Every time there’s a protest in Oakland, there’s a whole lot of blather in the corporate press about those evil and mysterious ‘outside agitators’ who come to cause trouble and use our city as their ‘playground’.
The storyline was alive and well during the Oscar Grant demonstrations of 2009 (otherwise known as The Defenestration of Foot Locker) and is once again lurking openly within mainstream reporting about Occupy Oakland actions. After J28, we were solemnly informed that ‘only’ 35% of those arrested were Oakland residents. Setting aside the fact that 35% of 409 is still a pretty impressive 143, the implication is that if those wicked people had stayed in Berkeley/Fremont/San Francisco/Alpha Centauri where they belong, none of this trouble would have happened!
It’s an attractive argument, and I must admit I once gave it some credence. It’s easy to fall into a parochial mindset, especially when you’ve set down roots and lived in one place for a while. It’s nice to believe that the folks who live in ‘your’ city wouldn’t get up to any naughty business without the incitement of craftily manipulative foreigners from the badlands on the other side of Alcatraz Avenue. But it also defies logic.
For example: I’ve lived in Oakland for thirty years. I consider myself an ‘Oaklander’. By the logic of the outside agitator argument, I should, therefore, limit my protest participation to actions within the city limits. But wouldn’t it be just as logical for me to restrict my direct actions to the three cities in which I’ve actually worked during those thirty years: Emeryville, San Francisco, and Berkeley? After all, I’ve never worked a single day in Oakland, unless you count the occasional afternoon spent at the Northern California Independent Bookseller’s Association annual meeting at the downtown Hyatt. Based on all those eight-hour work shifts (plus commute time), I’ve probably spent at least ten of the last thirty years ‘outside’ the city in which I ‘live’.
And what of my national origins? I wasn’t born in this country. Perhaps I don’t have the right to protest anywhere in the United States, never mind Oakland. Do I need to ‘go back to where you came from’, as has been suggested to me on numerous occasions, to protest about Deanna Santana’s ridiculously generous salary to whomever will listen to me in the Greater Merseyside area?
This issue came home to me last week, when I spent time supporting the Ice Cream Bloc’s autonomous action outside the Wells Fargo Bank on Piedmont Avenue. As I was engaging in a very pleasant chat with a nice young Occupier named Matt, an angry, red-faced man with bulging neck veins confronted us and asked us if we were responsible for the bank closure, and if we were, how dare we attract such riff-raff to our events? As he steamed away, he turned and shouted “I live in this neighborhood!”, to which I replied, “so do I!” This clearly struck the gentleman as preposterous: he’d assumed that a bunch of alcoholic criminals had been bussed in from Berkeley/Fremont/San Francisco/Alpha Centauri to disrupt his day.
I’m going to have more to say about this interesting encounter in a future column, but for now I want to keep the focus on the question of ‘outsider’ protest. I felt very comfortable on my home turf that day–the action took place within blocks of my house–but did this man have a point? Does one’s right to protest decrease the farther one gets from their home address? And if you’re homeless, does this mean you have absolutely no right to protest at all? Considering the zeal with which OPD broke up Occupy Oakland’s encampments, and with which other encampments were broken up after they started attracting ‘undesirable elements’, this may be one of the unwritten rules of the ‘legitimate protest’ game. Those who have the most ‘skin in the game’ aren’t even allowed to participate in the game.
The argument leads to the inescapable conclusion that property invests people with rights, and the more property you own the more rights you have. After all, in addition to living in the neighborhood, Angry Bulgy Vein Man also owns a business (something he felt was important enough to mention to us). This is my neighborhood, and I own a business, and the fact that a group of ‘alcoholic criminals’ prevented me from visiting my bank is an outrage!
More on ABV Man next time.
(Cross-posted at Pickled Bologna)
A stimulating argument that I guess is now over. And in my view, the cosmopolitan communist baydialectic succeeds in a contructive criticism of the provinicial, however well-,meaning, Simcha. Its becoming obvious that Occupy as a movement is taking on the whole system, not just its manifestation in this or that city. The police forces of Amerika certainly don’t operate within such boundaries, and we shouldn’t either. Kids who want to play smash-em-up piss me off too, but not because they might be from out of town. In any case, I think the majority of this lot are approachable for a conversation about tactics. Of course there need to more such conversations, ones in which we treat each other like comrades and not like enemies.
