The sickening reality of urban social polarization

I'm sure many readers are familiar with the tragedy in Oakland, CA earlier this week, in which four police officers were murdered by a felon, recently released from prison, who also died in the exchange of gunfire.

What's truly sickening is the outburst on the part of the felon's community. A local news station reports:

With the Oakland Police Department mourning the violent deaths of four of its own, a group Wednesday staged a vigil for the man authorities say gunned down the fallen officers.

Dozens of loved ones and supporters gathered for the evening march, organized by International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, that took participants near a police substation within sight of the two locations where Lovelle Mixon allegedly shot the veteran officers. Mixon, 26, also was killed in the confrontation.

"I don't condone what he did, but it's bringing to light the frustrations between the community and the police," said Uhuru Movement member Kihad Deen. "This gives people a chance to speak their minds."

As mourners walked through the streets, they chanted, "OPD you can't hide, we charge you with genocide!" There were no officers patrolling the march route.

Mixon's cousin, Dolores Darnell, 26, addressed the small crowd, calling him "a true hero, a soldier."

"This is the real Lovelle," she said, holding a picture of a smiling Mixon with his wife. "We do apologize for what he did to the officers' families. But he's not a monster."

The event took place a day after a city-sponsored gathering drew about 1,000 people to the crime scene to honor the slain officers: Sgt. Mark Dunakin, 40; John Hege, 41; Sgt. Ervin Romans, 43; and Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35.

Pleasant Hill Police Chief Peter Dunbar, who spent almost 25 years working as an officer in Oakland, said that while the Mixon vigil was bound to chafe emotions already rubbed raw from the officers' slaying, the police would handle it with professional detachment and "shrug things off."

"You can't let that get to you," Dunbar said, adding that in its hiring the department looks for individuals who exercise restraint in volatile situations. "People are waiting for someone to go off, ready with cameras and everything else. But that department is much more professional than these activist agitators think."

There's more at the link.

These agitators really make me see red. For a start, they know as much about 'Uhuru' and democracy as I know about the sex life of the Polynesian parrot! I was born and raised in Africa, and understand the continent and its tribes very well. I've been frankly sickened by the hate-filled, racist, completely false propaganda put out in US Black communities by those purporting to promote a sense of "African-ness" or "Afrocentric" community spirit. These folks simply don't know what they're talking about. They're spouting what amounts to radical Left-wing propaganda, cloaked under the guise of African nationalism - to which it bears as much resemblance as I do to Mata Hari!

The tragedy is, they and their ilk have been allowed to dominate inner-city Black communities in the USA for so many years that they're now firmly entrenched there. Remember Al Sharpton and the Tawana Brawley case? Has he ever apologized for his false and hate-filled accusations against the prosecutor in that case, even though a court found him guilty of slander? Like hell he has! He, Jesse Jackson and others are, in my opinion, as bad as the Uhuru agitators in Oakland. They and others of their ilk appear willing to twist, manipulate and distort anything, provided they can use it to further their objectives.

I suppose those agitators can think themselves fortunate that they didn't try their antics in the area where I live. Had they done so, after the deaths of four local officers at the hands of a convicted felon, I suspect their reception might have been significantly less . . . shall we say, peaceful . . . at the hands of local residents - of all races!

Sheesh!




Peter