Published since 2005. San Francisco is a city that belongs to the people of the world. Hence this blog has a global focus. The name "Sam Spade's San Francisco" refers to an exciting era in the City's history, the time of Dashiell Hammett's fictional gumshoe and San Francisco character, Sam Spade. My name is Tom Dunn and I edit the blog. I'm not as exciting as Sam Spade, but I am definitely a San Francisco character.Contact or on Twitter -- Search blog below.
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Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Black Folk in the Bayview
Joseph Blueran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2004 and he is well known and highly respected in San Francisco. Blue, who is African-American, is CEO ofBlue Realty Group. Blue told theChronicle,"San Francisco no longer has a viable black community. The middle class is gone, and what we have left is underprivileged, uneducated, poor black folks."
Thearticlein which Blue's comments appeared went on to say that most people think the Bayview - Hunters Point neighborhood is predominantly black. The common perception is likely based on the prolific number of violent crime stories coming out of the BVHP .... police officers being murdered, random drive-by shootings, murders of children, murders of students and drug-related crimes too numerous to mention. The facts are clear and those facts tell us most of the people committing these crimes and almost all of the people who are victims of these crimes are black. Hence, the common perception that the BVHP is predominantly black.
Wrong!
In 2000, Bayview-Hunters Point was 46.9 percent black; 28 percent Asian and Pacific Islander; 4.9 percent white and 16.4 percent Hispanic of any race, according to the U.S. Census. It is estimated that there are even fewer black residents in the BVHP today. Less than half the folks in the BVHP are committing nearly all of the violent and drug-related crimes and just about all of the murders. As Mr. Blue said, "what we have left is underprivileged, uneducated, poor black folks."
According to the Chronicle, "Themayor's office is putting together a task force to figure out what can be done to preserve the remaining black population and cultivate new residents." Wait a minute here! Not so damn fast!
Before we spend money and time to cultivate new citizens, let's take care of the needs and hopes and dreams of the citizens we already have.
We need lots of money to be pumped intoCity College of San Francisco, which operates a BVHP campus, to enable the college to offer a greatly expanded number of special educational and job-preparatory programs that are specifically and tightly interwoven and solidly connected to guaranteed jobs for BVHP residents upon completion of the special programs. We needs LOTS of these programs.
We need many of San Francisco's major employers to shake themselves out of the mentality that they are being good corporate citizens by their current "community relations" plans. Usually, for most corporate giants, that includes huge donations to political action committees, equally huge donations and "dues" to industry associations and an impressive number of smaller, yet still significant donations to "obvious, visible and time-tested charities" like the United Way, the Red Cross and any organization with the name "children" stuck somewhere in the middle.
Contributions that can really make a difference to poor folks who are under the "public relations radar" are far and few between. In other words,the "underprivileged, uneducated, poor black folks" who live in the BVHP (and also in the Western Addition) are the losers. This injustice has to stop NOW!
First, let's take care of our own and give them the helping hand they need to become the kind of upstanding, middle-class citizens the mayor's task force wants to recruit. Before we go looking for other folks to populate San Francisco, let's help out the citizens we already have.
San Francisco is (or at least it used to be) a big family. We developed that attitude after the 1906 Earthquake. I know. My family came to this City in 1849. So, what happened to that sense of family? Why is it so damn difficult for us to understand that we need to take care of and help every member of our family ... even if they are oftentimes disgustingly repulsive by their consistent involvement with extreme violence, drugs and guns. Like it or not, they are still family and that's the bottom line.
Finally, I want to remind everybody that San Francisco is not only the home to an important citizen like Joseph Blue, it is also home to a great many attorneys, physicians, university professors, chemists, bio-tech researchers, corporate officers, firefighters, school teachers, ministers, police officers and let's not forget a former mayor and past Speaker of the California State Assembly ... all of whom are black. We may have lost of lot of middle-class black families, but with the economic and scientific growth of San Francisco we are gaining some of the best and brightest minds in the world, many of whom are black. Unfortunately many of those people do not see themselves as a part of the fabric of the City or as a part of the overall black community in San Francisco.
The difference between this latter illustrious group and the former group of "underprivileged, uneducated, poor black folks" is a difference of education and opportunity. It's just that simple.
Real, genuine, substantial, impressive, cutting-edge educational career opportunities are things the Mayor and Board can do in partnership with our corporate leaders and major businesses. It can be done. We just need people to get off their asses and do it.
3 comments:
Anonymous said...
I just wish we could get this message into the inboxes of every CEO in San Francisco, to the members of the Boards, the the full San Francisco Board of Supervisors and to the Mayor.
There will be a lot of talk from the politicians, but very little action. The major employers in San Francisco will all start pointing to the record of "wonderful" things they have done for the community and explain how they already donate to this foundation or to that charity, They will explain ever so sincerely that their "generous gifts" benefit people in the BVHP. Their gifts, of course, are really little more than tokens and trinkets keep us quiet. The CCSF Board of Trustees will be too chicken-shit to stir up any controversy and ... once again ... the people of the Bayview will be left with nothing but meaningless rhetoric, broken dreams and empty pockets.
Don Imus lives in the boardrooms of every big San Francisco Financial District corporation. He is everywhere. Don't kid yourself: Jim Crow is alive. He just goes by a different name these days.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007 9:29:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said...
When did Joseph Blue become spokesman for the black community? Isn't Rev. Amos Brown still president of the NAACP in San Francisco? Isn't Rev. Cecil Williams still at Glide?
3 comments:
I just wish we could get this message into the inboxes of every CEO in San Francisco, to the members of the Boards, the the full San Francisco Board of Supervisors and to the Mayor.
There will be a lot of talk from the politicians, but very little action. The major employers in San Francisco will all start pointing to the record of "wonderful" things they have done for the community and explain how they already donate to this foundation or to that charity, They will explain ever so sincerely that their "generous gifts" benefit people in the BVHP. Their gifts, of course, are really little more than tokens and trinkets keep us quiet. The CCSF Board of Trustees will be too chicken-shit to stir up any controversy and ... once again ... the people of the Bayview will be left with nothing but meaningless rhetoric, broken dreams and empty pockets.
Don Imus lives in the boardrooms of every big San Francisco Financial District corporation. He is everywhere. Don't kid yourself: Jim Crow is alive. He just goes by a different name these days.
When did Joseph Blue become spokesman for the black community? Isn't Rev. Amos Brown still president of the NAACP in San Francisco? Isn't Rev. Cecil Williams still at Glide?
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