Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee discussed her path into public service and the challenges facing her city at former Sen. Barbara Boxer\u2019s annual campus lecture series.<\/p>\n
Seated across from her longtime colleague, Lee reflected on more than three decades of political life, including her time working for former Rep. Ronald Dellums and her time in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n
When Lee was a high school senior in San Fernando, her school required students to meet strict criteria to become cheerleaders \u2014 criteria that excluded students of color. Lee went to the NAACP and organized to change these rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the context of what my whole life has been about,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
Lee is the latest guest in the Barbara Boxer lecture series, which was launched in 2017 to bring women leaders to campus. The series is co-sponsored by Bancroft Library and the Institute of Governmental Studies.<\/p>\n
Lee said she never expected to enter politics. During her time as Black Student Union president at Mills College, she said she viewed party politics as \u201cbourgeois\u201d and had never even registered to vote. That changed after she invited Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, to speak at Mills. Chisholm told Lee she had too much to offer to remain on the sidelines.<\/p>\n
Lee then helped organize Chisholm\u2019s Northern California primary campaign out of her Mills classroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still a revolutionary,\u201d Lee said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to give up your values.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boxer, who described Lee\u2019s breadth of experience as \u201crare,\u201d asked whether serving as Oakland\u2019s mayor was the hardest job Lee has ever had.<\/p>\n
Lee said yes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s forcing me to want to do more,\u201d Lee said. \u201cI have to go into spaces where no one has the same perspective as me. I\u2019m a woman, yes, but I\u2019m a Black woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lee outlined issues at the top of her priority list for Oakland: threats to public safety, illegal dumping, the housing crisis, unsheltered populations and governmental transparency.<\/p>\n
Regarding unhoused individuals, she cited data that 58% of Alameda County\u2019s unsheltered population is in Oakland. She attributed that disparity to structural racism, gentrification and redlining.<\/p>\n
The conversation then turned to the current federal administration. Lee, who holds a master\u2019s in social welfare from UC Berkeley, said she recognized signs of narcissism in the president\u2019s behavior. She called President Donald Trump\u2019s cabinet \u201cspineless\u201d for not invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president and warned that the regional conflict in the Middle East \u201ccould turn into World War III.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boxer urged the audience to engage in midterm elections as the most immediate check on federal power.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis administration\u2019s trying to cancel out people of color, cancel out the poor, cancel out women,\u201d Lee said. \u201cWe are somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee discussed her path into public service and the challenges facing her city at former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[114370,18760,2351,11272,15175,53194,52335,143,145,144,114369,43457,97269],"class_list":{"0":"post-259290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-bancroft-library","9":"tag-barbara-boxer","10":"tag-barbara-lee","11":"tag-house-of-representatives","12":"tag-institute-of-governmental-studies","13":"tag-mills-college","14":"tag-naacp","15":"tag-oakland","16":"tag-oakland-headlines","17":"tag-oakland-news","18":"tag-ronald-dellums","19":"tag-san-fernando","20":"tag-shirley-chisholm"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}