Oscar Grant, Riots, and Memory

The murder of Oscar Grant, and the drama which has followed, hews close to a script with many sequels in it. In the Bay Area, senseless death at the hands of the police has many faces (mostly of color) attached to it. Shelia Detoy, Mark Garcia, Idriss Stelley, Jerrold Hall, Cammerin Boyd each had their of unique stories but one thing in common: irrefutably avoidable executions.

What is different this time is that nearly every citizen also holds the means of media production in their pockets. The immediate visual impact of the murder is held up for plain view almost immediately. The Rodney King beating was captured by a video camera many times the size of the average cell phone.

The soft cage of survielance society also opened it’s own Achilles Heel. The masses are watched like almost never before in human history. Yet we can also watch, record and publicize and there’s little anyone can do short of a total shutdown of the internet to stop us.

And somehow, despite the thousands of images of violence bombarding our senses every minute, from the Green Zone and Gaza, people still were moved to outrage, to do something. Something. Some-thing. That thing ranged from peaceful rallies, militant riots, non-violent civil disobedience blocking BART stalls, internet appeals to public officials, calls for reform, for citizen’s oversight committees, for resignations, for calm, and for revolution.

That too, is a familiar script, the storm before the calm.

RIP Studs Terkel

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