Jeremy Gong Isn’t Running For The Oakland City Council District 1 Seat, FYI
ONN – Jeremy Gong Isn’t Running For The Oakland City Council District 1 Seat, FYI
Jeremy Gong Isn’t Running For The Oakland City Council District 1 Seat, FYI
A look at the City of Oakland website page marked “Find Candidates & Measures by Election” reveals four Oaklanders running for Oakland City Council District 1: Stephanie Walton, Jeremy Gong, Councilmember Dan Kalb, and Tri Ngo.
So, the City of Oakland’s website isn’t designed to tell you when a candidate has dropped out of an election race, but that’s what Jeremy Gong did. How do I know? Because, in an effort to learn about him before I reached out to set an interview, I found a blog post he wrote on Medium, and reporting that he was dropping out of the race for health reasons.
Mr. Gong wrote: “This January I had intended to seek the endorsement of East Bay DSA before launching a campaign for Oakland City Council in District 1. I regret to announce that, due to health concerns, I will be withdrawing my request for an endorsement, and terminating my plan to run for office. While this decision has been difficult, I don’t regret choosing to run. The experience has shown me the potential of our movement and the need for DSA to run our own candidates and build independent electoral power.”
UPDATE: Here’s Why Jeremy Gong Really Isn’t Running For The Oakland City Council District 1 Seat In 2020
Now I Saw This Thing About The DSA, Cat Brooks, And Racism
So, now you know that Jeremy Gong is not running for the Oakland City Council District 1 Seat that Councilmember Kalb holds. But, there was something else I spotted while conducting the search about Mr. Gong: this entry posted by a member of the Oakland Democratic Socialists of America, and as a response to Gong’s request that the DSA not endorse then-Oakland Mayoral Candidate Cat Brooks. While Gong’s medium-based blog post was removed, this reddit entry was not:
Mildred__Bonk
Strasserite in Pooperville
18 points ·
1 year agoFor those who were not at East Bay DSA’s July General Meeting, you should read this statement from our co-chairs about the events that took place there. In short: during an open debate among our chapter about whether or not to carry out an endorsements process in August, Cat Brooks and her associates and supporters intervened in the meeting, took and held the floor (despite protestations from the chair, who was called racist for seeking to facilitate the meeting according our chapter’s democratically decided-upon rules), and denounced DSA as a white, racist organization consisting of “gentrifiers.” DSA was described as “the problem,” the clear implication being that our organization is a cause of both racism and gentrification, if not other social ills.
The reactions, while few, were in total, dismissive of Cat. While I don’t agree with how Ms. Brooks reportedly conducted herself, the DSA not asking Cat why she calls the group racist doesn’t help.
There’s a sad pattern where someone white in Oakland who’s called racist by someone black just says “No, I’m not”, rather than making any attempt to see the World through the eyes of the black person. This happens far too often.
If the Oakland Democratic Socialists of America wants to not be seen as racist by black and African American activists who should be on its side, like Brooks, the easy action for its managers to take is to ask how they can improve, and what they should do to become truly integrated.
Stay tuned.
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