Parable of Oakland's Day of Absence
Brother Gregory Fields told Plato Negro about Oakland's Day of Absence, the day when the verdict in the Oscar Grant murder trial was to be announced. Gregory said he was in a meeting with Mayor Ron Dellums when the Mayor received a telephone call about 3pm, informing him the verdict had been reached and would be announced at 4:30pm. The Mayor excused himself from the meeting. Gregory departed to 14th and Broadway. He said it was about 3:05 when he arrived.
What he observed reminded him of the movie Independence Day. Maybe the spirit of Oscar Grant was about to ascend to new heights as the people gathered to protest the expected Miller Lite verdict. The rally was scheduled for 6pm, meanwhile the mostly white workers and a few pet ti bourgeoisie black co-workers were scrambling out of their offices to avoid the coming black horde.
Gregory said the entire downtown area was in evacuation mode. People were fleeing for their lives before the black plague consumed them. City Hall was evacuated, the Ron Dellums Federal Building, the Elihu Harris State Building, Clorox, Zerox and the rest.
Persons terrified of the masses coming to protest the cold blooded killing of 22 year old Oscar Grant fled down into the BART train station, yes, to board the very train upon which Oscar was murdered on New Year's Day, 2009. Oscar could not flee for his life, but lay on his stomach, then had a bullet pumped in his back by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle.
Baldwin told us, "The murder of my child will not make your child safe." So the workers fled in fear and terror, strangely, the same fear and terror their police subject black people to every day of their lives, walking while black, driving while black, loving while black, singing while black, sleeping while black, eating while black.
No, the whites and "the other white people", those pet ti bourgeoisie blacks who are one paycheck away from the street people, one house payment away, did not want to get caught in the chaos that might upset their world of make believe, their lifestyle of conspicuous consumption, pseudo peace and tranquility, a state of utter denial and delusion.
They fled to BART, the bus, their cars. Gregory said every street in the downtown area was jam packed with cars heading out of town. On Broadway, a line of cars headed to the freeway, joining the traffic jam from San Francisco where workers were also told to leave work early. They too feared Black Power!
Before the verdict was announced, BART trains were more crowded than a New York subway on a hot summer day. Vehicle traffic to the Alameda tunnel was bumper to bumper from 20th and Webster to the entrance at 7th and Webster.
Fear of Black Power was real. Just the thought of black people rioting was causing the evacuation of downtown Oakland and San Francisco as well. Just the thought. See how much power we have without throwing a brick, shooting a gun, burning a building and looting. Just the thought!We have power, just use it and we will be free overnight.
The devils will be terrified of God's people when they stand without fear, then suddenly we see they are the fearful ones, in spite of all their police, army, navy, CIA, FBI, they shall run like roaches in the light--and we are the light if we only stop walking in darkness.
Don't the black hordes know the white man's justice is for the white man? The BART police who killed Oscar Grant was one of our own. He must be protected. Give him two years and let him go. Hell, we gave that nigger football player Michael Vick two years for killing his dogs. Two years is enough for killing a nigger. It was an accident anyway. He confused his taser with his gun. He wrote a letter from jail apologizing. What do you niggers want? Give us a break! We're trying to get home safely. All we want is peace and tranquility. Why do you think the Supreme Court approved our right to own guns? It's to protect us from you niggers.
Let us hurry. We don't want to get trapped downtown and not get home to our precious wives, husbands and children. Let us go, hurry. Hail a taxi. Hey, taxi, taxi, taxi!
It was 4pm when the verdict was announced. Guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Hurry, get on the freeway, BART, bus, taxi, car, bike, shoes, run for your life. The black horde is coming.
By 4:45 they were gone. Downtown was a ghost, except for the beasts in blue uniforms gathering on the back streets, and the horde coming one by one, two by two, not frantic like the whites and the other white people, but angry, hurt, full of pain and trauma, trauma from long ago, way back in time of strange fruit lynchings, of the police in Richmond killing Denzil Dowell, springing the Black Panthers into motion. One of the horde was so sick after hearing the verdict he wanted to throw up, throw up the pain, shame, disbelief and disgust.
--Marvin X
7/10/10