[img]1068|left|John Perez||no_popup[/img]This Is Not Right — As the new session of the state Assembly got under way, Assembly Speaker John Perez announced his Democratic caucus leadership, and he has not included a single African-American on it.
It is all white and Latino. Not a Black face is among them.
No Black Assembly speaker has never excluded Latinos from his or her leadership roles, but Perez has done so. This is who he's picked:
Fiona Ma, speaker pro tem; Mike Gatto, assistant speaker pro tem; Charles Calderon, majority floor leader; Michael Allen, assistant majority floor leader; Toni Atkins, majority whip; Roger Hernandez, assistant majority whip; Mike Feuer, majority policy leader; Jerry Hill, Democratic Caucus chair; and Nancy Skinner, Rules Committee chair.
After I took an instant disliking to Perez during our one and only discussion of the proposed NAACP-backed bill limiting the widespread use of “Spanish-speaking” preferences for job openings in California, Perez' predecessor, Rep. Karen Bass, tried to assure me that Perez was a “nice guy” and that I had him all wrong.
Thank you very much, Karen, but I think I'll stick with my instincts. We need to deal with this.
Distributed by California Friends of the African American Caucus (cafriendsofaacc@gmail.com)
Ms. Pleasant, a lady known and admired for her immense passion, is a Contributing Editor for the Wave Newspapers, and writes The Soulvine essay for wavenewspapers.com/opinion
