It is perhaps ironic that this year marks the 10th year of the founding of the Vanguard because, in 2006, I learned what should have been the most valuable lesson I ever learned. I began my involvement after I listened to disturbing comments, which came from councilmembers, about the issue of police oversight.
When Ted Puntillo stated, “What I want are police officers out there that are using their training and their instincts, I don’t want them thinking about oh somebody’s going to be reviewing what I’m doing.”
I remember meeting with a number of people after that comment and I believed that the community would back those who were seeking police oversight. When I listened to stories about racial profiling and police harassment of people of color in this community, I was convinced that, if the public knew this was going on, they would be just as horrified as I was.
This is a liberal community, I would say. All we have to do is raise the issue and the people will back us.
I was wrong. It was an eye-opener. And the attacks were mean and vicious. One person wrote in a letter to the editor, referring to my wife and Dr. Jann Murray-Garcia, “Ms. Greenwald and Ms. Garcia apply their racist views to every possible issue that confronts them. They look at the world through their prism of hate. … The mere fact that they support numerous frivolous and hate-based lawsuits against the city should be enough to invite them and the rest of the Human Relations Commission to practice their trade in a more appropriate city. I recommend Johannesburg, South Africa.”
You would think the community would rise up against this veiled racism and put a stop to it, but, other than a letter from Paul Boylan, whom I did not know at the time, the response was silent indifference.
Just two years later, the community voted overwhelming (75-plus percent) for the first African American president. How can you square the indifference to community members complaining about racial profiling and racially charged discussions in this community, with the overwhelming and enthusiastic support for the nation’s first black president? I remember inauguration day and people celebrating in the streets – it wasn’t just tepid support.
I know there will be some who will say that the reason is because the former is a figment of your imagination, but talk to African-American long-time community members, talk to college students of color – heck, even the chief of police last week admitted there are problems in policing locally and nationally, and he spent two hours laying out how our local police are taking things like implicit bias training to try to deal with these long-standing issues.
No, there is a disconnect between the values of a community when the issue is at the national level and when the issue is plopped down in their face and in their community.
That has been my concern for ten years. A citizen having support for affordable housing in general is clearly different when the issue is plopped down in their face and into their neighborhood where they have to address it, not just in principle but in fact.
There was a comment on the Vanguard last night, “I wonder if the Vanguard has gone too far in its coverage and has just facilitated the building of a mountain out of a molehill. Instead of just addressing the neighbors issues about privacy, etc., we have people fearing rapists and kidnappers pouring into their neighborhoods, strangers hurling verbal attacks over backyard fences toward children, crashing property values, vague what-ifs, and more. Meanwhile, the City desperately needs revenue. Our schools are underfunded.”
I get it. I am very concerned about the need for revenue. I am very concerned that our schools are underfunded. But unless we as a community are willing to address not just land-use issues but human relations issues, I don’t see how we make progress.
On that line I want to really applaud what the Davis Planning Commission did on Wednesday night. I feel that they addressed the real concerns that the neighbors have about neighborhood impacts and privacy by agreeing to go view the site so they can see first-hand how the hotel will impact their neighborhood – but at the same time, they very forcefully pushed back on other issues.
Commissioner Stephen Mikesell said, “I heard reference to a number of things that might individually or collectively constitute a nuisance – the visual impact of the hotel.” In addition to noise, he noted that there are concerns from the neighbors about public safety or “bad actors being added into the neighborhood,” traffic and privacy.
“I think I heard enough to come to the general conclusion that almost of those really don’t rise to the level of being a nuisance,” he said. “The one that was bothersome to me was, and was probably listed by 80 percent of those who opposed the project, was the subject of privacy.”
He said, “Privacy is a really sticky issue because even a residential development raises the issue of privacy because you have two-story buildings next to one-story buildings and it’s impossible to have a backyard that no one can look into.”
“That was the most strong statement that I heard from the community,” he said.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Cheryl Essex added, “I really don’t understand the concern about strangers. I have to say.”
“At our best, we’re really an open-hearted community,” she said. “We want to be a model … we talk about, all the time, how proud we are of our community and how we want to be a model and so many different ways. To be a model, you have to show it off. We’ve got one of the finest universities in the world here – we like to show it off. We love strangers in our town.”
