By Melina Abdullah
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass broke my heart. Like my divorce, I knew it was coming but clung to the notion that no one would actually do that to someone who loved them.
And I mean love them. Karen Bass used to be progressive. I’ve known her since 1996, when the Community Coalition that she founded was the cutting edge and she was unabashed about the resources that were needed for South Los Angeles. Karen was among the first to help me understand that when communities are flooded with resources, when sources of harm, like police, are kept out and afterschool programs and mutual aid are brought in, we build long-term solutions. Nineteen years her junior, I looked up to her. We shared more meals than I can count, planned travel together, laughed about children, whispered about partners. I was part of the small group pulled together when Karen considered a City Council run and one of those who consoled her when her father died. My heart still breaks over the tragic loss of her daughter, Emilia. She graced my classrooms at West LA College and Cal State LA and helped develop the curriculum for the Black women’s leadership institute at USC that emerged out of my dissertation. With Regina Freer, I wrote the first scholarly articles on Karen Bass as a womanist leader and served on both her Legislative and Congressional Advisory Councils. I love Karen from a place that is not theoretical, but nurtured and built.
I didn’t always agree with every position that she took, but we engaged in principled struggle to address disagreements. Congresswoman Bass invited me to serve on the keynote panel for the Congressional Black Caucus in 2016. (I’m sure she was disappointed when I made the point: “If the Democrats want our vote, they should run better candidates.) Together, we drafted “Wakiesha’s Law,” (named for #WakieshaWilson) which would have required jails, prisons, and detention centers to notify families if someone died in custody (which was authored by Assemblyman Isaac Bryan at the state level and became California law just weeks ago).
In 2020, the Congresswoman went on national news to call #DefundThePolice “one of the worst slogans ever.” She phoned me immediately to apologize, an offering that I – like a love-starved partner – quickly accepted. Cracks in the progressive veneer continued to emerge – through the fake “George Floyd Justice in Policing Act,” which would have given more federal dollars to police (and was blocked by Republicans anyway).
In her 2022 bid for Los Angeles Mayor, the betrayals poured in fast and furious as she pledged to increase LAPD funding presumably in an effort to stave off attacks from the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) and the right wing. Her non-endorsement in the re-election of progressive prosecutor George Gascon was loud and undoubtedly played a role in his loss. Most personally hurtful was when campus police descended on me as I waited for a mayoral debate to begin at Cal State LA, where I have taught for more than twenty years, and Karen – my longtime friend – watched me be brutally removed from the near-empty theater, ignoring my cries for her to help. Later, she’d say she didn’t know that was me…as if it should serve as consolation that she would have allowed such heinous treatment of some other Black woman.
We were hopeful that these harms were tactical tradeoffs. Sentinel publisher and civil rights veteran Danny Bakewell, Sr. hosted as the newly elected Mayor Bass met with BLMLA and our “justice families” almost immediately after taking office. The mayor made good on her promise to hear our People’s Budget presentation, in which more than 60,000 Angelenos continue to say they want to shift resources away from police, prosecutions, and parking enforcement, and invest in community resources.
She continued to attend the annual presentations. We complied when she suggested that we change our timeline to better align with her budgeting process. Not a single one of our recommendations was incorporated into the Mayor’s budget proposal in any of the three years that we presented. She appointed Jim McDonnell as chief over our petitions, gave raises to cops during times of budget crisis, and appointed and reappointed two avowed zionists to the Los Angeles Police Commission. The mayor kowtowed to the LAPPL and the system of policing so much so that they went from spending $3.4 million to oppose her in 2022, to endorsing her early this go round.
We remained conciliatory. There was never a BLM-led protest at the Mayor’s mansion, a daily occurrence during the latter years of the Garcetti administration. Never have we directly targeted her…only loving “call ins.”
Sadly, it seems that Mayor Bass has resigned herself to the position of so many former progressives…that maintaining their own position is the priority. Here’s the truth…we don’t need her, or any of them, in the position if they are going to do the bidding of the police that continue to kill and harm communities in record numbers. In fact, it’s worse in some ways when the oppression and abuse of our community comes with a smiling face. To be clear, I am staunchly opposed to a Caruso or even a Beutner mayoralty. I am appreciative that Bass gives rhetorical support to those who are most targeted by ICE. However, there is a reason that a small group of young Black Angelenos went to her house in recent weeks. She called them a threat when they said they might not vote for her if she doesn’t support calls for meaningful public safety reform. I call them courageous. This is a call for Mayor Bass to match that courage and return to the progressive values that she once advanced. For voters, we must also be courageous.
*Dr. Melina Abdullah is Professor of Pan-African Studies at Cal State LA and co-founder of Black Lives Matter Grassroots and Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BlackPressUSA.com or the National Newspaper Publishers Association.
