But, as you can see, it only takes a little discussion in this regard to set people off (the Klan comparison on other sites). It hardly needs to be said that discussing race in any diverse community is going to provoke “diverse” opinions on the topic.

I’m glad ABO has stayed out of it.

Ralph contributes a great deal to our civic conversation – both through his comments here and his frequent public comment at City Council meetings. Do I agree with all his positions? Of course not. Do I think his frequent use of hyperbole will cause some people to take the rest of his comment less seriously? Probably. But that’s his choice to make, not mine.

I am probably the least liberal among us. I think we need to be NYC tough on crime. I think failure to enforce quality of life crime sends the wrong message. It is the same wrong message we send when we fail to put capital improvements into our k-12 system. Schools built in the 1950s look like they come out of 1980s Beirut. Kids aren’t stupid; they see the neglect. We are telling them we don’t care; so, why should they?

I am not in favor of legalizing MJ, but it is a battle I am not going to win in Oakland. But if you want to know why, I refer you to a Measure OO meeting, when Paulette Hogan told council she will be the mayor who tokes. Little brown and black kids give her a 5 minute ovation. I could only wonder do they truly get the difference between medical MJ and getting high. I suspect all they heard was we can high.

Smoking a joint may not lead to doing harder crimes, but the effects on a brown or black kid who is statistically behind curve at birth are completely different than a person not born behind the curve. Furthermore, w/o Federal regulation, you develop a nice little market for all sorts of criminal players.

Sterilization has its genesis in the joke you need a license to drive a car but any fool can have a kid. It was mostly out of frustration over baby baking and then a few years ago there was a parent who left her infant child in a burning house while she escaped. Truth is some people just aren’t fit to be parents.

I don’t think the city should use parking as a revenue source. I’d rather it be about transportation and business objectives.

But I digress, I now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

PS: I am neither from here nor of here. My sensibilities reflect my origins.

Ralph isn’t a white guy, but because you can’t tell this on the comment thread, when he says stuff like this, I imagine it’s pretty easy for folks who don’t know him to visualize him as some psycho skinhead.

I also agree that extreme statements detract from the value of this site. In reality, most of the divisions in Oakland politics are not particularly extreme in terms of the policies advocated by the different factions. The emotions behind these various positions can get extreme, but for the most part, the real crazy ideas come from scattered little fringe groups.

If we as commenters strive to avoid being inflammatory, we do our city a much greater service.

ABO recently received some negative feedback on one of the PSA list serves when one of the semi-regular people compared it to going to a Klan rally.

Now I don’t agree with that statement at all, but advocating for forced sterilization, and glibly throwing around extreme solutions to crime, social injustice, poverty, personal responsibility, pollution, etc. is at the very least taking away from the wonderful job V. is doing documenting Oakland’s problems & challenges, along with the potential solutions that you all have been discussing.

At the most it is turning some potential readers off and giving detractors an excuse to pan the ABO blog as a whole. All for something that has no potential of existing anyway.

But it’s good to have people like Len who are willing to scold disrespectful kids.

Even if that kid was all huff puff and bravado that day, it might register with him later that he was being a jerk. And even if it doesn’t, it’s important not to look the other way. My dad taught me that by example, and it’s one of the best pieces of influence he’s had over me.