Jovanka Beckles is running for California State Senate District 7, which includes Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, Alameda, and West Contra Costa County as well.
Being a Black Woman originally born in Panama, she identifies as Afro Latina and queer. She expresses being aligned with the grassroots community.
Her career includes time as a mental health specialist, Richmond City Councilmember, and she currently sits on the AC Transit Board of Directors.
Oakland Voices asked her a few questions about her political background and goals.
What brought /drove you into community politics?
All of the providers together so we can get together with helping children to succeed in the school and in the community young people are still struggling. So when me and my spouse were victims of a home invasion, that’s when it hit me that there’s more that can be done than what I’ve been doing.
My spouse has been involved in the same kind of work. By the end of our torment by these two young men they looked at our sons’ room and saw things that are associated with what I’m assuming to be their definition of love, right?– clothes, shoes, games, music equipment, pets–they looked around his room, looked at each other and they were like “it must be nice to be loved.” After that experience, which I’ll never forget, within the next month I was like “Ok, I see what’s up here ..we can do our best to heal our young people in our community but if our young people don’t feel like they have hope, if our young don’t feel that have love, and that the adults in their lives care about them, they’re going to continue to hurt people. They’re going to continue to be involved in crime. Go in and out of jail.” How do we stop that? What was missing was policy. Our young people and our community need policies that are written by people who get it and create laws that will help improve and increase their quality of life.
So I ran for city council. The first time I lost by 200, but the second time I won in 2010. I went straight to work. We need policies that will make a difference. The first policy that I wrote, along with the Safe Return Project, and other community organizations who understand what’s going on also, we wrote the first Ban the Box policy in Richmond (and the State of California). Ban the Box for Employment , Ban the Box for housing.
Next I went to work with the community and grassroots organizations. We passed the highest minimum wage in the state at the time. Then it was like “alright, what else do we need to do to help our community feel, especially our young people, feel loved, so they feel this society actually cares about them, cares whether they live or die, or eat, or sleep, or have shelter? So the next thing we did was pass rent control.
I ran for office because I personally saw the struggles we were having and I ran for office as a grassroots, corporate-free candidate. That made people trust me cause they’re like “Yeah, we know you’re not bought and paid for by entities. These corporations that’s exploiting us.” So they trusted me, and re-elected me in 2014.
What were the highlights of your experiences being an elected official in the East Bay?
The highlight for Me is seeing that when we come together. Us ‘little people’, us ‘little spiders’ as it is said in an African proverb that says, “When a spider web unites it can tie down a lion.” The highlight is that after having been on the Richmond City Council, then on the AC Transit board, I represent 1.5 million riders in the East Bay. So I’m all over the East Bay. I’m seeing people struggle. I’m also seeing people coming together and fighting those who intend to oppress us and those who intend to exploit us. I have seen what we can do, the power of people, the power of one coming together to form these large numbers ..together we are able to have a seat at the table. It’s been 30 years since we’ve had a Black woman representing the Oakland East Bay. I think that is an injustice that absolutely has to be reconciled. For the past 30 years, it’s been a non-person of color who has been representing this most incredibly diverse region in the state of California. We don’t care how many celebrity names that somebody can drop, we need people that we have seen in the trenches with us, on the picket lines, standing up for our kids, doing all that.
What’s your position on reparations for Black American descendants of slaves ?
I have Reparations on my platform. It’s something that I’m fighting for. I had an opportunity to be part of the focus groups. Even though I am part of the (Black) Diaspora, we all struggle with laws being made to keep us from obtaining wealth throughout the world but being a part of that focus group felt that you had to be a native to California/American soil. I’m down for that. I’m fine with that, despite the fact we are of African descent and our struggles are identical but I am all about Reparations.
I am somewhat disappointed that there seems to be sabotaging going on in the Legislature tabling it and not taking a vote on it. It’s not right and it’s quite disrespectful.
That’s exactly why we need more people who look like us, who understand our struggles, who are gonna put up a fight for reparations that’s deserving of Black Americans. I’m going to be fighting for it.
To learn more about Jovanka Beckles, visit her website.
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