In Marin when ‘equity’ means ‘hate’

Sherman R. Frederick/Properly Subversive

I despise the word “equity” as it is used today.

For example, consider this statement from the Marin County Office of Equity. 

“Dear Community,

“Welcome to the Marin County Office of Equity newsletter! Autumn is upon us. In September and October, we celebrated National Hispanic Heritage Month, Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Filipino American History Month.

“At the same time, we also acknowledge the human suffering and atrocities taking place in Palestine and Israel. We call for peace, an understanding of the root causes of this conflict, and encourage you to use your voices to co-create a just world.

“It is our hope that this newsletter will inspire you to join us in advancing equity in Marin County and across the world.

“Office of Equity Team”

Look, there is no way to sugarcoat this. A statement that fails to acknowledge the acts of terrorism committed by Hamas last month in Israel, and then dares to say that they hope their statement advances “equity” in the world, is a flat-out statement of hate. It’s a mindset that makes you realize how Germans justified the Holocaust.

Equity? There is no equity in the beheading of babies in their cribs, disemboweling a pregnant woman and shooting her unborn child, stacking up the bodies of teenagers slaughtered at a peace concert, burning the elderly alive in their homes, or taking hostages to use them as sick bargaining chips. If the people in the Marin County Office of Equity can’t acknowledge the atrocities committed by Hamas without any ifs, ands or buts, then they should be fired. 

Before you say anything else, you gotta start there. Don’t look away.

DYSFUNCTIONAL

There must be a better way to conduct public meetings in Marin. I sat through a recent specially called Fairfax Town Council meeting last month in which the town’s moms and dads unveiled sweeping zoning and housing changes to Fairfax.

As an impartial observer, I came away with a couple of impressions. 

First, the issue dropped on the public without time to digest the information. Backup material, which consisted of hundreds of pages, was unveiled only 5 days before the hearing. 

Secondly, the Town Council enacted a rule that limited people to 2 minutes to comment. My unofficial count was a dozen people said something that night, either in person or on Zoom. That means total input to the Council consisted of 24 minutes. Had the Council allowed each person three minutes, which several speakers asked for, the public comment would have taken up 36 minutes. It seems to me the Town Council walked into an unnecessary amount of criticism over that 12 extra minutes. 

Thirdly, the way the Town Council conducts its meetings, there is no conversation between speakers and their elected officials. If you speak before the Council, you may say your peace, but you will get no immediate response from council members or staff. Why? No one could explain why. That’s just the way it is, the public speakers were told.

After the public comment period, the Council can – and does – circle back to address questions brought forward, but it’s not a perfect system. Not all questions asked by the public got answered. And if they were addressed, there was no mechanism for follow-up. 

The end result was frustration. More heat than light. There’s gotta be a better way. 

FASCISM

Beware the American government’s clear and present danger of using third parties to censor information. This report from Matt Taibbi lays out this American style fascism.

“Monday, the independent website Consortium News filed suit against the United States of America and Newsguard Technologies. The complaint targeting both the government and a private media ratings service is an important one, putting the censorship-by-proxy system on trial. 

“On September 7, 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense gave an award of $749,387 to Newsguard Technologies, a private service that scores media outlets on “reliability” and “trust.” According to the suit, roughly 40,000 subscribers buy Newsguard subscriptions, getting in return a system of “Nutrition Labels” supposedly emphasizing “safe” content. 

“Importantly, Newsguard’s customers include universities and libraries, whose users are presented with labels warning you that CBS is great and Tucker Carlson is dangerous.”

The point, of course, isn’t whether you like CBS over Tucker Carlson or vice versa. The point is the government has no business creating systems that censor one brand of news over the other. Keep information free and unfettered. It’s the only way to keep the Great American Experiment going.

ONE MORE THING

And, with that snarky comment, that will do it for today. Until next week when we meet again in this little corner of Bay Area journalism, remember to avoid soreheads, laugh a little and always question authority. 

“Properly Subversive” is written by Sherman R. Frederick you can reach him by email at shermfrederick@gmail.com.)