What seems isn’t – What is isn’t Uttered

Ghetto—always Deteriorative—Reconsidered

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hether it is the Congress of the United States, the Brookings Institution or the American Enterprise Institute, or some notion of barrio; whether it is obvious or unidentified as such; whether it is physical, mental or psychological— ghetto is ghetto, of the mind or of physical space. And like incest, they each is congenitally damaging to individuals and society; and, by their nature, they are, in their entrenchment, stuck in a backward, corrosive, or deteriorative state.

 Concentrated power exercised over centuries by church and state, mass media, schooling entities have so indoctrinated the minds of the masses that they accept the propaganda that ghetto is a construct and physical condition of “other”: others such as Jews of Germany, Negroes of North America, and Islanders of anywhere, varieties of difference or the notion of difference promulgated by concentrated or entrenched power, itself a ghetto.

Noun Ghetto

• Formerly the restricted quarter of many European cities in which Jews were required to life (“the Warsaw ghetto”)

• Any segregated mode of living or working that results from bias or stereotyping (“the relative security of the gay ghetto”; “no escape from the ghetto of the typing pool”

• A poor densely populated city district occupied by a minority ethnic group linked together by economic hardship and social restriction. [Source WordWeb]

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he only difference these notions of ghetto and Congress or Brookings is the element of easy choice.  Everyone has a choice— to some making a choice is easy, to some difficult to impossible.

Verb Ghettoize: To put or place or to be placed or put in a ghetto; or to withdraw to a ghetto.

E.g. Jews in Eastern Europe were ghettoized.

Negroes of the US South were ghettoized.

Ghetto also defined as

Venetian dialect ghèto island where Jews were forced to live

• A quarter of a city in which Jews were formerly required to live

• A quarter of a city in which members of a minority group live especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure

• A an isolated group e.g., a geriatric ghetto

• A situation that resembles a ghetto especially in conferring inferior status or limiting opportunity e.g., “the pink-collar” ghetto [Merriam Webster]

Ghettoize: To isolate in or as if in a ghetto

Ghettoization: The permanent state of isolation

Perhaps US president Donald Trump’s aim for the United States of America.

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hese thoughts are pegged to a recent incident in Oakland, California, which illustrates the harm of ghetto— ghetto of mind or ghetto of place— and how this condition can be compounded and further exploited by ghettoized (towered, privately-funded) media and also privately funded, fraudulent “do-gooders” who peddle dependency and push victimhood in need of their brand of profit-taking “do-gooding.” The persistent call of wolf, police injury to chosen victims is a malicious form of self-serving, and an unethical if not criminal practice that leaves a community in constant conflict with itself and with those who would protect it.

There are many ways that ghettoistic minds can put others in ghettos; and one is by victimization, exploitation, brainwashing, and tools of dependency, tools such as “charity” and various kinds of illicit and legal drugs.

Anger, self-pity, aggression, various degrees of psychological instability, even outright derangement festers in the chambers of a ghetto. This is as evident of the ghettos of California as in ghettos of the towered Trumps and the entrenched inmates of Capitol Hill.

“They are out to get me” (or mine) is a delusional cry displayed daily in the eruptions of Donald Trump, in the epithet-laced screeds of media and members of congress, as emitted in the crime spree dwellers of East Oakland.

In news from Oakland the other day a couple of people whose last names and profiles were omitted, and who were clearly troubled, claimed, apparently from a script, that were “frontline heroes doing good in the pandemic when they were victimized or violated by the police.

This narrative was carried by a “nonprofit” and media that calls itself independent. The piece released in social media read verbatim:

“Oakland Police Department followed and targeted two unhoused outreach workers with The Village. Handcuffing and detaining them in the parking lot of East Oakland Collective. Guns drawn. Threatened to be tased. Police helicopter up. Yanna and Akil had just finished distributing water, food, and supplies to fellow unhoused residents; and were coming to meet with us. The police initially didn’t tell us why they were being pulled over and didn’t ask for ID. Eventually said it was for a lane change. It wasn’t until they pulled off with Akil in the squad car that they finally admitted the real reason- Akil matched the description of a suspect who committed a crime in the area. They racially profiled this ‘brother’ who was simply out serving the people. So this is how OPD treats essential workers during COVID19 pandemic?!”

