Invading White Gentrifiers Call Cops On Black Residents For Walking Down Street, Knocking On Doors

[MrScorpio]

April V. Taylor

In an ironic display of white supremacy, Black residents in the historically African American East Oakland area are now being treated as menaces by white invading gentrifiers who are calling the cops on them for simply living life as they always have. A recent report by the East Bay Express reveals that the rate at which whites are calling police on innocent blacks is skyrocketing at an alarming rate.

Using data from the website Nextdoor.com, the publication was able to uncover cops being called for such harmless infractions as walking down the street and knocking on a door. Black salesman and postal workers who were simply doing their job have even faced harassment and been criminalized just for delivering items to residents.

As if existing Oakland police officers do not have a history of criminalizing and brutalizing Black residents enough, white residents have also taken to hiring private officers to patrol the neighborhood with even more tyranny. Oakland officers report that they are currently receiving more than 700 calls a month about suspicious vehicles and people, revealing that they are forced to respond to baseless, unwarranted calls from white residents who are racially profiling their neighbors.

As gentrification reverses white flight across the country, Black people are being subjected to racial profiling and white supremacy at the hands of invading white gentrifiers whose racial biases will continue unabated until there are some kind of legal repercussions for their harassment. Black residents are being forced to relocate by rising property taxes and the shattered tranquility of homes that are no longer the vibrant cultural centers they once were, and city officials are doing little to address the problem.

http://yourblackworld.net/2015/10/18/invading-white-gentrifiers-call-cops-on-black-residents-for-walking-down-street-knocking-on-doors/

[arcane1]

1. In slightly good news, Nextdoor is finally taking some steps to minimize this crap.

After finding itself an unlikely hub for racial fearmongering, the social site Nextdoor.com says it is transforming into a model of respectful, neighborly conduct.

No longer will suspicious neighbors be able to post their fears about a stranger based on that person’s color or ethnicity, Nextdoor’s chief executive Nirav Tolia told Oakland city officials and neighborhood activists who have demanded that the company change the site to prevent racial profiling.

...

Site users can no longer warn people about “two suspicious African American men in a car,” for example. Tolia showed how the site now requires users to describe criminal behavior before describing suspects. It also prompts them to “provide a complete and helpful description” of a suspect and detects insensitive terms. Users must also specify whether they are reporting a crime or suspicious activity. And if users want to identify someone by race, they must also describe other attributes, such as the person’s clothing — a tip from police.


http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Nextdoor-social-site-cracks-down-on-fear-mongering-7458610.php

People will still probably abuse it, but they'll be doing so by telling more obvious lies.

[SusanCalvin]

3. Glad to hear that - hope it helps. nt

[MisterP]

2. a similar tale from Santa Monica

http://la.curbed.com/2015/8/25/9927242/inside-a-snooty-and-casually-racist-santa-monica-neighborhood-listserv

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. Buncha cowards.....

[Jack Rabbit]

5. This sounds like classic colonialism

They have their own troops and even hired some mercenaries. Of course, they grease the palms of corrupt local rulers, too.

Good luck with the resistance, MrScorpio. Is there anyone who can be consulted about constructive and effective means of fighting back?

[Skittles]

6. so glad I live in a culturally diverse neighborhood

these folk need to be profiled for calling the cops for no reason

[Jackie Wilson Said]

7. Oakland or SM per the other post here are awesome places to live, anyone who

cant just be god damn grateful, fuck em.

[ismnotwasm]

8. K&R

[hedgehog]

9. Classic gentrification - move into an interesting neighborhood,

pour tons of money into a house and end up driving away everyone who isn't in your economic strata.

[fun n serious]

10. Portland OR

has a big problem with this. Elite liberals are the perps here.

[Mosby]

11. do you think gentrification is bad?

Poor neighborhoods should always remain poor?

I don't understand this issue very well.