@baydialectic I just got back to this site now. I read less and less here. Posts like yours illustrate why. I feel no need to respond to the same argument rehashed to which I’ve already responded. We simply don’t agree. And I really don’t care whether or not you ever agree with me.
I addressed your “argument” three days ago, Simcha. Are you having difficulty formulating a response to my post?
(I’ve re-posted my comment with breaks between paragraphs to make it easier to read. The moderators are welcome to delete my first version of this post…)
You severely weaken your argument, such as it is, by resting it upon the claim that those with whom you disagree tactically (and presumably politically) are all white kids from “1% lands.” One needn’t be a supporter of the “black bloc” as a tactical response to police repression to see how utterly and transparently fallacious this claim is. Apparently you subscribe to the “it could be true, so it is true” school of social and political analysis—substantiating evidence be damned.
You are awfully comfortable speaking for all “Oaklanders.” News alert to Simcha: some of those for whom you sanctimoniously speak don’t agree with you. Some are to the right of you politically and some are to the left of you politically.
Unlike you, you will never catch me claiming to speak for others. I don’t pander and I don’t tell myself comforting fables in which I am positioned as the personification of the normative view. I find that rhetorical mode to be intellectually bankrupt.
I know people who live in Oakland who fully support militant, confrontational tactics. They exist, Simcha.
I also know people who live in Oakland who haven’t spent a moment lamenting the purported destruction wrought by the “black bloc” on “their town.” If they lament destruction in this world it’s going to be the vastly-greater destruction wrought by the capitalist class and its agents, like Obama.
It is notable that the most militant committee of Oakland Occupy—the Tactical Committee—is probably the most racially diverse committee associated with the Occupy movement in Oakland. I invite you to go to the next Fuck the Police action and tell all those assembled to go back home to Lafayette. I say this as someone who would be happy if a moratorium on the FTP marches was called yesterday.
Anyone who’s observed or participated in riotous actions in Oakland in the past couple years knows that a good portion of the actors in these actions have been black—and they don’t represent the tiny black population of so-called “1% lands.”
The fact is, Simcha, that the ruling class doesn’t give two shits about the jurisdictional boundaries that you make so much of. Capital deploys its money and exploits labor power and the environment without concern for such trivialities. Capital is happy when its victims are mesmerized by the particularities of their condition—what city or state they live in, whether they’re citizens or not—precisely because such victims are easy to manipulate.
Most working class and dispossessed people don’t go around talking breathlessly about Oakland being “our city” like you are in the habit of doing. This is because the day-to-day lives of working class/dispossessed people tends to weigh against seeing Oakland—or any city, for that matter—as “ours.” In real terms, the city is owned and ruled by the rich. It is said that the working class has no country. I’ll take that one further and say that the working class has no city. We live where we can afford to live. In lieu of a movement that confronts capitalists through united collective action (like we saw when the ports were closed down), cities aren’t “ours”—to assert that they are may have basis in sentiment but has very little material basis, whatever you may claim.
I, for one, now live in Richmond. I grew up in the East Bay. I’ve lived in three different places over the years in Oakland. My daughter’s first two homes were in Oakland. If you tell me that my “vote” should count less than yours in the Occupy Movement (which happens to have its Bay Area center in Oakland) because I don’t now live in Oakland, I would say to you that you’re full of…. wrongness.
We live in a class-divided society. This is reflected in the social-economic demographics of Oakland itself. A movement that upholds Oakland *as such* is one that is easy to derail by reactionary initiatives that uphold that very same rhetoric.
Pro-Oakland “radicals” who insist that non-Oakland based actionists confer with generic “Oaklanders” before taking action against the status quo are engaging in a politics that is antithetical to a praxis that understands that Oakland is itself every bit as much divided by class and economic status as every other place in capitalist society.
