2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the founding
of the Black Panther Party here in Oakland, CA. While this is being
commemorated in many ways (library and museum events, a PBS movie, lectures by
Black Panthers, study groups, college courses, and even Beyonce’s superbowl
halftime show), the civic leaders and elected officials in the city in which
they were founded still show no interest in truly acknowledging the legacy of
this legendary organization.
Certainly the publicity campaigns the city and the Chamber
of Commerce design in hopes of luring new residents, tourists and businesses
here try to avoid any mention of this important chapter in Oakland history.
Instead, we are given billboards selling Oakland as “The Wild Side Of San
Francisco,” and books like Oakland: The
Story of a City (a whitewashed version of Oakland history in which the
existence of the Black Panthers merits one sentence). On the rare occasion the
Panthers are mentioned, they’re often tucked safely in the box of history (as
if the problems the Panthers strove to address have been solved).
Yet, looking at the 10-Point platform written by Huey Newton
with Bobby Seale and Melvin Newton in October of 1966, with 50 years’ hindsight,
it’s clear that the 10 issues the Black panthers pinpointed and diagnosed are
at least as profound today as they were back then. It may even be worse. Given
the state of emergency affecting Oakland’s black community today, The Panthers
still provide a useful template for considering possible solutions.
Today, Oakland is facing massive displacement of its black
residents. The African-American population has declined from roughly 45%
percent when the Panthers were active, to 33% in 2001 when I moved here from
NYC, to less than 25% today, and this trend is continuing. This
development-driven displacement, as people are increasingly priced out of
neighborhoods they’ve lived in for decades due to inflated “market rate” rents,
has spread beyond the black community to include the Latino communities, and
even the Asian and lower-income white folks (many of whom are teachers, artists
and other culture workers of the creative class).
As a result, some housing activists argue that the current
crisis is more about class than race, and often plead their case in “race
neutral” terms, but it clearly has a racial component if looked at
historically: from the redlining and “urban renewal” policies of the mid-20th
century (which the Panthers were well aware of), through the “war on drugs”
since the 1980s to the current seizure of the inherited property by the
Berkeley Probate court,[1]
black owned real estate has been disproportionately under siege.
Nonetheless, I maintain that even lower-income whites and
other non-black citizens will stand to gain by acknowledging the racist roots
to the issue of gentrification in today’s housing emergency. To my fellow
whites, I argue that it would be simply intelligent
self-interest to seriously consider
how the demands and proposals that the Panthers brought before the city, state
and federal governments in the 60s and 70s could do much to address Oakland’s
housing crisis and would benefit the vast
majority of Oakland’s citizens.
In Point 4 of the Ten Point Platform, they write, “we believe that if the capitalist
landlords will not give decent housing to our black community, then the housing
and the land should be made into cooperatives, so that our community, with
government aid, can build and make decent housing for its people.”[2]
Rooted in the recognition that adequate housing is a right rather than a
privilege, the wording of this demand and/or proposal would perhaps have to be
fine-tuned to apply to the scope of today’s crisis, but it shows that, contrary
to the claims of many politicians and the corporate media, that the Black
Panthers were not an anti-government
organization, but were willing to work with (and in) the government to help
make it more truly democratic, more responsive to citizens and voters than it
was in their time, and remains today. It also must be mentioned that they are
not advocating taking the property of all
landlords, only those who do not imply decent, affordable, housing.
2. Compromising The
Panthers’ Demand in light of current proposals for Impact Fees and Rent Control
Many argue that, in today’s economic and political climate,
the government would never concede to the possibility of seizing the property
of landlords. And certainly the landlords, who wield a disproportionate
influence on city, state, and federal governments, would never consent to acting
on such an ultimatum. Therefore, it’s argued, this demand should be left off
the table. Yet, even if today’s housing activists consider “seizure of landlord
property” unfeasible or even absurd, at the very least we could demand that the
government use the public land it already owns, that has not yet been sold to
big development (not ma and pa landlords), and work with community
organizations to help create the housing cooperatives the Panthers demanded,[3]
where people can build and make decent housing for themselves.
