Mayor Michael Tubbs on the Importance of Stockton and “Upsetting the Setup”
“So many people see themselves reflected in this documentary, and what’s happening in Stockton is incredibly inspiring.”
Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs didn’t always want to be in politics. As a child, he didn’t even know if he wanted to stay in the city of Stockton where he was raised.
The new HBO documentary Stockton on My Mind tells the story of Mayor Tubbs. Born to a teenage mother and an incarcerated father, Tubbs felt society destined him for either prison or death. Defying expectations, in 2016, he became one of the youngest mayors of a major American city at age 26, as well as Stockton’s first African American mayor.
Since his rise to Mayor of Stockton, Tubbs has gained national attention for his progressive policies and innovative ideas including his universal basic income program (SEED), Stockton Scholars, and more. Stockton on my Mind follows Tubbs’ efforts to reverse the fortunes of a city known as one of the poorest, most violent and least literate in the nation.
Below Mayor Tubbs discusses the new documentary, his revolutionary ideas for Stockton, and what he hopes everyone learns from Stockton, California.
In Stockton on My Mind you spoke about your passion for Stockton and the love you have for your community. Did you always think you would run for political office?
Growing up, my whole mentality was to love the city and then to get as far away from it as possible. Stockton, growing up, was a site of a lot of pain. My mom was always saying things like, “You have to leave to be successful.” I felt like being here was a dead end.
It wasn’t until my cousin was murdered, and I spent time in college and reflected on all the good things I got from the city that I decided to run for office. Stockton provided me with the mentors, teachers, friends, family and cultural diversity that is at the core of who I am.
But even then, while in college, I thought I would be involved in service and making change, but not in elected office. Definitely not in an elected office in Stockton. I thought I would do policy work for a big national organization or advocacy work. I thought there were many different ways to make change, but I didn’t see myself running for office in Stockton until the murder of my cousin.
You use the phrase “upsetting the setup” often in the documentary. What does this phrase mean to you?
I heard that quote from a friend of mine in high school, her name is Raven Rakia and she had a blog called Upset the Setup. I use that phrase a lot, because I think it illustrates sort of the tensions — and also some of the work we’re trying to do in navigating both structure and agency. The phrase to me illustrates the understanding that our society is structured for the outcomes we see.
Now when folks feel set up because of where they’re born or what race they happen to be or what zip code they’re in, that’s not an excuse. That is a data informed analysis that there are things set up structurally to make it harder for some people and easier for others. I don’t think anyone could actually deny that.
And then the upset part is so important, because it’s also important to realize that we do have agency, that we do have power. The setup or the structures or institutionalized racism, sexism, et cetera, aren’t the final word, that you do have agency to upset that.
And that’s why that phrase is so important to me, because I think as a policymaker, I try to strike the balance between identifying, naming, and working on fixing structural issues, but also emphasizing to my constituents that we still have agency. Both those things can be true.
In Stockton on my Mind you highlighted programs like SEED, the Stockton Scholars, and Advance Peace. Why do you think, in your eyes, that these programs have become so successful in Stockton?
I think it’s become so successful in Stockton because it really speaks to community needs and long standing problems that, for too long, we’ve talked about, but haven’t really tried to do anything intentional and direct to solve them.
So Stockton Scholars gives people real opportunity, and more often than not, they’re going to respond in great ways. We’ve seen that our young people, their FAFSA completion rate has gone up 10 to 15 percent, all because now there’s a real scholarship. A through G, the classes you require to take to college, those rates have gone up.
On the basic income front, there’s stories of people using the money to get better jobs to pay off debt, to invest in themselves, to pay for healthcare, to quarantine during COVID-19. Again, as a response to opportunity.
And then with Advance Peace, and also our existing ceasefire program with our existing peacekeepers, we see guys who are caught in cycles of violence and poverty who are responding affirmatively oftentimes to a real opportunity to make a change.
How have you seen the programs that you have put into effect, like the SEED Program, affect policy across the country?
With SEED, we have now started the Mayors for Guaranteed Income, which is a group of mayors from across this nation who are saying they want to do a SEED-like program in their city. We also want to call for a federal program to provide guaranteed income to our constituents during COVID-19.
We have a lot of cities that come and meet with our police chief and others around the work we’re doing to reduce police violence. In fact, our police department does procedural justice and reconciliation training for other departments. We have folks coming down here all the time to learn about our gun violence reduction strategies, Advance Peace and Project Ceasefire.
We aren’t the only city with these ideas. We have relationships with Oakland and Newark, which have similar programs on the gun violence front. I came up with the idea of Stockton Scholars from looking at the Pittsburgh Promise and the Oakland Promise and thinking we need something like that in Stockton.
So people are definitely learning from us, but we’re also sharing.
How does it feel to see all that support from people watching the documentary?
I really am overwhelmed, because I think that Stockton’s not unique in the problems we face. These problems are faced by many cities in this country.
And I’m also moved by the stories of our residents, from Junior, whose parents are migrant workers, to my own father, who is incarcerated, to Isaiah, who got in trouble with the law, to Joy, who had a child, to Jasmine, who is doing her best as a young person. So many people see themselves reflected in this documentary, and what’s happening in Stockton is incredibly inspiring.
What are you most proud of accomplishing during your time as mayor of Stockton?
I am most proud of the 40 percent reduction in homicides and the Stockton Scholars program.
What do you find most exciting about the future of Stockton?
That we’re just getting started. We are just scratching the surface. There’s so much work to be done around housing and homelessness, and we finally got the resources to do it.
There’s exciting stuff we’re going to work on doing around ZERO TO THREE, brain development in children — Too Small To Fail, and also around making childcare affordable.
So there’s so much work to be done and I’m excited to have a community of folks who are interested in working together to figure out how we solve some of these problems instead of just talking about them.
What do you hope people take away from Stockton on My Mind?
I hope people take away a couple of things from Stockton on My Mind.
Number one, that leadership comes from everywhere, and that by not investing in communities equitably, by writing some people off because of their backgrounds, we’re missing out on folks who could be the next mayor or the next organizer. We all do better when we all do better.
Number two, cities like Stockton matter. The future of this country, the future of this democracy is being built in cities like Stockton throughout this country.
Number three, everyone has a responsibility to make a change. Everyone has a responsibility to do their part to upset the setup and make our societies more reflective of who we are on paper, in terms of a nation that has universal human dignity, that understands life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and understands liberty and justice for all.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
