Latino Leadership Alliance Decries Blatantly Racist Campaign Attack Ad By The Silicon Valley Organization
¡Ya Basta!
The Latino Leadership Alliance (LLA) joins other local residents, non-profits and community leaders in condemning the blatantly racist messaging and campaign ad posted by the The Silicon Valley Organization on its website. This is not the first time The SVO has resorted to such base and disgusting tactics. Recently, the SVO PAC distributed doctored images of San José City Councilmembers Sergio Jimenez and Sylvia Arenas to appeal to, and stoke, base racial and cultural stereotypes and fears. While LLA believes the organization’s separation from its President/CEO Matt Mahood is a single necessary and positive step in the right direction, it is also simply not enough.
LLA applauds and supports the quick condemnation of the racist SVO campaign hit piece by our community allies – nonprofit leaders, faith-based organizations, labor, and other community leaders – who immediately demanded accountability. The hard and real work of positive change must get started immediately, and there is much to do. If the SVO is interested in true transformative organizational change and wants to restore its credibility then, for starters, the SVO Board and the SVO staff must reflect the tremendous ethnic and cultural diversity of our beautiful valley and it must reflect and promote the values of the community it purports to serve. The SVO must come up with a plan, with input from affected communities, to implement that change. Until then, LLA is calling upon The SVO to immediately and indefinitely suspend all of its PAC fundraising and activities to give it time to realign its internal controls and processes and implement corrective measures necessary to assure more transparency and integrity in its communications, and to publicly commit to engaging community stakeholders in the Latino and African-American community in helping to direct that process and to using SVO resources more responsibly and appropriately to reflect the values of the diverse community it serves. Enough is enough!
The Latino Leadership Alliance