Aside from the language illiteracy, which happens in the ghettoized state, the claim lacked context, and for that reason may be considered false. Any proper news organization should have known this and would have provided at least some of the context that has created today’s Oakland.

 

As recently as 2009, a known serial criminal was out on bail but had been linked by DNA to crimes of rapes and murders. While at large, he gunned down four police officers and a mob called the return fire by police officers “murder.”

At the time ghetto dwellers claimed theirs a “resistance to police brutality” and egged on by “Uhuru House activists” promoting “African internationalism”, they ignited the community with calls for them to “uphold the resistance” of “‘Brother’ [similar usage to today’s incident] Lovelle Mixon.”

The case involved a 26-year old man who had been in trouble with law enforcement through his teen years, into adulthood. On March 21, 2009, this man shot and killed four Oakland, California, police officers: two officers during a routine traffic stop, and after escaping on foot and barricading himself in a relative’s apartment, shooting and killing two police SWAT team officers attempting to arrest him. Officers returned fire, bringing the total number of deaths to five.

A tribal news outlet reportedly “suggested that the killing of four police officers was a victory for ‘the people’ and referred to Lovelle Mixon’s death as a ‘murder.’”

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rime in Oakland, California, has been rising for well over half a century and police officers have been fleeing the city.

Ending the 1970s, Oakland’s per capita murder rate was twice that of San Francisco and New York City. In the 1980s and 1990s into the 2000s, Oakland was notoriously known as one of “the most dangerous” US cities.  Violent crime concentration sectors are reportedly East Oakland (Districts 6 and 7) and West Oakland (District 3).

 

As crime increased, law enforcement decreased.

• “Between 2003 and 2013, the number of police officers in Oakland declined by 91.
• In 2008, the understaffed police and detective departments brought in slipshod work and had the lowest homicide clearance rate among California’s large cities.
• Between 2010 and 2011, the number of homicide detectives decreased from fourteen to nine.
• In 2011, Oakland’s detective caseload exceeded “any other major city in California, except Fresno.”

Spreading over all the problems of rising crime and decreasing police presence and work performance, Oakland has chronic human relations problems among neighbors, and between communities and law enforcement.

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he history says that when opportunities of the war industrial work years declined after World War II, on through the 1950s and into the 1960s, Oakland’s economic position and its population declined considerably. Inner city became a center of poverty, blight, and crime.

Resentments festered, societal tensions rose; and were exacerbated by separatists movements, provocations, armed conflicts with and retaliation by standard law enforcement at various city, state and federal levels.

• In 2004, Oakland’s police officers per 10,000 citizens were eighteen. 

• From 2005, Oakland’s police officers per 10,000 citizens dropped to just over sixteen.

• In 2013, Oakland employed only 616 police officers, almost half the number of law enforcement personnel needed to patrol the crime-ridden city.

A majority of law enforcement desert centers of high crime, high cost of living, and low caliber of learning institutions. Communities feel injured.

Communities are further weakened by insufficient or warped individual expectations of self, and by self-serving exploiters and do-gooders. Consequently, communities are left bereft of personal power to rise above the fray, transcend old wounds, and mend broken relations.

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xample of ongoing self harm

2018

• “Toddler reportedly shot in East Oakland” July 12, 2018: reports of a young child being shot in East Oakland, just before 10 pm near 81st Avenue and Holly Street. 
• Police confirmed: “3-year-old boy struck in head by bullet fragments” The boy was hit in the head by bullet fragments … while sitting in his mother’s car around 9:30 pm 1600 block of 80th Avenue. “Oakland Police Deputy Chief LeRonne Armstrong delivered a teddy bear and well wishes to the shooting victim at Children’s Hospital.” The officer “also wanted to let the family know the department is doing all it can to find the shooter.” Deputy Chief Armstrong said the family had been “attending a memorial for a victim in a homicide when the shooting happened and the child was hit.” https://abc7news.com/3-year-old-boy-struck-in-head-by-bullet-fragments-in-oakland/3751060/ https://abc7news.com/toddler-reportedly-shot-in-east-oakland/3749390/

