I fully support the efforts of the Occupy Wall street movement, however, Oscar Grant has NOTHING to do with it.
The plaza was named after Frank Ogawa for a reason.
The following is an excerpt from an address before the U.S. House of Representatives that the Hon. Anna G. Eshoo delivered on July 21, 1994:
“Frank Ogawa was a remarkable person because he could take personal misfortune and turn it into a positive learning experience for himself and others. When Frank and Grace Ogawa were forced to sell their belongings and live in interment camps during World War II, they had to sleep on straw mattresses in horse stalls for six months before being shipped to a camp in Utah to spend another 3 1/2 years in confinement. Despite this mistreatment and injustice, he never lost faith in the United States. Just the opposite — he strived to prove his loyalty to his country and became an internationally recognized champion of Asian-Americans in the process.
After World War II, Frank Ogawa returned to Oakland and succeeded in breaking a series of social and racial barriers. When local residents objected to him moving into an exclusive neighborhood, he responded by becoming an integral part of their community and joining a host of previously all-white organizations like the Rotary Club.
Having served 5 years on the Oakland Parks Commission, Frank Ogawa was elected to the City Council in 1966, making him the first Japanese-American to hold a council seat in a major city in the continental United States. He held that position for 28 years until his passing — the longest tenure in Oakland’s history.
From his council seat, he earned a reputation as an even-handed leader who worked diligently to improve cultural awareness, enhance Oakland’s economy, expand its port facilities, and establish relations between Oakland and other countries, especially Japan. In fact, Frank Ogawa was largely responsible for establishing a sister city relationship between Oakland and Fukuoka, Japan.”
Thanks, David and 1more. You both said it far better than I can. I agree that it’s a rather trivial issue compared to our main focus, but I felt it needed to be said.
I’ve been thinking the same thing, but it wasn’t an important enough issue for me to raise with anybody at any of the times I’ve been able to make it down there. If it was MacArthur Park or whatever, if it was named after some “war hero” (always a general who stayed safely miles behind enemy lines, never any of the faceless victims of war), then I could be down. Oscar Grant was a victim, not a hero, but really who’s to say that we can’t name our public places after victims as well as true heroes? But it sounds to me like Frank Ogawa was a true hero, an Oaklandish kind of guy who we should honor instead of disrespect. Has to be said, somewhere sometime. But we do have bigger fish to fry.
First, unequivocally Oscar Grant did not deserve what happened to him. However, symbolically renaming the plaza after him is to say the least unnecessarily limiting. The personal stories of Mr. Grant and Mr. Ogawa are a stark contrast in dealing with adversity. In oldhippy’s post you find evidence of actions (in response to or in the face of adversity) that leave a legacy worthy of consideration. Yes, Mr. Grant died young and still had the potential to be a positive force; but, his now well documented life history was prominently marked by actions not worth championing. At this time I think it can be stated that most of us seek BROAD change and we are carrying considerable momentum. In order to carry this movement forward we may well take a page from Mr. Ogawa’s playbook and build coalitions across disparate and in some cases opposing ideologies. Naming the plaza after Mr. Grant and frequently/prominently using the notation effectively undermines the potential of our affect. Please, please, please stop using the term Oscar Grant Plaza.