Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Hate in SF
Hey San Francisco -- take note of this...

Thanks, John, for the link. Orcinus, who's in Seattle, sends us this Examiner article on a recent hate crime in the Richmond. Severely disturbing...

Swastikas were scrawled over as many as 50 campaign signs in a hate crime against an Israeli-American Richmond District businessman seeking election to the Board of Supervisors.

The target of the anti-Semitic vandalism spree was David Heller, president of the Geary Boulevard Merchant Association and first-time candidate for supervisor in District 1.

Upon arriving to work Monday morning, Heller was inundated with messages from business owners whose windows had been defaced with swastikas over the weekend. In each reported incident, the campaign sign, which features Heller's picture, was taped to the inside of the store window and the vandal used a black marker to superimpose a swastika and a Star of David symbol in front of Heller's face on the outside of the glass.

[...]

There were 63 anti-Jewish hate crimes in Northern California in 2003, 21 of them in San Francisco. There has been a rash of swastikas cropping up in Palo Alto, but no such trend in The City, Appel said.

I know how naive I am at the extent of my horror. Perhaps it's denial, wanting to believe that such things don't happen in this "liberal oasis" of a community where in the most recent mayoral elections the city stood divided as one liberal candidate ran against a progressive one... I was, after all subject to somewhat similar hate, (in the form of racist verbal harrassment) at Cal Berkeley of all places...

posted by claudine |Added at 12:30 PM| | hate crimes