Sad Francisco

Urban Alchemy is the proto-policing nonprofit incubated in SF, and exported to Austin, Los Angeles and Portland. Norma Azucar and Brooke Lober talk about harm reduction in the midst of the Tenderloin's overdose crisis, and how the city is funneling millions in the resource-suck known as Urban Alchemy. "#SweepThePolice" by Brooke Lober:  stjamesinfirmary.org/wordpress/?p=5738 | Tenderloin Peoples'...

How are landlords using tech to refine evictions, surveillance, and speculation? Erin McElroy of The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project tracks the new brainchildren of the real estate and tech industries. Anti-Eviction Mapping Project: antievictionmap.com | Landlord Tech Watch:  antievictionmappingproject.github.io/landlordtech | Anti-Eviction Lab: antievictionlab.org | Counterpoints: A San Francisco B...

What politicians say in public usually doesn't line up with what they text friends from their work phones. Hazel (Twitter: @dizz_h) pores over public records that give insight into what politicians really think. Also see: Stolen Belonging: stolenbelonging.org | For more Sad Francisco: patreon.com/sadfrancisco  

A book club episode with Shuli Branson, co-editor of the new anthology "Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies," and author of "Practical Anarchism." Shuli: sjbranson.com | Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies:  pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1296 | Practical Anarchism: plutobooks.com/9780745344928/practical-anarchism | Remembering Jen Angel, 1975-2023 (The Ag...

Kazani Finao remembers Banko Brown, and speaks on fighting the forces that caused Banko's death.    -- People's Mission Coalition Statement: https://eltecolote.org/content/en/guest-commentary-we-must-fight-poverty-not-the-poor/ | People's Mission Coalition: thepeoplesmissioncoalition.com | The Killing of Banko Brown and SF's Crisis (The Nation): https://www.thenation.com/article/society/banko-brow...

Andrew Szeto makes food and zines. Their most recent zine is "Heartbeat of Struggle," part of Kearny Street Workshop's " Dreaming People's History" ( www.kearnystreet.org/dreaming-peoples-history ). Anti-Eviction Mapping Project: antievictionmap.com | Andrew at Truthout: truthout.org/authors/andrew-szeto | "Fall of the I-Hotel" by Curtis Choy: youtube.com/watch?v=lzrWwvI8JpI | "San Francisco's Int...

'Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary' is out this week, wherever you get books. patreon.com/toshiom has upcoming book events. Nice things people have said about the book: I'm so thrilled everyone gets to see what I see every day in Miss Major Speaks . Miss Major has shaped the world in countless ways from Stonewall to today, by being her unruly, fabulous self, leading...

A Gay Shame ( gayshame.net ) podcast. Gentrifying neighbors, politician Hilary Ronen, the SFPD, and the media conspired to shut down parts of Capp Street in the Mission using concrete barricades. While they continue to sink millions into a fire hazard that makes sex workers less safe, Gay Shame talked to Celestina Pearl (St. James Infirmary |  stjamesinfirmary.org ), Dilara Yarbrough (scholars.org...

Historian Susan Schweik, on the Ugly Laws - a San Francisco policy invention that criminalized people for appearing poor, disabled, and/or fat in public. Show Notes: 'The Ugly Laws' by Susan Schweik:  https://bookshop.org/a/82838/9780814783610 | Stacey Milbern's 'Notes on Access Washing' via the Disability Justice Network of Ontario: https://www.djno.ca/post/notes-on-access-washing | 'Crip Camp' (...

Jemma DeCristo (@jemmaisOKeh) returns to explain the ways that the Transgender Cultural District is a container for gentrification and police. Support the show at patreon.com/sadfrancisco. Show Notes: "San Francisco May Soon Have the World's First Transgender Cultural District" by Toshio Meronek, for Vice: https://www.vice.com/en/article/xyvapd/san-francisco-may-soon-have-the-worlds-first-transgen...

New-in-town techies fundraise for the installation of boulders to stop homeless people from using public sidewalks. What could go wrong? With Christen Cioffi (http://www.chzaz.com/). Show notes: "The Boulders of Clinton Park: Sisyphus Retold" by Quiver Watts in Street Sheet: http://www.streetsheet.org/the-boulders-of-clinton-park-sisyphus-retold/?fbclid=IwAR0aEem9j9godxuOS-mN9WrcMVM9pSa8j2URjimtS6...

