[img]583|left|Eric L. Wattree||no_popup[/img]This past Friday, June 25, I attended a breakfast at the Regency West in Leimert Park, given by The Urban Issues Forum of Greater Los Angeles. Hosted by Dr. Anthony A. Samad, coordinated by Ms. Arnetta White Mack, the principal speaker was Minister Keith Muhammad, of Mosque 26B in Oakland.
Right off the bat the event was unusual in that they fed the participants breakfast at the forum's own expense. In return, they only wanted the chance to educate people. No grandstanding, no self-serving commercials. Only facts, which I took the time to verify thoroughly. I am a cynical sort.
They brought to our attention the flagrant murder of twenty-two-year-old Oscar Grant a year ago last New Year’s Day by Bay Area Rapid Transit officer Johannes Mehserle. Ordinarily one would use the qualifier “alleged” before “murder” prior to a defendant being convicted. In this case, such qualifiers seem inappropriate since the murder took place in the middle of a BART station, filled with people, and before the lenses of several cameras and videos.
The details as related by Minister Muhammad are that Mr. Grant had become involved in a minor shoving incident with another white male passenger earlier in his trip, but it didn't amount to much. Mr. Grant and his friends continued on to their destination. Shortly thereafter, BART police stormed onto the train and pulled Mr. Grant and his friends off the train and onto the platform, where they began to throw them face-first against the wall, then threw Mr. Grant face-first onto the pavement.
The End of His Life
A short time later, while Mr. Grant was lying face-down on the pavement with his hands behind him, Officer Mehserle called him a racial epithet and unceremoniously shot him in the back. Within a week of the shooting, Officer Mehserle quit the BART police and fled to Nevada.
In response to foot-dragging in this case, Minister Muhammad along with other members of the religious community and concerned citizens began to petition for the removal of District Attorney Tom Orloff, who suddenly resigned, along with BART Chief of Police Gary Gee.
There also were calls for the resignation of officer Tony Pirone. Video footage shows him punching Mr. Grant in the face just prior to the shooting.
This case has generated so much controversy in the Bay Area that Mehserle's trial had to be moved to Los Angeles. The controversy, it seems, is with good cause. In response to the highly inappropriate conduct and the blatant murder of Mr. Grant captured on video, Mehserle's only defense is that he thought he was using his taser.
Here we have what is supposed to be a highly trained police officer. Yet he can't tell the difference between a taser and a service revolver? That's a bunch of crap. If it were not for the senseless loss of an innocent young life, Mehserle's defense would be almost as egregious as the crime itself.
Hopefully, Not in Vain
Mehserle's flimsy defense is insulting. It shows just how little regard the system, and many of the people within it, have for our community, and not just our community, by the way.
White people need to understand that those who control the system don't care any more about poor and middle-class white people than they do blacks. Evidence can be seen in all the names of poor and middle-class white troops who are being killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, in spite of the fact that they can't even come to a consensus as to why we're over there. I have long since come to a consensus of one. It's all about money.
War is big business. A lot of people are becoming obscenely wealthy by sending poor and middle-class kids to their deaths. They tell us it's in defense of America, If that were true, their kids would be fighting as well. Don't rich kids love America, too? That's grist for another discussion. I can guarantee you'll never see the name of a Bush or Cheney child scroll by on the nightly news.
So we should not allow the horrific death that Oscar Grant suffered to be in vain. The community, by that, I mean the human community, needs to come together and insist that Mehserle be dealt with swiftly and appropriately, because Oscar represents all of our children.
We must begin to understand that due to the apathy that has become the norm in our society, while Mehserle pulled the trigger, it was our disengagement with what's going on around us that held the gun, a gun pointed at all of our heads, and, with the trigger cocked.
While it is commendable how Minister Muhammad and the people of Oakland immediately jumped on top of this issue, it is the exception not the rule.
Atrocities such as this are going on all over the country on a daily basis with little or no mention. Not just the blatant murders of innocent young men on the street, but the more subtle murders of coal miners in West Virginia, oil workers in the Gulf of Mexico, and postal workers killing themselves and co-workers on the workroom floor.
While the murder of Oscar Grant was mindless stupidity, American citizens are dying every day as a direct result of the reckless pursuit of the buck.
As commendable as the people of the city of Oakland have been, it only serves to put iodine on a cancer sore.
Oscar's death should serve as a symbol of how important it is for us to come together to address the disease itself. If you are not rich, or rich with a sense of justice, you should be onboard.
When I went to the breakfast this past Friday, I looked around. I saw maybe fifty people. Meanwhile, I wondered how many poor, middle class, and black people showed up at the Lakers' parade.
The difference between those numbers shows how little concern we have about our own community and the plummeting quality of life of the poor and middle class.
It shows we are thousands of times more interested in Kobe's jump shot than in the future of our own children. The assault on our educational system demonstrates that is not by accident.
You can deny that and say I am over the top. But mathematicians will tell you numbers are different from opinions. They don't lie.
Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think and act like me. It’s just that God does.
