To the Editor,
After two months of public outcry, the controversy regarding Steven Houbeck’s appointment to the Urban Forestry Advisory Commission (UFAC) finally reached the April 22 Encinitas City Council meeting. Mayor Bruce Ehlers and council members Luke Shaffer, Jim O’Hara, and Marco San Antonio failed a basic test of character.
They demonstrated that they either do not understand what racism looks like or that they simply do not care enough to address it.
Their commentary implied that racism only exists if a slur is used. This is false. Racism is frequently nuanced, manifesting in coded language, stereotypes, and dehumanizing labels that treat marginalized communities as problems to be managed rather than people to be respected.
Instead of listening to residents who shared traumatic experiences of local racism, the council majority clung to a hollow video “apology” from Mr. Houbeck. They insulted these citizens, labeling them “divisive” and “disgusting,” and suggested that those objecting to racism feel sorry for themselves or believe they are “owed something.” Mayor Ehlers went as far as to have community members removed from chambers by sheriff’s deputies for silently holding signs. This is the epitome of weak, rudderless leadership.
The facts regarding Mr. Houbeck’s pattern of racially insensitive comments are clear.
Regarding his comment about “blacks dressed in tribal gear banging on drums,” this language relies on colonial stereotypes that reduce Black people to something “primitive.”
Calling immigrants “illegals” and suggesting they exist only to pick “weed” is dehumanizing. It strips people of their humanity, reducing them entirely to labor.
Finally, Houbeck’s assertion that “Blacks seem overrepresented” in a city where they make up approximately 0.4% of the 61,000 residents is telling. This treats Black visibility as something suspicious. It suggests that even the most modest representation is viewed as “too much.”
The council majority missed — or ignored —the underlying bias and resentment fueling these statements. The problem is not merely the words; it is the ideology behind them.
The April 22 meeting was disgraceful. The issue is not just that such rhetoric exists, but that our elected leaders chose to excuse it, minimize it, and frame those with the courage to call it out as the problem. That is shameful.
Our city deserves leadership that recognizes the dignity of all residents and refuses to provide a platform for those who deny it.
Marlon Taylor
Encinitas
2 comments
Mayor Ehlers, Councilmembers Shaffer and O’Hara offer the gift of perfect examples of White Fragility for facilitators of anti-racist workshops. In their deliberation process to consider rescinding the appointment of well documented Urban Forest Advisory Committee member Steve Houbeck, none of them acknowledged the hurt and the pain Houbeck’s harmful racist post caused to our Encinitas West African Dance and Drum Community and Black neighbors. Instead they chose to deflect from the harm caused by Houbeck, to sheltering him and then blame Encinitas racial justice advocates for being the problem. Their Collective Narcissism and choice to demonize citizens who hold them to account has become a repeated pattern of their leadership style. I cannot imagine how exhausting it is for Marlon Taylor, Encinitas Unified School District former president and now vice president Board of Trustee, who has generously and patiently accepted his calling to educate our community leaders and residents about racism and the need for serious anti-racist training. Hats off to you Vice President Taylor for your tireless effort to make Encinitas safe for our children and neighbors of color.
Mr. Houbeck’s thoughtless and tone deaf social media post about “blacks dressed in tribal gear banging on drums” is far from his first public pronouncement of his racist tendencies. He has a record of comments on social media going back years in which he excuses his hateful rhetoric on the grounds that “whites are a minority in California” and are being discriminated against. And yet, for all his unapologetic attacks on immigrants, non-whites (and the unhoused), he demands that others respect his personal culture and beliefs and not impose on him, going so far as to sue the State of California, California State Board of Education, and others, in cooperation with Stephen Miller’s extremist First Liberty Institute, to oppose lessons taught in his son’s ethnic studies class. In those classes, students were taught affirmations based on Mayan (not Aztec, as incorrectly alleged in the complaint) and Nigerian philosophy and moral codes.
In Lak Ech
You are my other me.
If I do harm to you,
I do harm to myself.
If I love and respect you,
I love and respect myself.
Seeking the roots of the truth, seeking the truth of the roots, elders and us youth, critical thinking through: smoking mirror, self-reflection.
We must vigorously search within ourselves be reflective, introspective by silencing distractions and extensive comprehensive obstacles in our lives, in order to be warriors of love, for our gentle representing justice.
Houbeck strenuously objected and removed his child from the school, then sued, alleging that this message represented prohibited religious indoctrination and were an affront to his Catholic beliefs. Imagine a person being so offended by teaching kids a message about respecting yourself and others, love, and justice, that he would file a lawsuit.
Mr. Houbeck practices a double standard – respect me and what I believe but never mind that I insult and abuse your culture, your beliefs, your very existence – you have no value to me. This is what his message is to those who are not like him. It is highly offensive. This is not the kind of person any community needs to be advising on community issues of any kind.