Respect Us or Spit in Our Faces:  The Berkeley Police Chief Vote

By Paul Lee

[Read by Negeene Mosead at Berkeley City Council Closed Meeting, April 13, 2023]

The Berkeley city manager, mayor and city council have a fateful choice to make.   Respect “black” and “brown” Berkeleyans or spit in our faces.   That’s what the pending vote for Acting Police Chief Jen Louis to remove the qualification from her title boils down to.

One could quibble about whether or not the quota-hunting anti-“blackism” and anti-homelessism recently revealed in the nauseating texts of some Berkeley Police Department (BPD) officers occurred under her watch:   

https://www.berkeleyside.org/2022/11/14/berkeley-police-text-messages-darren-kacalek-bpa.

Yes, one could nitpick about that — that is, if you’re “white.”   “Black” and “brown” Berkeleyans don’t have that luxury, and we’ve never have had it.   For us, the historic victims of the BPD, it’s literally a matter of live or death.

Old News

We didn’t need those texts to know the BPD’s attitude about and actions towards those of us who this city has always failed, much less to be certain that they represent the barrel, not merely a few bad apples.   

Louis’ tenure and positions of leadership are sufficient evidence for us to know that she either endorsed or tolerated the department’s historic racism, hostility towards the poor and reduction of our dignity, safety and rights to quotas or, at the very least, that she was part of the insidious culture that has nurtured and protected these attitudes and actions for as long as there has been a BPD.  

A Force for Change or Same-Old Same-Old?

Therefore, “black” and “brown” Berkeleyans are keenly watching this vote.   They expect the persons of color in the administration to be more than the lawn jockeys or cardboard cutouts that White Power wants them to be (and, in some cases, has paid for them to be).

Similarly, they expect the “white” members of the administration to do more than display their sentiment that Black Lives Matter in their windows — a fine gesture, but one that neither requires nor costs anything.

Instead, “black” and “brown” Berkeleyans look for them to display by demonstrating the courage and moral decency to vote against the continuation of a regime that has always insulted our dignity; that has treated us as colonial subjects to be contained and controlled rather than, like “white” Berkeleyans, protected and served; that has made us afraid to call for help lest doing so turns crisis into tragedy; and that has perpetuated a tradition of brutality so vicious that it’s etched into our DNA.

Champions Needed

“Black” and “brown” Berkeleyans, who have always been exploited, oppressed and marginalized by a “racial” hierarchy that privileges and protects the “white” and the wealthy over poor people of color, need and deserve champions.   

If any member of the administration believes that they are that, they could make us believe it, too, by doing some long-overdue spring cleaning.   Out with the old; in with the new.   

No one who has been part — much less not anyone in leadership — of the BPD’s culture of racist impunity deserves to be the top cop, no more than former Chief Andy (We Could Shoot People) Greenwood did:  https://www.friendsofadeline.org/berkeley-police-chief-shooting-protesters/.

Trust This

Therefore, their choice is as simple as it is grave; as clear as it is urgent; as necessary as it is timely.   Prove that they respect all Berkeleyans, and particularly those of us who are most in danger, by voting against Louis.   

If, somehow, they’re able to justify voting for her — and, by extension, for all that her tenure and leadership represent — know that “black” and “brown” Berkeleyans will feel as if they’ve spit in our faces.

And if they do that, they can trust this:   Come the next election, we’ll vote against them.