Timeline of the Bread & Roses Strategy Document Leak

In light of the upcoming EBDSA Steering Committee elections, and in order to dispel confusion about the events that have occurred over the past week, members of East Bay DSA have written a summary of the sequence of events. Below is a timeline of the discovery of the disparaging comments made by members of the Bread & Roses slate that were publicly accessible through a link in an outreach email. Because of the ongoing lack of communication and transparency on the part of chapter leadership, we think it necessary to compile this information in one document.

On April 19th, the East Bay DSA Bread & Roses slate sent an outreach email, from which a publicly accessible strategy doc was discovered. How this happened is outlined below. The document offers a striking view of the slate’s true political orientation and goals. A cursory view of the document, emails, and comments reveals some major issues in the Bread & Roses strategy:

A pattern of not taking disability concerns and ableist behaviors seriously and instead weaponizing them.

• Jeremy Gong encourages allies to ask supporters, “Do you think the crazy people in the chapter are going to be nice about this?” as an attempt to pathologize and dismiss anyone critical of the Bread & Roses slate. This is a repeated strategy among current leadership. The prevalence of ableist slurs internally and as a campaign strategy is of particular concern. On another occasion, Meagan Day targeted a now-expelled member of EBDSA during the push to agendize the Brake Lights project and declared her a “sociopathic narcissist.”
• The targeted ableism mentioned in the comments prompted a member of Boston DSA to share the transcript of the Disabilities Working Group call with Jeremy Gong months ago regarding the ableist Medicare For All Committee rhetoric from Amber A’Lee Frost, who is very involved in M4A nationally despite not having an official position. Jeremy claimed ignorance and downplayed Frost’s actions, refusing to clearly condemn her disrespect towards disabled comrades. Jeremy engaged in gaslighting and obfuscation, leading one DWG member to ask if he realized he was being recorded. At one point Jeremy felt it necessary to distinguish between the M4A Campaign and so-called “pet issues” like disability rights. Jeremy promised to write a statement on DWG and M4A, but never followed up on this commitment.
• These have been issues going back to the convention which have never been fully addressed.

A limited conception of internal democracy.

• There is no attempt made to address the lack of internal democracy in the chapter — the Bread & Roses view of democracy seems to be that organization size is proportional to the relative strength of the democracy (“More members means more democracy” is a direct quote from their comments), and as leaders, they are there to decide the terms of and what is left out of these meetings. They also use this argument in attacking DSA SF’s internal organization (small groups means things are less democratic). They encourage the lowest level of member involvement possible with their suggestion that “if you only do one thing for DSA this year, join us on the April 29 to vote for our vision.” or as mentioned in the strategy doc “Democracy is about a large majority having ownership over the work and resources of the chapter” .

A consistent effort to frame their own ideas as “real” or “real organizing”

• This insinuates that the work they do is more valid than the organizing done by rank and file members and of candidates competing with their slate.
• Their outreach email and rhetoric portrays their slate as the only possible vehicle for moving socialism forward.

TIMELINE OF EVENTS

April 19th

• The Bread & Roses Slate circulates a campaign outreach email, which gets shared on Twitter. DSA members in several chapters, including San Francisco, find issues with the content of the email, in particular the call to members that their priority be to vote for the slate if they can only do one thing for DSA this year.
• Kate and Noah, a Unity & Power candidate and an ally, express their concerns on the convention’s Facebook event page. Kate writes the following:

“During bylaws voting, B&R leadership opposed disability working group’s proxy voting proposals with the argument that they would ruin our democratic process. Now they are trying to stack their votes by encouraging anyone to vote by proxy.

This is a clear example of how unaccountable leadership from B&R only follow the rules when it’s convenient for them, and then turn around to stifle membership activity with those same rules.”

Their concerns are largely dismissed. One member, affiliated with Bread & Roses, comments that “it seems like if leadership or B&R does literally anything, Kate and Noah and the rest of the crew clutch their pearls and kick up a big fake controversy” (emphasis ours).

April 20th

• A recipient of the outreach email shares a link to the MailChimp URL. Jen McKinney, chair of Eugene DSA, notices that the email links back to a publicly accessible archive of Bread & Roses emails.
• One of the Bread & Roses archived emails links to a publicly accessible Google Doc called “Slate Organizing Conversation Guide”, which can be seen here. (The discovery of this document via MailChimp is detailed here).

