One of the most essential services that alternative weeklies like the East Bay Express provide is the ability for reflection and analysis in hindsight. This is certainly the case for Oakland staffer Leigh Hanson and a note she scribbled during a meeting leading up to the Oakland recalls of Mayor Sheng Thao and DA Pamela Price.
On April 7, Eli Wolfe reported that Hanson had been fired from Oakland City Hall “after media reports about hand-written notes she took in a meeting last year that contained a reference to Black people that prompted outrage from many quarters.” The article goes on to say, “The notes, written during a March 4, 2024 meeting of Thao supporters, were a rough blueprint of ways to fight the recall Thao was facing. One four-word notation said, “Use BP as tokens” or “use Black people as tokens.” Due to the cryptic nature of the reference, as in exactly who was using Black people as tokens, and the haste in which it was initially reported, many misconstrued it to mean that Thao and the City of Oakland planned to tokenize its Black population, sparking outrage.
Though the San Francisco Chronicle first reported on Hanson’s termination, saying that Hanson and other staffers had to turn over their records after a federal grand jury subpoenaed them last year in an ongoing investigation of Sheng Thao, which included the notes, it was the Oakland chapter of the NAACP stepping in that eventually led to her termination by Interim Mayor Kevin Jenkins. The NAACP supported the recalls of both Thao and Price, who were mostly funded by Piedmont hedge-fund manager Phillip Dreyfuss.
What was missing at first, was any testimony from Hanson herself on the meaning of the words she transcribed. Television station NBC Bay Area was the first to gain access to her written statement where she clarified to whom the “tokens” reference referred.
“These handwritten meeting notes record a group discussion that included proposed messaging points that the anti-recall campaign wanted to provide to potential surrogates,” she said in her statement prior to reports circulating. “They are a specific reference to Seneca Scott, a paid African American political operative, who was hired by the wealthy white funders of the recall campaign to obscure the public’s understanding of the recall’s political origins. It was Mayor Thao and her political team’s belief that this operative’s paid involvement constituted tokenization by the recall’s financier, and Oakland voters had a right to understand this connection.”
Throughout the recalls last year and the mayoral election of this year, the tokenism of Black people not only became a rising concern, but became more evident with each passing day.
On March 13, Eddie Kim of SF’s Gazetteer wrote the article, “Newly formed Black Action Alliance sparks outcry in Oakland after co-sponsoring mayoral debate.”
Kim wrote: “On Feb. 22, an unknown group dubbed the Black Action Alliance (BAA) declared its agenda for the first time. It wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that BAA was founded by a ‘group of concerned citizens’ to boost Black priorities when it comes to public safety, economic development, homelessness, public schools, and affordable housing. ‘While these are policy priorities for the Black community in Oakland, these points directly impact quality of life for Black communities across the East Bay and broader Bay Area,’ it stated.”
But as it turned out, BAA was not at all what it presented itself to be.
Kim continued, “The treasurer for the Black Action Alliance is Steven Lucas, a partner at San Rafael-based law firm Nielsen Merksamer. The BAA and the law firm share the same public address and phone number. Lucas is also treasurer of Revitalize East Bay, a committee largely funded by hedge fund manager Philip Dreyfuss—a conservative Piedmont resident who has given upwards of $340,000 to the group and spent more than $1 million on the recalls of Thao and Price last year.”
It turned out that the Black Action Alliance was, in fact, founded and funded by a white conservative.
BAA cosponsored the first Oakland mayoral debate of 2025 between former Congressional Rep. Barbara Lee and former Oakland City Councilmember Loren Taylor, with Empower Oakland (EO), an organization supposedly founded by Taylor, though EO denied any direct involvement with his campaign. Leading up to the debate, three Black organizations in Oakland decried the tactics employed by both BAA and EO as tokenism.
Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA) released a statement, pointing to the “lack of transparency and misrepresentation” in the sponsoring of the debate.
“We recently learned that the lead sponsoring organization—based outside of Oakland—failed to fully disclose its affiliations or its involvement in controversial efforts that have directly impacted Black leadership throughout the Bay Area,” the statement said.
Greg Hodge, CEO of the advocacy group The Brotherhood of Elders Network, also released a statement on X Thursday, expressing strong disapproval of Empower Oakland head Biyani’s version of events. Biyani claimed this week that BAA had “recruited” partner organizations like The Brotherhood and BWOPA.