Are you more concerned about the conditions faced by capitalists who live in Oakland than in the conditions faced by working class folks who don’t live in Oakland, Simcha? The internal logic of your rhetoric leads inexorably to an effective “yes” to that question.
Further, I would ask what your response would be if the twenty largest corporate employers in the Bay Area were to announce tomorrow that they were forthwith going to move all their job sites in the Bay Area to Oakland. That would certainly be good for “Oakland” per se—but wouldn’t be so good for working class people elsewhere.
Would you be for such an initiative? If not, why not, Simcha?
You severely weaken your argument, such as it is, by resting it upon the claim that those with whom you disagree tactically (and presumably politically) are all white kids from “1% lands.” One needn’t be a supporter of the “black bloc” as a tactical response to police repression to see how utterly and transparently fallacious this claim is. Apparently you subscribe to the “it could be true, so it is true” school of social and political analysis—substantiating evidence be damned.
You are awfully comfortable speaking for all “Oaklanders.” News alert to Simcha: some of those for whom you sanctimoniously speak don’t agree with you. Some are to the right of you politically and some are to the left of you politically.
Unlike you, you will never catch me claiming to speak for others. I don’t pander and I don’t tell myself comforting fables in which I am positioned as the personification of the normative view. I find that rhetorical mode to be intellectually bankrupt.
I know people who live in Oakland who fully support militant, confrontational tactics. They exist, Simcha.
I also know people who live in Oakland who haven’t spent a moment lamenting the purported destruction wrought by the “black bloc” on “their town.” If they lament destruction in this world it’s going to be the vastly-greater destruction wrought by the capitalist class and its agents, like Obama.
It is notable that the most militant committee of Oakland Occupy—the Tactical Committee—is probably the most racially diverse committee associated with the Occupy movement in Oakland. I invite you to go to the next Fuck the Police action and tell all those assembled to go back home to Lafayette. I say this as someone who would be happy if a moratorium on the FTP marches was called yesterday.
Anyone who’s observed or participated in riotous actions in Oakland in the past couple years knows that a good portion of the actors in these actions have been black—and they don’t represent the tiny black population of so-called “1% lands.”
The fact is, Simcha, that the ruling class doesn’t give two shits about the jurisdictional boundaries that you make so much of. Capital deploys its money and exploits labor power and the environment without concern for such trivialities. Capital is happy when its victims are mesmerized by the particularities of their condition—what city or state they live in, whether they’re citizens or not—precisely because such victims are easy to manipulate.
Most working class and dispossessed people don’t go around talking breathlessly about Oakland being “our city” like you are in the habit of doing. This is because the day-to-day lives of working class/dispossessed people tends to weigh against seeing Oakland—or any city, for that matter—as “ours.” In real terms, the city is owned and ruled by the rich. It is said that the working class has no country. I’ll take that one further and say that the working class has no city. We live where we can afford to live. In lieu of a movement that confronts capitalists through united collective action (like we saw at when the ports were closed down) cities aren’t “ours”—to assert that they are may have basis in sentiment but has very little material basis, whatever you may claim.
I, for one, now live in Richmond. I grew up in the East Bay. I’ve lived in three different places over the years in Oakland. My daughter’s first two homes were in Oakland. If you tell me that my “vote” should count less than yours in the Occupy Movement (which happens to have its Bay Area center in Oakland) because I don’t now live in Oakland, I would say to you that you’re…full of wrongness.
We live in a class-divided society. This is reflected in the social-economic demographics of Oakland itself. A movement that upholds Oakland *as such* is one that is easy to derail by reactionary initiatives that uphold that very same rhetoric. Pro-Oakland “radicals” who insist that non-Oakland based actionists confer with generic “Oaklanders” before taking action against the status quo are engaging in a politics that is antithetical to a praxis that understands that Oakland is itself every bit as much divided by class and economic status as every other place in capitalist society.
Are you more concerned about the conditions faced by capitalists who live in Oakland than in the conditions faced by working class folks who don’t live in Oakland, Simcha? The internal logic of your rhetoric leads inexorably to an effective “yes” to that question.
