[Content Note: Homelessness; class warfare; displacement.]
"San Francisco has become uninhabitable for anyone but rich people and tourists. At the same time that the mayor is stonewalling investigations into racist police violence and political corruption in his administration, huge swaths of public space are inaccessible to residents for private parties. ...His policies created a crisis of eviction and displacement, and now police are rounding up and flooding the homeless encampments they caused so Super Bowl 50 VIPs don't have to see it. Mayor Lee is trying to make San Francisco into a managed simulacrum of a city, like Disneyland's Main Street with animatronic urbanism, and police are there to evict the remaining real residents who get in the way."—Activist Nato Green, quoted by Dave Zirin in his terrific, difficult piece: "The Streets of San Francisco: 'Super Bowl City' Meets Tent City."
A city with one of the most pervasive homelessness problems in the nation spends $5 million on hosting the Super Bowl, and then displaces people who are homeless so that the wealthy people who attend don't have their fun ruined by glimpses of human suffering.
America.
Shakesville is run as a safe space. First-time commenters: Please read Shakesville's Commenting Policy and Feminism 101 Section before commenting. We also do lots of in-thread moderation, so we ask that everyone read the entirety of any thread before commenting, to ensure compliance with any in-thread moderation. Thank you.
blog comments powered by Disqus