“There are many problems seething in the underbelly of cities across this nation that Barack Obama’s election will not solve..” – an interesting account of the riots on Indybay.org.
Last week's riot in Downtown Oakland pushed the killing of Oscar Grant by BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle (mezz-er-lee) to an entirely new platform of community conversation.
We saw more public compassion (good, bad, progressive and destructive...) in the streets of Oakland than we've seen in a long time. Well, maybe second to Jack London Square on Election Night 2008. And, no doubt, we saw Obama’s lingering progressive energy wave pump the indignation of our community last week. We saw Mayor Dellums, with his bodyguard entourage, come out to the streets to see for himself. We saw a political demonstration filled not with organizers and socialist freedom fighters – but with residents of Oakland’s own streets. While investigators work to answer the $25 million question of the shooting - accident or intention – Oakland declared last week that they have no time for trivialities.Bring all the elephants in the room to the front of the stage.As another rally goes down today at City Hall, what they should be demanding is not just justice for Oscar Grant, not just an end to police brutality, police incompetence or racist acts of violence on the city’s own civilians. When you stand up today, Oakland, demand that you’re heard. Demand a real conversation.
For a good radio coverage of the shooting and the riot that followed: Hard Knock Radio's Anita Johnson and Davey D host a two hour special broadcast on KPFA.org:
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