SAN FRANCISCO — Black church leaders on Thursday rushed to San Francisco Mayor London Breed's defense after a rapper of Asian descent lambasted her record on crime and accused her of abandoning the city’s Asian American community.
But in a possible sign of Democratic leaders' wariness about inflaming the situation, former Mayor Willie Brown unexpectedly pulled out of the press conference held by Black leaders, which didn't feature Breed and wasn’t endorsed by her campaign. The whole episode shows what a political tinderbox confronts Breed and her allies as the mayor seeks to win a second full term amid broad dissatisfaction with the condition of the city.
Black leaders' vociferous denunciation of the diss track from Chino Yang, the owner of a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco's Alamo Square neighborhood, reflects still-raw racial divisions between the city's Black and Chinese communities that burst open during the pandemic and could determine the direction of the mayoral race.
“We are here to fight for our mayor,” said Phelicia Jones, the founder of the San Francisco nonprofit Wealth and Disparities in the Black Community and a Breed appointee to the city's Human Rights Commission. “All those who are running for office and think they can come out and really disrespect our mayor, I stand before you in the church of God."
Breed faces several moderate challengers competing for the support of the city’s sizable Asian American........