This alternative proposal can be represented by the
battlecry, “Public land for the public good.” It is more compromised (some
would say, watered down) than the Panthers’ call for seizing land, but the
developers have so narrowed the terms of the debate, that even this more
compromised position is, apparently, too “radical.” Even the East 12th
Street coalition’s demands to the city not to sell-off public land, and their
well-thought out proposal for affordable housing, have gone unheeded.
Meanwhile, many housing activist organizations persist in
trying to get City Hall to act for the public good while also trying to galvanize
residents directly affected by this Housing Crisis into a more organized, or
coordinated, movement. One proposal that is being floated to address the city’s
mismanagement of the housing situation is the requirement that market-rate
developers pay a one-time “impact fee.” Such a fee would require developers to
acknowledge (contrary to their claims that their mere presence is a ‘community
benefit’ as Bay Development and Wood Partners have argued), and attempt to
redress, the negative impact their luxury “market rate” towers have on the
majority of Oakland’s renters. Since two-thirds of Oakland’s renters are
considered lower-income, earning less than $40,000 a year, this impact fee
could generate tens of millions of dollars to build affordable homes for them.[4]
In contrast to the Panthers proposal, or even my more modest
plan that would not necessitate seizing
private property, but would place a moratorium on selling public property, the compromise position of the “impact fee” would
allow developers to continue to build their luxury towers in the heart of The
Black Arts and Business District and elsewhere. But at least it could
conceivably pave the way for the kind of community owned—or at least
leased—cooperatives that could foster “development without displacement.”
However, even this modest, and already compromised demand,
is meeting resistance not only from developers, but from the city government,
as was witnessed on April 19th, 2016, when voters and activists
flooded the City Council meeting to pass an impact fee. The one the city
finally passed is, according to Jeff Levin, member of the East Bay Housing
Organization, “too low, is being phased in too slow and applied unevenly
throughout the area,” with particular adverse affects for lower-income black
and brown communities. In addition, city council (with Mayor Schaaf’s
endorsement) made last minute modifications to redirect the fees paid so that
they’d subsidize the housing of those who make $110,000 a year, rather than
prioritize the low-income residents who make less than $40,000 a year.[5]
Another even less ambitious proposal being floated by some
housing activists to address the city’s housing emergency is the Protect
Oakland Tenant’s Initiative (or Renter Protection Act). This proposal doesn’t
even go so far to address the crisis as the Impact Fee would in terms of
providing economic resources that could be used for the community-managed (if
not necessarily owned) cooperatives, but it at least does a few things that
need to be part of any comprehensive proposal to address the housing crisis: 1)
tie-up loopholes in the current laws that allow landlords to make illegal rent
increases, and 2) grant eviction protection to all tenants in Oakland by
capping rent increases to 5% per year. It doesn’t, however, create more housing
for those already displaced, or the city’s growing homeless population (some of
whom are Laney students).
The modest proposal to place the Protect Oakland Tenant’s
Initiative (and/or Renter Protection Act) on the November ballot as a
referendum hasn’t even made it out of committee, but is currently being
shuttled through the hallowed halls of bureaucratic red tape, as the buck is
passed from the City Council’s Rules and Legislation Committee to the Community
and Economic Development Committee. Again, we see City Council heeding the
“advice” of Big Property advocates such as the Oakland Chamber of Commerce who
urge Council not to act, but rather “to do some analysis to determine what can
be done.” After such run-around, even the most patient housing activists who
would never dare to break the bounds of civic discourse and accuse city
officials of negotiating in bad faith are having doubts: “Long-time Oakland
residents are being pushed from their city,” a frustrated Bill Chorneau, of the
Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), notes, “and some of our city leaders seem to be trying
to prevent strong action on their behalf” (emphasis added).
