Silence the violence

You know what folks? I don't think that Christmas post is going to happen. It's time to move on.

I am shocked and frustrated by the violence that has erupted in Oakland. I can barely watch the news. Like the rest of the community I was mortified by the shooting on the BART platform on New Year's Eve. Was it murder? I don't know. Was it a dreadful mistake? I don't know that either. Despite watching the footage at least a dozen times, straining my eyes to distinguish one fuzzy person from another, I honestly can't tell what's going on in that video. I can barely see the action, let alone deduce the intent.

Like the rest of the community I was angered by the seemingly slow response by the BART police and the city of Oakland. And I'll be honest, I didn't know what to think last Sunday in church when Pastor Guest was preaching the sermon.

"Don't you know that God forgave you, even before you did what you did?" he bellowed, bouncing with pent-up fury on the balls of his feet. He spoke about how God is in each and every one of us. How we need to allow one another the chance to repent and to change. And where would we be, he asked, if no one had extended to us the hand of forgiveness in our darkest hour, when we most needed that second chance?

He made me think.

I wasn't sure I was ready to forgive. But then Oakland helped me make up my mind.

What did we do? We wrecked our own community. We took the opportunity to create chaos. We smashed up shop windows, jumped on cars, set dumpsters on fire. We vented our feelings of anger and frustration on one another. We really showed our best side.

Not just once, but twice.

I didn't know - I really didn't know - just how precariously this city was perched on the rim of destruction. Just how great the divide was between those who want to do right and those who want to do 'right now'. I didn't know how deep the anger ran that so many people would feel justified in taking out their aggression on somebody else. That self-satisfied, backwards reasoning, that clarion call for violence disguised as action, did more to settle my feelings on the matter than the most poignant sermon. So thanks, Oakland.

You see, I was appalled by what that policeman did to an innocent man on New Year's Eve. But I am disgusted by my community's reaction. Not by those folks who planned to protest in peace, but by those who participated in and encouraged the riots. Did you not watch the news afterward? Did you not see the faces of the people you were hurting? The shop owners, already struggling to make ends meet in this tough economy, now having to replace shattered windows and stolen goods? The poor people who had the misfortune to park their cars in your path of destruction? These are your neighbors! These folks were on your side! They didn't do anything to you, they didn't do anything to that young man who lost his life. Your misplaced aggression didn't speed the city's action. It didn't comfort the family who lost their son, their brother. It just damaged the lives of other good people.

Way to go, Oakland. Well done.