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!!