SF District Attorney Presses Felony Charges Against Pro-Palestine Protesters

San Francisco is trying to turn activists into felons.

San Francisco is experiencing a shift. While the city has always been regarded as socially progressive, in the last few years, SF has been hit with a tidal wave of bad press coming from a variety of both domestic and international media outlets. And it’s changing the way San Francisco and California engages with both protesters and the homeless. The ‘Left Coast’ is veering to the right. 

Since the assault on Gaza began as a response to the October 7th attacks, there have been a multitude of protests in The Bay Area and all over the world demanding a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Bridge and freeway blocking has always been a part of protests here in the Bay Area as far back as I can remember.

For demonstrators, being loud is not enough. When a genocide is unfolding in front your eyes, you have to forcibly remove people from their comfort zones. This can be done in several different ways, but blocking traffic is undeniably one of the most effective strategies for disrupting Americans’ daily routine. 

That’s why protesters blocked the Golden Gate Bridge in April. It’s a strategic move to inconvenience the most affluent among us (Marin County commuters) into empathizing with the plight of the Palestinian genocide that is being funded by our government. The only people that should be put in jail are the financiers of the genocide. But we don’t put them in jail. We get told to vote for them.

San Francisco politicians are looking to change the way the media depicts the City, and this is being done with a Giuliani-esque shift to the right, albeit with women of color strategically behind the wheel. 

This shift to the right includes aggressive homeless encampment sweeps and crackdowns on activists. The most egregious of these are the trumped up felony charges on protesters.

Usually when a freeway is blocked, which has occurred many times in the Bay Area, demonstrators are eventually arrested, and within a day or two, released without any further litigation. At the very worst, they get an misdemeanor charge and maybe a fine. In order to show San Francisco’s new face to the world, Brooke Jenkins, a woman of color (YASSS) is pursuing felony charges for 8 of the 26 Pro-Palestinian, anti-genocide protesters. 

For better or worse, San Francisco is a city of experimentation. It prides itself on being a place of “firsts.” And right now San Francisco is the first city to experience the natural progression and ultimately final stage of identity politics. It’s a terrifying, but undeniably brilliant strategy to shield authoritarian, pro-business behavior from criticism. 

The elite Democratic Party donors think we’re stupid, and in many cases, they’re right. So when policies that would ultimately hurt the most vulnerable in our society are spearheaded by PoC or LGBT candidates, the donor-class is confident the average Democratic voter is unfamiliar with the details. 

Any criticism, no matter how legitimate it may be, is brushed off as racist, homophobic, sexist or antisemitic. 

How else could a city like Oakland, California, arguably the most anti-police city in the country, enthusiastically endorse a strict San Francisco District Attorney who had a negative impact on the lives of thousands of black and brown people more than anyone else? 

Another question is how could the modern right embrace Donald Trump? They say they hate “coastal elites” and “back the blue” but they’re voting for a New York City real estate magnate billionaire who also happens to be a convicted felon. 

Identity politics are truly a cancer in American political discourse. The left isn’t alone in this stupidity. The right does it too. It’s just when they do it, it’s called what it is: Racism. 

The donors are right, we’re dumb. But hey… Kamala TWENNY TWENNY FOE, BIIIIIIIITCH YAAAAASSSSSSSSS

Welcome to hell.