You can tell a lot about what someone thinks by what they say. Well, what about what somebody doesn’t say? Do you think we might be able to learn something from that?
I think we can.
Let’s start with Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown to test this hypothesis.
What should we take from the fact that at all the county Board of Supervisors meetings that Brown has attended since January, he failed to mention that detainees released late at night from Santa Barbara County Jail were no longer receiving rides from Rock Star Transportation, a limo and cab company contracted to give rides to people released after all the buses left, because the company went out of business?
First, either Sheriff Brown knew that his office was no longer contracting rides for the release detainees, or he didn’t. I don’t know for sure what he knew or when he knew it. That’s because Sheriff Brown apparently didn’t get the message that we wanted to talk to him from the Sheriff Office’s public information officer, we were passed on to someone else. *
Second, the deputy we were referred to did tell us that the Sheriff’s Office “didn’t really have to tell” the supes. What does that mean? Is this an excuse offered after the office was caught with its pants down, or does it tell us that they knew full well they should have said something, but just decided not to? Again, we’re left to speculate while our elected law enforcement official is mum on the subject.
Third, considering the recent closure of the Santa Maria branch jail—which sends Santa Maria Police Department, Guadalupe Police Department, and California Highway Patrol officers 60 miles one way from their jurisdictions for something as simple as a “drunk in public” charge—isn’t the topic of detainee transportation an open and pressing matter of discussion? Should we assume that this all just slipped a whole subsection of the Sheriff’s Office’s collective mind?
The last thing I want to do is jump to conclusions, but would it be unfair to deduce that Sheriff Brown, or at least those he’s appointed, just didn’t care that those released from county jail late at night were without transportation? That they didn’t care if they sent a woman out into the dark night of Santa Barbara all alone? That they didn’t care if a homeless man with health or addiction issues, or no freakin’ shoes, had to walk 7 miles to Santa Barbara or 60 to get back to Santa Maria?
What other conclusion should we reach?
Let’s move on to silence from some of the Santa Maria Valley’s elected officials who were invited to the city’s very first Pride event, organized and sponsored by the House of Pride and Equality (HOPE) and Central Coast Future Leaders. One of the events main organizers told the Sun that invites were sent out to just about every elected official with a connection to Santa Maria.
The only official who showed up was Rep. Salud Carbajal. A representative from Joan Hartmann’s office came, too, because Hartmann couldn’t make it herself. State Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham couldn’t make it either, but at least he let organizers know that he wasn’t able to make it.
As for everyone else: No reply. We’re talking the Mayor, the Santa Maria City Council, and North County Supervisors—nothing. No effort to say, “Hey, sorry! Can’t make it,” just totally silent indifference.
For decades, locals who are LGBTQ have had to commute to Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo to celebrate who they are. You’d think the very first Pride event in the city would garner a bit more support as the city’s gay and trans community “came out.” But no, just marked indifference to a cultural benchmark for Santa Maria.
That’s the problem with silence, it leaves behind a vacuum of mixed emotions, assumptions, and even more questions. If any of these officials would like to set the record straight, here’s an open invitation. I haven’t made any assumptions here, but if I’ve been unfair or there’s a good explanation, I will eat crow, which is technically cannibalism for me. I’m a bird after all.
The topic of silence, and what it reveals, was the subject of national debate after President Donald Trump’s initial statements following the brutal attack in Charlottesville, Virg. on Aug. 12. The president didn’t name the groups that joined the Unite the Right rally there—the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and supremacist white nationalists—but instead denounced violence and bigotry on “many sides.”
For anyone who missed it, a Dodge Challenger careened into a crowd of the counterdemonstrators in Charlottesville, injuring several people and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Her alleged killer, James Alex Fields, was later arrested and charged by authorities. The 20-year-old man has reported ties to neo-Nazi groups, and multiple photos show him marching with a white nationalist group.
Trump was immediately assailed for obscuring the source of the violence. Why he didn’t name the KKK—one of America’s oldest terror groups—or the neo-Nazis or white supremacists that were literally chanting for blood? An American citizen was dead on American soil in an ISIS-style attack, but on that very same day, the president made a moral equivalency between white supremacists and those who marched in opposition.
Remember, this is the guy who chastised President Barack Obama for not using the word “Islamic” when describing terrorism. Well, now America has another breed of domestic terrorist, but it’s of the demographic that Trump appealed to during the election—angry white supremacists who prefer swastikas and confederate flags over the stars and stripes. And there were numerous “Make America Great Again” caps dotted throughout the crowd of demonstrators, and the former KKK imperial wizard David Duke said, “We are determined to take our country back. We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump,” from the streets of Charlottesville. Trump infamously waffled when asked about Duke during the primary in 2016. Trump’s rhetoric and style has clearly emboldened these groups.
And once again, he only chastised this openly racist movement after a massive public (and Republican) outcry; he tried to appease critics two days later by naming the groups, but the damage was already done.
What should we take from the president’s initial silence in naming the groups? What should we assume? I’m not sure, but I can tell you what one person posted on the white supremacist website, Daily Stormer, after the president’s “many sides” comment.
“No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room,” the post said. “Really, really good. God bless him.”
The Canary will not remain silent. Send your thoughts to canary@santamariasun.com.
* Edited, Aug. 18, 2017
This article appears in Aug 17-24, 2017.
