THE 2008 ELECTION

The making of Delinquent occurred during election season. The rehearsal process prompted me, and all of us, to pay more attention to the news, and to look for connections to the issues in the performance. Nestor was already prepping himself to be the next Obama, breaking a new racial barrier as the first Latino/Mexican president, so he insisted on wearing the Obama mask even if no one could recognize whom it was supposed to represent. While the big news was all about Obama, there were several local and state propositions, which concerned issues of prison and crime. There was also Prop 8, a move by Christian conservatives to prohibit gay marriage.

On election night, it was hard to focus. Nestor kept checking the computer and I didn’t have the heart to stop him. Despite distractions I told everyone that we would work until we heard people in the streets and we would know then if Obama had won. When the cheering and honking began, we stopped rehearsal, and wandered out into the Mission where impromptu celebrations were bubbling.

The more sobering news was in the proposition results. Protests, both street and online, alerted the world to the winning of Prop 8, or Prop H8 as it is often called. My ambivalence about gay marriage activism was turned to deep frustration and anger by the lack of protest at the loss of Prop 5, which would have prioritized treatment and reduced sentencing for non-violent drug offenders.

In California, more people voted for chickens and veal calves to have more room in their cages (Prop 2) than for fewer people to be caged in a criminally over-crowded and notoriously racist California prison system. Similarly, more people voted with empathy for chickens than for gay people.

The election results that I prepared for the cast:

61% of Californians voted for Obama

but more people voted for chickens to be free (Prop 2)
than voted for gay people’s right to marry (Prop 8)
than voted to increase treatment and decrease prison time for drug offenders (Prop 5)

Only 50% of registered voters in SF actually voted.

The city that voted 86% for Obama, voted like tough-on-crime conservatives.
SF voted over 60% for Prop 6, which would have increased punishments for gang related behavior
and 78% against Prop 5, which would have lowered jail time for drug offenders but increased treatment, but then voted against Prop 9, the victim’s rights bill.

Why is there no coherence to SF voters’ positions on crime, prisons & justice?

STATE PROPS
WIN
Prop 4 - require parental notification for terminating teen pregnancy gets defeated
Prop 6 - heavier sentencing for gang members gets defeated
LOSE
Prop 5, prioritizes treatment and reduced sentencing for drug offenders
Prop 8, eliminate right of gay and lesbians to marry
Prop 9, expansion of victim’s rights, prioritizes revenge and punishment

SF PROPS
Measure K - pro-sex SF just can’t support the decriminalization of sex workers.
Measure V - anti-war SF votes to keep JROTC in local high schools. What?
Measure H - PG& E defeats even the suggestion of public-owned power, once again
Omar Khalif did not make School Board. (Khalif works at YGC, the SF youth jail, as an ombudsman and spent a couple hours with the cast being interviewed about his work and issues of race, crime, youth, jail & prison.)