This way to the Apocalypse. That way to a brave new world. Which road will SLO take?
What’s worse than the Apocalypse in California?
Follow-up question: How do you get to the Apocalypse if the freeway’s closed?
I watched the young Black leaders step into the unknown on a ribbon of asphalt. Their followers, every hue of brown to white, stepped with them. Since I saw only two unmasked protesters out of over a thousand, I joined them as they left Mission Plaza and passed my office, an oldster rarer than dogs and shoulder-borne children on the march.
When we got to Santa Rosa and Olive, the leader next to me said, “There’s police in that direction, that direction, that direction, and that direction. So where do we go?”
Someone said, “This way,” which led to Lemon Street, the worst on-ramp in California. For cars; turns out it’s fine on foot. The moment we stepped off the ramp, CHP to northeast and southwest halted traffic. Hate to say it, but the cops shut down the freeway, not us. This was after cops in sleepy SLO faced us in riot gear. After those same cops took the knee, to a huge cheer.
Our great state freeway — built on El Camino Real, built in turn on an ancient Indian trade trail — is U.S. 101. San Luis is the midpoint between LA and San Francisco, which is how, in 1925, we got the world’s first motel.
We’re also at the midpoint of two vast tribes, like supercolonies of Argentine ants constantly at war in California: people in NoCal who call it “101” and people in SoCal who call it “the 101.” There’s no rational explanation for this trivial verbal anomaly.
And these amazing kids shut down the freeway, exactly where two supercolonies of trivial verbal anomaly meet.
This bit of freeway has another meaning.
It was once Frog Hollow, derided and targeted as a Latino “slum.” In 1954 the new freeway could have torn through any other neighborhood, but planners never let a project go to waste in getting rid of places and people they have no use for.
I made this point the next day to our virtual SLO City Council while appealing (with dozens of others) for an Environmental Impact Report on that block-wide millionaires’ mondo condo proposed to drop like a brick, with a host of other condo blocks, on North Higuera: the historic working-class neighborhood that’s one of our last low-rent districts.
Council members, from their living rooms, couldn’t think of a single question to ask about the appeal’s six complex issues under CEQA, which “takes all action necessary to provide the people of this state with … enjoyment of aesthetic, natural, scenic and historic environmental qualities”; was passed a half century ago by a Republican Assembly and Senate and signed by Ronald Reagan; and doesn’t allow people’s neighborhoods to be bulldozed anymore without recourse.
In announcing their denial, the majority spent 4.5 minutes discussing their reasons (none of which addressed the actual content of the appeal) and 1.5 minutes attacking the citizens who had spoken and written, saying how “extremely distasteful” it was to hear “a lot of emotion,” “intellectual” argument, and “trigger words” and complaining they had heard “this debate … ad nauseam.” If council members are nauseated by debate from citizens, they should seek medical help or another profession.
At the same meeting, the council’s response to the protests sweeping this town and nation was to call for a committee to form a task force about diversity. Seriously?
Many Americans have finally, on race, stepped into the unknown with the young protesters.
Will we take the fast lane to the Apocalypse, or march into a brave new world?
The latter will be a long, hard legislative and administrative slog, with emotion, intellect and debate. But it will be worth it.
James Papp is co-owner of Historicities LLC and chair of the city of San Luis Obispo’s Cultural Heritage Committee. He writes an occasional column for The Tribune.
This story was originally published June 21, 2020 at 6:00 AM.