strange for Iowans to caucus on MLK day. It had a self-cancelling effect. The day that honored America’s civil rights and anti-discrimination hero was negated by evening.

That’s when one of the least diverse states in the nation let the world know that white Americans absolutely love Donald Trump. No ifs, ands or buts.

No man is above the law? To the majority of his supporters, it seems Trump is.

It’s an anti-democracy loyalty that has spread like a political virus.

No matter what he does, Trump’s their guy. Trump received 51% of caucus-goers votes to beat Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who garnered 21.2%, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who got 19.1%.

The Asian flash in the pan Vivek Ramaswamy finished way behind and dropped out. Perhaps to get in the VP line. Don’t count on it.

According to CNN’s entrance polls, when caucus-goers were asked if they were a part of the “MAGA movement,” nearly half — 46% — said yes. More revealing: “Do you think Biden legitimately won in 2020?”

Only 29% said “yes.”

That means an overwhelming 66% said “no,” thus showing the deep roots in Iowa of the “Big Lie,” the belief in a falsehood that Trump was a victim of election theft.

Even more revealing and posing a direct threat to our democracy was the question of whether Trump was fit for the presidency, even if convicted of a crime.

Sixty-five percent said “yes.”

Who says that about anyone of color indicted on 91 criminal felony counts?

Would a BIPOC executive found liable for business fraud in civil court be given a pass?

How about a BIPOC person found liable for sexual assault?

Iowans have debased the phrase, “no man is above the law.” It’s a mindset that would vote in an American dictatorship.

Compare Iowa with voters in Asia last weekend. Taiwan rejected threats from authoritarian Beijing and elected pro-democracy Taiwanese vice president Lai Ching-te as its new president.

Meanwhile, in our country, which supposedly knows a thing or two about democracy, the Iowa caucuses show how Americans feel about authoritarianism.

Some Americans actually like it even more than the Constitution allows.

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He does a mini-talk show on YouTube.com/@emilamok1.