Man, it's hot today. 80 degrees, 50% humidity. I shouldn't complain though. Detroit summer was a lot more sticky and sweaty. At least in the Bay you got that breeze.
Took the BART on my own today for the first time. I walked to the Fruitvale station with my friend Eric, he went off to work in Downtown and I continued on to the West Oakland station just so I could check it out. I found my way back to Fruitvale station with no hassle. BART really is just freakin' convenient. It cost me $3.50 total round trip.
As I was walking to get lunch near the West Oakland station I saw a posted paper on the window of a local business. It was typed out like a letter and was addressed to the "three young men that robbed me on April 13th..." or something like that. Apparently this woman had been robbed at gunpoint and had typed out a sort of letter/flyer that expressed her concern/love for these young men who apparently were 10 - 13 yrs. old. Not sure if that was written as part of an organization or if it was of her own doing. There was another paper flyer posted that read "Stop Violence" from the Oakland based violence prevention group Youth ALIVE!. I sat there eating my subway sandwich lunch thinking about all of that and feeling jittery. Oakland's a great place for me to be. But the quality of life sucks due to these personal safety issues.
When I got off at the Fruitvale station I noticed the large movie posters for the soon-to-be-released film Fruitvale Station. I thought about the young man it was based upon, Oscar Grant, whose life was taken by BART officers right at that station on New Year's day 2009. Walking home along Fruitvale Avenue I kept thinking to myself, "What's it gonna take to make these communities safer?" Noticing the school children walking by me in groups I thought, "What's it gonna take to bring the neighbor back to the 'hood?" I thought about all that and I thought about my martial arts/personal safety training. Things are still unclear, but I'm hoping to make an impact whatever I do. I'm not running away from Oakland just cause the quality of life sucks. It's the responsibility of those of us living in these neighborhoods to make things safer. Not the police. Not the city council. Not the mayor. Not the governor. A real "safer cities" initiative starts from people who actually give a damn about where they're living; who aren't content to just leave the trash lying in piles on the street corner to the responsibility of the city workers; who aren't content with seeing the young women prostituting themselves all up and down International Blvd; who aren't content with the high rates of robberies of fellow residents (Oakland is the robbery capital of the US, with the Fruitvale district being a robbery hot spot); who aren't content with the fear and threat of violence period. The solution to me isn't more police. It isn't more business investment. It isn't moving out to the suburbs. It's about building beloved community. It's about stringing the web in your neighborhood, connecting from one concerned person to another. It's about all the things we are already hardwired to do but we don't do because we're concerned about our careers, our jobs, our material possessions, our maintaining the insanity of the status quo instead of daring to stand up and shout. Don't get me wrong. I'm just as clueless as anyone else on how to make a first move. I think about the Panthers in '66; Huey and Bobby and the rest with shotguns and law books "capturing the imagination of the people" right here in Oakland. A new definition of revolution needs to be declared. It's not the militancy that we need. It's the audacity that we need. The audacity to speak up and speak out and act on what we know is right to do.
Something alive is stirring...
Elbow SMASH.
- Hiji Até
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