What the Nightly News Didn't Show You About Mehserle Verdict Protest (Opinion)

Published on Friday, July 09, 2010
Last updated on 06:11AM, Monday, July 12, 2010
Justice in the Streets, by Troy Holden, http://www.flickr.com/photos/troyholden/4776343099/olden,

Justice in the Streets, by Troy Holden, http://www.flickr.com/photos/troyholden/4776343099/olden,

Rage is the type of thing you can’t really plan for.

You can board up windows, fill the sky with helicopters, televise warnings of terrifying riot-Armageddon - but you can’t actually anticipate that emotion. Most of us don’t feel it until the acid curdle of our own blood boils, till we feel like ripping off clothes and letting gargantuan green selves emerge, Incredible Hulk style.

I am the white mother of two black sons, and I’m angry. My kids have two or three more years before they stop looking like little kids, and start looking like targets, like “criminals” to the media and the white infrastructure that surrounds them. I’m running a race to change the world before that happens.

Before the stopwatch stops ... before my babies become involuntary suspects for crooked cops.

I didn’t know the extent of my anger about the Johannes Mehserle verdict. I didn’t know until I got downtown, to the site of the community gathering organized by Oakland General Assembly for Justice for Oscar Grant. The sound system wasn’t set up yet; the disorganized scene resulted in an impromptu call to march. It was 5:40 p.m. Most of the people there took to the street.

I was livid. I was thinking about the fact that nearly hundreds of police and National Guard were about to meet up with a crowd that had no previous civil disobedience plan. I cussed out innocent bystanders and orange-vested “peace-makers” from the mayor’s office, demanding to know where the rally’s organizers were.

That’s when the amps went live and the crowd swelled. I heard a young woman crying on the mic. She called me back to my senses.

We can’t plan for the feeling of rage, but we can train ourselves to act right. Rage is unprocessed grief. When it's let out the right way, it’s more powerful than tear gas, or rubber bullets.

For me, this is the real news about last night, no matter what you heard. I witnessed a peaceful protest begin and end in peace. I walked home in peace. When I got home, I heard about all the rest. I couldn’t sleep until I saw that the Rachel Maddow Show had covered the verdict.

Below is a sample of my experience at the gathering on 14th and Broadway. Many of the first speakers were sobbing through their words.

Tyisha

“My heart is hurting so bad right now, I can’t even focus. These people think that they can instantly come and get the youth to follow them, like it’s a band, like it’s hella cute to be out here, like we just out here playing at this. I’m so tired of going to funerals, I swear. Makes no sense that the police can continue to kill people, day after day.

"Involuntary manslaughter, are you serious? Are you serious? I just lost three partners in three months. All senior graduates. Nobody’s been arrested for their murders. Police out here like they’re actually doing something. Oh, police are going to get laid off, oh, let’s go help them. Are you fucking serious? I’m sorry children, for cussing, but this is how I feel. Saving them for what? They’re not saving us!

"My ‘lil partner got killed near Eastmont Mall, right across the street from the police station! Right across the street. [stops and sobs] It don’t make no sense! I haven’t seen a helicopter in Oakland in five years. In five years! Who is saving the youth? Who is saving the youth? Nobody! We don’t have programs for these kids, they got nothing to do! They tear up downtown, don’t even know what’s going on. They don’t even know the truth. They don’t even know their history. They don’t know who Emmett Till was, 14 years old. And he got murdered. And those people got to walk free.

"[Mehserle trial] They got a new juror in what, a weekend? Oh, I’m sick. Oh, I’m going on vacation. Involuntary manslaughter.

"I’m so tired. I swear. I’m only 20 years old, and I’m so tired.”

Justice

“The first thing I want to say, is that they expect us to act ignorant. There’s too many black people in one spot, so they expect us to go dumb and act crazy and fight each other, and fight the police. Fuck the police! But we’re gonna have dignity as black people, and they’re not used to it. Do you understand what I’m saying? They think because we’re out here with dreads and braids, and hot pants and thick asses, that we’re gonna act stupid. No. We have children out here. Let’s teach our black children what this really is about."

