I had a meeting yesterday with a man of some influence and power in our great city. I’ll have more to say of him in coming days, but his name and title aren’t important right now, because I want to use him as a symbol: a symbol of you, of me, of all of us.
He had reached out to the Coalition, through signing up on the JOIN US! button on our website. He was very upset by the situation in his neighborhood; crime and chaos were rampant, and his place of business was being disrupted. He had done everything he could, as a citizen, to get the authorities to act, but all he had gotten was the buzz-off. What could he do?
Here’s what I told him, and what I tell you: Every one of you has a story specific to you and your neighborhood. It might be about an out-of-control encampment. Maybe someone you know was mugged. Maybe it’s the sideshows, or the noise, or the overturned garbage cans, or the mentally ill wandering our streets, or the horrific murders. If you’re reading this, you have an outrage tale.
Believe me, I know, because you tell me. Every day, you Gmail me, asking, “What can I do?” What I’m telling each of you is this: What you can do begins with a realization: Your specific story doesn’t matter. That’s not to say I personally disrespect or discount your situation. But I’m speaking, not emotionally, but politically. You can send a million emails to your city council member. You can get a petition signed by dozens of people in your neighborhood and submit it to your district representative or to the Mayor. You can do this 7 days a week, week in and week out. In the end, it doesn’t matter.
I know that, too, because you’ve told me. You’ve contacted Schaaf, or Fife, or Bas, or Kaplan, or Thao, or Gallo, or whomever. You’ve done it repeatedly, for months on end. And nothing ever happens. They seldom even give you the courtesy of a reply.
You all ask the same question: Why won’t the City respond to me? And I have to give the same frank answer: Because, politically, you’re nothing. A speck of dust. Alone, or even with a few allies in your neighborhood, you are powerless. Your city council member knows that. There’s only one thing they understand: Power.
Power means bodies. It doesn’t mean you, as one person, sending emails into the vapor, or pontificating on nextdoor.com. Power means people. The more people, the more power. If you’re just complaining about your own specific situation, on your own street in your own neighborhood, no politician cares. The problem is district-wide and ultimately city-wide. Every neighborhood in Oakland is going through the same thing; every person is experiencing the same anguish. The only way to get anything done is through coalition building around a shared core of beliefs, even if that sometimes means laying with strange bedfellows.
This is what I told the distinguished gentleman I met with. I had to be honest: Sir, with all due respect, you have to let go of your specific grievance, and realize that unless you band together with others across the city, from the Hills to the Bay, from Emeryville to the San Leandro line, you will get nothing done. You have to commit to something that may not feel natural or comfortable: become a political activist.
“How can I do that?” the gentleman asked. I told him the truth. There’s only one organization in all of Oakland that is working on these issues of crime and encampments, only one that represents every neighborhood. Only one organization capable of speaking for the whole city, only one organization with the potential to force the City Council to listen to us. And that organization is the Coalition for a Better Oakland.
This is it, folks. Not to be self-serving, but this is my message. If you’re serious about healing Oakland, then join us. Lobby for us. Get your friends to support us. Spread the word. We can build this Coalition into a major force for change, but we can’t do it without hundreds and thousands of active members. And by “active,” I don’t mean just hitting the JOIN US! button and filling out the form. I mean getting up off rear ends and working! Work with me, work with Jack Saunders, stay in touch, and one of these days, we’re going to ask you for a little money. For now, I can’t tell you, every day, what to do. But I can tell you that every day, we’re getting closer.
Look: there’s proof we can be effective when we band together. We got them to shut down Lakeshore, or most of it except for the Pergola/Grand area, on weekends. The city really, really didn’t want to do that. They knew they’d be accused of being anti-Black, and if there’s one thing Oakland pols hate and fear more than anything else, it’s being called anti-Black. But the neighborhood around Lakeshore made so much noise, aided by local businesses and the Catholic Church, that the city had no choice but to shut Lakeshore down. That was one small skirmish in the larger, ongoing war to bring order, law and sanity back to Oakland.
We have to be so powerful that these craven, intimidated, deaf, blind and dumbass politicians are terrified of us. Let’s put the cop haters on the defensive, instead of the other way around. Please, if you’re still reading, find the time every day to reach out to your friends and tell them about the Coalition for a Better Oakland. Ask us anything. Hold our feet to the fire. Keep us in your thoughts, as we keep you in ours.
Steve Heimoff