As far as where gangs and trouble makers hang out, not every liquor store is the same. But I know of at least two near each other that, when O-High let’s out kids have to walk by, as do younger kids from nearby Elementary and Middle Schools.
And hanging out on the corner are a bunch of young men in their 20s, along with some of the high school kids, taunting other young men of color as they walk by and harassing young women. Often the young men have beverages wrapped in paper bags.

The bottom line is making excuses for Liquor Stores near schools because they also sell food is NOT a good excuse. They should either be forced to relocate OR change their names and highlight/promote healthier foods (a supposed emphasis of both OUSD & the City). If not, they should be forced to relocate.

Liquor Stores do not belong near schools. Oakland is 20 years behind NYC in policing and in supporting young men and women (of color or not) who want to do the right thing.

Back to this thread. I hope this discussion is read by the school teachers’ union local and the local School Board and it’s Police. If they allow shots to be taken to any school staff on or off duty especially the teachers – they will have given up keeping what is theirs. They need to put a contract out on this vile street mugger and his friends. Just for the pleasure and the politics of doing it. Nobody should harm an OUSD teacher like this in broad daylight and get a nights sleep.

But this is how the WWII types who hired and trained me operated. They were pretty ruthless and they traded favors. I wish I could tell stories of what happened when whites threatened or molested a minority new member of the “firm” – when minorities were first taken in in the early 1960s. (for firm insert social club, gang, partnership, public employment, profession or whatever). Back then it seems that when the first of whatever joined up, there were some people who thought they could second guess the decision to integrate. (It’s not as if there was a lot of integration, either, just the “first” or so.)

Upon the first open discourtesy or non co-operation these noncompliant white folks were beaten or otherwise given actual violence far in excess of whatever they thought they were going to do to the new member of the club. The grumbling was put down hard. (Yes, people actually paid violent social calls in those days)

The WWII types did not take kindly to anybody second guessing their staffing decisions. Retailiation was swift and severe.

What do you think would happen to anybody actually pulling a gun on a teacher in Oakland in 1962? I believe that this kind of thing is why my mother says she was never in fear when she took the bus & streetcars all over Oakland as a Social Worker in 1949- doing her job.

As if that wasn’t interesting enough, some of these WWII types were what we’d call “Crackers”, Salt of the Earth, many up from manual labor, some from the Dust Bowl too. Great to do business with, they never made a threat they weren’t ready to deliver on, and they honored their contracts/deals/promises even at great risk to themselves. I think of them when I say “save us from white liberals”. If this teacher worked for one of these “cracker” personalities… that boy with the gun would be toast. But I’m sure the nice lady works for very nice liberals. Oh Well..

What do you think happens now? Online reporting??

Damn right the teachers need a union. I think they have one. Will the union react to this?

Back to what I said about going to work elsewhere at a real school. At some point you realize you cannot fix a failure factory except by leaving.

#22 said I should be “doing something”. And I had experience with Elaine Brown, she didn’t ask me to join up. Dealt with the Bakery Gang a lifetime ago also. I once worked in downtown Oakland. Had friends who ran off with Syananon thinking they were going to change the world starting with Oakland. Am I going to fix Oakland or OUSD? No. If I didn’t post anything here I doubt anyone would post this side of the debate. I’m satisfied with this for now.

I was in San Jose this weekend. Vibrant downtown. Looks like the tax base seems stable. Too bad Oakland is in the mess it’s in compared to San Jose. We all know why.

People do what they want, not what they should or what economic history would tell them.

Brave New World.

BTW- Nextset,kids,victims, and taxpayers all need to be in unions, and then maybe they’ll count for something.

In reading the complaints about this dialog it seems to me that those who don’t want to hear anything they deem unpleasant – or allow anyone else to hear -continue to think and prattle that poverty is the cause and reason for crime. This is a recent way of thinking favored by liberals Banfield among other social scientists puts the lie to this. Anyone versed in economic history would not conclude this either.