Sherri

“I’m a little bit nervous, because it’s just a lot of stuff. I’ve been having dreams. I think God is telling me to say something or do something. I have a son to worry about. I’m really hurt to my heart that we don’t have unity amongst ourselves. I keep feeling like we’re gonna die out, like the natives, like the Indians of America. I keep having that fear. I wish we had more self pride. Oh my god. [crying, stops] We seem like lost causes already. Let that baby die in the hospital. Let the school close down. We don’t have enough unity so of course we’re gonna seem like lost causes for somebody else to kill.

"Stop being quick to kill your own brother! You might be from the same tribe or something! Stop being quick to look at your own sister crazy! Stop dividing your own family! We are not each other’s enemy. God says fear no man. The policeman is a human being. Why are we fearing them? I’m not about to look up my poem right now, but the poem is called ‘Red Carpet’ because we keep sweeping this shit under the rug. Racism is real, it’s not going nowhere. Stop sweeping it under the rug.”

Hannibal


“So I know everyone is upset about how the United Snakes of America chose to deal with this particular murder ... but you should not expect justice to come from an unjust system. You cannot expect the police to charge themselves with murder, when they do that as a business. They are diametrically opposed to us being treated as equals. The only thing that we can gain as a community, out of this particular case, is to look around at each other, to see who really has your back. To see who’s really down for you, when it comes down to the fight, right? The only justice that we’re gonna see in this case, is gonna come from the people that I’m looking at right here in front me.

"You should know about Gary King Jr. You should know about Anita Gay. You should know about Andrew Moppin. And know that this thing has been going on as long as there has been such thing as America. And know that the only way we’re gonna get out of it, is when we look at each other and realize that we’re going to have come up with our own solutions. We need to develop our own community system, based on the well being of each and every member of our community. So when you put pressure on these courts, just keep in mind, it’s only to wake your brother and your sister up.”

Summer

“I’m a youth. I’ve been listening to everybody, and the message across the board, from the young people we say we want to hear from, has been peace. Y’all got up here and cried, shouted, yelled. So how many of y’all are really hearing us? We’re begging you to not fuck our shit up! This is our city! We can go blow up Walgreens, but what is that gonna do? We’re gonna be in a worse position than we are today. When are we gonna be able to come together and say, ‘I respect your opinion.’ All it takes is a second, to think about our options. What is tearing up our city gonna do for us? What is sitting back and doing nothing going to do for us?"


Amaris (a preteen)

“Ever since I was 5, I thought I was gonna be the big president of the world. When I was 6, I thought - I’ll just settle for something less. I’ll be the vice president. When I was 8, I said, okay, I’ll just be a model. And I kept going down and down and down. Now I see this on the news, and I am outraged. I feel that I can be the big boss on Wall Street. I can be the person who brings up this community. I can be. I can be the president. I can be everything I want to be.”

 

 

 

 



About

Tehea Robie is a contributing writer to Oakland Local, a novelist and a spoken word artist. She loves genre bending, gender benders and interactive media tools. She was a finalist for the 2005 Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers; she's been published in Rad Dad, Five Fingers Review, Controlled Burn and various sites online. She composes her poems by heart, without writing them down and has been featured at venues all around the Bay, such as the 2009 Nectarena stage at San Francisco Pride, I Am A Man Fundraiser and ShePeoples. Tehea was raised by an exquisite, fierce, working-poor mother. She received her MFA in Writing and Consciousness.
Len Raphael commented at Sat, 10 Jul at 4:26pm

National Guard? are you sure?

Len Raphael commented at Sat, 10 Jul at 4:45pm

For many people nothing short of executing Mehserle would have sufficed.

They would have one big dumb white kid cop pay for the past 400 years of injustice.

Yes there have been thousands of cops over the years who should have been sentenced for similar or much worse abuses but haven't either because of racism or because cops are given the benefit of the doubt by juries and prosecutors.

Go back and carefully read the legal definitions of the various charges  several times. It was a close call between the two manslaughter charges.

Even the legal scholars are confused by the gun enhancement sentencing applicability.

I would like to think that even an all black urban jury of different ages, would have had to struggle deciding between the two manslaughter charges. But no, they would not have convicted him of murder.

 

-len raphael

temescal

Susan Mernit commented at Sat, 10 Jul at 5:09pm

Len, I am very concerned that in such a complicated case, the jury deliberated under 7 hours, that doesn't suggest through and fair consideration to me.

