Fri, 2010-08-13 17:40

while you are certainly entitled to your opinion, victoria, i find a number of your assertions problematic, or worse.

first of all, the pro-mehserle stories weren't "news" until they were reported. in other words, there was no news event compelling to the public interest and therefore newsworthy which required TV coverage.

this appears to be a case of what media analyst and author Michael Parenti would call "manufacturing consent" since the coverage itself created the news event.

in this case, (which you can read about here http://www.ktvu.com/news/24533607/detail.html) an anonymous person described as a "close friend" of mehserle's made what appears to be a transparent attempt to sway public opinion regarding the convicted murderer by stating he was "not a racist" and a family man.

the person went on to claim, extremely ironically i might add, that somehow, mehserle was "not even humanized" because public perception of him was informed by the image of him standing over Oscar grant and firing a shot into his back--thus depriving Grant of his humanity in a literal and irrevocable way.

so, let's see, a cop is captured on video committing an inhumane act--depriving an unarmed man of his life--and there is cause to complain that he has been dehumanized.

OK, right. and Hitler was underrated as a painter.

In all honesty, i dont think anyone with any shred of compassion for human life, regardless of their racial background or feelings about police officers, can look at that video and not get a chill down their spine.

the story also showed mehserle family photos, asserted that that family has been "torn apart" by mehserle's ordeal, and claimed his tears on the stand--his first public statement on the shooting after 16 months of silence--were genuine, despite the fact that he never actually used the words 'sorry' nor apologized to grant's family.

that same week, KTVU also ran an interview with Todd Mehserle, Johannes' father, who not only complained that his son should not have been convicted, but suggested that police officers should not face criminal penalties at all, "Because it's a very, very slippery slope when we start to send people to work with guns and not only civilly convict them, but criminally."

That story also contained a quote from the wife of a police officer who called Mehserle "an innocent victim" and said he should have been thanked, not brought up on murder charges for -- one more time-- shooting an unarmed man in the back in front of hundreds of witnesses.

did KTVU run a rebuttal piece interviewing members of Grant's family? No.

So we cannot say the coverage was balanced. this is obviously problematic, even if you arent an Oscar Grant supporter.

Both stories seemed suspiciously timed with Mehserle's upcoming sentencing, as did the recent pro-Mehserle rally in Walnut Creek, which attempted to spin the angle from "cop loses it" to "support law enforcement."

You may want to read the colorlines piece on what they're calling the "Mehserle PR campaign" for another take: (http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/08/ex-bart_cop_johannes_mehserles_friends_defend_his_character.html)

Moving on to your other troubling assertions, you raise the issue of the shooting of Chauncey Baily and erroneously state, "there is no outrage."

However, the circumstances in the Bailey case were quite different. One cannot equate the two incidents automatically and make an A/B comparison. For that to be valid, a black cop would have had to have shot an unarmed white kid in the back and have the entire incident captured on video.

And while there may not have been rallies in support of Chauncey Bailey, nor protests against Bey, to imply that somehow the black community felt nothing would be inaccurate. The murder of Bailey caused grief, sadness, and mourning, and left many deeply disturbed --not just about the involvement of Bey, but also of OPD officer Longmire (whose role remains unclear). And some, in fact, may have been outraged, privately.

There are other yardsticks than outrage, by the way, among African Americans. Just so you know.

You go on to say, "perhaps Oakland blacks should get their priorities straight," which is condescending at best, and reveals a deeply-ignorant viewpoint. Do you think all black people in Oakland feel exactly the same way and all have priorities which synchronize perfectly? Can the same be said of whites, asians, Latinos, or any other ethnic group?

Hmmm, perhaps YOU should get your priorities straight, and stop making broad generalizations about ethnic groups.

But you weren't done yet, were you? just when it seemed you had run out of idiotic assumptions to make, you go on to make your most problematic statement to date:

"it's highly acceptable for blacks to shoot unarmed hard-working blacks in the back, yet if a white police officer accidentally happens to kill a black kid involved in fighting, then, oh, my, it's the race-war of the century.'

