I’m not so sure the Supreme Court got it wrong when they threw out one of Louisiana’s majority-Black congressional districts. The six conservatives who voted to invalidate the gerrymandering that created the district argued that Black voters no longer need such protections as were accorded them by the 1965 Voting Rights Act, when segregation was rampant, Jim Crow still ruled much of the South, and Blacks were still denied many of the rights the rest of us enjoyed. According to the Republican majority on SCOTUS, Blacks now have their place at the table. Nobody and nothing is stopping them from voting for the candidates of their choice. So the elaborate mechanisms of the Voting Rights Act are now anachronisms.

Did you know Oakland actually has an official “Strategic Action Plan” for homelessness? Yes, from the swamp of the City Council has emerged, like a lizard crawling out of the muck, the SAP, which “focuses on preserving affordable housing, preventing homelessness, and ensuring community stability through strategic initiatives and funding allocations.”

From the annals of appalling news comes this headline. It should send shivers down everyone’s spine. Assuming the data are true, we have to ask, Why is Oakland’s homeless population rising so steeply, while that of other Bay Area cities is declining?

I noticed on Saturday that the block of Grand Avenue underneath the 580 Freeway, by Splash Pad Park, has been cleared of the tents and garbage that had plagued it for months, as so many of us had been requesting.  

Walking downtown yesterday, I passed through Latham Square and saw the bust of Breonna Taylor that’s been there since 2020, and I wondered how come there’s no official city tribute to Officer Tuan Le, the OPD policeman who was brutally slain in the line of duty on Dec. 29, 2023. Born in Vietnam, Officer Le had been an Oakland cop for four years and served his city honorably and faithfully. Ms. Taylor, to the best of my knowledge, never had anything to do with Oakland. With all due respect to Ms. Taylor and meaning no shade to her, why do we honor her in a public space instead of Officer Le?