“I don’t understand the concerns about security in the neighborhood,” Ms. Essex continued. “I think the hotel would be a real benefit to that.”
She went on to note a number of benefits to the city in terms of business as well as noise reduction from the freeway. “I feel like it could increase security, so you don’t have to worry about arson in your backyard,” she added. But she said, “I think there is a strong potential for privacy impacts to the neighbors. I’m really concerned about that.”
Ms. Essex said she felt like they couldn’t move forward at this particular meeting because she doesn’t think “we know for certain what those privacy impacts may be and whether we have adequately mitigated them.”
I think both of these commissioners exemplify the need to take very seriously community and neighborhood based concerns about impacts, while pushing back very strongly on other issues that are inappropriate and do not belong in our discourse.
I think it is an open question whether the location for this hotel is appropriate, and that is an issue that the planning commission and ultimately the city council have to address.
At the same time, our community is increasingly expensive and we have to figure out a way to supply housing to those who are less fortunate to be able to share in the beauty of our community.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Dear David,
Those who have not walked in certain shoes will never understand. I always enjoyed the column by Dr. Jan Murray-Garcia and her partner, the guy – sorry don’t recall his name…
I voted for your wife…I didn’t even know she was your wife…For some odd reason, I thought that the other Greenwald who was a council member was your wife…or ex-wife or something…
I only met Paul Boylan on a comment on a mutual friend’s FB wall a couple of weeks ago…
Within days, I had already referred several cases to him…
and perhaps he will agree to take on a case of mine…though actually it will be a “group case”…as it is never about what I live through, but what I see being done to others…
The friend whose wall I posted a comment in response to, is a friend of my sons and we hadn’t talked in over 2 decades.. our paths crossed here on the DV… decades later…. in recent months..
My stepson is a NJ State Trooper…he truly attempts to hold up the best of what you are writing about.
As I have shared with you personally, although we are white, my family has had its run ins with Davis PD, Woodland PD, and I as a senior citizen with the Solano CHP…..just across the “border” from Yolo.
Family, friends and I have all lived through so much corruption at various local agencies and especially at the police departments.
I think that your eyes are being opened up each and every day …. and perhaps the eyes of others as many of us share, joke and go off topic.
But, some of my favorite sayings lately include: it is not the words that matter, it is the actions that count..
and also, follow the money and learn the truth
and, finally, a FB friend shared this a day or so ago:
Wisdom of the Id1ots
By Idries Shah
some of you will understand 🙂
Of course, the scrubber may catch this…. there was not way to adjust the key word in the picture…
Don’s new nickname: “The Scrubber”. Wear it proud, Don.
bummer the picture didn’t come through…
here is the saying: ‘Until man – and his audience- can hear the unspoken message, and forget the spoken one, he will remain in chains’
*************************
the above is from Idries Shah in Wisdom of the XXXXXXXXX
for those who actually can hear the unspoken message………I know you will get this saying
for those who cannot, I just ask you to listen for the unspoken messages…that is where the truth truly lies…
“No, there is a disconnect between the values of a community when the issue is at the national level and when the issue is plopped down in their face and in their community.”
A symptom of NIMBYism, sir.
nahhh….Mr. B…..this town is very much on the opposite of Nimbyism…the fact that some decades ago this town voted to mandate 25% of all new housing as “affordable”…. means that most here are inclusive rather than NIMBYs….
and even just recently that was shot down as a state mandate only goes to show just how progressive this town has been and is….
Of course, like Eileen and many others who have spoken out and participated heavily over the many decades, we consider the whole town our “backyard”…and want the best for all our family and friends….which even includes some developers, realtors, landowners and CC and Planning commission folks….
“we consider the whole town our “backyard”…and want the best for all our family and friends”
I think that Marina has this one right. I have been asked a number of times why I weigh in on issues that do not affect my home. The answer is that I consider Davis my home, not just my house or immediate neighborhood. I am not against all development. I am against development that does not consider or trivializes the impacts of a proposal on the pre existing neighbors .
It would seem to me that the Hyatt developers are making a good faith effort to address community concerns as are the commissioners. It is my hope that the project can proceed ( or not) without the name calling and vitriol that have plagued some land use disputes.
Too late for that.
It’s never too late to adopt a civil tone.
