oaklandTag Archive for oakland archive at intellectual properties

this is my car after the riots

January 8th, 2009

at least they didn’t set it on fire, originally uploaded by obi-j.

Filed in bay area gems, photos | Tagged with bartshooting, oakland, oscar grant riots | Comments (9)

“it’s not a riot, it’s a protest”, she said

January 8th, 2009

so, yeah: all the windows in my car, parked RIGHT NEXT TO THIS ONE ON FIRE, were smashed.

in case you missed it, on new year’s day, a BART policeman shot an unarmed man in the back.

and obviously, people are pissed. there were protests all over today, and this one got way out of hand. the earlier part of the protest included a candlelight vigil and very peaceful. i know that, and that was the right thing to do. it’s just really unfortunate that what it spiraled into was completely counterproductive and violent.

i wasn’t there to participate in the protest. my friend and i had parked downtown to have dinner before we went dancing, and just got caught in the middle of it, like 3 times over the course of several hours between our dinner and dancing (but i twittered what i saw in real time!—>). we initially moved from one restaurant location @ 8th street/Broadway to another one @ 13th/Franklin to avoid the protest, which i thought was fairly peaceful looking, but it eventually followed us uptown and got more violent, and when we left the 2nd restaurant i couldn’t get to my car because it was being blocked by riot police. we just figured….what can we do? and went dancing. it was actually really nice to have this safe-feeling dance space to walk into after being surrounded by so much negativity and anger, and we danced hard. if armageddon or somesuch ever really does happen, can someone please just throw a party?

during the invocation, the speaker told everyone there was a riot going on outside and to be really aware and partner up when leaving, and some valiant defender of active democracy interrupted with”it’s not a riot, it’s a protest”. had she been outside? THAT WAS A RIOT. it was hard for me to keep quiet.

anyway, i figured it would all be gone by the time we were done, as this thing had been going on for HOURS already, but when we left the ballroom @ 19th/Broadway there was a huge crowd of police and protesters and ambulances right outside, and when we got back to my car it had been smashed. i guess i’m an idiot for not realizing it was going to get that out of hand and move all over and not getting the fuck out of downtown, but when we parked at the 2nd restaurant, there was no sign of the protest in that area, and it had seemed like it was dispersing. WRONG. it’s still going on now, i’m sure, after midnight. actually, i was invited to join the protest with some friends, and i was like “NO FUCKING WAY”, so i guess part of me did know it would get out of hand. more than anything i didn’t realize it was going to last so long and cover so much of the city.

i have a lot of thoughts in my head about this right now – about what options we have to stand up for justice besides rioting in the streets, about what to do with our anger, about violence begetting violence – but i need to go to bed so i can get up and deal with my car before i go to work tomorrow.

or maybe i need a day off.