Saturday, January 10, 2009

BART Shooting: Change Comes When WE Change

Another speaker, who identified himself as Neder Bey, demanded the arrest of the BART officer involved in the shooting and told the board that if protesters "want to riot and tear up the city, I say God bless them."


There are very few tragedies and deaths that "get to me"; call me heartless or whatever, but its true. As I am VERY disappointed and sorry for the loss of the Bay Area man who was killed, I am distraught at the communities behavior. The eighth largest city in the Unites States is being destroyed by it's OWN people, by the people who have to live day to day. Minorities are labeled negatively because of actions like this.

"Neder" (Nedir) Bey (obviously one of Yusef Bey's 500 children) is saying it's okay for for the city to be torn up - HUH? What are they going to gain by it being torn up? They lose more than anything, if one really thinks about it.

I am indeed an Oakland, California born & raised native, although if someone asks me I say Berkeley or Suisun is my home town. It's where I went to Jr. High & High School, and where most of my memories are. But don't get it twisted, when I moved back to Cali from Detroit in 2000, I resided right in the heart of West Oakland in 2001 and held a a position with the City of Oakland for 3 years; Oakland IS home. My grand father has owned an apartment complex and laundry mat on 35th & Fruitvale for YEARS; yeah, FRUITVALE, the area where all of this dismay has taken place.

Memories of growing up in the area and my many BART rides flooded my mind and it makes me very, very sad. The BART is easily the best public transportation service in the world, sorry it is! There have been MANY a times where I just rode the BART to clear my head & enjoy a nice ride. The number of cities you can ride through on the system is unbelievable. Oakland, San Fran, Berkeley, Pittsburgh, San Jose, etc..When I go home I never have anyone pick me up from the airport because I a honestly miss the BART system and would rather take the BART shuttle from the airport, tot he Coliseum BART station, ride that to El Cerrito or Richmond and either stay in that area or hop on Amtrak via the Richmond station and continue my trip to either Suisun or Sacramento. THE BART IS THE BEST SYSTEM EVER!!

This week they had to shut down the Downtown Oakland and Fruitvale stations, can you imagine the number of people effected by this? When I worked for the City, catching the BART was the only way I wanted to get to 14th street and now you're telling me because of mindless persons, others had to suffer? This violence, not only by the heartless cop, but also by the community, is giving Oakland AND the BART a bad rep. There are ways to be voice-ful without tearing your hometown up. I just can't wrap my brain around what these people are thinking. I'm on message boards and people are laughing at what they did earlier the day of the riots - why?!! What is even the purpose of this so called protest? REALLY? Why are you in the streets? Why are you smashing car windows and burning cars? WTF are you trying to solve?

Everyone wants to credit Obama being in office as a time to change the world, along with African Americans feeling it will help them be viewed in a different light by the races (people) who belittle them but Obama (his example) can't save you when people are continuing to act in such a manner. And not just African Americans though, the Mexican community as well, after all, the Mexican population had a higher turn out than Blacks. East Oakland is flooded with Mexicans and Blacks and this is what they are doing int he so called year of change.

People need to stop over analyzing shit, like seriously. Yeah, yeah, yeah - white people hate blacks..yeah, yeah, yeah - the cops kill unarmed black people, etc etc! Hellooooooooooooooooo!! You're doing dumb shit like this and it STICKS in people's mind. There will never be a day where there is NO violence but if people to the time to think WHY we are looked upon in a negative way, they cab make a REAL change; self change. It's a circle that will probably never be broken. You may not agree and feel there is a conspiracy instead of realizing the problem are our actions, but oh well..lol...I'm speaking for myself because right now, I am indeed VERY happy I am not living in Oakland, California anymore. And I'll be the first to say that I get easily depressed when I go home - no one is doing anything with themselves but sitting on the same corners and porches they sat on since JUNIOR HIGH! Come on!!! After watching this, I have NO plans to rush home, seriously...

(read the posted comment in the comment section - a convo between me and a good friend)

I can't help but refer to my post about "having some Berkeley in your life", Berkeley, Cali residents would NEVER tear their city up like this and they are KNOWN for having protests often. East Oakland residents, defiantly need some Berkeley in their live Stop the violence, you aren't helping the situation, you're only contributing to the problem.

Why in the sam hell is he playing this music while showing us a heartbreaking situation? WAKE UP Moron, you're not helping the cause!!


1 comment:

CathrynMarie said...