There is something wrong with this article. The first section regarding David’s take on incidents 10 years ago never seems to get connected to the hotel project.
I get the first part. There were and still are real challenges for people of color in the US and Davis. Even though Davis is “enlightened” there is still overt and covert racism in the city. Even more problematic are the more subtle and often less self aware forms of racism that exist in a privileged community like Davis. But this article never ties these ideas to the hotel project.
Having stayed at lots of hotels along freeways all over the country I have seen first hand how freeway adjacent hotels can draw bad actors. Stating that has nothing to do with race it has to do with freeway adjacent hotels. The article is missing a connection between the 2 parts.
The headline, “My View: The Cost of Raising Tough Issues,” seems to support the idea that this article was originally about something more because the headline never gets tied in to the story. It is like the headline got miss attached to this story.
David, what are you trying to get at here?
I was wondering the same thing. This same story has surfaced several times on the V because imo David is still bitter that the HRC was disbanded in 2006 and his wife was forced to step down as the Chair. At the time most Davisites applauded the council for making the right move and stopping the divisiveness that that commission was stirring up.
Which is also part of the problem and part of the point of the piece
Yeah, The Honorable Grok, I had the same reaction. To me, the following paragraph was the connection, and the logic behind that paragraph had me exclaim out loud in the voice of Stewie on Family Guy: “Say WHUUUUT?”. This one:
The answer is so obvious that the paragraph need never have been written: the vast majority of people are decent, and the number of actual a-hole racists is extremely small and do not define our berg.
small number but what you call a holes but a larger number who look the other way which is part of my point here.
“but a larger number who look the other way which is part of my point here.”
We just considered this point at dinner last night. A millennial friend and recent graduate of UCD who happens to be of Hispanic/Jewish background related a story about a recent encounter that she had while in an Uber returning from a party. One of the partygoers, not knowing about her Jewish heritage made a derogatory comment about this group. My young friend expressed regret that rather than confronting her, in the interests of not spoiling a nice evening, said nothing. This was also my response when my neighbor made her derogatory comment. Even those of us who abhor this kind behavior will frequently let it slide even when we know that it should not be tolerated even passively.
While I understand your friend’s feelings here, a social situation is far more difficult because you are weighing the offense against the purpose of the function. My bigger concern is in political discourse. Probably thousands of people read the tirade against my wife, a lot of them were probably repulsed by it, but one person said something. That’s where I think the real problem stands. There is no fear of upsetting a social evening. Had I been in the Uber, I would have confronted the individuals but at a time after the evening.
Tia wrote:
> One of the partygoers, not knowing about her Jewish
> heritage made a derogatory comment about this group.
It is interesting to find out what the “derogatory comment” was since in the past month my wife was called out for making a “sexist” comment when someone (a friend’s sister) overheard her telling someone else that she was going to be playing tennis with the “girls” and I heard a (black) guy called out for “condoning cultural appropriation” after telling a (white) guy that he had “cool dreds”…
> Even those of us who abhor this kind behavior
> will frequently let it slide
If I’m walking down E street and I hear a guy make a racist comment I know that getting in his face and calling him an “a-hole racist” will not make him tell me he is sorry and rush off to join the ACLU so I just make a mental note of who the guy is so I never have anything to do with him again. Tia may say that I am “letting it slide” since I choose not to get in the guys face but behind the scenes I’ll make sure that my family and I have nothing to do with the guy and make sure that people I know are aware that if they are walking with the guy downtown he is the kind of guy that makes racist comments in public and like me they may want to avoid the guy…
Good point. I saw all this on the CC
BP
“At the time most Davisites applauded the council for making the right move and stopping the divisiveness that that commission was stirring up.”
Or one could rephrase this as “stopping the divisiveness that that commission was pointing out”.
I will again bring up the anecdote regarding “the riffraff” using the North Star park mentioned to me by a wealthy inhabitant of my neighborhood. I could not find anything that the comment could have been directed at other than the color of the families skin, or perhaps that they lived in a nearby apartment complex geared to low income folks ( either of which would have been equally offensive to me). While we like to think that these divisions did not exist independent from the commission, this simply is not true of our community.
Please, an isolated anecdotyl comment in no way should paint our whole community as being racist. There’s always going to be a few outliers.
