Do we give liberal protesters a pass?

James Harris (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)

During the year prior to the global shutdown and pandemic, the Oakland School Board was repeatedly unable to meet publicly due to protests designed to disrupt and derail the democratic process. Not only did these acts disenfranchise Oakland citizens, at times the protests we experienced in 2019 were as surreal and unbelievable as the events that took place at the nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6.

How can we say to Donald Trump and his Proud Boys that we are about discourse and dialogue, and that there is no place in our society for violence, when there are those people within our own ranks who have threatened our democracy?

We cannot allow our beliefs to dictate when it’s OK to threaten a public official or take over an elected body, whether it’s a local school board meeting or the U.S. Congress.

I was a member of the Oakland school board in 2019 when parents upset by the closure of their children’s school declared there would be a price to pay and that it would not be business as usual.

During the public comment portion of the Oct. 23 meeting, as the last speaker began talking, others joined her. Then, at the speaker’s signal, the crowd surged forward, and began to jump over and into the barricade in front of the stage.

Before I knew it, eight school district police officers ran by me in a rush to stop the demonstrators from reaching the board members, staff and superintendent. One of the officers told us with force, “We need to get you all upstairs.”

As we were escorted off the stage and into secure quarters, I looked back to catch one more glimpse as the disruptors rushed our seats.

It wasn’t the first time. During the teachers’ strike earlier that year, as I attempted to enter a meeting, I was surrounded by an angry mob of about 300 teachers and their supporters who told me there will be no meeting today. “We have barricaded the doors,” one said, “and your colleagues are trapped inside.”

This continued for hours. The meeting was finally canceled, and my board colleagues — two of them student board members — and their support staff were let free only to be escorted into a van that was then surrounded, blocked and shaken by the angry mob.

These were just some of the actions taken by protesters against the school board in recent years. They even showed up at my house on numerous occasions and posted their propaganda on my neighbors’ doors and cars. It’s a tactic that Bay Area elected officials, especially in Oakland and San Jose, have endured repeatedly in recent years.

I believe most of us are relatively liberal-minded people who love the privilege of living in Oakland and in the Bay Area. We call ourselves informed.

How can we speak so strongly against the thugs that lay siege to the Capitol, how can we call that treason, as it was, and not speak strongly against the same crimes at a local level?

Those people who surrounded us and barricaded the doors to prevent a legislative body from meeting, and those who came to my house, were there because they believed that my decisions were causing harm to their community’s well-being. That’s the same thing the Proud Boys believed.

The group that stormed our meetings, came to my house and posted my address on Twitter, inviting others in their network to join them, cannot point a finger at Trump, who also used Twitter to direct his masses to violate our system of government.

If we are to solve the serious challenges in our cities and our nation, we must rely on dialogue and debate to settle our disagreements and always resist the temptation to physically disrupt. That applies to both sides of the political spectrum.

James Harris, first elected to the Oakland School Board in 2012, opted not to seek reelection in 2020.