Maybe cities should take a more active role in an areas gentrification, ensuring that there will be affordable housing and maybe some sort of rent protection for small business.

There is some gentrification happening in my area of central phoenix, and I just don't see a downside to it. The home prices in my zip code have gone up 119% in the past 5 years.

[fun n serious]

14. Yes it's bad. Flat out racism at it's finest. nt

[Jackie Wilson Said]

15. You dont even see what is happening, what you said, what is wrong with it, do you.

The home prices in my zip code have gone up 119% in the past 5 years.

You see homes cost too much now, maybe in some places in your state they dont, but overall they do.

A tiny percentage of the population have all this money, and with it they drive everybody else into further poverty.

[Mosby]

16. that's why im asking for info

Look, I live in a very diverse neighborhood, probably much more diverse than most. I could be living in Scottsdale with all the other white folks but I chose to live in central Phoenix. Phoenix is very suburban, I don't travel at all so I don't know much about gentrification happening in large cities. I am familiar with housing costs in CA and think they are insane, how can a middle class family afford a 500-750 thousand dollar house?

[Jackie Wilson Said]

17. So yes, that is how this goes. Like in San Francisco, you have to be rich or so poor

you can afford public housing.

This is the future of most cities if we dont do something about income inequality.

The sure fire way NOT to fix this is allow someone like Drumpf take over.

[JI7]

18. so if a poor person is able to get a better job or something else

where they came get out of being poor they may still have to leave the area because even if they have more money now it's not nearly enough to afford housing and they would make too much to keep public housing ?

[Jackie Wilson Said]

20. Yes, that is right. Because of the radical gaps between incomes for people

[Starry Messenger]

19. Cities should absolutely take a more active role.

I used to live in Oakland, and while it is great that the city center is being revived and thriving, it is unfair that condos of upwards of a million dollars are being built like hotcakes and families that have been in the city forever are being pushed out. One family I know has lost every other Black neighbor they had on their street.

What happens when the bubble bursts again? It's happened before in CA and everyone always acts like a deer in the headlights when those fabulous home values come crashing down again and gouging landlords won't find tenants for the $3k 1bd apartments.

[NWCorona]

22. Seattle as well

[diane in sf]

12. Let's get real. Those neighborhoods in Oakland that hired private security did it because they were

having huge crime waves of burglaries and assaults. East Oakland, West Oakland, the hills are all being hit with a large amount of crime. Private security presence has brought the crime rates way down in the neighborhoods where it has been applied.

I used to live in SF. I now live in Vallejo, which is one of the parolee dumping grounds of the entire Bay Area. Our criminals here come in all races, creeds, and colors. Many of them are well organized and commonly do stuff like walking through neighborhoods pretending to be sales people, ringing doorbells, looking in windows, checking gates, walking around looking into people's cars, checking to see who's home--casing. Riding around on bikes and walking around with cell phones--casing and reporting. We also have a bunch of badly behaved juveniles, who can be found lurking around neighborhoods during the hours they should be in school. There can be a very fine line between normal behaviors and casing behaviors. Once a large number of people have been burgled in your neighborhood, the tendency is to call the cops over any perceived suspicious behavior. We had 25 burglaries on only three blocks in a six month period. The crime wave largely ended when the police raided the local squatter house, whose residents had nothing more to do than to case, learn people's patterns really well, and then burgle to support their bad habits. Their appearance was mostly not obviously different than the middle class people around here.

I feel really bad for the innocent people who get the cops called on them for walking around while being (primarily) Black. The best thing always is to get to know your neighbors and to network with your neighbors. We did that here during the crime wave and things have gotten much better.

[MrScorpio]

13. Anything can be classified as potentially criminal behavior when you're black in this country.

So let's put the entire onus of the white gentrifiers' anti-black bias onto the long time black residents themselves, shall we?

Perhaps when the black residents in that Oakland neighbors start behaving as innocuously as the white gentrifiers wish they would, things might improve.