Len Raphael commented at Sat, 10 Jul at 5:42pm

Susan, that was my first impression also.

But then this trial went on how long? it seems like several months; definitely longer than the nearly forgotten Gulf oil leak.

Each of those jurors and alternates was sitting there, listening and thinking.

They weren't sequestered, were they? ie. weren't they allowed to go home eacth night, read/listen to the news? they would have been instructed not to talk about the trial and i hope they did not. But they couldn't have helped but to think and have nightmares about the events and the testimony.

(if i have a problem with the conduct of the trial, it's why didn't the judge sequester the jury?)

Of course the judge would have instructed them not to reach any conclusions until verdict time. But that's not how human brains and emotions work.

What it tells me is that the jurors had already separately narrowed the verdict down to manslaughter  and needed to hash that out with each other and by asking for clarification from the judge on the gun enhancement.

So no,  I don't call this a rush to judgement.

I think the remarks by several of our city council members and Dellums that the trial  was a miscarriage of justice are misinformed at best or demagogic

at worst.

-len raphael

temescal

Alice de Tocqueville commented at Sat, 10 Jul at 8:23pm

Yes, that's all true, but trite. When forced by public opinion after the Oscar Grant , seemingly, to deliberate and perhaps change the training, or something, about their police 'services', BART, in its wisdom, decided to eliminate the confusion over what's a gun and what's a taser by eliminating TASERS!

I've been in the position Susan Harmon was in, just wanting to be an elder and show some solidarity with young people. I wasn't roughed up that time, but I've been before, and it was completely gratuitous. When I sought to have an answer from the sheriff's department, they investigated themselves and found themselves innocent. I went all the way up to the State Attorney General's office and got nothing but buck-passing. No one was willing to state that there's any oversight of a local sheriff.

Tehea Robie commented at Sat, 10 Jul at 9:16pm

"A Los Angeles jury today convicted Mehserle of involuntary manslaughter for Grant's fatal shooting on New Year's Day 2009. The jury also found true the allegation that Mehserle deliberately used his gun."

http://sfappeal.com/alley/2010/07/oakland-protest-turns-ugly.php

This is not about a "dumb white kid paying for the past 400 years of injustice". This is about the way that past injustice has perpetuated and enabled systemic racism---the racism that allowed injustice to keep happening in 2009 and 2010.

Len Raphael commented at Sat, 10 Jul at 11:00pm

TH, you seem to have a very biblical viewpoint of justice, visiting the sins of their fathers unto to their sons. 

 

Thankfully for all of us, of all races, the American justice system does not follow that principle.

Tehea Robie commented at Sun, 11 Jul at 1:28am

I believe you have misunderstood my comment. My point was that the outrage surrounding this case is about current injustice, not past baggage.

Tehea Robie commented at Sun, 11 Jul at 1:29am

And I was not raised with the Bible. Lol.

Roger Porter commented at Sun, 11 Jul at 8:26am

Very well done Tehea.

Len Raphael commented at Sun, 11 Jul at 9:44am

Most  of the young people and quite a  few of the older people believed the verdict was wrong and thus a perpetuation of oppression and injustice.

My point is that the verdict should have been judged on it's own set of facts and how the law was applied, and whether the laws themselve are fair or not.

Many of the community organizers and anti violence groups used the verdict to mobilize people. To do that, they decided they had to mislead people into believing that the trial and verdict itself was oppressive, unjust etc. because it's really hard to get people out to demonstrate without a specific triggering event. Because most of them didn't bother to read the law involved, and knew their history of oppression,  it was easy for them to justify their means.

You and the mobilizers were able to go home after you got your anger out and go about your life, but many of the young people who engaged in looting etc. came out of this with the much less nuanced lesson that it's ok to do shit when you disagree with a jury decision .

 

-len raphael

temescal

Tehea Robie commented at Sun, 11 Jul at 4:54pm

Thank you Roger. I got a lot out of your piece as well. Let's keep it moving!

Roger Porter commented at Sun, 11 Jul at 5:14pm

You know it.

boadicaea commented at Tue, 13 Jul at 2:35pm

Wow. Tehea, I cried.  Those voices, screaming for life--not material stuff, not even normal decent treatment.  Just for their lives, and their children's lives. 