Where did you get the impression that anyone believe that the whole community is racist?
Agree. A community shouldn’t be characterized as racist because of the actions of a few outliers. However, it does reflect on the community as a whole to the extent it ignores or dismisses racism by continually rationalizing it as the actions of a few outliers.
BP
I said nothing about this anecdote representing out entire community. I clearly presented this as an anecdote not an indictment of the community as a whole.
Tia wrote:
> I clearly presented this as an anecdote not an
> indictment of the community as a whole.
When Alan says:
“the vast majority of people are decent, and the number of actual a-hole racists is extremely small and do not define our berg.”
I couldn’t agree more. Reading comments from David, Tia and Eric over the years I get the feeling that they feel that the “vast majority” of people are racist. If I am wrong about this I’m hoping that all of them will tell us what percentage of the population they feel are racist…
I agree with most of SOD’s comment.
I agree with myself.
http://alanbelkinmusic.com/site/en/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/blog-texte-e-1500×550.jpg
Way more than a few buddy ….
Tia, the same thing happens in Davis when folks state they are against child abuse but look the other way in a supermarket or other public place when someone is slapping their child or telling their child they’re “going to get it” when they get home. I have intervened at least a half dozen times, over the years, often with my young children present. I followed a man at the farmers market one day, as he was clearly out of control, threatening his child. Others just pretended to look the other way. In Natomas, at a supermarket. I twice confronted parents who were truly at their wits end. I tried to calmly tell them, ” I’m a parent, too. What can I do to help you right now? ” as many others either looked the other way, or hurriedly le ft the scene. We all must risk our own safety when a child’s safety, possibly their life, is in imminent danger.
Davis has always been a racist place. Just look at the no longer enforceable restrictive covenants on the deeds downtown. They were enforceable until 1964. Davis has, as long as I have been here, advocated for social justice beyond its borders, but, internally its been a place full of nimbyism of the worst kind where a person’s property values are used as an excuse for all sorts of distasteful behavior and outright bigotry often expressed on this platform by anonymous posters.
As someone said to me about the Vanguard the other day, they wouldn’t recognize racism if it hit them in the face.
David you write this but you allow all sorts of racism to be expressed here. Whining about it you only need to look in the mirror and ask yourself what your site has become.
You seem to think shutting down discussion will make it go away. The only answer is to expose it and confront it
David – If you are trying to link the Rosecreek neighbors to racism, come out and do it. “The only answer is to expose it and confront it” -(DG)
And as someone said to me not long ago “we sure do have a lot of race baiters in Davis”.
A lot of privileged white people who never been called a [edited to remove derogatory terms].
[moderator] Welcome to the Vanguard. Please read and adhere to the Vanguard Comment Policy. https://davisvanguard.org/about-us/comment-policy/
Now one might consider this a racist post.
How is it racist to tell you what I get called on a regular basis? Or being asked if I’m a citizen or where was I born?
And moderator, you’ve now censored my post. At least if you don’t want the words refer to the fact that they were racist terms describing Mexicans?
[moderator] You are welcome to do that, as you have just done.
Barack, it seems like you want to deny there are people who get called racist names in Davis
And I’m glad you agree Barack, that what I was called was racist
Manny, I agree with you. I have heard it and I have seen it. Racist language gets used in Davis. It happens less than it used to, but it is absolutely still present. Davis still has a ways to come.
For example – the Davis citizen of the year award is the C.A. Covell award. C.A. Covell was the mayor when Davis passed a resolution urging the immediate internment of people of Japanese descent. C.A. Covell argued that people of Japanese descent should be permanently excluded from the city. I am troubled by the fact that even today our Citizen of the year award is named after someone who applied overtly racist principals to City government.
What has not been done in the article is show how this applies to the Rosecreek neighbors objection to a mid-range hotel behind their houses.
If someone called you those derogatory names then indeed it was racist. But where do you come off bringing up those examples while at the same time using the term that some might find disturbing “privileged white people”?
Manny wrote:
> How is it racist to tell you what I get called on
> a regular basis? Or being asked if I’m a citizen
> or where was I born?
My sister dated a Scottish born white guy for a couple years that legally came to America and became a citizen.
He was often asked if he was a citizen and where he was born. Were the mostly white people asking him this “racist”?