Further, I would ask what your response would be if the twenty largest corporate employers in the Bay Area were to announce tomorrow that they were forthwith going to move all their job sites in the Bay Area to Oakland. That would certainly be good for “Oakland” per se—but wouldn’t be so good for working class people elsewhere. Would you be for such an initiative? If not, why not, Simcha?
Baydialectic, you highlight the problem we residents of Oakland have with the current regime that calls itself Occupy Oakland.
To quote you, “…those who’re bleating on about where OO actionists live are engaging in a deeply anti-radical discourse, which, among other things, suggests that OO should have, for instance, more concern for a plutocrat who lives within the Oakland city limits than a working class person who lives somewhere outside of Oakland.”
Thanks for your opinion about what should be radical discourse and the position that you believe we Oaklanders should take. (sarcasm alert!) Could you be more arrogant please?
And why would an Oakland resident questioning the destructive actions of the anarchists and Black Bloc who come from out of town to wreak havoc in our city be holding a “fetish?” This part of Occupy uses the name, “Occupy Oakland.” I think that the majority of folks participating in this branch of the movement using our city’s name should be from Oakland and the people who come to join us from elsewhere should ask us for guidance before pursuing yet another destructive and counter-productive action in our city.
After all, we live here and we have to deal with the aftermath and fallout of every action. The anarchists and Black Block can return to their patents’ homes in 1% lands such as Lafayette, Moraga, Walnut Creek, Orinda, Marin County, and Santa Cruz without having to deal with the damage they caused our city. Most of the out of town “professional protesters” seem to be white privileged people who come from 1% strongholds.
Why come here to make trouble? Why not start your own Occupy protests in your home areas where the 1% live? My suspicion is that the answer to those questions have something to do with the suspicion that the authorities in those areas would be even more brutal than Oakland authorities and the that the “professional protesters” wouldn’t be able to sport the latest fashion in protesting. Don’t you know it’s all the rage to be in Oakland because then you can claim that you are helping to lift the oh so downtrodden and oppressed Oakland residents while educating them about the issues that “should matter” to them thus expiating your guilt from having grown up as a child of privilege in an area that exudes privilege?
It’s not a matter of exclusion or “fetishizing.” It’s a matter of wanting OO to show respect for the people who have to live with the results of OO actions. That happens to be we the residents of Oakland.
No, I’ll continue to watch the regime that calls itself “Occupy Oakland” continue to self destruct and increasingly drive itself toward irrelevance. Once the “professional protesters” get bored with their fashionable “actions du jour” and abandon Oakland, I’ll join other Oaklanders to reclaim Occupy Oakland and guide it toward actions that matter to the residents of Oakland and that contribute something positive to our city and the world. In this way we can construct a movement that is actually welcoming to the residents of Oakland and the 99% at large.
gmh899, i’d like to respond to what you posted, as a newbie-activist and resident of oakland.
” I don’t care if they are outsiders or insiders (although the statistics do imply that outsiders have become a large part of the problem)–trashing our city, provoking violent confrontations with cops, the FTP “movement” are all destructive, as far as I am concerned.”
when you say that the FTP marches are destructive, can you describe…in what sense? what is actually destroyed by the FTP brigade?
“I keep checking back to this page to see if anything positive has come out of the many comments I have read here that reflect the dissatisfaction of Oakland residents with many of the OO activities.”
there actually are some positives. i’ve seen a lot of positive community support regarding defense against foreclosures. people have been doing things like making phone calls, gathering in front of banks and demanding meetings for residents who are on the verge of being put out on the street, and just raising public awareness overall about foreclosures. this front seems to me to be the most sane, viable thing going on in occupy oakland right now. that’s one example but there may be others that people can list. these actions, unfortunately, don’t get much airplay. the media would rather focus on the bullshit because drama sells.
