Sad Francisco

A GAY SHAME podcast. Emmanuel Yekutiel is a marketing associate for conservative causes and Israel who in 2018, opened a gentrification cafe in the Mission that he named after himself. Since then, Manny's has been a safe space for neoliberal figures to gather, including Dr. Jill Biden, Matt Yglesias, Nancy Pelosi, Sam Bankman-Fried, SFPD chief Bill Scott, and the trio of local politicians Manny du...

Kansas City, Olympia, and parts of Boston and DC now have fare-free public transportation. Yet BART and MUNI fares keep going up. Aditya, of the copwatching project Unfare SF, on moving the Bay toward no-ticket public transit. Unfare SF on Mastodon Unfare SF on Twitter Bikehopper Segregation by Design The Bay Area's Lost Streetcars (Chris Arvin) Shaping SF: The Freeway Revolt (Chris Carlsson) Supp...

In 2017, City College of SF became one of only a few colleges in the US with free tuition for locals. One of the organizers behind Free City was James Tracy, an author, organizer and teacher at City College in the Department of Labor and Community Studies. He describes the organizing strategy behind a successful campaign where the Left went on the offensive. 'Free City' by Marcy Rein, Mickey Ellin...

The self-appointed voice of techbros and "effective accelerationism," Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan is a prime example of a common archetype in Bay Area tech - a libertarian who wants socialism, but only for corporations. Emily Mills (@sf_mills on Twitter/X) does the undervalued job of keeping track of some of the richest people in the Bay, and which politicians and campaigns they're spending their m...

Nestor Castillo lays out the recent racist media tropes around Honduras, and why they're especially dangerous for immigrants. Nestor's El Tecolote column, "Dear SF Chronicle: No, Hondurans aren't responsible for the City's fentanyl crisis": eltecolote.org/content/en/dear-sf-chronicle-no-hondurans-arent-responsible-for-the-citys-fentanyl-crisis/ Nestor on Twitter: twitter.com/ProfeNessC "The Contra...

Silicon Valley scions tried to sell Appalachia on how crypto would bring every out-of-work coal miner a job. Locals got nothing, but the scheme worked for a few tech entrepreneurs, who were showered with government subsidies and tax breaks. With Tom Sexton of the Trillbilly Workers' Party. Trillbilly Workers' Party: soundcloud.com/user-972848621-463073718/tracks

City College of San Francisco is one of the only remaining public colleges in the US where the tuition is free for locals. CCSF professor and AFT 2121 member Adele Failes-Carpenter talks about why City College presents a threat to the forces that want to completely privatize higher education, and ongoing battles over one of the remaining free spaces where people can still come together, in-person,...

The War on Drugs doesn't save lives, but it brings in huge profits for anyone who works for the police, in all of policing's forms.   While rich people can microdose LSD at the office or Burning Man without any worries of getting arrested, the War on Drugs is fought against poor, often nonwhite queer and trans people, in what local media loves to call 'open-air drug markets'. Sara Shortt ( @Shortt...

"This land is too valuable to let poor people park on it," said SF Redevelopment Agency head Justin Herman, about Asian and Black people living in Central San Francisco. Today many politicians are acting like it's the 1950s all over again. Niccolo Calderaro, professor of anthropology at SF State, speaks on resistance then and now. Niccolo Calderaro's article in Progressive City: "Community Mobiliz...

The local politics around kink culture, and how the same bureaucracy put in place to preserve it is helping to undermine that culture. With Cole Clark. Previous episode mentioned: "Is the Transgender District a force for gentrification or liberation?" w/ Jemma DeCristo: sites.libsyn.com/445824/is-the-transgender-district-a-force-for-gentrification-or-liberation-w-jemma-decristo "How Gentrification...

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...