Huntington Beach handled 2020 in a unique and human way. From the anti-racist movement to Covid. I say human because it was full of mistakes. And growth.
With the movement for Black lives it went from violent repression for having the audacity to speak up for black lives, to the police actually getting out of our way to walk down Main Street without opposition (or at least them being the only opposition.) The public prejudice vanished for a moment. Like we weren’t getting escorted by police and sheriffs but magicians or wizards. Some might have even been Grand. 
The chief stepped down after getting furious with me about something I confronted him on about my mom. He was the Chief of police when my Mom got bruised up by HBPD. I caught him outside one night and pressed him like any son would.
Eventually the Democrats successfully co-opted the movement. With the help of Republicans. Now it’s perfectly acceptable to say “black lives matter is a scam” even though that’s a very racist statement. People don’t seem to comprehend that. “Black lives mattering” is not a scam, it’s a tool against state violence. Calling it a scam is the definition of racism because it controls and puts restraints on a group of people.
But it’s still appropriate because some people that changed our movement into an agent to the exact system we are fighting against allowed it to become such. Regardless I went around the nation and Huntington Beach exposed A LOT about racism within this nation.
It was the perfect racist microcosm. I saw the police, the sheriff’s department, MAGAT’s, Zionist, the FBI and even the UFC fighters plot to figure out how to take down some people that loved Black people publicly out loud on Main St. Huntington Beach California.
The same place where white supremacists would eventually march five years later shouting “White man fight back!”
Orange County California. Rich in Klan history also has a fruitful history of resistance to appreciate and celebrate. I am not sure if the celebration of cultural regression is a balancing act we as a people need to attempt.
That’s what Charlie Kirk represents. Cultural regression. He represents the backlash against progress. Voltaire said, “To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
Street naming is not neutral. It’s state-approved memory. Naming a street after “Mendez” v. Westminster would represent “We celebrate civil rights, integration, and justice.” Which reflects Westminster pretty well.
Naming it after Charlie Kirk says, “We celebrate anti-DEI, anti-immigrant, anti-multicultural narratives.” If Charlie Kirk were a comic character he’d be Anti-Man. Might as well name it Anti-Man! Everyone opposed would be Blue Marvel and Halloween could be fun…
When a place with a civil-rights legacy replaces or overshadows that memory with an ideological figure who opposes many of those gains, it looks like:
A political project to rewrite who the ‘heroes’ of the community are. That is a form of devolution. Cultural regression. Anti-Man doesn’t deserve a spot where the Mendez family can go.
We should elevate Westminster’s civil rights history, including consideration of naming a street or space after the Mendez family or the legacy of desegregation.
Aligning with movements that push the school curriculum backward (book bans, erasing civil-rights history, etc.) directly contradicts the spirit of Mendez v. Westminster.
Whether one agrees with Kirk or not politically, the symbolism is clear: We can go from honoring children who fought for the right to learn… to honoring a person who fights against the very frameworks that protect that right. Cultural hypocrisy and the celebration of cultural regression is not Westminster. We are extraordinary together or the mediocre Anti-man separate.
If you want to be anti something be anti-fascist.
And please sign this petition:
Honor Our Civil Rights History instead of right-wing propaganda
created by Sasha S.
We, the undersigned, call on the Westminster City Council to reconsider its recent vote to rename a street near City Hall as “Charlie Kirk Way.” This decision does not reflect the values, history, or diverse communities of Westminster.
The area around Westminster City Hall is historically significant. It was central to the Mendez v. Westminster case (1947), a landmark civil-rights victory that ended the forced segregation of Mexican-American children in California and helped pave the way for Brown v. Board of Education. Westminster should uplift this legacy — not overshadow it.
Charlie Kirk had no connection to Westminster or its cultural heritage. His national political activism and divisive right-wing positions conflict with the lived experiences and shared values of our local communities — including Latino, Vietnamese, Indigenous, African and immigrant families who have shaped this city for generations.
We believe Westminster should honor leaders who represent unity, justice, and our own community’s contributions, not figures whose views undermine or disrespect those values.
We urge the City Council to:
- Reconsider the naming of “Charlie Kirk Way.”
- Engage the community in future naming decisions.
- Elevate Westminster’s civil rights history, including consideration of naming a street or space after the Mendez family or the legacy of desegregation.
- Ensure civic symbols reflect the diversity and cultural richness of Westminster.
Westminster deserves civic honors that strengthen community, not divide it.
Please sign to show your support for preserving and celebrating Westminster’s true history.
Communities love to immortalize people in concrete, steel, and public signage; but lately, the rush to do so says more about political insecurity than genuine honor. When a city slaps a name on a public landmark during the heat of a political moment, it isn’t making a thoughtful statement about legacy. It’s staking ideological territory.
John Wayne Airport is a textbook example. John Wayne had no meaningful connection to aviation, and no deep civic role in Orange County beyond being a conservative cultural symbol. Yet the airport was renamed almost immediately after his death. It wasn’t because he transformed the county; it was because local leadership wanted to cement an identity while they still held power. And as soon as people revisited Wayne’s own words and actions, the honor aged like milk. What was once presented as community pride now reads like political branding that didn’t survive a single generation’s scrutiny.
Ronald Reagan is following the same trajectory. Monuments, freeways, and buildings bearing his name were erected almost the moment he left office. But time has a way of stripping away mythology. Future generations have looked back and seen the parts that were glossed over: the catastrophic neglect of the AIDS crisis, support for apartheid South Africa, the war on unions, soaring inequality, the explosion of mass incarceration, and the foreign-policy disasters that played out in Central America. The heroic image fades; the historical record remains. When an honor can’t survive distance, it exposes how fragile and partisan it was to begin with.
This is exactly why naming things quickly is dangerous. Real legacy doesn’t require propaganda, nostalgia, or political muscle. If someone truly changes the world for the better, future generations will recognize it without being coerced into the memory. Time is the filter. And when communities bypass that filter, the result is predictable: honors that are divisive when created and embarrassing when reevaluated.
Public memory is important. It shapes how we teach history and how we imagine ourselves as a community. That’s why the responsibility should fall not on the passions of the moment, but on the judgment of people far enough removed to see clearly. If a person deserves a monument, their impact will endure long enough for the next generation to say so. If their legacy can’t wait, it probably wasn’t a legacy at all; just a political moment carved into stone.