Really? since when is murder--by anyone--highly acceptable?

And since when is it acceptable for a cop to take the life of anyone allegedly involved in a fight on that basis of that alleged involvement alone? (remember, at the time of the shooting, Grant's involvement had not been confirmed by Mehserle nor any of the other officers, according to court testimony).

Furthermore, by that same logic, anyone involved in a fight anywhere in public which causes police to be called has no right to expect not to be murdered by police.

i'll assuming you were being sarcastic when you said "race-war of the century,"a lthough i do find it illuminating that only Mehserle supporters seem to be referring to it as such. There are plenty of Oscar Grant supporters of every conceivable racial background possible, so for this to be a race war, one would have to completely ignore this fact, wouldn't one?

Predictably, you go on to blame the victim for his murder (sigh). In actuality, the only truthful thing which can be said about this is, had Johannes Mehserle not fired his gun, Oscar Grant would be alive today. anything else is pure speculation.

you also go on to repeat the lie that somehow, black people in Oakland dont care or have no concern about "what's happening with your own kids in your own neighborhoods"--an overly-vague denouement. Why dont you skip the BS and cut to the chase. Say what you really mean: inner-city youth appall you, and you hold them and their parents accountable for everything that happens to them--including, one presumes, exposure to indsutrial pollution and lack of proper nutrition due to the paucity of grocery stores.

now it's my turn to be sarcastic: i really can't understand why ANYONE would call you an Uncle Tom, with that atitude.

Then you end your one-note symphony with a shuddering crescendo: Oscar Grant supporters, you say, are " folks who seemingly know only how to incite hatred, rage and violence."

again: Really?

Hmm, let's see, i recall that the reaction to the verdict rally was largely peaceful--with speakers, music, people playing chess in the middle of 14th and broadway, etc.--until the police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly and began arresting everyone who stood in their jack-booted path--white, black, Asian, whoever.

So who's inciting violence now, exactly?

Pardon me for applying logic to your premise here. But it certainly needed SOME.

If you read my article at the top of this section, you would know that police violence has a historical context, and police accountability is long overdue. The city of Oakland routinely pays out thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions in police misconduct cases. Your tax dollars at work. That's money which could be better spent elsewhere.

Maybe, just maybe, more accountability on the part of police and more community involvement in police review boards could prevent the next Oscar Grant incident from happening before it happens.

Or is that "asking too much"?

Wed, 2010-08-18 11:40

Eric,

I found your writing very succinct and to the point addressing what I have seen as "blanket apologists" for any type of police action, especially against people of color.

A white man on talk radio summed it up best when he said, He personally didn't think he intended to murder Oscar but the fact remained that Oscar was on the ground handcuffed and defenseless, so even if he did intend to draw his taser it could only have been to inflict malicious unnecessary additional pain and therefore was guilty...that's the closest thing I heard that takes all the other "accident" apologies for the cop off the table. 

The dribble that Ms. Hudson wrote didn't deserve the length and breath of detail that you granted her. But I will chime in on her Chauncey Bailey tripe. The fact remains that after 3 years of microscopic media analysis of the event and all involved, the only remaining questions are squarely on the length and breath of OPD involvement with IV. SInce it has been proven that the Bey family faction that opposed IV represented over a 100 Bey family members and the only Bey involved in the Bailey murder was being aided and abetted by OPD help through Longmire and chain of command.

Any thinking person would ask the question, why was OPD friends with a 19 year old teenager out on 3 bails that was running a 40 year old black institution while family members who founded and ran the Bakery were in court attempting to regain control? 

Last question, what was Chauncey Bailey's last story that got him murdered really about? The press said it related to the bankruptcy and the take over of the Bakery by the supposed violent faction ( again 1 Bey and the rest teenagers with an average age of 20 at the time of the murder ) that ran the business into the ground. Yet to this day that story still has not seen the light of day..not one word. 

