Enough Pompous Banalities, Let’s Create a Movement!
Exiled Berkeleyan Paul Lee, a visiting scholar in UC’s Department of African American Studies, captures the experience of many who attend, watch or listen to Berkeley City Council meetings. The comment below was sent to the council after the meeting on Thursday, Nov. 3.
“One of the chief reasons that many people are alienated from politics, or outright hate politics, is because of the language used by most politicians, including here in Berkeley. In 1969, a social scientist who dealt with the UC administration neatly described this manner of speaking as “pompous banalities.”
“I thought of this while listening to tonite’s City Council proceedings. Many of the callers raised issues, posed questions or made complaints that were urgent enough to melt any heart, or at least any beating heart.
“Yet, without exception, their desperation, anxieties, fears or justifiable anger were met with pompous banalities — sweet nothings, handed down from upon high, which reflected no genuine engagement with humanity. Not the callers’, and certainly not the mayor’s.
“This is one of the curses of the English language — namely, its damnable ability to re-frame and reduce any situation, any plight, any wrong, any injustice — indeed, any person — to non-human terms. It’s no wonder, then, that people feel devalued or rendered wholly invisible whenever politicians talk to, or about, them.
“The genius, or evil genius, of political language is that it insulates the governors from the governed and, worse, makes the governed, who put them into power, feel powerless.
“However, this year, the governed in Berkeley have two good options to this ruinous state of affairs. Throwing out the bums to only replace them with new bums is no solution. Instead, we can elect two truth-speakers, Mari Mendonca and Tamar Michai Freeman, who will not only speak truth to power, but also provide an example for how the governed can realize that the people are the power.”
Unfortunately, the majority of Berkeley voters are not ready yet to embrace leadership that isn’t aligned with the status quo, as neither of these candidates came close to winning. Instead of being an inspiration to other jurisdictions, Berkeley can be inspired by the people of Pennsylvania who elected Democratic Socialist Summer Lee to the House of Representatives. Also, closer to home, in Oakland, Vallejo and Richmond, candidates outside of the local political machines continue to win council seats.
As we reflect upon what happened in the 2022 elections, we should understand the forces shaping our city and become able to build a movement that will enable a much-needed, long-overdue, historically-just shift in power. And we must continue to show up at City Council meetings, even though we might feel alienated or disrespected.
This article was first printed in the Berkeley Times on November 17, 2022.