“We are deeply disappointed and we firmly believe that Empower Oakland owes our organization and community at large an apology for spreading misleading information,” Hodge wrote. “The Brotherhood of Elders Network was not recruited by the Black Action Alliance, a group that most of us had not heard of until a few days before the KTVU mayoral debate. In truth, we have significant concerns about the purpose, origins and authenticity of this group.”
Though pinpointing exactly who was responsible for these misrepresentations proved to be difficult, recall organizer Seneca Scott was present at the debate in support of Taylor even though Taylor had called him “toxic and hateful” in a prior panel regarding his open transphobia, homophobia and harassment of a city official who had to file a restraining order against him.
According to The Phoenix Project, “Isaac Abid, the founder of Revitalize East Bay, assumed the role of principal officer at Empower Oakland’s campaign finance committee on March 20, 2025 … REB was functionally the sole contributor to the Black Action Alliance, a committee roundly criticized by standing Oakland Black advocacy organizations for misrepresenting itself and serving as a manufactured community organization to partner with Empower Oakland and KTVU.”
On March 22, Cat Brooks and her organization Anti-Police Terrorism Project issued a public statement on Twitter/X after a fake flier bearing their letterhead began circulating. The flier said, “Reject Barbara Lee.”
Anti-Police Terrorism Project wrote: “Someone is spreading a fake statement in our name to drag us into dirty politics. We see it, and we won’t let it slide. Oakland deserves integrity, not deception. Don’t fall for the lies.”
Clearly, the use of Black people in the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality, or tokenism, was being employed. But exactly how did not emerge until after the election and Lee’s victory.
On April 16, Oakland’s John Arthur Jones made a public statement on Facebook that connected all of the dots. Along with screenshots of text messages to verify his claim, Jones wrote, “After Mayor Thao fired Chief Armstrong Seneca [Scott] told me that he is ‘tapped in’ with some outside folks looking to pour hella money into Oakland to ‘get rid’ of the Progressives. He said these folks are willing to pay but they need ‘locals with credibility.’ Seneca told me that he signed on with them but he didn’t have the credibility I had being that I am actually born and raised in Oakland, on top of my reputation as a Community leader. He said I am needed to recall Sheng so Loren can get elected.”
Going back to the “recruiting” aspect of tokenism, Leigh Hanson had inadvertently opened the door to an investigation that eventually led to proving that what she wrote was correct. It should be considered in exonerating her.
This will go eventually go back to wholesale dishonesty in the campaign against Sheng Thao, who was sacrificed by white and black conservatives anxious to exploit Oakland to enrich themselves.
So the federal indictment of Sheng Thao was a sham as well??? What a ridiculous statement! Stop spreading disinformation!
Exactly.
So the federal indictment of Sheng Thao was a sham as well??? What a ridiculous statement! Stop spreading disinformation!
Yup. A complete sham.
D. Scott Miller embodies the toxic essence of radical progressivism, weaponizing identity politics, virtue signaling, and gaslighting to further his agenda. As a master manipulator, in his own mind, he thrives on chaos, consistently disrupting Oakland politics with his extreme ideologies. His adamant opposition to the recall victories that resonated with a supermajority of voters exposes his blatant disregard for the will of the people.
Miller’s tactics exemplify the DARVO playbook: deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender roles to deceive the media and the public. Social media has amplified this strategy, allowing powerful progressive billionaires to mobilize an army of loyalist trolls to do their bidding. These fanatical defenders of progressive dogma viciously attack anyone who dares to challenge their failed leaders and policies, resorting to coordinated campaigns of harassment and disinformation.
The victims of Miller’s smear tactics are subjected to outrageous false accusations, designed to destroy their credibility and silence their voices. This ruthless exploitation of social media has created a toxic environment where facts are distorted, and truth is sacrificed at the altar of ideological purity. Miller’s actions are a stark reminder that the most insidious threats to democracy often come from those who claim to champion its values.
And YES…I am one of the leaders in the Recall Movement!
Funny how you don’t deny any of it. You just attack the author, using the same tactics that you accuse him of doing.
It didn’t work for the election. May want to try something new?