Last March, Gov. Newsom strongly criticized District Court judge Donna Ryu for blocking the eviction of a group of homeless people who dwelt in a particularly dirty encampment on the Berkeley-Emeryville border, the so-called Ashby-Shellmound Encampment.

Several members have urged me to write about Pamela Price’s latest excursion into racism—a secret workshop she sponsored for her staff called “How To Serve White Victims.”

The San Francisco Chronicle has never met a homeless encampment it didn’t love. In the case of the former Wood Street sprawl, the paper for years ran articles portraying it sympathetically, with articles praising its clinic, shared kitchens and community values, like it was some kind of Mayberry on the edge of town.

You may be familiar with the Grand Lake neighborhood, where, just across the street from the Grand Lake Theater there’s a parking lot nestled below the 580 freeway that hugs the east end of Lakeside Park.

When we started the Coalition for a Better Oakland three years ago, we decided to focus on two issues: cops and encampments. Concerning the former, we were insulted by the hostility exhibited toward the Oakland Police Department from so many quarters of the city: the mayor, the City Council, the Police Commission, the media, and from too many ignorant residents, whose views had been contaminated by all the above.