Racism in the Bay Area
Our community here in the Bay Area is very accepting. There are very rarely acts of outright hate. But there is an active hate group that exists right here in Mountain View. The group is known as the Daily Stormer. Although this doesn’t mean that Mountain View is a headquarters to this hateful group, it is still shocking. In the summer of 2016, there were many meetups in Mountain View for this group. One member of the group posted on a message board about these meetups, “‘Great to see repeat attendees and a couple new brothers, We've got representation from the East Bay, South Bay, Peninsula, and Santa Cruz." The Daily Stormers belief system is a “repackaging of white supremacy”, the members adopting political neo-nazi ideas infused with racism and anti-semitism. However, the mountain view police department has claimed that they won’t be looking into this as if the meeting did occur, no one seemed to have noticed, as the police were not given any tips regarding it. Mountain View council member Lenny Siegel said that neo-nazi groups like the Daily Stormer do have extremely negative views, but our biggest concerns should be the unaffiliated people who hold these views in our society and hold jobs such as doctors, politicians, teachers, and salespeople. He said, "It's not that the extreme right isn't reprehensible, but right now they aren't the ones who are doing the damage."
This racist group meetup is not the only isolated incident of racism in the Bay Area. Anti-immigrant posters from a white supremacist group known as Patriot Front were posted all over Los Gatos, Saratoga, and Willow Glen. The posters read “Keep American” and “Report Illegal Aliens”. And these racist incidents happen anywhere- even in Los Gatos High School. Last years homecoming brought out the racism in the students there, with one proposal poster reading: “Do u wanna be like a n***** and hang at PROM?”, and another Los Gatos student making a proposal in blackface. The pictures of the two posters were circulated around online, and many people commented congratulating and laughing at the posters and liking them until eventually, the administration saw. The fact that people were laughing and sharing it shows that the students didn’t see the issues with the posts. Learning about the KKK and hearing extreme racists speak in documentaries can create the illusion that we live in a very inclusive and accepting bubble here in the Bay Area. However, while that is mostly true, it is a good wake up call to read about all the instances of racism that people experience around us. It might be easy to laugh at the extremist views of the hooded men on a documentary, but the subtle racists who are integrated into our society and can affect our daily lives are actually more dangerous in smaller ways, such as a teacher placing bias on what they teach, doctor treating people differently, police officers making assumptions or abusing their power, and politicians allowing their beliefs to affect lawmaking.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/07/05/racist-posters-popping-up-in-south-bay/
This brings up a good point, no one wants to believe that such beliefs exist in their very own community, but they do. Los Altos is quite diverse compared to the rest of the country, so I think here especially a lot of us believe that there isn't much, if any, racism. But a lot of people live in the Bay Area, so these beliefs are bound to be held by someone. Even logically knowing that, it can still be hard to believe, which is why I think knowing that the Los Gatos incident happened and that that organization exists in Mountain View is a good reality check for Bay area residents.
ReplyDelete