” I myself am suspicious now of organized protests because I don’t want to join in with vandalism, cop-baiting and Black Bloch-type activities that are counter to our city’s interests.”
this is unfortunate. the last thing i want is for people to be turned off to being active and being vocal, helping their community members in any way possible. the problem i find, whih can be see on this very page, is that the more involved people in occupy often play “more-radical-than-thou,” and start holding out the measuring stick of whose contribution is more important than whose. like, you have to be smashing shit up and raising holy hell 24/7 to be considered a true revolutionary. it’s my opinion that there are many pathways to revolution…we just gotta find a way for everyone to fit in to working toward a common vision we all want.
” I would welcome more discussion about constructive non-violent activities (whether protests, boycotts, flyering or sit-ins) we can all get behind, that would highlight the needs of the 99% and point to solutions, when possible.”
there is a man named kazu haga who has been offering trainings in nonviolent activism and conflict resolution. he has been involved in occupy oakland and other community groups. his trainings are over now, but you might want to contact him and see how you can connect. http://oaklandlocal.com/posts/2012/02/register-non-violence-training-oakand-feb-25-26-community-voices
there’s a guy named brooke (aka tio) who has been doing a lot of foreclosure defense work with others…he clearly delineates levels of involvement if you want to join: http://occupyoakland.org/2012/02/foreclosure-defense-group-needs-help/
i can inquire further about other actions/events that you might be interested in if you contact me.
It is telling when an action attracts few from the city in which it is held. It tells us that something is wrong with that action and/or the outreach that was done to promote it.
But that is simply stating something with which nobody–even the most hardened “outside agitator”–would disagree.
That said, those who’re bleating on about where OO actionists live are engaging in a deeply anti-radical discourse, which, among other things, suggests that OO should have, for instance, more concern for a plutocrat who lives within the Oakland city limits than a working class person who lives somewhere outside of Oakland.
The ruling class doesn’t give a shit about the jurisidictional boundaries that some here are fetishizing–yet some of its ostensible opponents apparently believe that they should operate as a litmus test for entry into the movement that seeks to create altogether new conditions.
Totally absurd.
Another Oakland resident here, writing to endorse Simcha’s comments about OO having hijacked a legitimate movement in Oakland with actions that do not contribute to the well-being of our city. I don’t care if they are outsiders or insiders (although the statistics do imply that outsiders have become a large part of the problem)–trashing our city, provoking violent confrontations with cops, the FTP “movement” are all destructive, as far as I am concerned. I keep checking back to this page to see if anything positive has come out of the many comments I have read here that reflect the dissatisfaction of Oakland residents with many of the OO activities. I myself am suspicious now of organized protests because I don’t want to join in with vandalism, cop-baiting and Black Bloch-type activities that are counter to our city’s interests. I would welcome more discussion about constructive non-violent activities (whether protests, boycotts, flyering or sit-ins) we can all get behind, that would highlight the needs of the 99% and point to solutions, when possible.
David, thanks for the kind words.
Simcha, I didn’t mean to sound defensive–I just wasn’t sure if your statement “So, you are welcome to come here to support our efforts” was directed at me, or at protesters in general. I think I have my answer now.
Finally, I am not a supporter or participant in the FTP marches. If you read through some of my previous posts, you’ll see that I have referred to them collectively as Saturday Night Fuck the Police Fever, and have used the same word you do, ‘counter-productive’, to describe them.
That said, as David mentions, there is definitely some neighborhood support for the FTP message. You and I may not like that, but it’s the truth.
John, I read your whole post and nowhere did I say that you personally weren’t an Oakland native. Defensive much?
I’ve lived here for almost 10 years and I’m not a native like you. I am a current resident who has lived here for quite a while and who definitely has a stake in what happens here. As an Oakland resident I would like something that calls itself “Occupy Oakland” to be doing things that actually reflected what people in Oakland would like.
David, there are many parts of Oakland and there are many different kinds of people in Oakland who hold many different viewpoints. Just because people in Fruitvale off of International Blvd. were shaking fists in solidarity doesn’t mean that your neighbors in East Lake, where I live, support the FTP Marches or think that they’re a good idea. They marched through my neighborhood too and I found them a nuisance to an otherwise peaceful evening.
