The San Francisco Latinx Democratic Club’s People’s Slate continues to be appalled at Mayor London Breed’s record on how Latino/x folks are being treated in San Francisco. It gives us no pleasure to have to write this. Yet we must acknowledge the pain members of our community are experiencing due to her track record, policy choices. Most recently her racist and xenophobic comments.
Latino/x population is growing in every city in California, except in San Francisco. This is the one part of the state where the Latinos/x continue to live in substandard and congregate settings while being displaced in record numbers. This city needs our labor to run but won’t invest in creating the systems to allow us to thrive. How is it that a city this wealthy and prosperous continues to leave the Latino/x community behind? We believe to be able to catch up to the rest of the state, our needs have to be at the forefront of economic development, education and housing.
A series of legislative and executive actions from the Mayor’s office diluting Latinx representation is something that we must make public. This is including:
- Removing the Tenderloin from District 6, despite having a huge population of newcomer Latino immigrants, children and families, diluting political representation and voting power
- Requesting undated resignation aka ‘loyalty’ letters from over 40 city commissioners, yet has defended racist written remarks against Blacks and Latinos in a political questionnaire from her appointed School Board Commissioner Ann Hsu
- Having no senior staffers of color in the Mayor’s office, as well as only 9% of Latinos serving on commissions, despite being 16% of the city population.
- Latino homelessness is the fastest growing population at 38% of those experiencing homelessness in the city
This begs the question: Does London Breed care enough about Latinos to have her policies support us?
That is why Mayor London Breed’s recent comments generalizing that the majority of arrests in the Tenderloin neighborhood were residents of Honduran descent (Click here to hear it yourself. It is at minute 43:25) is appalling to us, and indicates a dangerous line of thinking from the Mayor regarding the Latino community. While she denies that they are not racially profiled arrests, the Public Defender’s office disagrees. These remarks are xenophobic and racist.
We are calling upon London Breed to retract her remarks, apologize and prioritize a Latino agenda, where our community stakeholders have a seat in addressing the systemic racism that has plagued the Latino community from San Francisco.
Link to Medium Post here