"Should social movement work be paid?" is a question that a lot of nonprofit workers take personally. In Dean Spade's first visit, we talk about why 15 years after 'The Revolution Will Not Be Funded,' we still have to ask it.   "Should Social Movement Work Be Paid?" at BCRW: http://www.deanspade.net/2023/01/06/video-should-social-movement-work-be-paid-lecture | BCRW Mutual Aid (the book): http://w...

California Governor Gavin Newsom and ex-Mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot owe their political lives to gay wealth. A conversation with cultural critic Yasmin Nair (yasminnair.com) on politicians who never fail to disappoint. | Show Notes: "How Gay Money Became Gay Wealth: A Fable" by Yasmin Nair:   https://yasminnair.com/how-gay-money-became-gay-wealth-a-fable  | "American Gay: Pete Buttigieg and th...

Susan Stryker is an historian who uncovered one of the first modern rebellions against police violence by trans/queer people. In 1967, the Tenderloin's Compton's Cafeteria was a site of resistance against state violence, but today its space arm of the prison industrial complex owned by one of the largest private prison corporations in the world, Geo Group. - At the Crossroads of Turk and Taylor: R...

Japanese politicians want to erase the history of the 200,000 women who were forced by the Japanese military into sexual slavery. Statues around the world remember the "comfort women" from places including China, Korea, the Phillipines, and Japan itself, but it's been a battle. Kota from  Against Japanism joins us in the treaty capitol of the world.  Part 1 is here , with guest Judith Mirkinson fr...

Eight years after a fatal fire in the Mission District, there's still a blank space where dozens of people, a Latinx market, and a Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen once existed. We follow up on what many people at the time suggested was "the perfect crime." On assignment in the Silicon Desert, Christen Cioffi (Twitter: @jfchrist_ ) declares landlords unfit for human habitation decisions. -
 Support the s...

What exactly is a "techbro"? Meet five Silicon Valley megalomaniacs who helped hone the genre, and whose actions made them briefly famous beyond the Bay. Which ones failed up? Who was (possibly) canceled? Jemma DeCristo (Twitter: @jemmaisOKeh ) helps shine a light on anti-tech hate crime survivors from behind the liberal front. - Support the show, get bonus episodes: patreon.com/sadfrancisco - Sho...

The legacy of America's former "hottest Korean American politician" Jane Kim, the wannabe mayor who gave away millions to tech CEOs who promised jobs and "community reinvestment" in central San Francisco. And you'll never believe what happened next. Guest host Jemma DeCristo (Twitter: @jemmaisOKeh ) practices her New York accent from behind the liberal front. - Support the show, get bonus episodes...

Meet the YIMBYs: Fake-grassroots, "pro-housing activists" who swear that building more luxury condos will trickle down to the rest of us, and solve the housing unaffordability crisis.   Backed by tech titans, corporate landlords, and Barack Obama, YIMBYs are trying so hard to make over the real estate industry's predatory image. And a lot of people are buying what they're selling. Culturally criti...

To some, it was a memoir, a miniseries, and a movement: #GIRLBOSS founder Sophia Amuroso is the self-proclaimed ex-socialist and dumpster-diver who departed her own failing fast-fashion startup with expert timing. Through her company Nasty Gal (like Uber, but for clothes), "serial entrepreneur" Amuroso was briefly taken seriously in sexist Silicon Valley circles, because for some, to fail is to su...

For two years, the San Francisco police department was uninvited to Gay Pride. In solidarity, bureaucrats boycotted the 2022 Pride parade. Jemma DeCristo returns to report from behind the liberal front of a city whose highest-paid employee is a sheriff's deputy. - Support the show (and get upcoming bonus episodes): patreon.com/sadfrancisco - Shownotes Miss Major's Gay Shame '5-0 Out of Pride' vide...

An empty tourist hotel in Japantown is an obvious choice for almost 200 houseless people to call home, until the plans are killed by landlords and realtors using scare tactics and a disingenous "Anti-Asian Hate" campaign. Miya Sommers of Nikkei Resisters ( Instagram here ) visits Sad Francisco, where as always, we report to you from behind the liberal front of America's so-called capitol of innova...

SFPD officer Christopher Kohrs was a sex object among Castro gays and a copaganda tool for the police, until his fame came crashing to a halt. Jemma DeCristo (on Twitter @jemmaisOKeh ) is our special guest this week in Sad Francisco, where we report to you from behind the liberal front of America's so-called capitol of progress. Go to sadfrancis.co to support the show and get future bonus episodes...