We're normally located within the business and political hub of Oakland City Center. Our building neighbors City Hall and a federal building, and the plaza outside our doors is often the gathering point for education/immigration/you-name-it protests. The concern today is that the planned peaceful protests in memory of Oscar Grant will not remain peaceful for long, and in that case, best to have all staff out of ground zero. (Peaceful protest turned violent...Longtime reader? Sound familiar?)
We're not the only business to decide this - my 3:20 pm BART commute was crammed with professionals escaping to San Francisco and elsewhere, lest the trains shut down and we all become stranded in the East Bay.
Oakland City Hall
photo by mma
It's difficult to see the business community react in this way and even more difficult to be a party to it. Stores began boarding up their windows last Friday in advance of the verdict, and we've been prepared for over a week to "evacuate" our office as soon as the verdict was announced. Perhaps good business to prepare for the worst (indeed, I've been impressed by our office's communication, forethought and consideration of staff safety in the past week), but bad business for Oakland, a city I've come to love and admire in the past year.
I wasn't here when Grant was killed on New Years Day, 2009, but I've continuously felt the after-effects of his passing. From what I've heard, immediately the community came together to celebrate Grant's life and to rally for a change in the way Oakland Police treat their citizens. There's tension, no doubt. But to prepare for violence strikes against my best Midwestern nature.
We'll see what happens tonight. But hoping, and somehow knowing, that my newly beloved community has seen the last of violence in Oscar Grant's name.
Check here for a live blog as it unfolds.
No comments:
Post a Comment