Recent Comments
Re: “Race-Baiting in Richmond”
Dear Wendi,
Thank you for your great research. As a Richmond resident, I can attest that you tell it like it is. Both the No on N campaign and Chevron teamed with BMWL, and in vicious flyers, attacked both the obesity tax and the progressive candidates together. For them both, the poor and black communities are pawns.
After a judge ruled that Chevron had been stiffing the city for years and had to pay back utility taxes, we tried to end Chevron's flat fee sweetheart deal and make them pay what everyone else does - 10%. Chevron launched a paid petition drive to reduce everyone's tax to 5% - except its own. The petition was targeted at poor and black families. If passed, it might have bankrupted the city, but not a chance because it was just a cynical ploy. Chevron used the bludgeon of their petition to negotiate a settlement and dumped the poor community.
Would it surprise you to learn that the night before the election a crowd of paid anti-soda tax young workers invaded the “Yes on N” headquarters and hurled abuse and bottles at the volunteers, one of who was an 81-year-old woman? Through their racist and incendiary campaign, BMWL elicited this thuggery.
Anyone reading Gammon’s Joe Fisher article will immediately recognize that Richmond is a plantation, Chevron the master on the hill, and we are treated, like every third world nation where it extract its wealth, like slaves. Of course, there are always those of us that get to work in the big house.
Wendi, if you are ever interested in a Pulitzer, just come to Richmond and write a book called “Richmond: Corruption in a Company Town”.
P.S. It was not just BMWL, but the progressives that helped elect Booze to the council by talking folks out of their long held (and accurate) assessment of him as an incorrigible bully. That he has jettisoned all his former allies is ample proof of his opportunism. The view from Chevron hill must look grand.
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Re: “Race-Baiting in Richmond”
And just maybe Black and Latino people were lied to by affluent white conservatives who make their profit by poisoning our lungs and intestines. The truth is that the benefits of the Soda Tax would have far out-weighted the small
amount added to each soda, free swimming lessons for every third grader, insurance for diabetes sufferers who can't afford it. etc.
The article is still great.
You're telling me that Chevron and Big Soda care about the health and pocket-book of poor Black and Latino people?
Everyone who thinks that gas prices accurately reflect the market and not a penny more, please stand up.