KurtFF8
9th November 2011, 18:15
Source (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/opinion/trouble-beside-the-bay.html?_r=1&ref=opinion)
JEAN QUAN may be the first in many categories — the first Asian-American and first woman to be mayor of Oakland — but she is far from the city’s first chief executive to face off with its police force. While dozens of mayors around the country have had to deal with Occupy movements, only Ms. Quan has seen the initially peaceful protests turn into street violence and even a general strike — a turn almost wholly attributable to the brutality of the city police.
In their zeal to fight back, however, the protesters, many of them white out-of-towners, have left locals unsure of who really has their best interests at heart.
On Oct. 25 the world saw an Oakland police force that blacks have had to deal with for decades — even before the Black Panthers organized to protest the shooting of a black youth in the 1960s, a time when the police were said to be recruited from the South because they knew how to handle African-Americans. In a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZLyUK0t0vQ) watched worldwide, an officer in riot gear fired a tear gas canister at a protester; the victim, an Iraq War veteran, later underwent surgery for his wounds. When some occupiers went to help him, another canister was lobbed at them.
That same night officers allegedly used rubber bullets (http://www.baycitizen.org/occupy-movement/story/hunt-rubber-bullets-occupy-oakland/) during an assault on campers in Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. If so, that would violate the department’s rules of engagement. Those rules were adopted in 2003, after the police assaulted antiwar protesters at the Port of Oakland, even injuring some longshoremen who happened to be passing by.
The force’s viciousness, particularly against blacks and Latinos, is legendary. In one recent case, a group of officers known as the Riders, who racked up an impressive list of drug takedowns, were accused of brutality, kidnapping and planting evidence on their road to arrests. Another officer, nicknamed “Audie Murphy,” after the sharpshooting war hero and film star, shot four suspects and killed three. So little has been done to reform the force that a federal judge has threatened to take the entire department into receivership.
Many of Oakland’s officers don’t even live in the city, but rather its suburbs, a fact that helps maintain a strong “us versus them” worldview. (At a recent community meeting I proposed that the city study a plan, developed by Detroit, that rents foreclosed homes to police officers for as little as $1,000, to keep them in the city.)
The police still have influence in City Hall, though: their union repeatedly and vocally criticizes elected officials, including the mayor. For years it opposed making officers pay toward their pensions like other city workers. (The union agreed to start contributing in July.)
Mayor Quan initially supported the police after the Oct. 25 clashes. Keith Olbermann called for her resignation; so did Michael Moore, who made a nuisance of himself by barging into Oakland Highland General Hospital, demanding to see the injured veteran (who had already been transferred to another hospital). Support for the protests grew, with statements of sympathy coming in from Cairo and Düsseldorf, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKyZ4jd8Clw) Germany.
Such pressure may explain why Ms. Quan later apologized for the use of excessive force by the police, and is now trying to take a hands-off approach to the matter. Needless to say, the police department has been critical, saying it was “confused” by her latest moves.
All of this has left Oakland’s blacks and Latinos in a difficult position. They rightly criticize the police, but they also criticize the other invading army, the whites from other cities, and even other states, whom they blame for the vandalism that tends to break out whenever there is a heated protest in town: from the riots after the murder of Oscar Grant by a transit police officer in 2009, to the violence of the last two weeks downtown and, most recently, near the port.
Someday we may discern the deeper historical meaning of these latest events. For now, what’s striking are the racial optics. How did Asian-Americans respond to the sight of a diminutive Asian-American mayor being hooted off the stage by a largely white crowd at an Oct. 27 rally? And where was the sympathy when, in years past, unarmed blacks and Hispanics were beaten or killed? Why did it take the injury of a white protester to attract attention?
Meanwhile, those hurt most by the protests are local business owners and workers, many of them minorities. Jose Dueñas, the chief executive of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Alameda County, blamed the Occupy movement for stalled economic activity. “We’ve got no events planned, people are pulling back,” he told a local newspaper. “We don’t blame them.” The cash-strapped city has spent over $1 million so far in occupation-related costs.
Local activism has been pushed aside as well. Even as Occupy Oakland has occupied the Bay Area headlines, hundreds of black, white and Latino parents met to oppose plans to close five schools in black neighborhoods. The following day there was hardly a single line of newsprint about the meeting.
The Occupy movement has important things to say. But in its hurry to speak, it risks shutting out those who have been waiting their turn for a long time.
Ishmael Reed is the author of “Blues City: A Walk in Oakland.”
Minus the small blurb about harming local business, this article does raise some interesting and important questions about race in the Occupy movement in general. I hardly doubt that these issues are unique to Oakland.
