Video Captures What the Violence-Hyping Media Ignored: Nearly 1000 Gathered for Peace in Oakland After Verdict from Oscar Grant Trial
July 15, 2010
https://tinyurl.com/22npwyd
The media preferred to train their cameras on violence, not the hundreds who gathered in Oakland to voice opposition to the verdict peacefully and constructively.
Last Thursday, July 8, former BART transit officer Johannes Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the Jan. 1, 2009 death of Oscar Grant, an unarmed young African American man. As feared, that night saw rioting, looting, and destruction in the streets of downtown Oakland. And that’s where the local media trained their cameras.
What they didn’t report on was the crowd of nearly 1,000 people who gathered near City Hall to voice their dissatisfaction with the verdict peacefully and constructively. They didn’t show the faces and voices of Oakland’s young people, who love this city and want to make it better. They didn’t report on Oscar Grant’s grandfather, who urged the crowd to honor his grandson’s memory by refraining from violence. Not In Our Town did.