Oakland Teens Discuss Oscar Grant
Posted January 16, 2009 9:43 am (about 1117 days ago)
So, the protest. Right away, one student said it was great to make the police scared and show them that people had power. We discussed what it meant to have power. A little kid can throw a tantrum and scare you for a short time, but overall, do they really have power over your life? Violent revolution fills our history (including the much glossed over American Revolution), but did this constitute a revolution? None of the students who spoke up said “yes.” They thought is just an excuse for people to be destructive. What was to be gained from destroying an innocent person’s car? We humanized it by imagining that this was their mother’s car, who just got finished from a hard day’s work of twelve hours to support the family, and finds her car on fire. All of a sudden “she should have insurance” isn’t so simple. How does she get to work? How does the family get to groceries, get kids to school? The majority of our families are struggling to makes ends meet so the students related to this one. Will harming these families bring him back? We also made it very clear to differentiate between the peaceful protest and the havoc later that evening. We also talked about the level of “rioting” being a bit exaggerated and thus talked about violent protests in a broader sense.Historically speaking, I talked about COINTELPRO and how it was designed to break up groups such as the Black Panther Party, including infiltrators setting people up so they would get arrested for illegal activities. Many of the students didn’t know that J. Edgar Hoover called the BPP the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States. They also didn’t know that Lil’ Bobby Hutton was only 16 when he was killed, which made him younger than all of the students I was speaking with. However, they did understand that one wants to eliminate or contain (lock up) a threat, which in this case was young African Americans from Oakland. I also pointed out that youth are often used for older people’s our outsiders’ political gains. They protest, get arrested, lose jobs, etc, but are any of these people going to bail them out of jail, help them with their schoolwork, pay for possible hospital bills? While the protest was diverse, some students did notice the White anarchists, who seem to be at every protest. Some wondered if because they don’t live in the community they have no problem destroying it. Some wondered if they were rich kids who felt guilty. I asked why so many people claim to speak for us, yet don’t speak with us. I wrapped up this portion by saying that anyone who’s setting you up in harm’s way for no good reason is either a snitch/informant, or idiot who doesn’t really care about you anyway. Many times people who throw stuff at the police are in the back!
Similarly, as a teacher, I often go over other basic survival skills, such as how to deal with the police, in both positive and negative situations. Again, so many of our students have terrible run-ins with the police that we need to discuss this stuff. It’s not about being a punk, it’s about survival. When you’re cuffed, in the back of a police car, or have a gun pointed at you, that’s not the time to argue. You need to get out of that situation ALIVE. Even a good cop may make a mistake that costs someone his or her life. We talked about long-term strategies and solutions. Protests, violent and non-violent, can have their place, but they’re only one piece of the puzzle. As I told the students, few people want to do the long-term work. Anyone can wear an “I am Oscar Grant” shirt, but they also need to finish school, continue to get educated (not just book smarts), challenge their own shortcomings, and develop the tools for a fruitful life.
On a factual note, some of the students said that “the police always kill people of color.” We talked about how many times someone gets killed by the BART police (I believe it’s in the single digits dating over 15 years). I asked them how many people were killed by police last year compared to the overall amount of killings in Oakland. It’s an extremely low number compared to the overall level of murder. Again, none of this is to minimize what happened, nor the responsibilities of any law enforcement agency. Where’s the anger and protests toward this other violence, as well as the loss of jobs, environmental racism, and other attacks on our community? Obviously there have been numerous marches and such, but I wanted to point out that the problem is larger than just getting angry about this one shooting. Many of the students are quick to justify conflicts such as gang violence and we talked some of the hypocrisy in that.
Of course, the frustration comes from anger about all of these issues, including countless bad experiences with the police. This incident was caught on film, but so much stuff happens from police being rude to people, to brutality, to shootings, that people truly are tired. Bad cops, incompetent cops, and rogue cops mess it up for the officers who truly to have the community’s best interests at heart. Unfortunately, for our students, the perception is that good, competent officers are in the minority. With that in mind, why would people respect institutions and laws that don’t respect them? I’m not just talking about crooks and gangsters, but also regular folks who live in the “wrong” neighborhood or “look guilty.”
More came of the discussion and I could probably fill many more pages, but the important thing is that the discussion took place. The next step of course, is to develop strategies and analyze existing strategies on how to address these problems. But for today, it’s important to document that intelligent conversations are happening about this issue and that the youth response is deeper than smashing windows and lighting cars on fire. As this story continues to develop, we’ll do our best to keep students updated.
P.S. These events been receiving a lot of mainstream news coverage but another good source for insightful perspectives is http://www.daveyd.com.
Look at this new footage of Oscar Grant getting punched by another BART cop, right before the shooting. Is there any wonder why people are so angry with cops, and not just about Oscar Grant? In the spirit of the Black Panthers, make sure you always keep a camera handy. http://www.ktvu.com/video/18554358/index.html
Instead of the police protecting the community the community has to protect itself from the police because the police just judge you on what you're wearing, what you look like, or where you live, or the way you walk. And even after they stop you they assume that you did something or that you got something on you. Like in one of my experiences the cop tried to search my pockets. Because my keys sounded like a paint marker he assumed I was a tagger and he tried to put me in the cop car. Another day I was walking to the bus stop with friends and we got stopped just because the cop assumed that we were gang members because we all had black hoodies and we were all Latinos. He tried to search us for drugs and to see if we had any gang related tattoos. That's why I feel the way I do about the cops. (editor's note, this commentary is from January, although it's just being posted in March)