It hasn’t been a great month in public relations for the so-called “sharing economy,” at least here at the industry’s ground zero, not-so-affectionately known as San Francisco 2.0. Here, even regular citizens– and not even particularly politicized ones– are starting to get hip to what unfettered capitalism and unregulated business looks like in their town now that the umpteenth Uber driver was accused of threatening a female passenger with sexual violence, followed by Airbnb’s appallingly tone-deaf ad campaign calling out public works and employees.
The home-sharing app stirred further controversy as its misguided billboard and bus shelter ads sparked questions of the financing of the No on F measure they fiscally sponsored. Going to vote next Tuesday, if F passes, it could result in tightening existing regulations on the books by actually enforcing them, which would mean a new dawn for vacation rentals, and a bummer for the (mostly) pure profit margin of Airbnb.
The Other Barrio and The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution are two very different films yet both depict crimes against communities of color in the Bay Area and beyond. I recently spoke to producer Lou Dematteis and director Stanley Nelson, about their respective films.
Forty nine years ago this month, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton formed the Black Panther Party for the purpose of combating police violence in their Oakland neighborhood. Just in time for the organization’s fiftieth anniversary, the story of the Black Panthers is told once and for all in Stanley Nelson’s The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. “I’m interested in movements, not from the top down but the people who join and sustain movements,” says Nelson. “I really wanted the film to be about the rank and file members who are normally not talked to.”
Buffy Sainte-Marie is one of the central figures in Keep on Pushing: As unique musically as she is direct lyrically, Sainte-Marie was born on the Piapot Cree Indian reservation in Saskatchewan and adopted by a family in Maine. She says that as a child she was artistic innately, as well by necessity. Befriended by a Narragansett couple who lived near her family in Maine, it was from them she learned about cultural handcrafts and kindness. “They didn’t sit around and give me Indian lessons,” she said, “But on the other hand, they didn’t chase me away.” As a young student, Sainte-Marie was drawn to philosophy and religion, while she simultaneously developed her musical side, as a folk performer. Her unique vibrato and innovative song style are what first drew me to finding out more about her story; what I found, moved me to the core, from the volume of hardship and turmoil she described, to her refusal to study war, which landed her among Nixon’s enemies. “I don’t think many people, even today, understand how much blacklisting has gone on of artists in the record business,” she says. In the face of the hassles, Sainte-Marie continued to innovate, as an electronic musician as well as a computer-based visual artist. Committed to teaching, to passing on what was given freely to her as well as what she fought to achieve, Sainte-Marie’s work still offers a pointed critique of war, greed, injustice and the anti-people policies that impact indigenous people all over this land.
Debora Iyall is one of the artists directly descended from Sainte-Marie’s example of native creativity: A singer, a songwriter, a poet, and a visual artist, Iyall’s story also unfolds throughout Keep on Pushing, beginning with her time as a teenager during the Indians of All Tribes’ Occupation of Alcatraz. Her punk-rooted style bears little resemblance to Sainte-Marie’s folk roots (Iyall was most influenced by Patti Smith), but a close connection to arts education and her roots in the Cowlitz tribe made her a unique presence in San Francisco art-punk band, Romeo Void. Iyall had the guidance of elders—her mother and the Natives she met at pow-wows and on Alcatraz—who supported her creative discoveries. “I felt like I had these little nuggets of information or culture to hang on to,” she said. Today, Iyall exudes confidence in her work as a performer and visual artist and is also a teacher and advocate, for artists of all colors and dimensions.
I was honored and humbled to have been allowed access to the lives of both Debora Iyall and Buffy Sainte-Marie—two women whose works have uplifted and inspired, not only their brothers and sisters native to the Americas, but their fellow artists and anyone who’s ever been broke or hungry, tired, or cast aside, and helped them to keep on keeping on: Their complete stories are told in Keep on Pushing.
“For those of us who are progressive, who believe the City of San Francisco should work for everyone, it’s a difficult time to be at City Hall…it’s a difficult time to be in that building,” said Supervisor David Campos over the weekend as he helped to launch Vision SF, a grassroots group primed to reclaim San Francisco from the forces of greed, corruption and narcissism that have poisoned municipal waters.
