Bad Parts
Part II
I spent two days touring the streets of Oakland, mostly in the industrial sections. My guides were constantly telling me about a shooting on this corner, or a robbery/shooting at this store. It was not quite a source of pride, but a resignation I suppose. The experience was a source of consternation for me. All of the customers and potential customers we talked to were real nice, and didn’t act at all like they were in fear of sudden death. What the hell is going on here?
On Saturday March 21, 2009, four Oakland police officers were killed. Two motorcycle officers were shot in the initial stop of Lovelle Mixon who was wanted on a no-bail warrant for parole violations. This means he was on strike three in a three-strike state. He had nothing to lose, and subsequent reports said that he was scared of prison. He shot them down and then shot them execution style in the head. Then he went and holed up someplace and killed two SWAT officers with a high-powered rifle as they approached the door he was hiding behind. Lovelle Mixon then died in a barrage of fire from the other officers on scene. It was one of the worst days for law enforcement in California history, and the deadliest incident for US law officers since September 11, 2001. Some radical groups tried to attach a racial element to all this, but the notion didn’t fly with the population as a whole. Lewis showed me the place of the original stop, traced the pursuit route, and pointed out the apartment building where the final confrontation took place.
When I was looking for a place to stay in Oakland, everyone told me I didn’t want to stay near the shop that was my base of operations because it was in one of “the bad parts”. I took them seriously and ended up in some small town near wine country only about halfway from Sacramento. It took me an hour-and-a half to get to work the next morning. The girl at the front desk had told me it was “about 20 minutes.” The next night I stayed in a moderately priced chain motel near the airport which was about eight minutes from the shop. It had a gated parking lot with a razor wire fence. I woke up alive on both mornings! Surprised the shit out of me. What the hell is going on here? I thought about another experience in a bad place. It was in the mid ‘80s.
My employer asked me if I wanted to go to a mining industry trade show in Lexington, Kentucky. I said, “You bet.” I was thinking a nice commercial flight, expense account, and the opportunity to learn some stuff and do some networking. It turns out the invitation included a flight to Lexington in a four seat Cessna with the boss and his wife who were constantly bickering. Fred hadn’t been flying long enough to have night qualifications, so we left Centennial Airport at the crack of dawn and flew on the prayer that we could get to Lexington before dark. Thanks to the prevailing westerlies, we arrived just after the automatic street lights came on. Thanks to the prevailing westerlies, it took us three days to get back to Centennial.
We had a layover in St. Louis. The plane was missing some navigation tool, a transponder. The controllers at the big airport in St. Louis told us to stay away, so we landed in the suburbs at The Spirit of St. Louis Airport. It was early in the day, but the weather forecast showed that the headwind would make the plane fly backward. We determined to give it a try at dawn the next day. We would rent a car and go do some tourist stuff, the Arch, the Budweiser Brewery, the river front… The only rental car at The Spirit of St. Louis airport was a Lincoln Continental, white.
Fred took a wrong turn between the Arch and the brewery, and we ended up cruisin’ the main drags of East St. Louis—the home of Al Joyner, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Michael and Leon Spinks. Now the intent of this reminiscence isn’t to get into a brouhaha over the pitfalls of stereotyping, or any of that stuff. Just suffice it to say these athletes didn’t get fast and tough from hanging around the country club in shirts with little polo players embroidered on ‘em, and sipping mimosas.
I couldn’t make this up. People were breaking into cars right in plain sight and others were calmly watching as if to judge technique. The only windows that weren’t boarded over had steel bars over them. Two pudgy white dudes and a loud-mouth woman have no business driving and looking lost and bewildered in a white Lincoln in East St. Louis. We made it out alive just like I would thirty some years later in Oakland. What the hell is going on here?