The link is shared on Twitter and multiple DSA members begin poring through the document. They find:

That the slate outrightly rejects prison abolition, in opposition to a resolution passed by National DSA on August 6th, 2017, which unequivocally supports prison abolition.

• A claim that calling for prison abolition or the reduction or elimination of policing is likely to alienate working class people of color.
• This claim cites statistics from an article which cites The Ferguson Commission Report, a study that polled people living in and around St. Louis, Missouri, about their attitudes toward police, and a widely criticized article by Roger Lancaster in Jacobin.

A claim that our neighboring chapter SF DSA’s more ‘horizontal’ organization is limiting them, and “makes building real outward-facing campaigns difficult and favors informal hierarchies.”

• For context, SF DSA is currently in the middle of a number of projects, including housing rights activism, campaigning for Proposition F, which allocates city funds to provide a lawyer for anyone being evicted, and numerous working groups, including Climate and Environmental Justice, Conflict Resolution, Homelessness, and Healthcare. SF DSA leadership has frequently supported EBDSA members who have concerns, issues, or ideas that would have otherwise gone ignored.

The edit history was more revealing. It showed candidates from the Bread & Roses slate:

Using ableist slurs when discussing fellow members.

• Jeremy Gong: “the real reason is that we have nutjobs and narcissists like antonio, and we won’t let him do whatever he wants, so he throws tantrums.”
• Jeremy Gong: “Additional inoculation would also be: “Do you think the crazy people in the chapter are going to be nice about this?””
• Other members of slate respond positively to this strategy and rhetoric.
• Megan Svoboda: “this is our time to talk it out with people, we can’t assume they will get it on their own”.

Outright disavowing prison abolition and negating the oppression of POC.

• Jeremy Gong: “we are NOT for abolition of prisons”
• Jeremy Gong: “I would go further. 90% of black people want MORE police in their neighbourhoods”
• Jeremy Gong: “as far this document doesn’t become public, then I think we are fine.”
• Jeremy Gong: “Our society is deeply segregated, and mostly white people came to DSA on their own.”

Hinting at the formation of an Immigrant’s Rights Caucus to hide from criticism regarding their lack of direct action organizing.

• Frances Reade: “We’re not against taking action against ICE — after Jess left we haven’t had a reliable direct action person. We should say there is an immigration caucus forming and we look forward to supporting them.”

Deriding the ideas of self-organized members after discussing an informal poll members had put together in preparation of a priorities resolution.

• Abigail Gutmann-Gonzalez: “I understand but that’s why their ideas are shitty”

April 22nd

• Jeremy responds to the criticism with a Medium piece, released a half hour before the chapter’s candidate forum, in which he continues to misrepresent the situation and the problems with his behavior and the chapter. His actions and justifications continue to be criticized, including by comrades in SF DSA.
• In his article, he states how the document was accessed “isn’t totally clear”, despite the fact that it has been plainly explained in many threads. He strongly implies it was a “hack” and that it was a comrade from or connected with his opponents. This line is being repeated to members of EBDSA (an explanation about how this document was made public due to Bread & Roses’ error is here).
• Antonio asks Jeremy at the forum if he would like to apologize for his behavior. Jeremy apologizes for his language only, directs Antonio to his post, and demands no further engagement.

In creating this timeline, we hope to have made the situation clearer to members. It is difficult to effectively communicate what has happened to members who are rightfully confused and concerned. These events are significant because of this month’s election and Jeremy’s position and influence on both EBDSA and the National Political Committee.

His hurtful actions follow an established pattern of disparagement, mistreatment, and gaslighting of members on the part of East Bay DSA’s Steering Committee throughout the past year. These documents reveal Bread & Roses’ tactics and the current leadership’s purposeful misrepresentation of the critiques that have been leveled against them.

Many members, who have been systematically shut out of organizing in the chapter, have brought up various issues and been ignored and bullied. The current leadership and Bread & Roses’ opaqueness on these issues is a feature, not a bug, as it cements their control in the chapter. We ask that, in light of these events and this pattern of misconduct, EBDSA members think critically about what types of behavior are acceptable in our chapter and vote accordingly.