2019

• “Police investigate deadly shooting in East Oakland” May 1, 2019 Police responded to San Antonio Park area around 3:28 pm, found a man suffering multiple gunshot wounds, victim  pronounced dead at the scene, despite efforts from paramedics. https://abc7news.com/police-investigate-deadly-shooting-in-east-oakland/5280967/

2020

• “Trailer with toxic waste found dumped in Oakland neighborhood….” January 3, 2020 “Illegal dumping went to a new extreme between the Christmas [mid afternoon December 27] and New Year’s holidays  in Oakland. Hazmat crews responded to a 20-feet trailer with more than a thousand buckets of toxic material dumped on a residential street in East Oakland. A nearby surveillance camera was available but did not capture the action, as it was spray-painted all over with lacquer thinners.” https://abc7news.com/society/tackling-oaklands-illegal-dumping-problem/5812397/

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here is a sense of insanity about such actions.

Nothing good comes of festered rage, provocation by exploiters. 

Isolation of place or mind

Ghettoization.

Bump-stocked semi-automatics turn on neighbors

Neighbors the same turn on left-right-center /blue-red-purple US states

No doubt Jews turned on each other.
The towered and shack dwellers turn on their wives
The cloistered eat their own.

No good comes in the ghetto, or to ghettoized mind. No good comes from ghettoization.

Sources

The East Oakland Collective East Bay Sunday Update. Sunday April 26, 2020

https://linktr.ee/eastoaklandcollective

https://www.gofundme.com/f/emergency-shelter-for-unhoused-elders-in-oakland

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_dfrQJB-2R/

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2020/04/24/18832633.php

https://twitter.com/situationist/status/1253912761513291776

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_aYASjheTE/

The East Oakland Collective (EOC) is a member-based community organizing group invested in serving the communities of deep East Oakland by working towards racial and economic equity. http://www.eastoaklandcollective.com/

http://www.eastoaklandcollective.com/about-us.html

The East Bay Collective claims among its funders

Akonadi Foundation (2018 donor): founded in 2000, according to the latter’s website, “a year after California voters approved Proposition 21, a racist ballot measure targeting and criminalizing young people of color.” https://akonadi.org/akonadi/history-2/

Wikipedia

California Proposition 21 (a.k.a. Prop 21) “was a proposition proposed and passed in 2000 that increased a variety of criminal penalties for crimes committed by youth and incorporated many youth offenders into the adult criminal justice system.

Major provisions of Prop 21:

• Increased punishment for gang-related felonies; death penalty for gang-related murder; indeterminate life sentences for home-invasion robbery, carjacking, witness intimidation and drive-by shootings; and a new crime of recruiting for gang activities; and authorizes wiretapping for gang activities.

• Adult trial requirement for juveniles 14 or older charged with murder or specified sex offenses.

• Informal probation eliminate for juveniles committing felonies.

• Registration required for gang related offenses.

• Additional crimes designated as violent and serious felonies, thereby making offenders subject to longer sentences.

Voter support of Prop: 62.1 percent (4,491,166); voter opposition: 37.9 percent (2,742,148)

Wikipedia page last updated September 10, 2019

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_California_Proposition_21

East Bay Collective website lists as “major supporter”

Bagchi Law Firm, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Corporate and Transactional, India Advisory, Mergers and Acquisitions, Tax and Securities Law, BLGlobal Advisors is a division of Bagchi Law that helps businesses establish and grow operations in the United States and around the world. Works “with entrepreneurs in the startup phase of a venture or with a well-established public company in need of daily counsel, [helping] clients achieve immediate and long-term objectives.” https://bagchilaw.com/

https://bagchilaw.com/practices/corporate-and-transactional/

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Oakland,_California

Wikipedia page last updated April 4, 2020

2009 shootings of Oakland police officers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_shootings_of_Oakland_police_officers

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