Those who persist in equating poverty as causation of crime and justify government hand outs to appease criminals are not to be taken seriously.

In other words there is no reason to conclude that anti crime measures are anti poor people measures. That is a tactic of a liberal looney. Poor people and their children are the first victims of criminals including white collar criminals. The wealthy and the elites are far better at protecting themselves from criminals and from liberal legislation.

So post # 22 most likely comes from someone with little realistic experience with life or poverty.

Crime In Oakland has always been disproportionately black crime and there are reasons for at. Letting it get beyond the harder to abate crimes of passion and become outsized highway robbery in black neighborhoods and on Lakeshore is a reflection of publIc policy. If we don’t fight this – crackdown if you will – darkest Oakland will become another Detroit or Baltimore. Albeit with better weather.. So take a look at what community schools look like there. That’s what we have to look forward to if wanton attacks like the one in this thread are not avenged/dealt with by OPD or OUSD Police.

Do I believe that the police chief and the OUSD Board will go after the boy that assaulted one of their teachers even on a Saturday? No.

But they would have in the 1960s. There would have been a contract out on him. He would have been taken, convicted and made an example of. Because that’s how you take care of your teachers.

So my detractors can complain about how uncomfortable I make them. But they won’t call their union and their administration and demand that this attack be answered..

I don’t expect to change a lot of opinions. I do enjoy pointing out the poison oak in this garden of OUSD.

Things are probably worse than we know.

Brave New World!

About the liquor stores – it’s an odd phenomenon, really. The liquor store was the only thing near my school that wasn’t fast food so if you wanted, say, an orange juice at your lunch break, that was your one option. I never saw gangs/drug dealing there – that happened on random corners. More importantly, the families there don’t have anywhere else to buy food. It’s liquor stores or fast food in the ghetto.

To this day I believe it’s the best discussion ever on ghetto mores and behavior.

Poverty is not the cause of violent crime or the other behavior problems in the ghetto. It never is. Only fools and children believe that. Violent Crime is done for the pleasure of the criminal. It is supressed by suppressing criminals. Killing them off, if you will. No different from eradicating any other bug or pest. This includes disrupting their reproductive cycle. Prison does that. At least if you don’t foolishly add conjugal visits and sperm mailings.

Our government has oh so carefully stopped criminal suppression. Which isn’t such a problem for the elites because they’re safer behind walls and distances. Plus, they do have guns.

You are delusional if you can’t grok the stats for black on white crime. Try some more internet research. FBI stats are useful. There is the paper – “Color of Crime”, you won’t like the authors. It works the FBI stats. Maybe you are living in the past where this syndrome really was kept under better control. It is not longer.

The reaction to this syndrome is garden spots such as Detroit, Baltimore and other such once vibrant cities. Complete white flight – to avoid the crime. The government refused to deal with the issues so the people reacted logically. Same thing is happening in Oakland. Bye Bye tax base. And then there’s the object lesson of Philadelphia (black city council enacts a payroll tax to kill off what remaining employment left in the city).

So in Oakland we have a defunded Police Dept trying to protect what’s left of the tax base. A school district that pretends to teach. And liquor stores galore…

It would help to have universal gun carry for non-criminals. Not going to happen. This isn’t Florida.

Hello Detroit West.

You cannot have a real school in an American Black Ghetto. Or in a Mexician Indian Ghetto. But keep on trying. You may actually find young idealistic female teachers to staff it. Thing is, once they get married and have children they come under significant pressure to choose between their own family and teaching in a madhouse. In other words, they grow up and leave.

Brave New World.

PS: The difference between us and Detroit is we sit on top of Mexico which is encouraged to colonize CA by the Federal Government. We can expect Los Angeles’ experience to move up I-5 – in which case the ghetto blacks of Oakland will likely have some political and increasing mortality problems in the next several years. This is where we differ with Detroit and the Eastern ghettos.