Talking Fault Lines

Hi Sally,

So, here's an interesting blog post from Phil Bronstein about the pro Johannes Mehserle rally planned in Walnut Creek.

I think Phil raises some interesting questions about the event. particularly what rally organizers hope to accomplish.

But you know, I almost didn't make it to the questions further down in his piece because I found the tone of the top kind so off-putting. This, I think, says as much about me as it does about what Phil wrote and it got me thinking about how humor plays out across the fault lines.

Here's his lede: "I missed out on the spree looting of Footlocker and other businesses in Oakland after the Johannes Mehserle verdict. But about 200 other people seemed to be having a great time burning and smashing. Out-of-town agitators, officials said, in kind a weird throwback to establishment terminology about protests in the 60's. Only "The Man" in Oakland these days is Mayor Ron Dellums and no one can ever find him. Also a cop (ex-cop, Mehserle) is going to jail in this case, so there are all sorts of interesting twists here." 

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bronstein/index?#ixzz0tnO6RMLc

OK, so what put me off was the whole "I missed the looting but it sure looked like as swell time was had by all." I read it a couple of time trying to figure out why those sentences were bothering me. Finally, I realized it was coming up against my geographic fault line. Perhaps it did look as if people were having a great time.  Or, maybe Bronstein was just using a glib tone to make a deeper point. Either way, as an Oakland resident, I saw a business in my community being destroyed. Bronstein's almost breezy tone clashed with my picture of what happened. To be clear here, I'm not arguing that Bronstein should have taken a different tone, and I'm not apologizing for "being too sensitive."  Rather, I think this is an example of how tone doesn't always translate across the fault lines. 

On the plus side in that graph, I think Bronstein may be the only person who has commented on the terminology that was bandied about during the lead up to the Mehserle verdict. Between references to outside agitators and anarchists, I felt as if I was trapped somewhere between the 1900s and 1960s.

What do you think?

Dori,

You make a good point about tone, but I think the jarring aspect may have stemmed from generational or possibly class fault lines. I was not on the scene, but the photos of "spree looting" (itself an interesting term) of shoes smacked more of desperation than fun to me. I would not venture to guess the motives or mood of the man taking the mannequin from the Sears window.

The burning trash cans and smashed windows did not seem "fun" to me either. All I could think of was the people of Oakland who had gathered together as a community that afternoon, only to have that community trampled upon that night. How many years will it take to shed this reputation of somehow being prone to violence, ready to ignite at any prompting? What spurs people in the news media to characterize Oakland that way, and what role did we play in setting the scene for a nighttime brawl? How does our language and imagery unintentionally help stimulate violence, and will we apply the same language to this event in Walnut Creek?

Sally 

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