In the immortal words of Mr. Arsenio Hall "things that make you go HMMMMMMMM

Sandman

Thu, 2010-08-19 09:19

sandman, you're absolutely right.

in retrospect, i was not only addressing Ms. Hudson, but every single person who has repeated those very same very familiar, even predictable arguments, which i have heard over and over again for sixteen + months.

i could have been even more succinct, and reduced the debate to answering one simple question: "why protest?"

well, let's see, one valid reason to protest the media is unfair, unbalanced, or intentionally misleading coverage.

while, on a surface level, protesting KTVU might raise a collective shrug, upon further examination, this issue appears to have some merit.

i read elsewhere online that Desley Brooks asked KTVU if they had ever in their entire history done a sympathetic profile of a convicted killer, to which they said, why, no, they haven't.

so what makes Mehserle more newsworthy than, say, the Trailside Killer?

hypothetically, if i was to make an A/B comparison--this time, a somewhat more relevant one to the issue at hand--i might ponder the parallels between the KTVU stories on Mehserle and Lovelle Mixon, whose sister used the exact same words to describe her brother as Mehserle's anonymous friend: "he's not a monster."

The comparison ends there, however; we didnt get Lovelle's baby pictures or family photos, a follow-up interview with his parents, or anyone claiming he was an "innocent victim." There were plenty of subsequent stories on how Mixon's rampage affected OPD psychologically, as well as coverage of tributes to the fallen officers.

What wasn't mentioned, however, was the fact that three of the four murdered police officers had a history of violence against the East Oakland community (including at least one civilian review police board complaint, and an excessive force lawsuit settled by the city of Oakland), while the officer who reportedly fired the shot which killed Mixon had previously been involved in at least two officer-involved shootings--one fatal, another resulting in paralysis--for which there were no answers by the DA's office to calls for accountability as in the Mehserle case, possibly because there was no video evidence.

Yet Ms. Hudson says, "don't bother to ask them why they want to protest the news," as if TV news is somehow sacrosanct and an unyielding beacon of truth, and anyone questioning its fairness is undeniably, automatically, and emphatically in the wrong, regardless of the background context around the issue being protested.

as for the Bailey case, throwing that can of worms anywhere near Oscar Grant or Johannes Mehserle can only confuse the issue(s).

I myself was looking for more substantiative investigative reporting by the Chauncey Bailey Project, whose mission, it seemed, was to shed more light on the case. Not sure where that's at right now.

And i have heard that Bailey was working on two potentially earth-shattering stories at the time of his death, one on YBMB and another on corruption in the OPD. If there was or is a connection between the two, it apparently has been buried along with Chauncey.

Things that make you go hmmm..., indeed.

Thu, 2010-08-19 11:19

My experience is that many Oaklanders of all walks of life and all colors and cultures were horrified by the murder of Chauncey, an Oakland treasure, the murder of a young man many of us didn't know but under circumstances we've seen too many times before, and the deaths of young people in our community (youth violence is not restricted to African-Americans). The idea that the groups who work to end the injustice of police brutality are not also working to prevent youth violence, is a purposeful misconception, that is, a malignant lie.

Fri, 2010-08-20 16:03

Don't take my word, listen to Chauncey Bailey's boss Paul Cobb who was very talkative right after the murder then seemed to fade away and allow the Chauncey Bailey Project to run with it and pump up Tribune sales.

Paul Cobb video right after murder admitting Chauncey was working on "STORIES" about OPD and Jerry Brown at time of murder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFEDJaW8M74

Paul Cobb calling out "FAKE" Longmire/OPD investigation tainted from beginning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHOlYF3VK-A&feature=related

never seen on any local TV station, especially not KTVU, fact remains Yusuf IV's closest ally was Longmire "former" head of Police Criminal Intelligence, the same unit that infiltrated ahd shot up the Port protesters then cost the City millions....google it