While bad-mouthing San Francisco is making headlines (with NBA legend Charles Barkley and venture capitalist Garry Tan calling out failed progressive policies and social justice shortcomings despite evidence to the contrary), for San Francisco born writer-activist Ashley Smiley, the blame lies with the affluent entities so quick slander the city.
“Honestly, I think the corporate entities that are wrecking San Francisco from the inside out understand everything that is happening to Black and poor San Franciscans. They know it, they know they are contributing to it, and they are OK with it. That, to me, is the real problem. Harming the Black and poor of San Francisco means clearing the way to once again build upon the bones of what was and making it over again in their image,” Smiley says.
Smiley has taken her frustrations to the stage. Her play “Dirty White Teslas Make Me Sad,” directed by Raelle Myrick Hodges and produced by activist troupe Campo Santo, opens this week at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco.
Last year, with help from San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Co., she debuted an in-development version of the show, an indictment of rich San Franciscans who exploit the middle- and lower-classes. The story is told from the point of view of Sloosh, a 29-year-old queer AfroLatina from San Francisco, who, along with her mother, faces imminent eviction from their longtime home.
Smiley, who lovingly refers to herself as “AfroSiscan,” says, “Sloosh is a funhouse-mirror image of me. Which makes this a very scary experience in a lot of ways. It’s a very vulnerable place to come from and allow audiences into, for fear of judgment. But one can only pray that the authenticity serves its purpose in that it moves each individual audience member into action. More than anything, we share the struggle of despair.”
As the show’s title suggests, both author and character share a disdain for the luxury and not-quite-self-driving cars that congest San Francisco streets as services are cut for the unhoused, who sleep in tents on sidewalks. The sight of those cruising status-symbol automobiles gives a Smiley a visceral reaction, as does knowing that a Black woman, Mayor London Breed, frequently champions the very policies that favor business interests over social healing.
“We all know and understand that San Francisco is a city of optical illusions, but those illusions become delusions for the sake of coping. And because we are delusional, we are blind to the fact that we are rotting from the inside out. We need to be honest. Not about the symptoms, but about the actual diseases that are negatively impacting our most marginalized San Franciscans. If I was asked at this time last year what [Breed and upper-class San Franciscans] don’t understand, I would say they don’t understand the hurt, the pain, the mourning that Black San Franciscans are experiencing. Now? Now I think they don’t understand just how serious we San Franciscans are about our home and that we should never ever be underestimated.”
Despite the play’s overt call to action, Smiley insists it’s coincidence that the show begins previews on Feb. 28, the final day of Black History Month. (Though she does consider the timing a good omen, particularly during a leap year.)
She and collaborators are making it a priority to get more Black audience members to the theater in Fort Mason by getting the word out to the community via organizations such as San Fransico Bay View, a Black newspaper operating since 1976.
“[We’re doing] a lot of targeted outreach to leaders and organizations in the communities with the highest concentrations of Black residents,” she says. “We can’t pretend like Black folks haven’t been pushed out far and wide from San Francisco, so we’re making sure that we tell everyone in the Bay Area that Frisco—and Black San Francisco in particular—is going to be on brilliant display. So, pull up!”
The topic of placement is more pressing in an election year: “We cannot allow ourselves to be redlined on maps and in our minds in the city anymore. We belong in the Marina just like anyone else, now more than ever, and there’s no better reason to show up for a Black girl having her dream come true.”
Despite the constant threat of crucial arts organizations and venues vanishing, Smiley still believes her hometown is as “rich with creativity” as ever.
“Anyone that doesn’t think artists are out here working it isn’t looking!” she says.
Her greatest hope is for people to leave the show with a vision of the city that goes beyond the current notorious headlines: “The current state of San Francisco is not just politics and line items, nor is it headlines and hashtags. It is a real and true experience. It is a human experience. Take the story of this one young woman, this one family unit, and multiply it — that is the amount of harm being done every day that San Francisco won’t be honest and actually decide to fix things.”
Asked about how she might react if the CEO of Tesla (and X, formerly Twitter) were to appear in the audience, she responds, “[I’d] double-check to make sure he paid full price—for everything!”
“Dirty White Teslas Make Me Sad” runs Feb. 28-March 17 at the Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina Blvd., Landmark Building D, San Francisco. Tickets are $30-$75 at magictheatre.org.
Charles Lewis III is a San Francisco-born journalist and performing artist. He has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED and San Francisco Examiner. Dodgy evidence of this can be found at The Thinking Man’s Idiot.