The generation of young people I work with, 18 to 25-year-olds, have only known historic moments through the experience of disaster. To be in a defining political American moment meant that there were elections being stolen, suicide planes diving into American buildings, wars beginning, cities drowning, or economies collapsing. Historic American moments were to be avoided.

This presidential election changed all that, and as celestial as Obama appears, he is a star that feels not so far away from the communities here on the ground. That is why these same young people, for the first time, are embracing this moment of history as theirs to claim.

Council again snubs citizens with dismissal of Independent Police Auditor.

Let me take a stab at the job description for the next San Jose Independent Police Auditor. I think I’ve got it.

Qualifications are as follows:
• Must have flexible definition of “independent.”
• Must be willing to satisfactorily explain any police activity as “the norm,” regardless of glaring empirical evidence to the contrary.
• The successful applicant can multitask—listening to and tracking problems with police practices, while refraining from offering any logical policy recommendations.
• Applicants who properly fit in city council and police union pockets are encouraged to apply.

Note: This is a temporary position, contingent upon applicant’s ability to never initiate, affect, or be rumored to be in the vicinity of law enforcement oversight.

... for Froilan Chan-Liongco

Breate deep, East Palo Alto.

The toxics that may have once filled your lungs—the pollutants from the chemical waste plant that threatened cancer, asthma and birth defects—are no longer. Friolan Chan-Liongco, who passed away last week due to a heart attack, cleaned the air for you.

A former employee of the high-tech toxic waste plant named Romic, Chan-Liongco stood up to the company that had for decades sacrificed East Palo Alto community members’ health in its pursuit of profit.

Yesterday, I attended a roundtable discussion at Google, hosted by the Knight Commission, which was about “Meeting the Public’s Information Needs.” It was very interesting brainstorming, and was the first time I had seen different parts of the media and community landscape in the same room—from managing editors of the Mercury News to folks who had just started neighborhood news websites.

The time I knew Obama really had arrived to a younger generation is when his bootleg “Change” shirt was getting more requests at our Hip Hop Co-Op Shop than the Kanye West gear, or all the various shirts with prints of guns, which is like 80 percent of them. The young and hip in San Jose have been taking that iconic image of Obama’s face, and silk-screening their own versions of the shirts, adding symbols, and making new color combinations to match their vintage Air Jordans. They have made Obama theirs to keep.

At a time of utter failure with California’s overcrowded prison system, a legislative initiative called the “Runner Initiative” is gaining momentum to get on the November ballot. Dubbed as a tough-on-crime law that will be presented to voters as the “The Safe Neighborhoods Act: Protect Crime Victims, Stop Gangs and Thugs” (Proposition 6), the initiative is a sledgehammer that plays upon the public’s fears, and will ultimately punish the state. Think Proposition 21—the law passed in 2000 that dramatically increased incarceration rates and sentences on juveniles—on steroids.

My friend Gem has bruises on her arm and cuts on her ankles. She’s beaten up, and lovin’ it. She is in training to join a new ground-breaking team and sport in San Jose—the Silicon Valley Roller Girls (SVRG), the only all-female, flat track, contact sport played on quad roller skates. And for those of you who think this is just a hip, retro fad, please believe this sport is for real. The team is launching their first San Jose home game at the San Jose Skate, formerly known as the Aloha Skate, on August 30, 2008, called “Hot August Fights.” And from the way they train, looks like it’s going to be a high-speed, high-impact battle.

I didn’t know if it could happen, but it turns out it is possible to get people to voluntarily sit through a panel of speakers from the Bureau of Automotive Repair. All you’ve got to do is couch it in a car show featuring some of the cleanest low riders, bombs, hot rods, imports and Harleys in the South Bay. Then surround that with the one place that you know is poppin’ on a Saturday afternoon—the Berryessa Flea Market.

When Linda came to our office two Sundays ago, she was supposed to be escorted by her 25-year-old son Jerry. Jerry has just finished doing five months in prison on a parole violation. He was drunk and asleep at his girlfriend’s family house and her family (who doesn’t like him because he is a parolee) called the cops. When the police came, Jerry ran because he was on parole, and he ended up with a couple of misdemeanors—he was charged with trespassing and resisting arrest. He was regretful and embarrassed, but they said it was a parole violation, so he had to serve time at San Quentin.

Pop’s Mini-Mart, at the corner of King and Ocala on the eastside, is getting a facelift. But it isn’t just a cosmetic change; it’s the kind that can change the history and lives of a community that surrounds it. Frank “Poncho” Torres, an accomplished muralist whose work is all over the eastside, has steadily been crafting a masterpiece for the past seven months or so—a wall-sized mural that is a call to end gang violence and to locate this community in a larger cultural moment.

One of the most nerve-racking experiences a worker can have on the job is announcing to their manager that they want a union. Doing so can be a quick way to lose your job, and lamenting about ineffective labor laws doesn’t pay the bills while looking through classifieds on your couch.  It is, by all measure, a dangerous gamble, but one that can pay off in the long run with higher wages, benefits, and a mechanism for airing grievances.

When I drove around the Boys Ranch in Morgan Hill a month ago, I expected some sort of military-style, boot-camp atmosphere. Almost all of the young men I knew who went there years ago had run from the Ranch like it was part of the protocol: Go to “the Hall,” then the Ranch, and run from the Ranch back to the Hall. I figured there had to be a reason, something unacceptable that would make youth run when they knew for sure they would get caught. However, after talking to dozens of youngsters as to why they ran, it turns out it wasn’t that deep—it was just easy.

On June 3, the San Jose City Council passed the controversial promoter ordinance that will regulate downtown nightlife by imposing fees and mandatory permits on event promoters and organizers. I don’t want to put too much on it, but the day after the ordinance passed, it was like someone had shot live entertainment in the head.

It’s graduation season, and tassels are being turned in high schools, community colleges, vocational programs and universities all over the South Bay. This year, a friend of mine who I first met seven years ago when he was locked up in the max unit of juvenile hall (I was giving writing workshops through a program called “The Beat Within”) got his high school diploma and is now taking classes at De Anza College. He was the kind of youngster that was always quick witted, which probably got him more trouble than anything else, but this year, his gift for gab was rewarded, and he was the commencement speaker at his graduation. He was even on the evening news when they did a segment on graduations, which was a bit of redemption for him since the last time he was on TV, he was kicking in a newspaper stand during Mardi Gras years ago.

In the course of the next two weeks, San Jose’s civil and criminal courts will be discussing the use of Tasers by law enforcement. This week in federal court, the Salinas Police Department and Taser International faces a jury in the case of a Salinas man who died after he was stunned 30 times by Taser-wielding police officers.  The trial will be closely watched by San Jose attorneys and future plaintiffs who are aiming for their day in court against Taser International and the San Jose Police Department.

On May 12, 2008, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office dropped the charges against the last of the “Eastside Six”—a group that faced numerous misdemeanors and felonies from an incident on Cinco de Mayo, 2006. But don’t let the romantic lefty throwback name fool you; these were not a bunch of armed Black Panthers planning a City Hall takeover, but, rather, peaceful community activists who were only armed with cameras and bullhorns.