The man and I stepped out of our comfort zone that year. We bought tickets to see Zappa Plays Zappa and Primus at the War Memorial Opera House in the city, and booked a hotel room nearby at The Whitcomb. After a great Vietnamese dinner at Tu Lan, we walked to the concert. It was a really fun night-we were feeling quite celebratory. Our guy had just won the election, and that felt pretty damn good being on the right side of history. It still does, despite any disappointments these last five years. Still something that I will feel proud to tell my grand kids about, some day. If my children choose to be parents, that is. So far, that is not the case and I can't say that I blame them.
After the concert, we scurried across Market Street to our room, where we proceeded to relax, enjoy some Roederer champagne, and ring in 2009. Then we made the mistake of turning on the television.
Every local station had coverage of the murder of Oscar Grant.Talk about a buzz kill. We were disgusted. I once worked with a former BART police officer. My main recollection of him is his propensity to tell racist jokes. He was creepy. If you read here, you know that I have zero tolerance for small-minded bigotry. And it doesn't matter if that's how you were raised! You can always adapt your mindset. But you have to want to...
Anyway, the life went out of our after-party pretty quick. We went to sleep and awoke to non-stop coverage of the story the next day. As more facts were revealed, it was clear that a trigger-happy rookie had killed a 22 year old kid. The ride home to Mendo was quiet.
That rookie did 11 months of his two-year sentence. I have little doubt that he's had plastic surgery, and his current whereabouts will remain top secret for the rest of his life.
This film tells the story in a poignant, tasteful manner. Which is not to say it didn't leave me feeling sad. And angry. It's just too easy for many to chock it up to racist generalities. "He was a thug." How do you know that? Because he was a black man from Oakland? So they're all thugs? Wrong. Why do we fear and wrongly judge what we know nothing about?
I know I don't have to care about this. I'm a white woman, and could easily dismiss it. But I've never been that person and hope I never am. My heart will always go out to Oscar Grant's family. He was somebody's baby.
4 comments:
Living up in WA, we didn't hear about this at all. I didn't even know till I saw the ads on Comcast for Fruitvale Station, last month. Of course having lived there, I recognized it as a BART stop and I googled the movie and read about the real story. An unnecessary tragedy for sure. I have been meaning to watch it but I tend to avoid movies with sad endings. I'm verklempt enough as it is.
It was all over the news- even nationally, so I'm surprised you heard nothing about it.
I want to see this movie, even though I know it will be a hard one. The trailers looked like it was well done.
I think one of the biggest obstacles to people of privilege (white in the country) is that we never see it as 'our' problem but 'their' problem. And as long as that mind set prevails, it will be all of our problem.
Glad to hear the movie was a good watch -- i've felt very nervous about watching it because of the tragic outcome. You're right, he WAS somebody's baby.
It may have gotten a mention in the local Seattle news but I either didn't pay attention at the time or forgot. Lord knows Seattle has had more than their fair share of cop involved shootings, and tasings, so those stand out more I guess.
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