"Perry" [9:38 A.M.]: the rest of the country needs to take our lead from Oakland. Enough is enough
CathrynMarieMgt [9:39 A.M.]: you're crazy....going around and fucking up the next man's busienss, cars and community is not the way to live
"Perry" [9:40 A.M.]: no. not fucking up businesses that have nothing to do with it
"Perry" [9:40 A.M.]: but being pissed off into action
"Perry" [9:40 A.M.]: that shit needs to be directed and channeled
CathrynMarieMgt [9:40 A.M.]: their actionis rioting, dawg, what action are you talking about? lol
"Perry" [9:41 A.M.]: this is the problem as I see it
"Perry" [9:41 A.M.]: there is no fear of us anymore
"Perry" [9:41 A.M.]: we can march, protest, write our senators all day
"Perry" [9:41 A.M.]: shit aint working cause we keep getting our bluff called
"Perry" [9:41 A.M.]: over and over again, we make threats, bluff gets called
"Perry" [9:42 A.M.]: destroying innocent businesses = foolish, particularly when we need those businesses
"Perry" [9:42 A.M.]: but there has to be some kind of action at this point because they have ZERO respect for us
CathrynMarieMgt [9:43 A.M.]: they have no respect becaue of the never ending circle of us doing dumb shit like this..we never act right, so why would they want to show us respect?
"Perry" [9:43 A.M.]: so tell me, what's acting right?
CathrynMarieMgt [9:44 A.M.]: im posting a blog on it now...but the only true way we will ever get right is by self change...stop the dumb acts of violence..its not like there was not something to take place that casued us to lose respect...
CathrynMarieMgt [9:44 A.M.]: and we continue to lose any respect we hope to gain when we do this...
CathrynMarieMgt [9:45 A.M.]: if this rioting and bullshit happeend during election time, obama would so not be n office because people would think, once again, all blacks are bad
"Perry" [9:45 A.M.]: the irony is, they protest and riot in European countries for far less. And no one judges them because in a democracy, you hold your government accountable
CathrynMarieMgt [9:46 A.M.]: true
"Perry" [9:46 A.M.]: but here, we're suppose to beg for the respect of those murdering us
"Perry" [9:46 A.M.]: i feel you Cat. I really do. And if it was happening to white kids, it would be different
CathrynMarieMgt [9:47 A.M.]: but i honestly think the mindstate the oakland folks have is not to even because they want change, most not all...they are acting dumb cause its "fun"
CathrynMarieMgt [9:47 A.M.]: i read message boards are niggas are laughin!! laughin at what they did
"Perry" [9:47 A.M.]: well I'll definitely lean on you in this regard since you know your city better than my ass
"Perry" [9:47 A.M.]: but this shit is beyond old
"Perry" [9:48 A.M.]: black kid shoots cop, he gets the death penalty. White cop shoots black kid, he gets paid suspension
CathrynMarieMgt [9:48 A.M.]: ure so right
"Perry" [9:48 A.M.]: his cop buddies will protect and cover for him. The judges won't convict because they need the support of the Fraternal Order of Police come election time
"Perry" [9:48 A.M.]: so who are we trying to get respect from?
CathrynMarieMgt [9:48 A.M.]: but with that being said, they are makign such decisions because we do ish like this...
CathrynMarieMgt [9:49 A.M.]: its a circle..it cant be fixed
"Perry" [9:49 A.M.]: so since it can't be fixed, we should just sit and beg for respect?
"Perry" [9:49 A.M.]: you know I'm far from a violent person. I'm always the peace maker (except in AOL chat rooms, then Im basically a fucking terrorist)
CathrynMarieMgt [9:49 A.M.]: nope...demand it by self changing...we have to not hate ourselves before we can ask others to respect us..we dnt evenr espect 1 another
CathrynMarieMgt [9:50 A.M.]: lmaoooooo @ u
"Perry" [9:50 A.M.]: but this generation is so apathetic. I just ask myself what would Huey do. What would Fred Hampton do? Angela? Assata?
CathrynMarieMgt [9:50 A.M.]: tru
CathrynMarieMgt [9:50 A.M.]: "want to riot and tear up the city, I say God bless them" a so called oakland leader said this
CathrynMarieMgt [9:51 A.M.]: they think its cool to fuck the city up
"Perry" [9:51 A.M.]: I feel you. I really do. They be on some nigga shit for no reason most of the time. But it pisses me off that we can be so fucking gangsta with each other, threaten each other, rob each other, shoot each other, but then stay stagnant and bitchmade when cops shoot us up while handcuffed
CathrynMarieMgt [9:51 A.M.]: if our leaders are saying its okay then why should the police respect us?
"Perry" [9:53 A.M.]: these arent our leaders
"Perry" [9:53 A.M.]: they're wolves in sheeps clothing
CathrynMarieMgt [9:53 A.M.]: true
"Perry" [9:53 A.M.]: this is the question I've been asking myself though
"Perry" [9:53 A.M.]: if these cops knew there would be repercussions for shooting us, would they pull the trigger?
"Perry" [9:54 A.M.]: and if so, how do we put consequences on them since we know they won't do it themselves
CathrynMarieMgt [9:56 A.M.]: very true..hopefully they make an example out of dude..I mean he quit but that means nothing but that in it self may actually mean something...if they know they are wrong & could face jail time or whatever, they won't do it
CathrynMarieMgt [9:56 A.M.]: they will learn from him that you cant get away with any & everything..i would love 2 see the police report that he filed before the video came to light tho