March 22, 2017 The Skanner Page 9
News
Lefties, Techies Long at Odds in SF, Team Up Against Trump
The city has been roiled by gentrification and dissent over income inequality amid tech boom — but tech
companies and activists are looking for common ground
SAN FRANCISCO — Before Donald
Trump’s election, Laurence Berland
viewed political protest as a sort of cu-
riosity. He was in a good place to see it:
San Francisco’s Mission District, once
an immigrant enclave in the country’s
heartland of radicalism that is increas-
ingly populated by people like him
— successful tech workers driving up
rents while enjoying a daily commute
to Silicon Valley on luxury motor
coaches.
Berland regarded the activism of his
adopted city with a mix of empathy and
bemusement, checking out Occupy
Wall Street demonstrations and pro-
tests against the gentrification of his
own neighborhood. But now there is
less distance between him and activists
on the street. On a recent day Berland
stood with about 100 others — from
software engineers like himself to
those who work in tech company cafe-
terias — outside a downtown museum
“
AP PHOTO/MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI
Associated Press
Members of the Orchard City Indivisible Group recite the pledge of allegiance during a city council meeting
where they would speak against the policies of President Trump Tuesday, March 7, 2017, in Campbell,
Calif. Old-school, anti-capitalist activists and new-school, free-enterprise techies are pushing aside their
differences to take on a common foe.
a bullhorn pressed to her lips. The
crowd closed in around a banner read-
ing “Workers in Tech Say No Ban No
It’s not about the business of we were here
first. We’re about the business of how can we
support? Division at this time is not helpful’
for a rally against President Trump.
“Everyone come closer! We’re going
to practice some chanting, and we’re
going to get to know each other,” called
a woman wearing a union T-shirt with
Wall.” A clipboard-carrying organizer
approached Berland to ask if he wanted
to join a network of grassroots activ-
ists, but Berland waved him away. He
had already signed up.
In the place that fought against the
Vietnam War and for gay rights and,
more recently, has been roiled by dis-
sent over the technology industry’s
impact on economic inequality, an
unlikely alliance has formed in the
left’s resistance against Trump. Old-
school, anti-capitalist activists and
new-school, free-enterprise techies are
pushing aside their differences to take
on a common foe.
For years, these two strands of liber-
al America have been at each other’s
throats. There’ve been protests against
evictions of those who can’t afford the
Bay Area’s ever-soaring rents. And
think back, not so long ago, to the rau-
cous rallies to block those fancy buses
shuttling tech workers from city neigh-
borhoods to the Silicon Valley campus-
es of Yahoo, Facebook, Apple and Goo-
gle, where Berland once worked.
Cat Brooks, a Black Lives Matter ac-
tivist in Oakland, has seen the toll the
tech industry has taken on some. Her
daughter’s elementary school teacher
just moved to a distant suburb after her
rent skyrocketed, and Brooks thinks
more tech money must find its way into
local communities. She nevertheless
welcomes the infusion of new energy
to the protest arena.
“It’s not about the business of we were
here first,” Brooks said. “We’re about
the business of how can we support?
Division at this time is not helpful.”
Such
improbable
partnerships
scramble the historical protest mod-
el that used to pit working-class peo-
ple against everyone else, said Rory
McVeigh, director of the Center for the
Study of Social Movements at the Uni-
versity of Notre Dame.
“There are new cleavages that can
produce alliances that weren’t possible
before,” McVeigh said. “When you feel
all of you are being threatened but in
different ways ... trade-offs are mini-
mized. You realize at times such as that
that you need allies more than ever be-
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