Is Protesting Density in Santa Monica Really Racism?

City of Santa Monica

Dan Hall, an expert on racism?

Dear Council,

Once in a while I tune into your meetings to see if anything's changed in the priorities, ideology, and general tone of our fair city. NOPE!

The clearest example is the exchange in the last city council meeting between the just-arrived-in-Santa-Monica-a-few-minutes-ago-carpetbagger-councilman Dan Hall and the born-in-Santa Monica-small-business-owner-and-living-in-a-rent-control apartment Mayor Lana Negrete. It was a small moment, but like many small exchanges, it was an ex-ray of the entire structure of Dan Hall's (and the council's) thinking.

Mayor Negrete made a comment about the ongoing densification and passionately argued for community input and real affordability, ending with: "It's not just about meeting state mandates, it's about doing it in a way that preserves Santa Monica's character, sustainability, and livability."

Well, that was just too much for Dan Hall, who had to quick-change into his Super Social Justice Warrior outfit, replete with an "I know what's best cape," in order to castigate Lana for her use of the word 'character.' According to Hall: "I think I would just caution everyone about using terms like character of neighborhoods. Those are the exact words that racists use to keep people of color, low-income people, and workers out of neighborhoods." You see, if you disagree about the densification of Santa Monica (already more densely populated than LA at 14,500 residents per square mile), you're racist!

Oh, Santa Monica, will you ever change? NOPE! The sight of a white and privileged man who went to Harvard lecturing a brown woman about racism was hilarious and cringe-worthy. That exchange should haunt Dan Hall for the rest of his political career. But Mayor Negrete said it best in her response, in which she rightly tore Councilman Hall a new one. Enjoy!: https://www.youtube.com/live/SvnxweJll4w.

City of Santa Monica

Jesse Zwick, who speaks for all Jews in denouncing the state of Israel

The whole meeting had elements of this brain dead thinking long abandoned by all except the far left wing of Democrats that lost us the election to Donald Trump. It included another exchange in which a resident clumsily made a capitalist economic argument that, um, people should live where they can afford to live, talking about her time in a cockroach infested apartment in Queens, and her subsequent rise in economic circumstances that allowed her to afford a small house in Santa Monica-which she short-handed as being like moving to "Mayberry." Now, I think she was using Mayberry as a metaphor for a clean and safe single-family neighborhood after a cockroach infested apartment in Queens, in something that used to be called "pursuing the American Dream." Well, Jesse Zwick disagreed and instantly pounced, donning his cape, because Mayberry was actually an example of racism, see? The fact that redlining was outlawed almost 60 years ago makes no difference. Santa Monica must self-flagellate and right every wrong, whether it was homophobia or racism from decades ago.

The bottom line is Zwick and Hall, and the rest of the council except Mayor Negrete, want to turn Santa Monica into Vancouver. They think their YIMBY approach will solve homelessness in Santa Monica (I guess each 2 million dollar condo at a time, according to Zwick, who lives in a single-family home, btw). It won't. They also think by slaying one straw man after another that they are fighting racism. They aren't. But they get to pat themselves on the back for their superior ethics, while keeping their patron developers happy.

What is happening in Santa Monica is thousands of units are being built in ugly stack-and-pack apartments, some of which look like public housing, and some of which are supposedly "affordable" (at $4,000-$7,000 a month). This influx of 9,000 apartment units crammed into every boulevard in the city is already changing (yes) the character, sustainability, and livability of the city, while doing nothing to help people buy starter condos that would actually help them build generational wealth (and a sense of commitment to Santa Monica). And now, the council has approved the dismantling of R1 neighborhoods, using tired accusations of racism against anybody who dares to protest. As somebody who already lives in dense housing, I protest! Guess I'm racist too!

Santa Monica, insulated by its only blue status, forever the ideological playground of the far left solving problems we don't have, while ignoring the ones we do. YUP!