So said Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) to John Tanner, the man in charge of voting rights in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, last week in a hearing on Capital Hill.
This simple rebuttal was in reference to Tanner’s appearance before the Georgia NAACP where he actually said “because our society is such that minorities don’t become elderly. The way white people do. They die first.” More importantly, Tanner’s statement follows years of advocating for a law requiring a photo ID to vote, which was clearly designed to disenfranchise elderly black voters in Georgia. So when Tanner finally appeared before his committee, Davis wasted no time in exposing his utter idiocy and willful ignorance:
Other money quote, “once again you engaged in an analysis without knowing the numbers.”
I point this out not because it’s amusing (though it clearly is), but because Davis’ levelheaded, unemotional, and irrefutable line of criticism and questioning is the perfect tonic to the past seven years of faith-based fear-mongering. This is precisely how you defend the truth against the Bush administration’s known proclivity to fix facts “around the policy.”
Why we as people aren’t more forceful in the prosecution of bald-faced lies is beyond me, but if there is one lesson I hope we learn from the Bush era it’s this: we cannot afford to let these little lies and even bigger crimes against humanity go unpunished, for every day that passes without a sound provides more cover to their actions and legitimacy to their deeds. We must work day and night to expose every falsehood and fraud perpetrated by these mendacious criminals, and enlist friend and foe alike to turn back their massive onslaught against what is fair and right.
To do any less is to concede that all is already lost.
My neighborhood in San Francisco, known as SOMA (South of Market Street) or South Beach (even though there is no beach) or Rincon Hill, is in transition in nearly every possible way. What was once an area full of relatively low-slung and often derelict tenements and warehouses stretching down to the wharfs that once lined the bay, SOMA is not only gentrifying but rapidly going massively vertical.
I do not pretend to understand the myriad reasons why it is so difficult to build in San Francisco. Suffice to say it involves a fair amount of the classic NIMBY syndrome cleverly disguised as high-minded civic activism. By intention or pure accident, it creates the impression that “no one” wants San Francisco to change so that in the end very little can, and what does get built is often watered-down in the process.
SOMA, on the other hand, is very much a blank slate. Soon there will be thousands of new residents, but since there is no incumbent community upon which to intrude today, there is no one to advocate for it when it matters most (Jamie’s voice is one very strong exception). Thus, the SOMA of tomorrow is being shaped almost exclusively by the developers building luxury high-rise towers for their ultra-rich clientele…
Please know I have no qualms with the height of these new buildings, no issue with the added density in the neighborhood, and no care or concern with respect to their inhabitant’s wealth. I simply disagree with the way it’s being done, specifically the over-reliance on pairs of isolated towers set on opposite corners of an entire city block, with its perimeter ringed by townhomes.
There is no excitement in this approach, no variety in its rhythm, and absolutely no visual interest at the ground level. Even more to the point, there is no community space, no common oasis, no shared experience for all San Franciscans — all of the “public spaces” in these new buildings are in fact private by virtue of being placed above the townhouses, often five or six floors above street level. These new developments are fortresses, nothing more and nothing less. The entire design scheme exists to preserve the space around (and the admittedly great views from) the towers.
I am in New York City this week, and have been writing this brief manifesto while sitting in beautiful Bryant Park, at the very center of midtown Manhattan. You would never know it from sitting here, but I am just a five minute walk from Times Square, six blocks from the Empire State Building, and a hop away from the busy 5th Avenue thoroughfare. Sure, it’s loud as traffic whizzes by on three sides while sirens wail in the background, but it is truly an oasis. All day long, people wander in and out. Some stop for a brief minute to enjoy lunch, some linger for an hour with a book, and some like me stay all day for the free wifi. Interactions are incidental and ephemeral, but there is a feeling of being connected to something much greater than my own existence…
To be fair, it’s somewhat absurd to compare New York to San Francisco. New York’s fate was sealed many, many years ago with the street grid and the unique constraints it imposed on the city. But, with some notable exceptions, very few blocks are filled with a single monolithic development, most in fact are quite varied with new and old, small and tall, squat and sharp buildings all condensed together. The result is a richly-textured urban fabric.
There are obviously other differences in the two cities, not the least of which is the fact that most people in New York do not own automobiles and therefore rely on walking and/or public transportation. In this regard, the sidewalk is the city’s great unifier: age, gender, race, and wealth are all wiped away by the shared experience. Bryant Park feels much the same way. No, it’s not perfect, but it feels so much more real here than anything back home in San Francisco, and it is precisely the kind of public space that we desperately need in SOMA.
As an architecture and urban planning buff, I was very excited to see the new design proposals for the Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco, and I was instantly drawn to the Pelli Clark proposal for the elegant tower and the lush-green carpet of its rooftop garden (shown below). Then it hit me: all of the health and vitality of the street is once again removed and placed in the sky. Sure, it’s public, unlike the other developments being built, but it’s completely divorced from the city itself…
San Francisco, SOMA in particular, has its problems, not the least of which is the incredible number of homeless men and women living on the street. It seems we have decided that it’s more expedient to pretend this issue doesn’t exist, and to retreat within these fortress developments for comfort and protection. I submit to you that this is a strategic error with huge implications. We are quickly creating a community in SOMA that has no connection to the city in which it resides, one which is increasingly off-limits to the vast majority of its residents.
I strongly believe that inclusion is the way to solve these kinds of problems and create a deeper understanding for all involved. Our culture’s tendency to segment and segregate entire populations is archaic and entirely unacceptable in this day and age. We know better, now we must do better. It’s time that we take a hard look at the world we are creating, even if we have no power to change it today, we can at least begin to recognize our future opportunities and position ourselves to demand better results.
In the end, our built environment has a tremendous effect on our collective psyche. We owe it to ourselves today, and future generations tomorrow, to create a world in which everyone has a right to participate, and everyone has a chance to belong.
On the subject of the Republican Party and the anti-choice movement, Digby saidbest:
So let’s not fool ourselves. It’s not about children. It’s about women. And that means it is simply more conservative resistance to the long march of progress this country has made toward equal rights for all its citizens. The same philosophy that fought tooth and nail against every advance made to ensure that this is truly a free country by denying equal rights to all its citizens also animates those who argue that the rights of the fetus are paramount. It’s just another way of ensuring that the rights of women aren’t.
And once you recognize that you realize that there is no way to fudge this or work around the edges. Every time you forget that you create the rhetorical space for the other side to make their argument more explicit —- which is now happening in all its full frontal glory on the Supreme Court of the United States. Women are either free citizens or they’re not.
I remember talking with Vernon Ferrier prior to the 2000 election, and being shocked at his insistence that George W. Bush would slowly but surely turn back the clock on women’s rights. I wrongly assumed that the law was settled, even we as a society were not. But after the past six plus years, it’s clear that is the goal of his policy. And because of that I now know there is no other way to see this battle: “Women are either free citizens or they’re not.”