I started this whole thing with the notion that Oakland was a dangerous place in comparison to Tacoma, and a whole lot of other notions mixed in. Not normally one to let facts get in the way of a good notion, I ran with it. But then the journalist in me rose up and said, “Better check this out dipshit.” So I did. I got on this website, NeighborhoodScout.com. The website is pretty neat. It has tabs for real estate values, crime statistics, school ratings, and so forth. It has satellite images of the cities all color coded to show neighborhoods in relation to one another. You can select the murder rate you want and then click on a link to a real estate agent. Handy as hell when searching for an apartment in a ghetto or a penthouse uptown.
I learned a whole lot about notions: Tacoma’s crime rate index is in the 2 percentile of cities in the US, meaning that it is safer than 2% of cities over 25,000. Oakland’s index is 3. Oakland and Tacoma have annual violent crime rates per 1000 population of 12.89, and 10.49 respectively. Property crime rates are 56.2 and 86.3. This discrepancy is how Tacoma moves ahead of Oakland overall. For comparison to communities we all may know, the indexes for Cheyenne, Boulder, and Ft. Collins are 14, 15, and 16 respectively. With an index of 100 being safest, I doubt if there are any places even close. Wrong again bucko. On the list of 100 safest cities, #1 is Jackson, NJ with an index of 99. Number 100 on the safest list is Newton, MA. with an index of 71. I don’t think I’ve been in any of the places on this list unless they are ‘burbs that I’ve blown by on the Interstate. Of the 100 most dangerous places, latte and lavender Washington has eight. They are mostly depressed working class communities, and I suspect a meth presence. Florida, California, and Texas understandably have multiple listings in both safest and most dangerous categories. On the top 100 most dangerous list, Oakland and East St. Louis don’t even show up, but perceived bastions of Southern preppydom, Athens and Gainesville GA. are respectively 18 and 49. What the hell is going on here?
If any of you know where this is going please call or e-mail me. No, the point is that preconceived notions are often inaccurate, and the “bad parts” are not so bad if you don’t get robbed, raped, or murdered there, and the “good parts” can certainly warrant keeping your guard up. It’s probably best just to be scared or drunk all the time.
Next: Work
Part II
I spent two days touring the streets of Oakland, mostly in the industrial sections. My guides were constantly telling me about a shooting on this corner, or a robbery/shooting at this store. It was not quite a source of pride, but a resignation I suppose. The experience was a source of consternation for me. All of the customers and potential customers we talked to were real nice, and didn’t act at all like they were in fear of sudden death. What the hell is going on here?
On Saturday March 21, 2009, four Oakland police officers were killed. Two motorcycle officers were shot in the initial stop of Lovelle Mixon who was wanted on a no-bail warrant for parole violations. This means he was on strike three in a three-strike state. He had nothing to lose, and subsequent reports said that he was scared of prison. He shot them down and then shot them execution style in the head. Then he went and holed up someplace and killed two SWAT officers with a high-powered rifle as they approached the door he was hiding behind. Lovelle Mixon then died in a barrage of fire from the other officers on scene. It was one of the worst days for law enforcement in California history, and the deadliest incident for US law officers since September 11, 2001. Some radical groups tried to attach a racial element to all this, but the notion didn’t fly with the population as a whole. Lewis showed me the place of the original stop, traced the pursuit route, and pointed out the apartment building where the final confrontation took place.
When I was looking for a place to stay in Oakland, everyone told me I didn’t want to stay near the shop that was my base of operations because it was in one of “the bad parts”. I took them seriously and ended up in some small town near wine country only about halfway from Sacramento. It took me an hour-and-a half to get to work the next morning. The girl at the front desk had told me it was “about 20 minutes.” The next night I stayed in a moderately priced chain motel near the airport which was about eight minutes from the shop. It had a gated parking lot with a razor wire fence. I woke up alive on both mornings! Surprised the shit out of me. What the hell is going on here? I thought about another experience in a bad place. It was in the mid ‘80s.
