Unmasking Racism
for a better Marin

Documented Racial Incidents

MV FREE believes that awareness is a critical first step to healing our community’s racial divides: we cannot begin to fix what we do not see or understand. Therefore, we are devoting this page to unmasking recent incidents of racial hatred in our community and providing some historical context and educational resources about the inequities that exist here.

August 2021—Mill Valley 
Intimidation Aimed at Black Owned Business

White Novato resident, David Planka of Life Safety Services left this hate-filled message for Black Mill Valley businessman, Denzel Allen, of Strength Den. Planka was apparently inflamed by an advertising campaign sponsored by the Marin Council of Chambers among others designed to promote BIPOC owned businesses. 

August 2021—Sausalito
Gas Station Owner Refuses Service to Native American, Hurls Bigoted Insults

The owner of Bridgeway Gas Station in Sausalito refused service to a Native American patron saying, “You people are F-ing cheap” and ”Get the F out of here.” Redhorse B.

According to Yelp reports, the same station owner told a patron with autism, “Get out. We don’t serve your kind in here.” Tom G. Another customer was derisively told he "looks like a Jew" and that people in Saualito were “below dogs.” Sean G.

July 2021—Tam High School, Mill Valley
Vandalism Assaults Students of Color

A nighttime vandal attacked an art project at Tam High School, painting over the words “EQUITY” and “BLACK LIVES MATTER.” After the mural was repaired, the words were again defaced, this time the white adult male vandal was caught on video. For students of color at the high school, the message was impossible to ignore.

When the art installation was placed at Tam I was really moved because it felt as if the Mill Valley community was actively addressing the racial inequality that has been part of this country for so long… It makes me disappointed that someone would physically paint over the words "EQUITY" and "BLACK LIVES MATTER," which are terms that carry an inherently positive message for our society. 

W., Tam High Senior

[A]s a Black student, the vandalism made me sad and less welcome to come back to campus for in person learning … I hope that Mill Valley awakens to racial incidents, especially the ones like this that affect the BIPOC youth living and going to school in the community.

I., Tam High Senior

May 2021—San Anselmo Town Hall
Marin’s First Black Mayor Threatened

Marin’s first Black Mayor, San Anselmo’s Bryan Colbert, received a “racially-charged” voice mail on the Town Hall’s main phone line threatening physical violence. Police arrested San Anselmo resident, Jerald Welty, for the criminal threats and confiscated multiple firearms from his home. 

February 2021—Greenbrae
Resident Assaults Asian Diner

Karen Inman of Greenbrae was charged with a hate crime for spitting on an Asian man who was dining at a Mountain View restaurant. Prosecutors report that Inman used a racial slur and told the man to go back “where you came from.”

October 2020—Redwood High School, Larkspur
Jewish Students Targeted for Intimidation

A series of antisemitic Instagram accounts appeared attributed to “Redwood students organized in anti-Semitism.” The accounts sought to identify and intimidate Jewish students at the High School. Typical posts included, “We are currently compiling a google doc of Jews in the district. Hit us up if you want to help! WeHateJews.com.”

August 2020—Tiburon
Police Harass Black Business Owner at His Store

Tiburon Police were caught on video aggressively questioning the City’s only Black business owner, Yema Khalif.  Khalif was working after hours in his brightly lit shop with his wife and another Black man. One officer kept his hand on his gun during the entire exchange that lasted more than ten minutes. The officers refused to leave until a white neighbor shouted that Khalif was the store’s owner. 

The roots of Marin’s racial disparities. . .

reach back to the brutal campaigns of cultural erasure aimed at Marin’s Indigenous populations by European colonizers, beginning with the arrival of Spanish missionaries in 1769. 

They trace to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (enacted principally to prevent Chinese people from entering California), which was not repealed until 1943 when the US and China became allies in World War II. 

And they wind through the period of Marin’s greatest population growth, from the 1940s to the 1970s, when deed restrictions and banking and real estate industry practices prevented Black and brown people from buying or owning property in desirable areas of the County, and people of color were intentionally segregated into underserved, redlined communities.

The roots of racism continue to twist their way up to the present where we see their ingrained patterns across all sectors of civic life in Marin:

• In the lack of diversity in government leadership across the County,

• In the well documented racial profiling by police. In the past 6 months, Black people accounted for 16.5% of all pedestrian and vehicle stops by the Marin Sheriff’s Department even though only 2.8 % of the population is Black.

• In the purposeful school segregation that recently earned Sausalito the State’s first desegregation order in 50 years,

• In the decades of discriminatory housing practices in Marin that continue to be reflected in HUD’s regular reports to the County, and

• In a business and cultural landscape that fails to equitably engage, reflect and serve local communities of color and other historically marginalized populations.

Sometimes the differential care, services and treatment received by people of color in Marin is the unintended product of implicit bias and the fear, suspicion and ignorance that accompanies it. Other times, as the stories on this page demonstrate, the causes are more malignant.