www.facebook.com/ SDVoiceandViewpoint
Years
Vol. 65 No. 6 | Thursday, February 6, 2025
www.sdvoice.info
Serving San Diego County’s African & African American Communities 65 Years
PROUD & LOUD:
INSIDE
THIS WEEK'S ISSUE:
SDUSD STUDENTS RAISE THE FLAG
BLACK HISTORY MONTH EVENTS TO ENJOY!
FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH
SEE PAGES 8-9
SEE PAGE 12
San Diego Unified students who led the flag-raising, emcee’d and spoke a few words on what Black History Month means to them. PHOTO: Tihut Tamrat / Voice & Viewpoint
WOMEN OF COLOR ROAR 2025 SEE PAGE 7
RACISM AND THE PRESIDENCY: FOOTNOTE 7 IS GONE, ARE ADU’S NEXT?
AN AMERICAN TRADITION
Some Say It Has Continued with the Assault on Diversity and Inclusion By Stacy M. Brown NNPA NEWSWIRE SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT The history of the American presidency is steeped in racism, from the days of George Washington’s enslavement of Black people to Woodrow Wilson’s segregation of the federal workforce to Richard Nixon’s ‘Southern Strategy’— a thinly veiled appeal to white resentment. According to A Historical Analysis of Racism Within the US Presidency by Dewey M. Clayton, Sharon E. Moore, and
PHOTO: Courtesy of NNPA
Sharon D. Jones-Eversley, U.S. presidents have long used racist policies to maintain white supremacy, but no modern leader has weaponized racism as blatantly as Donald Trump. His presidency was an unrelenting assault on racial progress, civil rights, and the very idea of a multiracial democracy. See TRADITION page 2
ALTADENA AFTER EATON:
A FAMILY’S RESILIENCE AFTER THE EATON FIRES By Emma Fox CONTRIBUTING WRITER
At 11 o’clock on the night the Eaton Fire tore into the neighborhood of Altadena, Waymon Hobdy looked out a window in his home, up into the canyon at the fire which he says was about two miles away. Unalarmed, he crawled into bed and dosed off.
Southeastern residents waving American flags in unison during public comment to advocate for the removal of Footnote 7, Tuesday January 28. PHOTO: Macy Meinhardt/ Voice & Viewpoint
By Macy Meinhardt VV STAFF WRITER/ CA LOCAL NEWS FELLOW Community members and activists from District 4 are celebrating a small, but notable “win” after San Diego City Council voted to remove the controversial Footnote 7 from municipal code on Tuesday Jan. 28. The win comes not just from the footnote removal, but also because the topic has garnered the council’s attention on other problematic development practices taking place in the area, such as the city’s bonus ADU program. However, the fight for justice in the Encanto and Southeastern communities is far from over. As Voice & Viewpoint has previously reported, the community’s mission wasn’t just to get rid of the footnote, but to also halt development projects that relied on the regulation for approval. This specifically includes two housing projects planned for Emerald Hills and Encanto. See FOOTNOTE 7 page 2
Waymon has lived in the area for 53 years and wildfires are nothing new. “There are always those fires up there, but they never come out here and take any homes. They take homes way up in the mountains but to come across and do this type of damage…we haven’t seen anything like this,” he says. At 5 a.m. his wife, Vanessa, and one of their dogs, Percy, woke Waymon up in a frenzy.
Waymon and Vanessa sort through their property for anything left after the Eaton Fire in Altadena, CA, a suburb northeast of Los Angeles, destroyed their home in January 2025. PHOTO: Courtesy of Hobdy Family
Vanessa was coughing and gagging as her eyes started to burn from the smoke. The couple and the dogs managed to make it out of their home safely and into separate cars. By memory, Waymon navigated turns on the road, as the lack of service rendered any GPS app useless. See ALTADENA page 5
www.sdvoice.info