D9 Supervisor Candidate Jackie Fielder, Part 2 (S7E2)

Update: 2024-10-29

Description

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1.

Jackie considers it an honor to have worked for Lateefah Simon, who's running for Congress in the East Bay for the seat currently held by Barbara Lee. Jackie was tasked with writing memos, and she took that job and ran with it, digging deeply into the weeds of policy. What she found in the existing systems of that time piqued her curiosity around what it might mean if she herself were to enter the fray. Her life up to that point formed her world views, as these things tend to do. But the policies, she says, ticked her off.

She had been studying to take the LSAT, with the idea that she would go to law school ... all while volunteering for the campaign to get Lateefah Simon elected to the BART Board. But that November, in 2016, the 45th president was elected, and everything changed ... for a lot of us, but especially for Jackie.

It all threw Jackie for a loop. Standing Rock and protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAP) were also happening, which further disillusioned her. She traveled east to join the resistance. She met folks and had deep conversations with her Native American brothers and sisters. She spent time in Minnesota doing more work with indigenous folks. It all created a sense of hope despite the doom seemingly all around. She also noticed the protests in Seattle demanding Wall Street disinvestment.

In February 2017, Jackie was back home, full of "let's do it" energy, ready to tackle issues in The Bay. She had moved to The City and started digging further into the weeds of policy in San Francisco. In 2018, she decided that she wanted to make a difference here at home. She helped found the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition. She was tapped to lead the campaign against the Police Officers Association's use of force measure. For that, she worked with Democratic Socialists of America San Francisco and the ACLU of Northern California. She also worked on the No on H campaign, which succeeded.

Alicia Garza, cofounder of Black Lives Matter, asked Jackie to teach her class at SF State, and Jackie seized that opportunity. At State, she taught Race, Women, and Class, where she talked with students about DAP and indigenous rights, among other topics. While teaching, she also worked restaurant jobs, mostly on the Peninsula.

When 2019 came around, Jackie wasn't sure what to do. Looking back, she was experiencing undiagnosed ADHD. She had a nagging feeling that year, though, that she should run for office. Someone pointed out to her that State Sen. Scott Wiener was running for election unopposed. She thought of the successful ballot measure campaigns she'd been part of. She had spent time living in her van. She'd bounced around between apartments. She decided to go for it.

The Jackie Fielder for State Senate campaign was off to a good start. Then lockdown happened in March 2020. Everything about the campaign turned virutal—Zoom speeches and meetings, phone banking on another level, social media like never before. She centered issues like affordable housing, climate change, renters' rights, homelessness, education. She got the backing of teachers, iron workers, electricians, tenants' rights groups, affordable housing groups, and various progressive cultural affinity groups in SF.

Jackie didn't win that race, though.

She took a step back and got into therapy, where she learned about self-care and self-compassion. She got to a point where she could take better care of herself so that she could then take care of others.

Jackie also started a PAC in the time between the 2020 election and now. The Daybreak PAC's main purpose is to support candidates and ballot measures that reject corporate money. Also, Stop the Money Pipeline hired her to be its communications manager in 2021. Through that work, she was able to reconnect with many folks she met years earlier in her Dakota stays. By early 2023, Jackie was co-director of the organization. This summer, in 2024, she took an official leave to come home and campaign for supervisor.

Then the conversation shifts to District 9. Of all the places Jackie has lived in San Francisco, she's spent the most time in the district. She's queer and loves the embrace of her community in D9. She also notes that the American Indian Cultural District and Latino Cultural District, two groups that are a big part of her identity, are located in D9.

After our mutual love fest of the Mission, we shift to issues that Jackie hopes to address as the next D9 supervisor—public safety, how best to engage law enforcement, drug use, houselessness, housing, jobs, and more.

Please visit Jackie's website for more info, especially if you live in D9 (if you're not sure, look up your supervisorial district here).

We recorded this episode at Evil Eye in the Mission in September 2024.

Photography by Jeff Hunt