Big props to the City of Oakland
Read Time:2 Minute, 51 Second
I’ve been seeing the media (Fox in particular) portraying the situation in Oakland as being near-anarchy. Black people rioting and burning and looting due to their not being happy with the legal process.
I’m gonna stay away from right or wrong in the Oscar Grant case and simply comment on the situation as I observe it. Many people were frustrated and believed Mr. Mehserle’s sentence should have been more severe. A multi-racial crowd of as many as 1,500 people gathered to protest near 14th and Broadway. Speeches, calls for action-NOT calls for violence. Angry people venting, exercising their rights as Americans to protest.
The police were ready in force, Oakland police with San Francisco and many other departments on hand to back them up. But they kept their presence out of the way for the most part. They closed off some streets so that people could still enter and exit the downtown area but it was easier to control the flow. The CHP closed off some freeway access and the Fruitvale BART station where the killing occurred was closed. The police did not attempt to intimidate people by a show of force, knowing their presence might provoke members of the crowd.
Several local newspapers, among them the Oakland Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle, had live bloggers at the scene. They uniformly reported peaceful crowds, and also all of them reported people with bandannas over their faces and heavy sweatshirts entering the area. Local community volunteers notified police of those who drew their suspicion, not out of being pro-police but out of being pro-Oakland. I make the distinction because the main concern of the volunteers was that an event they supported would be peaceful and effective.
The majority of the protesters filed away after 8pm when the protest ended. At a certain point violence broke out, with an estimated 150-200 people taking part. Local residents complained of people with hammers smashing windows, the same people having blowtorches. Locals complained they live here and walk these streets every day, what gave these people the right to destroy things here?
Here’s a typical comment from a 22 year old West Oakland resident: “Before the sun went down, I was happy with everything,” he said. “It’s no longer about Oscar Grant. The people who went in there and came out with shoes, that’s not about Oscar Grant anymore. What we had before the sun went down, that was justice. This is just pure stupidity.”
Oakland has a population of around 400,000. The high estimate of those rioting and looting was 200, and quite likely a number of them were not local residents. Demographically there is a very high proportion of young people there. Yet out of 400,000 people, statistically this is a very small number.
It looks to me like the people of Oakland did their job. They kept their kids home and out of trouble. Pay no attention to Fox News or CNN. The media loves to run stories of burning and looting, and a certain element wants to make it seem like Black people are lawless and don’t respect law enforcement. Don’t believe it. Oakland did its job. The police reacted with force only when a few lawbreakers disrespected the city and its people. The people of Oakland protested, then went home. The parents controlled their children.
Big props to Oakland.
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I am glad for testimonies like this because while I didn’t believe the hype, I knew something in the milk wasn’t clean with the media reports.
I left a comment earlier but don’t see it. Anyway, thank you for writing this.
From time to time comments will end up in the spam folder. I check every day and restore them. If it is not there it almost always means that the reader didn’t wait for the comment to the post before bouncing out.
Thank you.
Great one Oso. Man on the Street Reporting without the bias. Worthy of Edward R. Murrow.
Good post. Way to shine the light.
Sometimes, because of their overwhelming drive for “action” in their coverage, the media is directly responsible for stiring the pot. Good post, Oso.
Wasn’t your daughter there at the Berkeley station? I was at the 12th st station for a while last night too Oso, before going to the 14 st station for the speechifying. There were several people there calling for non violence. The only one thing I saw that was disturbing, some idiots deciding they were going to try and overturn a police car with the police officers right there in the vehicle. HELLO idiots, the car will win if you get hurt. Those breaking windows, anarchist morons, they are the same ones that go to almost nearly every protest here, that there is, just to break things. The people among us that don’t think, oh wait, I live here and I am messing up my own living room. You know the ones, the ones where even their brain cells jump to suicide, instead of staying in their heads. Mayor Dellums was there cautioning about violence and anyone that wanted to could get up and speak about the verdict into several mics they had set up for the neighborhood. I was so totally impressed with his family members I was able to catch telling the crowd of people, we don’t want any violence. Like you, I am not going to say what my opinion is on this verdict, right,wrong or not, because it has been handed down by a jury of his peers.
Yes she was at 12th st for awhile but couldn’t hang for too long.Good turnout of actual and virtual kids.
If you want to taste the truth, forget your MSM eatery, dine at MadMikesAmerica. Thanks Oso.
Hear! Hear!!
The only reason there wasn’t rioting was because god-fearing, patriotic, heavily armed teabaggers showed up to protect god-fearing, patriotic, unarmed Americans from that rabble.
I didn’t think there was any trouble until I woke up this morning. I’m not even sure I believe there was any.
Had everyone gotten together in a circle and sung Kumbaya it would have been reported as “those animals loot their own city again” by most MSM.
The fact that the protesters and the vandals aren’t linked in any way is being brushed aside yet again in favor of a meta-narrative that only reifies existing prejudices.
The three media helicopters hovering over downtown yesterday weren’t looking for a “truth” they were looking for the story they wanted to tell and rearranged reality in favor of that story.
Agreed, although one cannot deny that there was looting and general chaos in parts of the city.
Now that’s what I would call ‘reporting the truth’… something we were encouraged was the job in relaying the news! Good job to you Oso! I hope this post gets a pick up in your hometown.
I have marketed this all over the place Gwen. I hope it gets picked up also. It is a remarkable piece 🙂
I agree with you Oso. I did hear one of those empty headed morning CNN anchors ask that age old question:
“Is this about justice or is it about anarchy?”
Good post man.