JEAN QUAN may be the first in many categories — the first Asian-American and first woman to be mayor of Oakland — but she is far from the city’s first chief executive to face off with its police force. While dozens of mayors around the country have had to deal with Occupy movements, only Ms. Quan has seen the initially peaceful protests turn into street violence and even a general strike — a turn almost wholly attributable to the brutality of the city police.
In their zeal to fight back, however, the protesters, many of them white out-of-towners, have left locals unsure of who really has their best interests at heart.
On Oct. 25 the world saw an Oakland police force that blacks have had to deal with for decades — even before the Black Panthers organized to protest the shooting of a black youth in the 1960s, a time when the police were said to be recruited from the South because they knew how to handle African-Americans. In a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZLyUK0t0vQ) watched worldwide, an officer in riot gear fired a tear gas canister at a protester; the victim, an Iraq War veteran, later underwent surgery for his wounds. When some occupiers went to help him, another canister was lobbed at them.
That same night officers allegedly used rubber bullets (http://www.baycitizen.org/occupy-movement/story/hunt-rubber-bullets-occupy-oakland/) during an assault on campers in Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. If so, that would violate the department’s rules of engagement. Those rules were adopted in 2003, after the police assaulted antiwar protesters at the Port of Oakland, even injuring some longshoremen who happened to be passing by.
The force’s viciousness, particularly against blacks and Latinos, is legendary. In one recent case, a group of officers known as the Riders, who racked up an impressive list of drug takedowns, were accused of brutality, kidnapping and planting evidence on their road to arrests. Another officer, nicknamed “Audie Murphy,” after the sharpshooting war hero and film star, shot four suspects and killed three. So little has been done to reform the force that a federal judge has threatened to take the entire department into receivership.
Many of Oakland’s officers don’t even live in the city, but rather its suburbs, a fact that helps maintain a strong “us versus them” worldview. (At a recent community meeting I proposed that the city study a plan, developed by Detroit, that rents foreclosed homes to police officers for as little as $1,000, to keep them in the city.)
The police still have influence in City Hall, though: their union repeatedly and vocally criticizes elected officials, including the mayor. For years it opposed making officers pay toward their pensions like other city workers. (The union agreed to start contributing in July.)
Mayor Quan initially supported the police after the Oct. 25 clashes. Keith Olbermann called for her resignation; so did Michael Moore, who made a nuisance of himself by barging into Oakland Highland General Hospital, demanding to see the injured veteran (who had already been transferred to another hospital). Support for the protests grew, with statements of sympathy coming in from Cairo and Düsseldorf, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKyZ4jd8Clw) Germany.
Such pressure may explain why Ms. Quan later apologized for the use of excessive force by the police, and is now trying to take a hands-off approach to the matter. Needless to say, the police department has been critical, saying it was “confused” by her latest moves.
All of this has left Oakland’s blacks and Latinos in a difficult position. They rightly criticize the police, but they also criticize the other invading army, the whites from other cities, and even other states, whom they blame for the vandalism that tends to break out whenever there is a heated protest in town: from the riots after the murder of Oscar Grant by a transit police officer in 2009, to the violence of the last two weeks downtown and, most recently, near the port.
Someday we may discern the deeper historical meaning of these latest events. For now, what’s striking are the racial optics. How did Asian-Americans respond to the sight of a diminutive Asian-American mayor being hooted off the stage by a largely white crowd at an Oct. 27 rally? And where was the sympathy when, in years past, unarmed blacks and Hispanics were beaten or killed? Why did it take the injury of a white protester to attract attention?
Meanwhile, those hurt most by the protests are local business owners and workers, many of them minorities. Jose Dueñas, the chief executive of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Alameda County, blamed the Occupy movement for stalled economic activity. “We’ve got no events planned, people are pulling back,” he told a local newspaper. “We don’t blame them.” The cash-strapped city has spent over $1 million so far in occupation-related costs.
Local activism has been pushed aside as well. Even as Occupy Oakland has occupied the Bay Area headlines, hundreds of black, white and Latino parents met to oppose plans to close five schools in black neighborhoods. The following day there was hardly a single line of newsprint about the meeting.
The Occupy movement has important things to say. But in its hurry to speak, it risks shutting out those who have been waiting their turn for a long time.
Ishmael Reed is the author of “Blues City: A Walk in Oakland.”
Minus the small blurb about harming local business, this article does raise some interesting and important questions about race in the Occupy movement in general. I hardly doubt that these issues are unique to Oakland.