“There’s nothing more radical and critical to transforming the world than a radical imagination.” — Ibram X. Kendi
OAKLAND CA — I first heard Carroll Fife speak at the Renter’s Assembly held in Alameda in 2017. Charismatic, like so many local leaders destined for the national stage, Carroll had something unique and hopeful: she had actionable ideas. Her moral compass due north and her gift for public speaking unmeasurable, she did not merely bemoan problems and corruption. Carroll presented actual solutions.
Carroll Fife, Executive Director of Alliance for California Community Empowerment, gained national attention with her recent campaign, Moms for Housing, where four homeless women and their children took possession of a long-empty, bank-owned house. The statement was clear: the age of property possessing more value than people must end.
Carroll stood front and center of that home in anticipation of the police who came in armored tanks to remove the unarmed women and return the house to the bank. And as trolls flooded the internet with cries of justice, supporters like myself saw something we have long awaited as embittered Democrats. I saw a woman who stood up for us not only with her body, her reputation, but also with her radical imagination and courage.
Battling corrupt laws such as California’s Costa Hawkins [that limits rent control] and fighting for protections like Measure Y which afforded Just Cause Eviction Protections to more Oaklanders, Carroll Fife knows the political landscape just as well as she knows the methods of activism.
Now running for Oakland City Council, her brand of Democracy has been coined “thuggish” by those who sit comfortably in their homes, blessed with some semblance of security. As we watch America fall into a wave of fascism, there is no better time for candidates like Carrol who understand the value of protest. If asking that every American be housed makes one a thug, I suspect many of us are prepared to adopt the misguided criticism.
