It was the worst of Oakland; it was the best of Oakland.
The worst, as I saw on a long walk over the weekend, was a stretch of several blocks along Martin Luther King Jr. Way, near Northgate Avenue—although it could have been any other trouble spot in Oakland as well. The homeless slum there is big and growing; my guess is that some of the Wood Street people ended up there. As I surveyed the inhabitants, trying to figure out what they have in common besides their dismal surroundings, I thought of the pathological dysfunctionality in so many of our flatland communities that contribute their human fodder to these sprawling slums.
When you’re young, the gang and drug life can be fun. But when you get older, it’s time—as the saying goes—to put childish things away. When I see the hoboes living in their heaps of garbage and tattered tents, I see people who never learned that fundamental lesson of life. They made war on established society, and guess what? Established society replied, Who cares? We’ll just pass you by. And now, there they are, on MLK Way, slowly dying, or quickly.
That is the worst of Oakland.
A little later, headed west, I came to the familiar, always comforting sight of Oakland Police headquarters. I’m always glad to see that hulking old building. A while back, Carroll Fife wanted to turn it into housing for the homeless, an idea, thankfully, that went nowhere, as do most of Fife’s notions. But for sure, OPD needs a new headquarters. Even if the money could be found, the usual cop haters in Oakland would be out in force protesting it, and who knows? They’d probably borrow a page from their violent, anarchist brothers and sisters in Atlanta, who are still trying to destroy Cop City. We don’t need that.
I, for one, am glad OPD is here. I’ve been privileged to meet some of the fine women and men who are sworn officers. I’m so grateful to, and proud of, them. Despite the danger of their jobs and the unpleasantness that constantly menaces them thanks to the propaganda spread by the likes of Pamela Price and Cat Brooks, these uniformed officers show up every day to do their jobs protecting us.
OPD is the best of Oakland.
By the time I got to Jack London Square, I had both images side-by-side in my mind: the degraded nightmare on MLK Way, and the picture of cops performing one of the most noble jobs in America. And I wondered: Which Oakland do our so-called “progressives” live in? Fife, Brooks, Nikki Bas, Rebecca Kaplan, Dan Kalb, Pamela Price—they may physically reside in the hills or in pleasant flatland neighborhoods, but in truth, their real homes are the slums of their minds, where sociopathic, even primeval thinking drives out all common sense and creates and preserves the conditions for the canker sores that are MLK Jr. Way, or Wood Street, or any of the other camps.
You know as well as I that fancy-ass politicians don’t want to have anything to do with the hoboes, bums, addicts and criminals who reside in homeless camps. Yes, on occasion, Fife may venture into a camp, accompanied by security guards and video cameras, and pretend to circulate warmly among the inhabitants whom she praises as our fellow citizens. But as soon as she’s off-camera she scrubs down with disinfectant and can’t wait to get someplace safe and clean where she can enjoy her cup of Earl Grey. Indeed, these “progressives” use the homeless as ploys, and pretend to be caring and compassionate. That’s their right, I suppose, but the worst part is that there are so many white people, consumed with guilt at being “racists,” who buy into their lies and keep electing them. These misled voters believe that America suffers from “structural racism,” but the truth is, there’s no such thing. All Americans are born equal, in the legal sense; no one is guaranteed a successful life, no matter how rich their parents may be, and no one is forbidden a successful life, no matter how poor their parents are. The way to end up living in a pile of garbage on MLK Way is to make the worst conceivable choices an American can make.
So the next time a denizen of a homeless encampment is tempted to blame “the white devil” on his predicament, my suggestion is: Find a shard of mirror in the trash and take a good, hard look. There, before your eyes, is the cause of all your woes.
Steve Heimoff