Do you call the cops on any rule breakers? It seems like you think it’s not important enough to do so, so I’ll assume you didn’t.
The woman may not have been thinking that “I hate black people, I’m going to call the police on them because I hate them.” But she did call the cops, likely putting their lives in danger, because she felt she could and should. If she’s a regular visitor to that park, did she call the cops on other, white park patrons grilling with charcoal or did she target these guys imparticular because she felt more “uncomfortable” around them. I’m guessing the latter. She still put lives at risk by calling the cops in the first place, hung around, and then turned on the white lady tears when the cops did show.
And she apparently called one of the guys the n-word, too. So there’s that.
I don’t know. That seems like the justification rather than the logic. The stated reason for a rule is often not the reason for that rule.
Since you can’t ban poor people, you ban something that poor people have to use. I used to know a bunch of nice old homeless guys who would fish from a nearby river and grill the fish in the park. This sort of rule would have effectively banned the practice and they would not have been able to make use of that food source.
No argument there. I lived in NYC during the Giuliani years where that was practically the city religion. But still, that’s the stated reason. And I personally love the smell of a charcoal fire but maybe I wouldn’t if I had severe asthma or was otherwise sensitive.
As I think others here have covered pretty thoroughly why this lady is racist af, I’d like to just mention a couple things in addendum.
One of the primary tools for the maintenance of white supremacy is (legally speaking) nickel-and-diming POC for petty-ass bullshit. Just. Like. This. Think Ferguson, where the cops hand out citations like candy. (oh, and kill them for petty-ass bullshit.) At a minimum in this stage of our shared reality, calling the cops on POC is harassment.
Don’t fucking call the cops, asshole. (unless you are witnessing in-progress actual violence. and even then the situation is more likely to become worse, if the cops even show.)
or BREATHING. Seriously. Some people are off their nut thinking about other people having lives while they are so miserable. It’s mad and sick.
And this is Oakland. When I was growing up nearby, Oakland was that scary dark place beyond the sunset that Mufasa told Simba one must never go to. It was a crime-ridden, low-rent skid row, like a big chunk of San Jose and most of the big valley towns like Fresno, Stockton, Bakersfield, South Sacramento. Oakland is now a burb of silicon valley, gentrifying like crazy. (More like Berklifying from the north down.)
People with money are doing everything they can to snap up cheap land and push all the poor people out. I.e. ENTITLEMENT IS RUNNING AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH THERE NOW. Crazy white people are buttoning up their top button and asking each other things like, “Buffy, should we call the cops? I think I saw a [whispers] BLACK MAN walk down our street.” Context. The area is changing. People who have lived there for generations are walking around with targets on their backs.
HEY, Bakersfield may be full of Nazi scumbags but trust me. The rent is too damn high, and the city is actively hostile to the poor. For bonus points, we have the rootinest tootinest shootinest LEO’s in the country.
A reputation that was always partially slightly overblown, but there were always nice areas (there are two “boutique” towns inside Oakland city limits whose existence is mostly due to people not wanting to have “Oakland” in their address) and the area around Lake Merritt has long been pretty much middle class. And, as an aside, Children’s Fairyland was (and i presume still is) an absolute delight.
It takes two to tango. At the start of the video this woman was calm and actively avoiding responding to provocation. By the end she was literally being harassed. She was completely clear that she wanted to be left alone and the video taker kept on following her and berating her. If I were her I would have felt unsafe and I think reasonable people would agree.
I am being contrarian here because I identify with her. Many times I have taken unpopular stances in large crowds of people who disagree. I would even go so far as to say I was intentionally being provocative. Like when I walked around with a Free Tibet sign in a crowd of thousands of Chinese.
There are different kinds of provocation. I was not harassing anyone; my presence was the message. With this woman it seems like she wasn’t trying to interfere; after she had communicated her point she was just standing around as a reminder that rules were not being followed and there are people who value following those rules.
This is very different from putting people down with personal insults and chasing them around. Saying f the police or f you to a police officer is a much lesser offense in my book than following someone who is trying to escape.
Both parties broke trivial rules that were legitimate fodder for trivial grievances. One used a banned grill and the other stole a card. I am not going to get upset that neither were ‘nice’ because that is not a legitimate issue.
I didn’t watch the video all the way through but it sounds like she used a racial epithet. If so that is the lede. Woman calls police for a rule violation that she in good faith thought was a crime is not something that gets my panty in a bunch. If you want to get upset at failure to show deference go ahead but that is just another form of the ‘should be nice’ attack.
There is a difference between civil and nice. The videographer in my opinion was not acting in a civil manner by chasing and harassing. The white woman was acting in a civil manner at all the moments I skimmed the video, although if there were epithets that is not civil.
Commenting on this woman’s mental health for spending two hours doing something she thinks is making the world a better place seems like a weak argument. Any activist worth their salt spends more than two hours on issues that are important to them. I am sure there were people who thought those engaging in civil rights sit downs were mentally ill for doing so but dedication to ones cause is not a valid attack in my book.
I denounce in no uncertain terms anyone who uses racial epithets. And people who use harassment or bullying to make their points. Civil disobedience not an issue. Civil insistence on obedience also not an issue.
I actually forgot about Montclair and it looks like the second one i was thinking* of is actually part of Berkeley and/or El Cerrito, so yeah, let’s go with those two.
Kensington? That’s what Google is making me think, but all i really remember is up in the Berkeley hills north of the University.
