Matt Gonzalez and the Politics of ‘Race’
December 5, 2003
The San Francisco mayoral election to be held on Dec. 9 features a conservative Democrat against a member of the Green Party. After sorting through all of the campaign rhetoric and posturing, it is clear to me that Matt Gonzalez, the Green candidate, is the better choice to represent the interests of Asian Pacific Americans and others living in San Francisco.Gonzalez, like most APAs, comes from an immigrant family. His biography reads like a rags-to-riches story, yet he has not forgotten where he came from and has used his considerable talents and energy to help the less powerful in society. Like many working-class APAs, he used his intelligence and hard work to overcome barriers, graduating with an Ivy League college degree from Columbia University and then a law degree from Stanford Law School. While working to help immigrants in the law school’s East Palo Alto community law project, he also was given the honor of serving as a research assistant on a major casebook by the law school’s dean, well-known Constitutional law scholar Paul Brest.
Rather than going off to earn a large salary and comfortable law firm position, which would have been possible after these academic accomplishments, Gonzalez went to work in the office of the San Francisco Public Defender. His work was so impressive that current Public Defender Jeff Adachi, a colleague for many years and one of the highest-ranking APA elected officials in San Francisco, has endorsed Gonzalez for mayor.
What is especially impressive about Gonzalez is not just that he has the support of any one group, but that he brings people together. Elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2000, he was elected by his colleagues to be the president of the supervisors, the second most powerful office in San Francisco, just two years later.
While some APAs are supporting Gonzalez’s opponent, businessman Gavin Newsom, the APA supporters of Gonzalez include David Wong, President of the Deputy Sheriff’s Association, who said, “We are extremely impressed with Supervisor Gonzalez. He shared his economic vision for San Francisco, and our members believe he is the best candidate to lead us through these tough economic times.” Other APA supporters include Victor Hwang, president-elect of the Asian American Bar Association, UC San Francisco pediatrician Dr. Curtis Chan, the Rev. Norman Fong, school board Vice President Eric Mar, Paul Osaki, head of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center, and many others.
While Gonzalez and Newsom have differences in their approach to economic development, provision of social services and other issues, which deserve full debate and discussion among the voters of San Francisco, Newsom and his backer, current Mayor Willie Brown, have chosen to go beyond debating by unfairly attacking Gonzalez using divisive, racist tactics that have no place in San Francisco or anywhere else.
According to a Nov. 26 San Francisco Chronicle news story, Brown, himself a rags-to-riches story as the first black mayor of San Francisco, told a group of black ministers that Gonzalez was a “chauvinist” who opposed the appointment of women to government offices and tried to keep blacks from serving in City Hall. “He’s got some kind of defect in his head that makes him believe African Americans aren’t qualified,” the mayor said.
This echoed a charge made at a Nov. 23 debate, where Newsom, a white male from a privileged background, asked Gonzalez why “people you oppose for city commissions disproportionately come from the minority community?”
To his credit, Gonzalez did not respond to this charge, except to say that his two City Hall aides are women and two of his closest campaign advisers are black. Although a minority himself, he said he was “committed to diversity, but not as the bottom-line reason for getting an appointment.”
Newsom, an ally of Brown’s on the Board of Supervisors, has been a backer of almost all of the mayor’s commission appointees, but Gonzalez has opposed appointments he felt were based on cronyism, not qualifications.
&Mac253;hile it is sad that a privileged white male like Newsom has to use racial code words to pit communities against each other in the mayoral race, it is even sadder that Brown, a champion of many progressive legislative proposals over the years, is stooping to this level. Gonzalez has shown that he will be a mayor for all the people, not just immigrants.
üccording to Louisiana political insiders, race was an unspoken but decisive factor in the defeat of Bobby Jindal, an APA of Indian ancestry in his quest for the Louisiana governorship a few weeks ago. Many “good old boy” voters decided to vote for a white woman over a minority man.
APAs, and other San Franciscans of good will, should reject the politics of innuendo and racial divisiveness. They should elect Gonzalez, a qualified, compassionate son of immigrants, as their mayor on Dec. 9.
Reach Phil Tajitsu Nash at asianweek(AT)nashinteractive.com.
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