Erika Smith

With polls continuing to show the public’s deep dislike of reparations, it’s easy to forget that it was only three years ago that elected officials were all in, pointing to what many had quietly thought would be a one-off as a model for righting the wrongs of systemic racism. Easy to forget, that is, unless you are Kavon Ward. The founder of Where Is My Land was present when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill relinquishing government control of Bruce’s Beach — the property that once belonged to Wil…

For the past month, my mail-in ballot for the upcoming primary election has been sitting on my kitchen counter collecting dust. Every day, I walk by it. I’ve even put a pen on top of it, as a reminder to fill it out, to do my civic duty. But I haven’t even been able to bring myself to pry open the seal. And I’m hardly the only one. Of California’s roughly 22 million registered voters, only about 14% had returned their ballots as of Monday. Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., ex…

It’s hard for some Californians — maybe many — to wrap their heads around the idea that the homelessness we see on our streets has any connection to slavery. We are California, after all, supposedly a “free” state. We like to think of ourselves as far away in both ideology and from the brutality that built the South — although slavery was common during our Gold Rush era, ensnaring not only Black people, but also Latinos and Indigenous communities. But researchers at the respected UC San Francisc…

Ask James Valdez, and he’ll tell you a harrowing story about the last time it rained. This month, he was headed back to the tiny home where he has lived for the last year, tucked away in a gated village for the unhoused, on a forgotten stretch of concrete between railroad tracks and numerous recycling centers in Sun Valley. But Valdez couldn’t get in. For days, water had been falling from the sky in record-breaking amounts, extreme weather that scientists say will become all the more common with…

It is perhaps a sign of our nonsensical political times that the silliest of theatrics can reveal the most serious of truths. Just look at San Francisco. As my Times colleague Julia Wick reported this week, conservatives — long convinced that the city by the Bay is a progressive hellhole of homelessness, unchecked crime and drug addiction — are holding their collective noses to cheer for the 49ers in Sunday’s Super Bowl. Anything to avoid pulling for the Kansas City Chiefs and Travis Kelce and h…

On Thursday morning, state Sen. Steven Bradford sat down alone at a table inside the Capitol in Sacramento. He fiddled with a stack of papers while waiting for reporters in the room to quiet down and then, with self-assured gravitas, announced a detailed plan for legislation that would provide reparations for Black Californians. “Several months ago, I began the work of developing this package,” Bradford said. “These policies have an impact that’s needed right now to start to repair some of the h…

Kismet Jackson used to carry her handgun just about everywhere in San Bernardino County. To get her nails done. To pick up her prescription. To hang out with her grandchildren. For her, it was all about staying safe. “Being out and about, you just want to protect yourself,” explained Jackson, an Air Force veteran and member of the National African American Gun Assn. “The biggest thing for me [is] walking to my car, and someone puts a gun to my head and tells me give them what I don’t have.” Late…

Ben Jealous, the first Black executive director of the Sierra Club, couldn’t make it to a recent news conference in South L.A., held in the shadow of the monument to Martin Luther King Jr. at Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area. But if he had, I suspect he would’ve told the same story he told me. “You know the great actor Louis Gossett Jr.?” he asked. “My last year at the NAACP, at the 2013 Image Awards, he said to me, ’You know, Ben, I’ve been in this racial justice movement my whole life, but y…

Despite the buzz and the endorsements and the right-wing donors funneling of millions of dollars into her campaign, Republican candidate Nikki Haley was never going to be president of the United States. Now, she’s really never going to be president of the United States — and about the only thing that’s surprising about this turn of nonevents is the reason why. Race and racism, as it turns out, are important issues, even for Republicans. Well, sort of. But first, let’s back up. By now, you’ve pro…

For as long as people have watched tents take over sidewalks and RVs deteriorate under freeways, politicians have been making promises about solving homelessness in Los Angeles. And for just as long, those same politicians have been breaking them. This is undoubtedly why, back in March, as Mayor Karen Bass was approaching her first 100 days in office, only 17% of Angelenos believed her administration would make “a lot of progress” getting people off the streets, according to a Suffolk University…

Until a few days ago, Michael Schneider truly believed that his nonprofit, Streets For All, had solid enough political support to pursue what was certain to be an unpopular idea in L.A.: a study of whether it makes sense to rip up a Westside freeway and replace it with affordable housing and a humongous park. He was a man about town, excitedly touting the letters and statements of “immense enthusiasm” from elected officials. Like from the office of Mayor Karen Bass, who called the Marina Freeway…

The U.S. House of Representatives was descending into uncharted depths of chaos, with one Republican even fretting that a debate over whether to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy would devolve into a fistfight. But this was more important. Laphonza Butler was more important. On Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Steven Horsford, the Nevada Democrat in charge of the Congressional Black Caucus, slipped out into the hallway largely unnoticed. Then, beneath a statue of the civil rights shero Rosa Parks at the U.S. C…

Acting with dispatch, Gov. Gavin Newsom this week appointed Laphonza Butler, a veteran labor organizer and political strategist, to replace the late Dianne Feinstein in the U.S. Senate. The move fulfilled a promise Newsom made to choose a Black woman, filling a notable void. With Vice President Kamala Harris’ exit, there were no Black women among the 100 members of the august chamber. In fact, before Butler, there had been only two Black women senators in the history of the country. Butler, 44,…

Gov. Gavin Newsom spent the past few days as one might expect, privately grieving his “dear friend” Sen. Dianne Feinstein as “a lifelong mentor and a role model not only for me, but to my wife and daughters.” But sooner rather than later, he’ll have to reemerge and deal with the political mess that he’s made for himself — and when he does, there will be a lot of unhappy Black people waiting for him. Newsom is under the delusion that there’s a sizable pool of powerful Black women in California wh…

I wish everyone could be as optimistic as Brian Michael Smith. I first met the “9-1-1: Lone Star” and “Queen Sugar” actor, who is primarily known for being the first Black transgender man cast as a series regular on network TV, at an event in July that somehow turned into a group therapy session about being Black and queer in the entertainment and media industries. Smith (no relation, of course) had plenty to say. But what stuck out most were his comments about the often-touted cross-racial, cro…

What I didn’t expect were the tears. Almost from the start of the sentencing hearing in downtown Los Angeles on Monday, it was clear that U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer wanted to make an example out of Mark Ridley-Thomas, the once high-flying Black politician brought down by a public corruption scandal. She admonished him repeatedly and unsparingly. “There is simply no justification for monetizing one’s office,” Fischer declared from the bench at one point, echoing prosecutors’ claim that h…

How much would you be willing to pay for a security blanket? $1? $100? $100,000? If you’re most members of the Los Angeles City Council, the answer is apparently about $1 billion. On Wednesday, they approved a contract with the Los Angeles Police Protective League that will dole out higher starting salaries, bigger pay raises and heftier retention bonuses to the Los Angeles Police Department officers represented by the union. All told, the four-year contract is expected to increase total police…

On Tuesday, a few hours before the latest indictment of former President Trump became public, Vice President Kamala Harris was in Florida, addressing a room full of mostly Black women. “Through your faith, you have helped to make real the promise of our founding principles, not just for some, but for all,” she said at the 20th Women’s Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Quadrennial Convention in Orlando. “And I’m here then to say, our nation needs your leadership once ag…

A new plaque at Bruce’s Beach acknowledges the racist act of eminent domain that destroyed what had been a haven for Black families and beachgoers.

With back-to-back floods and snowstorms, Californians are learning the hard way that emergency workers can’t be everywhere to help everyone all at once.