I was not at the Sunday Dec 5th Occupy Oakland GA Ogawa/Grant Plaza I really wish I had been, as it may have been the last GA that approached a true demographic representation of Oakland’s diversity.
I also regret not being at that GA for what I missed. And here I wish that someone would clue me in. What DID I miss? Did some freaky young person streak naked through the assembly? Did Andy Dick crash the party and vomit on someone? Was there an actual fistfight? Did the cops pepper spray a puppy? Did some clueless white guy say the “N word”? The participation of p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶c̶o̶l̶o̶r̶ Oakland’s black and brown seems to be declining. And there also seem to be less women involved as well.
In the meantime we continue to hear appeals that we should use the “progressive stack” or the “the New York Model” as the smug young lady last night called it, shortly before she and her friend bailed. Nice of you to stop by, vent your opinion in an off topic fashion, then head off to sushi and a movie. At the time we were discussing failed and/or successful strategies for outreach, without which any amount of stack manipulation won’t make a difference. Especially when the audience is 90% white males. Last night a progressive stack would have resulted in us listening to the same 5 people of color over and over again, possibly against their will.
If you do not want this to become the worlds most privileged and politically correct sausage fest, don’t do outreach into black and brown neighborhoods, get your black and brown and female friends to come on down to the GA.
Comments are closed.