David Mamet, Seneca, SF Damn, School Board Recall....
Hey all,
We were able to return to San Francisco and finish the work that was cut short when most of our camera gear was stolen from our SUV this past June. The nature in the city is still stunning but nothing has improved since our last visit — we saw broken glass from car windows everywhere, vacancies everywhere, city workers handing out needles to street people, and even a body wrapped up and put into the back of a morgue truck without any kind of solemnity. I’m not trying to depress you, but that’s what I saw the four days I was there. Despite that, we left the city with hope because we met many good Americans who see the reality of what is going on and refuse to give up the fight for a better nation.
Here’s our trip in chronological order.
Day 1
We shot b-roll throughout the city, featuring landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. But the surprise of the day was that we were able to get inside George Washington High School and film the controversial murals that the San Francisco School Board wanted to paint over. The critics derided the murals as relics of white supremacy. However, the murals painted by Russian American, Victor Arnautoff, in 1936 does not shy away from the horrors of America’s past. Back then, it was revolutionary to depict America that way, a lesson lost on too many today.
Day 2
We drove over the Bay Bridge to Oakland where we visited the Bottoms neighborhood that gave birth to the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. The beginning of the Black Panther movement attracted my father because it was a declaration of independence from whites in the 1960s. Before then, blacks had been bound to whites under oppression and the spirit of “we will do it on our own” inspired many. Unfortunately, many in that movement lost their way over the coming years, but that initial impulse of independence still inspires my father and will serve as a theme in the film.
In the early afternoon, we had the chance to interview Seneca Scott, a local Oakland activist, who has been fighting the racial corruption plaguing Oakland. We asked him about the lasting effects of the Black Lives Matter storm that hit Oakland after the death of George Floyd. He has been leading a grassroots effort to upend the race grifters, his words, running the Oakland city council and restore the power to the people. He was one of the powers behind the recent NAACP letter that went viral.
Day 3
There were two interviews today. One was with Autumn Looijen and Siva Raj, a couple, that led the successful effort to recall three members from the San Francisco School Board. Siva, an immigrant from India and a self-described progressive, became incensed when he saw that the school board was not showing much interest in educating kids. Instead, they argued over painting the murals at George Washington High School and the renaming the “offensive” names of high schools like Abraham Lincoln High. Both he and Autumn were called every kind of racist during their effort but they didn’t care because their fight was about putting kids onto the school-to-tech-jobs pipeline instead of the school-to-prison-pipeline. Great interview.
The second interview of the day was with Dee, a iconic San Francisco figure, who hosted her own award-winning public access television show for over 20 years. She now runs a podcast called San Francisco Damn. She dropped one truth bomb after another about why San Francisco has declined so much. Perhaps the most important point that she made was that the “compassion” that the city leaders showed for the homeless or the struggling black students was not compassion at all. I can’t recall exactly what she said but it was something like “evil masquerading as compassion.”
I have to admit that I flinched at that statement. But when I saw that dead body being taken away and then the city workers handing out more needles so people could shoot up some of the most fatal drugs known to man, I asked myself, “What is the difference between a needle and a gun?” Dee reiterated over and over that the only answer to this decay is family, family, family.
Day 5
I skipped Day 4 since we used that day to shoot more b-roll in the AM and then drive from SF to Los Angeles.
On this day, we were fortunate enough to interview the legendary playwright and filmmaker, David Mamet. We asked him about his career, what it was like to be canceled by Hollywood, and what the cost was of allowing race to dictate art — from #OscarsSoWhite to the racial hiring quotas needed to qualify for the Oscars. He didn’t disappoint and gave us several profound statements on what it means to be an artist.
Day 6
Last but not least, we interviewed Richard Sander, a long-time professor at the UCLA Law School, about the racialization of California. I interviewed him several years ago for my “How Jack Became Black” documentary after I read his great book on affirmative action and the mismatch theory. His book is worth checking out. We asked him about Prop 16, the California Math Framework that removes Algebra from 8th grade, and ethnic studies. What makes Sander invaluable is that he is an old fashioned liberal committed to the truth wherever it lands him. He was the one that shredded the study that gave credibility to the ethnic studies movement in California.
The above picture shows Rick Sander with my father — both seated. Terrell Allen is on the left. The kid in the middle is my nephew, Ellis, who wanted to tag along and learn filmmaking. The kid on the right is my son, Jack, a 10th grader who wants to be a lawyer and wanted to meet Rick. Don’t worry, we put Jack to work too and made him carry most of the equipment. ;)
All in all, it was a great week. We’re exhausted but we cannot complain. We do have a bit of bad news though — we were turned down for a grant by a prominent organization that had been generous to us in the past. It happens, but the scary part is that we don’t have many places to go to because most of the funding is on the left side — I may do a substack article on this since it is quite unbelievable how racialized these funding institutions have become. In any case, we believe in this film and will keep pushing. We have a trip to San Diego this week and I’ll send an update later on.
All my best as always,
Eli
Thank you for your good and honest work!
🥹😞🙏