Representing the Mission, the City’s Latino cultural district and locus of its housing crisis, Supervisor Campos brought the additional dimension of the broken immigration system to the event conceived as a pre-election housing initiative forum. Referring to Donald Trump scapegoating immigrants following a recent murder committed by an undocumented person here, Campos cleaved to San Francisco’s sanctuary city status and pressed to keep local law enforcement out of the business of immigration. “Our sanctuary policy already says we’re not going to tolerate criminal activity,” underscored Campos. “No human being is illegal and every human being regardless of immigration status has human dignity.”
Intended to rally grassroots community organizations and free range citizens and spur them into a cohesive voting block for this election, there wasn’t much talk of San Francisco’s homeless population, though the ballot’s housing initiatives perhaps imply a way toward that solution too. Propositions A, F, I, J and K concern affordable housing, regulating Airbnb, pausing development of market-rate housing, protecting legacy businesses and using city-owned surplus land respectively—and were elaborated on by the Housing Rights Committee’s Sara Shortt, former assemblyman and supervisor Tom Ammiano, lifelong human rights advocate Cleve Jones and artist Roberto Hernandez (who learned to organize directly from Cesar Chavez). The activists were joined by committed singer-songwriter Tom Heyman, young filmmakers Joe Talbot and Jimmie Fails, comedian Mike Evans, and poet laureate, Alejandro Murguía, among others. A clip of Alexandra Pelosi’s new film, San Francisco 2.0, was to be screened but Vision-SF co-founder David Talbot announced that venture capitalist Ron Conway succeeded in scaring HBO and the filmmaker’s family from showing the film and attending the event (not exactly a good portent for the region that sparked the Free Speech movement).
Talbot and co-host, former supervisor and housing rights activist Christina Olague presided over the program that generally advocated coalition building across race, age, and economic lines. Addressing the need to include young, exploited tech workers in the movement for economic and housing justice, Cleve Jones invoked the name of his friend Harvey Milk which brought the crowd to a eerie hush. “It’s over,” Jones remembered, as he recalled the moment of seeing the slain body of Milk being removed from City Hall, “All I could think was, “it’s over’,” he said. Though as night fell and the streets filled with San Franciscans from all walks of life, candles lit to mourn the fallen at the evening’s march and vigil in 1978, Jones found a way to be inspired to push forward. “This is just the beginning,” he said, and it was that message he impressed on the crowd who left with house signs and a renewed spirit of solidarity.
Meanwhile, across town, thousands of San Franciscans and tourists reveled in Golden Gate Park while musicians, many with counter-culture roots of their own, entertained at the annual three-day music festival sponsored by deceased private equity investor, Warren Hellman. Mega-producer T Bone Burnett used his stage time to speak truth to power: “Who’s going to call this darkness, darkness. Somebody’s got to locate the bomb, dot com.” The founders and members of Vision-SF are trying, man, but they’re going to need a whole lotta help from their friends.
Among reasons to like Bernie Sanders, he supports the ERA and the Paycheck Fairness Act, he advocates for increasing minimum wage, has commited to expanding health and reproductive rights, and believes that childcare, preschool, and parental leave should be available to all Americans, not just a privileged few. While I don’t know where punk rocker Alice Bag stands on Bernie Sanders, I recently heard her perform “Equality in the USA” with Frightwig in San Francisco at the Punk Renaissance, a week long festival organized by Punk Rock Sewing Circle, former punk rockers committed to social justice. Interestingly, Sanders has ties to punk rock, when as mayor of Burlington, he approved the Mayor’s Youth Office and punk gathering spot, 242 Main. Not only do I think there could be a valuable meeting of the minds here– as in a coalition of punk rockers for Sanders– but Bag’s powerful punk performance once again reminded me of my generation’s musical ability to change hearts and public opinion in fundamental ways. Read entire article at
It hasn’t been a great month in public relations for the so-called “sharing economy,” at least here at the industry’s ground zero, not-so-affectionately known as San Francisco 2.0. Here, even regular citizens– and not even particularly politicized ones– are starting to get hip to what unfettered capitalism and unregulated business looks like in their town now that the umpteenth Uber driver was accused of threatening a female passenger with sexual violence, followed by Airbnb’s appallingly tone-deaf ad campaign calling out public works and employees.
Denise Sullivan 