My employer asked me if I wanted to go to a mining industry trade show in Lexington, Kentucky. I said, “You bet.” I was thinking a nice commercial flight, expense account, and the opportunity to learn some stuff and do some networking. It turns out the invitation included a flight to Lexington in a four seat Cessna with the boss and his wife who were constantly bickering. Fred hadn’t been flying long enough to have night qualifications, so we left Centennial Airport at the crack of dawn and flew on the prayer that we could get to Lexington before dark. Thanks to the prevailing westerlies, we arrived just after the automatic street lights came on. Thanks to the prevailing westerlies, it took us three days to get back to Centennial.
We had a layover in St. Louis. The plane was missing some navigation tool, a transponder. The controllers at the big airport in St. Louis told us to stay away, so we landed in the suburbs at The Spirit of St. Louis Airport. It was early in the day, but the weather forecast showed that the headwind would make the plane fly backward. We determined to give it a try at dawn the next day. We would rent a car and go do some tourist stuff, the Arch, the Budweiser Brewery, the river front… The only rental car at The Spirit of St. Louis airport was a Lincoln Continental, white.
Fred took a wrong turn between the Arch and the brewery, and we ended up cruisin’ the main drags of East St. Louis—the home of Al Joyner, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Michael and Leon Spinks. Now the intent of this reminiscence isn’t to get into a brouhaha over the pitfalls of stereotyping, or any of that stuff. Just suffice it to say these athletes didn’t get fast and tough from hanging around the country club in shirts with little polo players embroidered on ‘em, and sipping mimosas.
I couldn’t make this up. People were breaking into cars right in plain sight and others were calmly watching as if to judge technique. The only windows that weren’t boarded over had steel bars over them. Two pudgy white dudes and a loud-mouth woman have no business driving and looking lost and bewildered in a white Lincoln in East St. Louis. We made it out alive just like I would thirty some years later in Oakland. What the hell is going on here?
I started this whole thing with the notion that Oakland was a dangerous place in comparison to Tacoma, and a whole lot of other notions mixed in. Not normally one to let facts get in the way of a good notion, I ran with it. But then the journalist in me rose up and said, “Better check this out dipshit.” So I did. I got on this website, NeighborhoodScout.com. The website is pretty neat. It has tabs for real estate values, crime statistics, school ratings, and so forth. It has satellite images of the cities all color coded to show neighborhoods in relation to one another. You can select the murder rate you want and then click on a link to a real estate agent. Handy as hell when searching for an apartment in a ghetto or a penthouse uptown.
I learned a whole lot about notions: Tacoma’s crime rate index is in the 2 percentile of cities in the US, meaning that it is safer than 2% of cities over 25,000. Oakland’s index is 3. Oakland and Tacoma have annual violent crime rates per 1000 population of 12.89, and 10.49 respectively. Property crime rates are 56.2 and 86.3. This discrepancy is how Tacoma moves ahead of Oakland overall. For comparison to communities we all may know, the indexes for Cheyenne, Boulder, and Ft. Collins are 14, 15, and 16 respectively. With an index of 100 being safest, I doubt if there are any places even close. Wrong again bucko. On the list of 100 safest cities, #1 is Jackson, NJ with an index of 99. Number 100 on the safest list is Newton, MA. with an index of 71. I don’t think I’ve been in any of the places on this list unless they are ‘burbs that I’ve blown by on the Interstate. Of the 100 most dangerous places, latte and lavender Washington has eight. They are mostly depressed working class communities, and I suspect a meth presence. Florida, California, and Texas understandably have multiple listings in both safest and most dangerous categories. On the top 100 most dangerous list, Oakland and East St. Louis don’t even show up, but perceived bastions of Southern preppydom, Athens and Gainesville GA. are respectively 18 and 49. What the hell is going on here?
If any of you know where this is going please call or e-mail me. No, the point is that preconceived notions are often inaccurate, and the “bad parts” are not so bad if you don’t get robbed, raped, or murdered there, and the “good parts” can certainly warrant keeping your guard up. It’s probably best just to be scared or drunk all the time.
Next: Work
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