Mayor's 'Incendiary' Remarks

Mayor Carolyn Wysinger

Mayor Carolyn Wysinger made these remarks at the July 15 council meeting following public comment on the Richmond Street project. The full video is posted on the city’s website.

“What I’m going to say is probably going to be downright incendiary to some of these folks.

“A lot of the emails we’ve been receiving for the last few months have always referred to what we were elected to the council to do.

“I have always stood firm that I wanted to create an El Cerrito for working class people, for people of color, for marginalized people, for people who were not represented.

“I’ve always understood the tall task in front of me as a black elected official. My mother loves to remind me that El Cerrito was never a city that was fair for working class people and people of color.

“What I’ve seen in the past couple of months is what we in the social justice community call the ‘appropriation of the language of the oppressed.’

“We’ve received emails where people are saying that they are being erased, that this is a form of erasure. Erasure is basically when you are erasing a whole people. You’re erasing their culture. You’re erasing their history. You’re erasing their existence.

“We’re not erasing anyone by taking away (parking).

“I’ve had a lot of people come and stand here at that lectern, look directly at me as a black member of this council and use every social justice word they can think of – erasure, discrimination, someone actually said racism was being done by us taking out (parking).

“When individuals with privilege and entitlement employ social justice language without genuinely committing to its underlying principles or taking meaningful action, it’s often described as performative activism.

“Some people ask me why I did not attend the No Kings march. One of the reasons is that I knew that a lot of people were going to be there who were not interested in collective community care.

“Our job on the council is to look at the totality and whole of this community (like) the city’s strategic plan of 2016 and the climate goals.

“We are in a situation where we woke up one morning two years ago and the whole city was orange. Climate change. We can’t count on what our seasons are going to be. Climate change. Our governor has put a policy in place to try to reduce carbon emissions by reducing the amount of cars that are on the streets. Climate change.

“I as a person who lives on the north side in one of the TODs in the Del Norte area, I can’t really find enough empathy because I don’t have parking. I can’t bring my friends over. The friends that do come over are worried that they’re going to park in the BART parking lot and get tickets. Are they going to park on the street and the El Cerrito police is going to come around and give them tickets?

“What happens when privileged people appropriate the language of the oppressed?

“Parking on the street is a privilege. No one owns the street.

“I really appreciate the person who said she suffers every day when Korematsu is in school because people park in her driveway on the street but she understands that she does not own the street.

“We have to do better being a community that prioritizes collective community care. For me as a black mayor that’s always been my goal.

“Another reason why I struggle to find empathy is because I lived in communities where elders have to walk around the corner because they are living in apartments. I’ve always been a renter. I’ve never had the privilege of being a homeowner. I’ve never had the privilege of living in a house and worrying about parking in front of the house.

“Those elders that I grew up with, they always had to walk around the corner with their groceries. They had to walk through gangs. They had to walk through drug deals. They did not have a nice pristine Richmond Street to walk around.

“I’m jumping around because it really gets me very upset and very angry.

“That part about appropriating the language of the oppressed. I really want people to go home and google the words they have been using in this chambers, especially the one about erasure, the one about limiting diversity.

“Is Richmond Street really super diverse?

“For those reasons I will be supporting this plan. I’m always going to root for the future. I’m always going to root for families. I’m always going to root for working class people.

“The thing that incensed me the most is saying it’s been like this for 50 years and nobody has died. If we did policy like that my 90-year-old grandmother would still be picking cotton in Louisiana right now.

“You do not build policy saying it’s okay, it’s worked for 50 years. Things are changing. The culture of driving is changing. More people are going down Richmond Street because they see it as an alternative to San Pablo Avenue.

“I will not side with anyone who thinks that it’s not broke don’t fix it is an answer. As a black person raised in Louisiana still fighting for the rights of trans people, still fighting for the rights of nonbinary and queer people I won’t allow that while I’m sitting here.

“You can do whatever you want after 2026. I’m not going to worry about my job while I’m doing my job.”