[unclesaamm]

Hm, I thought you were going somewhere different after that first sentence, because San Francisco history is actually deeply embedded with racism. It is often egregiously racist, in the late 1800s so much so to the point of the entire justice system being supplanted by vigilante mobs (composed of the white merchant class) that tried and hung Australian, Chinese, and Mexican immigrants. There are countless stories of SF being the first state to defeat some racist law or another, like how the city outlawed wooden laundromats for fire code reasons, but only used it to enforce on Asian laundromats (and not white ones). IANAL but that ended up being a Supreme Court case that more or less said laws had to be enforced equally, irrespective of race.

It's a deep history, and in interpreting it you have to be careful who you decide is "San Francisco" -- is it the institutions at the time, or the citizens who act up against it?

I agree though that it's important not to take progressive politics for granted.

[outis]

Thanks, I was not aware of that aspect of San Francisco's history. It does not seem to have much of a connection to the present situation, though - or maybe it does? The Democrats used to be the slavery party, after all.

Is there a good source for the political history of San Francisco that does not automatically take the point of view of the current incumbents?