angry city
hours ago the verdict was handed down in the Oscar Grant case. Involuntary manslaughter WTF?
I think there's some looting going on downtown at the moment, but it's not coming this way (yet?) This town's on fire!
People gathered for a mostly peaceful protest at 14th and Broadway. I learned an important lesson today,
Vacillating back and forth between inaction and safety and risk and solidarity I finally decided to trek over down town despite my real fears of possibly being arrested/shot/mugged/etc. etc. if thing's got ugly as they're wont to do. and just wandering around alone in down town oakland as a small young defenseless whitegirl at the end of day is never a good idea, even when the city's not chomping at the bit. but there are some moments when a body can't stand such an injustice without acting, even if that action is just to walk 30 minutes to stand in a crowd surrounded by cops and snipers. sometimes, you realize that the quality of your life is affected by what action you take. and that apathy and silence stands in for compliance. And when I did arrive in that group of people I was greeted by a representation of Oakland which is all shades of color, and felt silly for being afraid to be white. and when I walked without hassle back home, alone as the shadows grew uncomfortably tall I felt stronger for meeting a paralyzing fear and finding it to be mostly silly and inflated.
It is so easy to be afraid. and fear is the worst enemy to a people.
I am proud of my city. (maybe not so much of the looting and rioting, but people are ANGRY and they have a right to be. hopefully people will channel their rage more constructively than destructively)
(sound of distant explosion downtown)
I realized what i love best about oakland today, what makes it feel more alive to me than other cities. This city is fierce. Under its clothes it's tooth and nail. and it's all beautiful blood and beating heart and soul. It is Alive and fights for it. Its voice is so strong and so much goes on here. It is a rich city while being so poor and it doesn't let go and it's so cherished by all of it's many many different people. I love oakland and I love feeling it rise up.
Please people, if you don't really know who Oscar Grant is or haven't watched any of the videos of his (execution in cold blood) at the Fruitvale BART station, please do. The fact that the officer who shot him even got any sentence is sadly a landmark for civil rights, but it is a small justice covering for the gaping injustice of our judicial (well, actually entire) system. I AM SO INCENSED. and I am also incensed at my privilege to be incensed only now as a white observer and not someone who has experienced systemic police brutality and negligence firsthand throughout my entire lifetime and also vicariously as an inherited oppression. I am also angry at myself for just recently having been clued in on the magnitude of this case and for at first brushing it off as overblown, and being too caught up in my daily life to even register it
(well, i don't think i can decide either way on the shooting at Fruitvale. The officer says he mistook his taser for a gun and I've never held a taser so its possible.....plus, he's an officer and there were so many witnesses present, so it must've been a mistake) I didn't see any of the videos of the shooting until a few days ago, which make it pretty apparent that something Very Wrong was taking place. In Oakland, about two miles from where I live. To a man who happened to work at a store that I frequent, and in an alternate universe could have been my family or friend or love.
Rawr. Rawr.
Let's remember this young man and all of the others who have fallen prey to the system. and let's do the work of uniting which means seriously examining functioning institutions of privilege and owning them.
"(ignorance) is like a shadow- it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine a light on it. "
-shakti gawain
and this we can do. (if the police stop confiscating incriminating video evidence on cell phones, an action which is incriminating in itself!) lol. record the pigs.
I think there's some looting going on downtown at the moment, but it's not coming this way (yet?) This town's on fire!
People gathered for a mostly peaceful protest at 14th and Broadway. I learned an important lesson today,
Vacillating back and forth between inaction and safety and risk and solidarity I finally decided to trek over down town despite my real fears of possibly being arrested/shot/mugged/etc. etc. if thing's got ugly as they're wont to do. and just wandering around alone in down town oakland as a small young defenseless whitegirl at the end of day is never a good idea, even when the city's not chomping at the bit. but there are some moments when a body can't stand such an injustice without acting, even if that action is just to walk 30 minutes to stand in a crowd surrounded by cops and snipers. sometimes, you realize that the quality of your life is affected by what action you take. and that apathy and silence stands in for compliance. And when I did arrive in that group of people I was greeted by a representation of Oakland which is all shades of color, and felt silly for being afraid to be white. and when I walked without hassle back home, alone as the shadows grew uncomfortably tall I felt stronger for meeting a paralyzing fear and finding it to be mostly silly and inflated.
It is so easy to be afraid. and fear is the worst enemy to a people.
I am proud of my city. (maybe not so much of the looting and rioting, but people are ANGRY and they have a right to be. hopefully people will channel their rage more constructively than destructively)
(sound of distant explosion downtown)
I realized what i love best about oakland today, what makes it feel more alive to me than other cities. This city is fierce. Under its clothes it's tooth and nail. and it's all beautiful blood and beating heart and soul. It is Alive and fights for it. Its voice is so strong and so much goes on here. It is a rich city while being so poor and it doesn't let go and it's so cherished by all of it's many many different people. I love oakland and I love feeling it rise up.
Please people, if you don't really know who Oscar Grant is or haven't watched any of the videos of his (execution in cold blood) at the Fruitvale BART station, please do. The fact that the officer who shot him even got any sentence is sadly a landmark for civil rights, but it is a small justice covering for the gaping injustice of our judicial (well, actually entire) system. I AM SO INCENSED. and I am also incensed at my privilege to be incensed only now as a white observer and not someone who has experienced systemic police brutality and negligence firsthand throughout my entire lifetime and also vicariously as an inherited oppression. I am also angry at myself for just recently having been clued in on the magnitude of this case and for at first brushing it off as overblown, and being too caught up in my daily life to even register it
(well, i don't think i can decide either way on the shooting at Fruitvale. The officer says he mistook his taser for a gun and I've never held a taser so its possible.....plus, he's an officer and there were so many witnesses present, so it must've been a mistake) I didn't see any of the videos of the shooting until a few days ago, which make it pretty apparent that something Very Wrong was taking place. In Oakland, about two miles from where I live. To a man who happened to work at a store that I frequent, and in an alternate universe could have been my family or friend or love.
Rawr. Rawr.
Let's remember this young man and all of the others who have fallen prey to the system. and let's do the work of uniting which means seriously examining functioning institutions of privilege and owning them.
"(ignorance) is like a shadow- it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine a light on it. "
-shakti gawain
and this we can do. (if the police stop confiscating incriminating video evidence on cell phones, an action which is incriminating in itself!) lol. record the pigs.