And what do you expect out of the OPD when you have a march that’s titled, “Fuck the Police?” Do you expect them to put out hors d’oeuvres and cocktails and to welcome you with hugs and kisses? The “Fuck the Police” marches are provocative and they are intended to be provocative. I think that provoking the police is a very bad idea and a complete waste of resources so I most emphatically will never participate in a juvenile “Fuck the Police” march that doesn’t help to expose the real problems in the OPD or create any positive change or reform of the OPD. I think that the marches are counter-productive.
And, no, people shouldn’t have to show IDs to be able to protest here. People from out of town should at least respect Oakland and the people who live in Oakland. Respect would include refraining from property destruction and refraining from provoking the OPD who don’t need any excuse to be brutal. Respect would include creating an atmosphere where the residents of Oakland could offer feedback about actions taken in our city. And our feedback should inform and guide actions. Oakland residents shouldn’t be shouted down, ignored, or pushed away from Occupy Oakland GAs simply because the “professional protesters” from out of town don’t agree with our points of view. We shouldn’t have “professional protestors” lecturing us or shouting at us to “educate” us on what issues or causes we should act on. There is a wonderful wisdom that people who live here have. I’ve found residents of Oakland to be some of the most welcoming and tolerant people I’ve ever lived with. The people who call themselves “Occupy Oakland” dont’ seem to be welcoming to me or tolerant of different viewpoints. There is rigidity there and an arrogance that isn’t what I’ve experienced here from most Oakland residents.
So, in short, Occupy Oakland should welcome others from outside of Oakland. Those from outside of Oakland should respect the city and the residents of Oakland and allow us to inform and guide Occupy Oakland.
john seal writes: “A small voice, I’m not sure how OO would monitor or measure whether or not ‘those living in the city…have the most say’. ”
this is simple. if a participant in an action knows full well that the action is to take place in an unfamiliar city or neighborhood, that person needs to step back and listen to the voices of the people who live there. outreach is important, and i think everyone in OO now realizes this. if a participant is organizing a major event in an area as a non resident, that person needs to get to know the terrain and get to know the people either before the event takes place, or as an assistant to knowledgeable people who will lead the way during the event.
the responsibility is upon the participants of the movement to put themselves in check, work with the neighbors that it impacts the most.
david: my remarks were mainly reserved for the J28 action, not so much the march that you mentioned.
@ small voice & simcha — it’s hard to respond to your posts without saying something like, “Hey I am a citizen of Oakland, and….”. I mean, I feel already stuck in this situation where i have to present credentials that shouldn’t be required.
I heard the FTP march was coming through my neighborhood last night, so I came out and joined them from my hood all the way up to the Fruitvale and back. I saw the police being assholes, as usual, I saw people coming out of bars and pool halls and putting their fists the air in solidarity. And I’m pleased to welcome people from all around the bay area and all around America to take part in our protests here in Oakland. This city has always been proud of its radical heritage: let’s be willing to invest in a radical new future.
p.s. when I say solidarity with Castlewood, I mean with the workers at Castlewood who are locked out, of course.
Great post, really truly. I’ve struggled with this issue myself too. I’ve lived in Oakland for 14 years, I’ve taught school here, I work here… does that give me more of a right to protest here than somebody who lives in another town? Does it give me less right to protest than somebody who was born here, whose parents were born here, etc?
There’s a catch-22 here also, if you think about it. Critics of protesters always say, “why are you raising so much hell in the poorest towns? Why don’t you go protest/riot in the places where the rich/1% actually live?” But if we did that, woudln’t they just say we have no right to protest there because we’re “outside agitators”? What about the march in solidarity with the Castewood Country Club? We shut down that country club, the playground of the 1%, we didn’t break or burn anything, but maybe we didn’t belong there? That dynamic is with us, even though we are trying to rise above it. Myself and 3 other occupy oakland folks got a ride from a very cool woman who lives up on the hill near the country club; I was really pleased to see somebody from the neighborhood supporting us. Some random people had just yelled at us out of their car a couple minutes before. On a certain level, we’re used to it already. I’m down with being an “outside agitator”, in Pleasanton or wherever I can get to. People need to recognize there’s privilege in even assuming that somebody can instantly transport themselves to the spot where their protest might be most effective.
