Gertrude Stein Was Wrong.

Photo by Angela Bacca

SometimesASayingIs

JustThatVille

"There is no there there..."

Gertrude Stein,

Speaking of Oakland California in the '30's

****

C. and I used to live on the fringes of Oakland.

And as a whiter-than-whitebread boy who grew up in the wilds of Far Left Coast Canuckistan, I can tell you, from personal experience, that Oakland often gets a bad rap.

And that bad wrap re-emerged last week when all kinds of people who should know better snickered into their sleeves about how it was no wonder that the Occupy movement went sideways there last week.

****

Look.

Oakland has its bad bits, especially in West Oakland.

But even there, when we ran into car trouble once just off the Bay Bridge, folks were only too eager to help us out.

And the thing that I find most interesting, and hopeful, about Oakland is that there are real pockets of true integration there.

Which is not something you often, if ever, see in any other decent-sized American city, including Bagdad right across the Bay.

As a result, when the Rodney King riots broke out all over the place just after we first moved down there all was quiet in downtown Oakland.

So, given all that....

I was not at all surprised that the good folks of Oakland (and ya, there did look to be lots of kids from that campus up at the other end of Telegraph Avenue involved as well, but so what?) have now responded to the bizarre police brutality of last week with an eruption of real protest, almost all of it as peaceful as what you see above*.

OK?

________

Apparently, initially, Ms. Stein was actually referring to the fact her childhood house was no longer there when she came back to visit from Paris on a book tour.

Bigger E, who was born tiny e. in Oakland's Kaiser Hospital, first lived in a house that is most definitely is still there. It is also a house we visit every couple of years for all kinds of reasons, including going to visit that campus at the top of Telegraph where I once toiled.

Image at the top of the post was taken by a young Bay Area freelancer named Angela Bacca yesterday.

*Update: Of course, that changed overnight when things got out of hand due to, it would appear, fringe elements provoked another pushback from police...Solid, level, non-hyperbolic coverage looks to be coming, once again, from overseas (i.e. The Guardian).

.