I studied African American history.  This is history, again--again, again, again--so many of us have no idea.  I want to grab the ignorant by their ears and inoculate them with knowledge, understanding, outrage at what's being done that's what was done, for centuries.  Always an excuse, but always racism.

Praying here for the education of every individual that needs it.  And when I'm given a chance to, I have to pray for grace to do it without anger.

Tehea Robie commented at Wed, 14 Jul at 1:19pm

ase' to that boadicaea. There's a lot of work to be done. Thanks for acknowledging the voices of our youth.

Rena Ragimova commented at Wed, 14 Jul at 4:56pm

Tehea, this is a very powerful piece. Thank you. 

I personally believe that the verdict itself was ok, and I do see Mehserle as a dumb white kid and agree with most of Len's comments.

One thing that stood out to me especially was Len saying that the organizers need a triggering event to get he people to the streets. I agree. I don't think that the anger people were expressing was necessarily directed AT the verdict, but at the injustice of the system. I do believe he made a mistake, but I think that the system made it very easy for him to make that mistake and have that reaction. One might say he was trained for it with his upbringing. 

We live in a very divided society here in Oakland and across the states. Blacks in the flatlands, whites in the hills. The public school system does not provide the proper minimum education across the board, so kids in the poorer neighborhoods are left without an active PTA, with no music program and with a 22yo substitute teacher/kid for Algebra II. What kind of fucked up shit is that? How are those kids supposed to "pursue happiness" in this country? They barely even know what that is.

What's more is that they look at themselves in the mirror and they see somebody who looks different from the majority of successful people out there. Yes, a Latino also looks different, but many Latinos know their history. At least the basics. There's often a grandma in a pueblo in Mexico, or at least a memory of one. There's a line of history there. An immigrant history. I have my own too. I came from Russia 15 years ago as a kid. It's a very romantic story of parents bringing their children to a Western country to have freedom of choice. And I got it. I'm a freelance writer, barely making ends meet, but I've made that choice - when it comes down to it, I'm a haphazard immigrant success story.

What do African-Americans have? Abraham Lincoln? Harriet Tubman? Dr.King? Amazing people, but it's a constant history of struggle and injustice, and one that barely anyone really knows or understands. Oh and two of those guys got shot. And most adults probably don't remember who Harriet Tubman is. You only learn about her in elementary school. (I only learned about her at the elementary school I worked at last year... teaching kids about her... and I went to middle and high school in this country. What a fucking shame!).

There's no happy ending to this yet. Racism is real and it's still here. The wound is so deep and we keep putting bandaids on it, then even ripping those off sometimes (like doing away with affirmative action, for example). What we need to teach our blacks, and our whites, and our old immigrants, and our new immigrants,  and our "illegals", and our yuppies on Cape Cod, and our everyone, is the history of the human experience of the events of this country and this world. From the deaths on the slave ships, to having your car searched without reason on the side of 98th Ave. From Cesar Chavez, to INS raids and that goddamn wall on the Mexican border. From Stonewall to Prop 8. We need to know our history to understand one another. 

I haven't even mentioned the Native Americans yet. Mostly because I know jack-shit about them. Thanks, suburban public school! 

What boadicaea is saying is right, and I'm one of those uneducated people. I only really know white history and white experience and I'm the majority. Mehserle is in that majority as well. This is wrong.

But speaking about this verdict. This particular verdict. I believe it was the worst call of his life and I'm sure that not a day will go by that he doesn't think about it with pain, in prison or out. 

Sorry this was long. Thanks for reading if you've made it this far.

 

Tehea Robie commented at Tue, 20 Jul at 8:16pm

Rena,

Thanks for expressing your comments in a respectful way, despite the difference of opinion.

For me, it's clear. The jury found true the fact that Mehserle drew his gun on purpose. There is nothing involuntary about that. Mehserle's remorse, or lack thereof---is speculation, and has nothing to do with the verdict.

Though I understand that racism is the result of bad education and, I would argue, a paranoid mass mental illness, it doesn't provide a "legitimize" fear of an unarmed youth lying on his stomach.

Thank you for acknowledging the fact that more education needs to happen around the issue of race.