By: Stephen Oduntan
About a hundred activists from Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles held a press conference outside the official mayoral residence Monday to demand that President-elect Joe Biden should not select Mayor Eric Garcetti a cabinet position in the new administration.
For the seventh day in a row, BLM activists have gathered outside Garcetti’s residence in Windsor Square marching up and down the quiet, upscale residential neighborhood chanting “Wake up Garcetti” and carrying “F*ck Eric Garcetti” signs.
LAPD officers stood by in riot gear as different activists faced the crowd and spoke about Garcetti’s dismal record on homelessness and transportation. No arrests were reported.
But when demonstrators rallied outside the Mayor’s house on Thanksgiving morning, LAPD officers declared an unlawful assembly and arrested two people.
“LAPD has increasingly ratchet up their oppression and threatened us with arrests for things like walking in the street or walking on the side of the street of the Mayor’s mansion. They’ve continued threatening to arrest us for simply being too loud or banging on pots and pans or for using musical instruments,” said Dr. Melina Abdullah, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles.
Abdullah added that for the past week, BLM-Los Angeles activist have “simply been exercising our First Amendment rights” to assemble and because of that they are being punished for it.
Last week, Dr Melina Abdullah stood before the crowd with a megaphone. She asked the demonstrators to look around at the police in full riot gear and armed with shields and paintball guns standing across the street.
“Garcetti would rather spend money on LAPD than housing the people of Los Angeles. Shame on Garcetti,” Abdullah repeatedly chanted as everyone roared “Shame! Shame! and Shame!” in response.
Baba Akili, a longtime activist and Black Lives Matter member, also in attendance, addressed the demonstrators and did not mince his words.
“This is the person they’re thinking about giving a cabinet position. The same person who “f*cked up the city so bad,” he told the crowd as an LAPD helicopter circled overhead – low enough to create a loud noise.
Garcetti has attracted stiff criticism over his handling of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. The pandemic has engulfed the city with rising cases and the economic setbacks are putting more residents on the precipice of homelessness. Homicides have also spiked, and the city may have to lay off employees due to revenue shortfalls, according to reports.
The Mayor, say critics, has failed in utilizing his political platform to remedy any of these pressing issues that has devastated the African-American and Hispanic community especially hard.
Still, it remains anyone’s guess if Biden who began introducing his picks for key cabinet posts last Tuesday will offer Garcetti a job in the new administration.
Garcetti who was a national co-chair of the Biden-Harris campaign has said he has no interest in seeking a cabinet position at this time.
But speculation has continued to mount, according to reports within the Mayor’s orbit.
The two departments most frequently mentioned in these conversations are the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Transportation.
The Mayor’s record on housing and transportation illustrates an inconvenient reality for Garcetti said Pastor James Thomas, a candidate for the San Fernando Valley NAACP. “We don’t have to tell anybody how bad the transportation is in Los Angeles as it’s quite evident,” he said. “He continues to invest in trains as a means of transportation when low-income residents use buses which are the most efficient way to get around the city.”
Simply put, this will be the new fight: preventing a possible cabinet post should Garcetti decide to go east.
“Los Angeles is known to have one of the worst systems of public transportation in the world. We’re here to block that cabinet pick so the entire nation knows what we already know in Los Angeles – that Eric Garcetti is a failure,” Abdullah told Reel Urban News during an interview after the protest ended.
Also, she added, “We want to expose Eric Garcetti as a liberal, white supremacist who’s been an utter failure in Los Angeles in terms of both housing and transportation. L.A. has the largest homeless population in the country. That’s under Garcetti’s watch. He refuses to fund housing or be innovative in making sure all our people are housed,” said Abdullah. “It’s almost laughable that anyone would even consider him to take charge of housing on a national level.”