Although Chorneau takes pains to speak the proper code of
reasonable discourse (or “moral suasion”), with such tentative phrases as
“seems to be trying to prevent,” others, including many students at Laney
College, are more direct: They’re trying
to drive us out! Chorneau, and ACCE, is at least trying to do something to
address the housing crisis, yet even if the ACCE managed to get the 30,000 signatures
necessary to place this on the November Ballot, it would at best scratch the
surface in addressing what even City Council acknowledges as the current
housing emergency.
Since these well-thought out compromised proposals for
developer impact-fees, and rent protection are struggling to get through city
hall, we may need bolder thinking, bolder strategies, and bolder language to supplement the more civil language Chorneau
uses. If the government officials are trying to break our spirit by making us think
we’re asking for too much when we’re, in reality, asking for much less than we
need, and much less than what is their constitutional obligation to provide, what do we have to lose by asking for
more? What do housing activists have to lose by considering the Panthers’ “more
unrealistic” proposal to threaten the property owners with land-seizure (just
as they threaten their tenants with eviction)? Perhaps it’s time, once again,
to hold city officials accountable to the spirit and letter of the constitution
as the Panthers did.
Since ACCE is already trying to round up 30,000 signatures for
their ballot initiative, would it be too much to ask them to circulate, on
another clipboard, a petition that would place the Black Panthers’ demand on
the November ballot, and give folks the option of signing both? The demands/proposals
for shorter-term, stop-gap measures, such as impact fees and rent control,
could work in tandem, and compliment the Panthers longer-term, structural
proposals. It’s possible that the Panthers more “extreme” position could gain
more traction with the majority of Oakland citizens than the proposals you’re
already circulating, and help you galvanize your base!
Even if you personally don’t agree that the Panthers’ demand
would provide an unqualified positive social good, putting it before the people
can provide strategic leverage for the passage of your more modest plans. At
the very least it could widen the debate, and liberate it from the narrow terms
the developers set so that real negotiations can begin. As many activists have
known throughout history: if you threaten a more extreme position, you’re more
likely to persuade the government to act on the more compromised one than had
you only proposed the compromised one.
Furthermore, since we’re talking about the November Ballot, we also need a slate of candidates for
city council who are willing to consider the structural changes needed to stem
the tide of development-driven displacement, and to allow for a city with true development without displacement (perhaps “Shake” Anderson will consider
running on this platform). These candidates will be forbidden from paying for
advertising, but will be promoted through word of mouth and social media.
In conclusion, The Black Panthers’ housing demand (or
proposal) should not be off the
table, but should be seriously considered next time the City Council takes up
the housing crisis. If it’s too much to ask for a council person to bring it up,
at the very least housing activists such as Chorneau, James Vann, or Carol Fife
should step up without fear of working with others who advocate for
resurrecting, and publicizing the Panthers’ demand. I say, it’s time for the
negotiations to begin---or would you rather honor the Panthers’ legacy by going
to a museum to see yellowed copies of their amazing newspapers, and debate
about their “Failure” over artisan brews at a Growler Shop where the Panthers
used to feed the poor?
[1] http://postnewsgroup.com/blog/2016/04/15/probate-court-seizes-inheritances-african-americans/
[2] There are at least two versions of the Ten-Point
platform circulating on the web. In the original version, The Panthers use the
adjective “white” to refer to the landlords, I choose the more “race neutral”
word “capitalist” here only because there are more non-white landlords today,
though the majority, it must be stressed, are white.
[3] http://postnewsgroup.com/blog/2013/09/22/effort-revive-oaklands-stalled-project-sell-affordable-homes/
http://postnewsgroup.com/blog/2016/01/29/city-declare-housing-state-emergency-say-speakers-post-salon/
[4] Furthermore, ¾
of lower-income renters, who are disproportionately African American, pay more
than 30% of their income for rent (“East Bay Housing Organizations (EBHO),” Oakland Post, April 13-19; pg. 10.
[5]
http://postnewsgroup.com/blog/2016/04/22/oaklands-new-developer-fees-low-slow-say-housing-activists/
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