The Paradox of Writing about Oakland
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"There" photo by Joe Sciarrillo
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How can one city be both the object of praise and blame in the same publication? That’s what happened in Sunday’s New York Times. The Travel section, in a piece subtitled “New restaurants and bars beckon amid the grit,” ranked Oakland, California as the 5th top place to visit in the world in 2012.
The same $6 newspaper published the article Shootings Soar in Oakland; Children Often the Victims in its Bay Area edition. The article
gives the sad details that in 2011 over 2,000 people were victims of gun
violence and 110 people died from homicide in Oakland.
To further complicate things, as I write this, Gang Wars: Oakland, Part II is on TV.
How am I to reconcile Oakland being celebrated as one of the top-5 places to travel in
the world in 2012,
while at the same time being called a gang war zone?
I’ve been reading a lot and attending events all over
Oakland to research for the essays that accompany the interviews in my book Oakland in Popular Memory.
I’ve been in the local libraries: UC Berkeley’s Doe and
Bancroft libraries, the City of Berkeley Main Library, and next I’m going to
the Oakland History Room and African American Museum at Oakland’s Main Library
and the Oakland Museum of California.
Many of the books I’ve picked up have been largely architectural,
political, and cultural histories of Oakland, like Oakland: A photographic journey, Oakland: The Story of a City, Black Artists In Oakland, and Oakland’s Neighborhoods. Although these titles do a good job at portraying life in
Oakland through the decades, and I recommend these titles for people interested in Oakland history, they largely neglect the elephant in the room:
violence in the city.
The question I’m wrestling with is: How do I strike the
balance and capture the ‘popular memory’ of Oakland in my book and not shirk at
the reality on the ground—that there are a lot of homicides in the city? And, how do
I write honestly about Oakland to not make the violence the only story, like the sensationalistic
Gang Wars series does.
I want my book to be an honest representation of Oakland,
showcasing the rich collection of artists and voices that have been in the city
for decades and the new generation of artists from Oakland and musicians who’ve
inspired those in the city. I don’t want my book to only be about the movements
that’ve started in the last few years with famous chefs and new artists coming
from San Francisco.
I’m conflicted: I think it’s great to see thousands of
people out on a Friday night in Downtown Oakland going to art galleries. At the
same time, I don’t want this new “there” and “revitalization” of parts of
Oakland coming at the expense of gentrification and predatory housing practices
kicking established residents out of the city.
When I told my friend my reservations about this while at last
Friday’s Art Murmur, she responded that “Oakland’s big enough for everyone.” Maybe
so. But, I don’t know where I stand on all these issues—that’s why I did interviews, to let others do the talking. As I’m putting the interviews together
getting closer to my March 30th publication date, it’s difficult for
me to merge these two conflicting identities of Oakland: a leader in artistic innovation and in homicides.
I’m having difficulty living up to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
definition: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold
two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to
function."
However, all of Oakland’s identity issues do not need to be
neatly resolved in the publication. The city of Oakland is too multi-faceted to
fit into a single book, but I still want my book to stand for something—to
leave the reader with a heightened sense of the great cultural movements
currently happening in Oakland.
To fill some of the gaps, I’ve been reading books focusing on the social history of Oakland like Ishmael Reed’s Blues City: A Walk in Oakland, and I recently picked up No There There: Race, Class, and Political Community in Oakland. This sociology book by Chris Rhomberg, published by
UC Press, provides an interesting lens on the social history of Oakland, where
he asks similar questions about Oakland.
Rhomberg writes about 3 striking periods in Oakland’s
history: the popularity of the Klu Klux Klan in Oakland in the 1920s, the Oakland
General Strike of 1946, and the Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 70s.
Professor Rhomberg writes about these 3 movements in Oakland:
“Yet all three occurred in the same place and within a
relatively short span of about fifty years—in effect, one person’s adult
lifetime. How could that be? We are accustomed to thinking of cities as almost
organic entities, each with its own unique biography and personality, the
history of their physical development embodied in their streets…their
collective memory held together by the accumulated ties of community. But what
kind of community could repeatedly undergo such diverse moments of mass
polarization? It is almost as if we were talking about three different cities.”
Oakland’s long history of popular rebellion creates an
interesting historical framework from which to view the 3 major events affecting
Oakland from 2008-2011: the election of President Obama, the shooting of Oscar
Grant, and Occupy Oakland.
Reading Rhomberg’s social history portraying Oakland as a constantly
evolving city gives me new insight to my experiences precinct walking in East Oakland
on Super Tuesday in 2008 for Obama. It gives me a new historical perspective
when talking about race relations in Oakland in the post-Oscar Grant era. And
it helps me better understand Occupy Oakland by putting it in context with the
General Strike of 1946.
Similar to how Rhomberg frames the 3 major societal changes
in Oakland from the 1920s-1970s, my book gives on-the-ground testimony from
those living through 3 dynamic years in Oakland: 2008-2011.
I’m lucky that I had the privilege to talk with many of the
movers and shakers during this time about their art, their craft, and what makes
Oakland, Oakland. I’m honored to have been part of the conversation and to hopefully
add to it. Oakland has always had a “there” to it. It will be interesting to
see if it’s big enough for everyone.
By Matt Werner, January 9, 2012. This post was also cross-posted on Oakland Local on 1/15/2012
Matt Werner is a writer from Oakland, California. His short
play on Occupy Oakland will be performed at Theater Pub at Café Royale on Jan.
16, 2012. His book Oakland in Popular Memory comes out on March 30, 2012.
