I’ve lived in Oakland, in Adams Point, since 1987. In all those years, people would say to me, “Aren’t you scared to live in Oakland?” The city’s reputation for crime and violence goes way back. I would always answer, “No,” because I wasn’t scared. I would run around downtown at night and feel perfectly safe. It wasn’t that I was unaware of the potential for danger; it’s just that I didn’t feel it would happen to me.
Yesterday afternoon—bright, sunny day—I’m coming out from Whole Foods. Cross Vernon Street, headed toward the Lake, minding my own business, thinking about stuff, when all of a sudden, Wham! Something slams me broadside in the head. I’d kind of been aware of a Black kid, early 20s maybe, rummaging through a garbage can, but hadn’t paid him any particular attention. Now, in the immediate shock of the assault, I realize it was him. He’d slammed me across the face with a wad of newspaper. And then he sauntered away, across Bay Street toward the Senior Center.
A young guy was walking towards me. “Did you see that?” I asked him, still in shock. He hadn’t. But he was a nice person and I think he needed to know that I was all right. I told him what had happened. He said, “My girlfriend is afraid to leave the house at night.” I said, “How do you think I feel? I’m an old man.” Then I said, “And the City Council is defunding the police.” The guy shook his head with sadness. “Go figure.”
Later, when I thought about it, I wished I’d asked him if he’d voted for Carroll Fife. We were in District 3, where she won election last November by appealing to precisely the kind of voter as the guy who stopped to help me: young, “woke” (for want of a better term), with sympathy for homeless people, a sense of racial justice, and a vague feeling of being anti-cop. I’m willing to bet that the guy voted for Fife (if he bothered to vote). I would have loved to have this conversation with him:
Me: So you voted for Fife. Did you know she was running on a platform to defund the Oakland Police Department?
Him: Kind of. Not really. I’m not that into politics.
Me: Then why did you vote for her?
Him: Because she’s for the homeless, and for poor people, and for people of color. Those are things I support.
Me: At the same time, your girlfriend is afraid to leave the house at night.
Him: Yeah.
Me: Did you know that Carroll Fife defunded the police of $18.2 million a few weeks ago, which means fewer cops on the street and slower 911 responses times?
Him: I didn’t know that.
Me: Would you vote for her again?
Him: Probably.
This assault on me was the first and only time in my 34 years living in Oakland. It wasn’t a serious assault; no physical harm done. But I’m telling you, I’m now officially scared. And I think a lot of Oaklanders are scared. Crime and violence are creeping up on all of us, whether we think we’re vulnerable or not. I hope that the woke people in District 3 are afraid. I need for them to understand that the way they vote has consequences in their lives, and in the lives of their loved ones. I want them to know that the people on the City Council who voted to defund the police are a clear and present menace to their safety. I want them to understand that these politicians are just using them to achieve power for themselves, and that people like Carroll Fife aren’t interested in them or in their security. She has an ideology that comes before everything else, including public safety. I want him to understand these things, but it’s so hard, so hard sometimes to get people to see.