Woke Transportation Equity commission veers off course
For two years, SJ’s Transportation Equity Task Force has existed to spotlight concerns of marginalization, which has unsurprisingly devolved into Woke anti-police ideology (for one, that East SJ officers have “criminalized Chicano culture, which inflates crime rates”). Coalition for a Better Oakland’s Steve Heimoff questions why local transportation depts centralize racial equity issues instead of working to make travel safe, easy, and efficient.
I suspect most Oaklanders know almost nothing about the Oakland Department of Transportation, beyond that they’re supposed to make sure traffic lights work, parking laws are enforced and potholes fixed. But actually, OAKdot, like most city agencies, has become a lot more than just a transportation expediter. It’s been transformed into a social justice bureaucracy, with more and more of its money going to combating what they view as “racism.”
Just why a transportation department should involve itself in racial issues is a good question. Affirmative action? Not quite. The answer lies in OAKdot’s 2017 launch, when the department said that “managing streets is about more than maintenance.” What “more” is “managing streets” about?
“Equity,” of course, is that plastic concept that values racial goals as the highest responsibility of every city department….
Then there’s the OAKdot Racial Equity Team. “The overall mission of the RET,” says OAKdot, “is to end systemic causes of racial disparity through improving and developing policies, programs, and practices at OakDOT.”
Again, you might wonder why “systemic racial disparity” is a concern of a city department ostensibly tasked with transportation issues. The reason is because, for progressives, “racial” matters are their only concern: above public safety, above keeping our parks and streets clean, above attracting new businesses to Oakland and retaining businesses already here, above building affordable housing, above supporting the police, above everything.…
This article originally appeared in Coalition for a Better Oakland. Read the whole thing here.
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