Barack – it is because you don’t have to deal with that on a a daily basis that gives you privilege but it also shields you from what we people of color deal with everyday.
South Davis wants to find a parallel but there is none. It’s not racist if it’s not race based. I have no accent. I was born in the valley. The only basis for the question is skin color.
Manny wrote:
> I have no accent
FYI Everyone has an “accent”…
I was local wedding this summer and my friend Maria (who’s parents were both born and raised in Mexico and who’s first language is Spanish) was talking to a friend Olivia (who was born and raised in Honduras) about a family wedding in Mexico where her Mexican relatives were making fun of her “—— accent”. Olivia told Maria that she “totally has a —— accent” and Maria got mad saying “I do not have a —— accent”…
[moderator] Could we please stop using disparaging ethnic terms? Thanks.
You’re just arguing to argue.
I don’t find that term starting with a G that many Mexican’s use for American’s offensive and as a Spanish Speaker who has spent close to a year of my life in Mexico it is often used in my presence by Mexican’s when introducing me to others “Hector, this is my ________ friend who lives South of Davis”….
P.S. It looks like the “scrubber” needs to get to work since the term I used that was blanked in my post is the title of a book called “______ Justice” on the link below (and in many other Vanguard posts)
https://davisvanguard.org/2008/04/commentary-serena-case-continues-to-illustrate-problems-with-yolo-county-justice-system/
Manny –
As the Moderator said: Welcome to the Vanguard.
But often times if you call it out Don Shor censors you while leaving the racist posts up. See Manny.
Once again please point out the racist posts.
As moderator, I am very much aware that there are a few individuals who believe that David or I should remove any comments that those individuals believe to be racist. Since we don’t do that, they believe they should have the right to come on the Vanguard and call people racists directly. Since we don’t allow that, they won’t participate and they go around saying things like
If you believe a comment is racist, I suggest you reply and dispute the content of the comment. If you want it reviewed, just click the ‘report’ link. I have saved some comments that were removed after our last discussion of this issue and will pass them along to the editorial board.
I’ve often asked that the people on here who say posters post racist comments to please point out the racist posts. They never do. Maybe it’s because the “scrubber” has already removed them but I very seldom see racist posts on the V. I think it comes down to some commenters are overly sensitive.
BP
“I think it comes down to some commenters are overly sensitive.”
With you and or Frankly having the final say as to what is “overly sensitive” ?
BP wrote:
> I’ve often asked that the people on here who say posters
> post racist comments to please point out the racist posts.
> They never do.
Since you can search the Vanguard archives it should be easy for someone who says the Vanguard is full of racist comments to link to a list of them.
Like voting for Measures J and R?
So you and others you know have felt burned before by the a-holes and you cannot let it go. And instead of just conceding that the world will always be filled with a percentage of a-holes you have “progressed” to shaming others for not coming to your aid supporting your retribution project.
Here are the problems:
First, when you cannot forgive transgressions of the a-holes and move on, the a-holes win. Failing to let it go also effects your present and your future because it effects your decision-making.
Second, the shaming of others has gotten out of hand. It is causing much more divisiveness and anger and social degradation than would any step forward (backward) in the irrational utopian pursuit of 100% purity of thought, care and acceptance of all people of any difference.
Today racism has been reduced to be equal to that which is explained by the simple imperfections of the emotional and tribal human animal. It has been replaced with bias against those self-anointed “victims” with a chip on their shoulder. And in my opinion, that bias is not only justified, it is righteous.
There are people that have a chip on their shoulder from the past. They should get over it, forgive people for their imperfections just as they would want others to do the same for them and their mistakes and bad behavior, and move on.
Science now calculates the odds that we exist in this 15 billion-year-old universe that we know of as being much less than winning the Power Ball Lottery. We get about 4 twenties and some change in this life if we are lucky. Crap happens to good people. More crap is going to happen before we exit stage left. Why a precious waste a day lamenting how we were mistreated by someone in the past? Victimhood should be a crime… a waste of the most precious resource we are blessed with.
Now back to the hotel.
The neighbors have positioned them selves as future victims if the hotel gets build. They already have the chip on their shoulder.
I am biased against them.
Yes, case in point maybe it’s time for David to move on from the 2006 incident.
Maybe people Ike you don’t let him