Thanks for the comments.
Simcha, I’m not sure if you read the whole post, or perhaps you don’t consider thirty years sufficient time to lay claim to ‘native status’. Perhaps I am misinterpreting your statement “you are welcome to come here in support of our efforts”. Are you referring to me specifically, or making a more general statement?
A small voice, I’m not sure how OO would monitor or measure whether or not ‘those living in the city…have the most say’. I suppose those Orwellian municipal ID cards the city is so excited about might help! 🙂
The fact remains that we the current residents of Oakland don’t support the current regime that calls itself “Occupy Oakland.” Yes, Oakland is being occupied by outsiders trying to tell us how Oakland should be and how we should protest, where we should protest, and on what issues we should protest.
I think it’s telling that only 33% of the 400+ arrested on J28 are current residents of Oakland. And I wonder how many of the jerks who broke into City Hall destroying children’s art and burning an American flag are current residents of Oakland.
As a current resident of Oakland, my heart is broken. I supported Occupy Oakland from the very beginning. Most of us participating were actual current residents of Oakland. Then slowly but surely Occupy Oakland got hijacked by outsiders who have taken over and who use the name “Occupy Oakland” to promote their own pet causes that may have nothing to do with Oakland and aren’t the causes that Oaklanders care about.
I reference today’s passing of a resolution to protest Shimon Peres’s visit to San Francisco on 3/9. What does this have to do with addressing the inequality that exists in Oakland or the very real issues that we Oaklanders face? It sounds to me like the movement got co-opted by the Pro-Palestinian people today.
I think it’s even more telling that the numbers are dwindling such that only about 50 or so “die hards” participated in the FTP march last night. I wonder how many of them are current residents of Oakland. If 33% can be applied as the ratio of current Oakland resident participation then only about 16-17 people who participated last night were current Oakland residents.
I don’t feel welcome as a current Oakland resident at GAs where “professional protesters” from out of town pontificate and lecture us about what we should be doing in our own city with our own branch of the Occupy movement. I don’t feel comfortable participating in actions with people wearing black clothing and masks who are also from out of town who insist that Occupy Oakland can’t be a non-violent movement working for positive change. I don’t feel comfortable participating in actions that most current Oakland residents don’t support that actually hurt instead of help Oakland.
So, you are welcome to come here to support our efforts. What we current residents of Oakland don’t support is people coming here en masse from outside to take over our movement and to wreak havoc in our city in the name of their own ideologies and pet causes.
I want my Occupy Oakland back. I was proud to participate when the message was clear and relevant for the 99% who live here in Oakland with me. Now I’m broken hearted and angry that people from out of town have hijacked “Occupy Oakland” for their own purposes to the extreme extent that “Occupy Oakland” doesn’t seem to reflect the wider Occupy Movement or the wishes of the current residents of Oakland anymore.
correction – as i know more people were present than the 400 who were arrested: if only a THIRD of the community is willing to seize the spot…then what does that say about sustainability – and buy-in?
“After J28, we were solemnly informed that ‘only’ 35% of those arrested were Oakland residents. Setting aside the fact that 35% of 409 is still a pretty impressive 143″,
what this tells me is that this action was not of the people and by the people – which is the point of a community center, right? if only 150 people of the community are willing to seize one of the largest vacant spots in the area, that says a lot for sustainability and future community use, doesn’t it?
” I’ve lived in Oakland for thirty years. I consider myself an ‘Oaklander’. By the logic of the outside agitator argument, I should, therefore, limit my protest participation to actions within the city limits. But wouldn’t it be just as logical for me to restrict my direct actions to the three cities in which I’ve actually worked during those thirty years: Emeryville, San Francisco, and Berkeley? ”
i don’t think this is the point. the point is that those living in the city proper should have the most say in how things go down, while others should take on a supporting role. there is a perception from many oaklanders that non oakland residents are taking over spaces, calling shots, and wreaking havoc. i am not saying that is true, but it’s the perception. i think OO has a responsibility to respond to the perception fellow oaklanders have about the movement.