The other day in Oakland, a white supremacist female called the police on a group of Black ppl BBQing in the park. So in response, the whole town of Oakland came to the park and said “F you” in the form of the Electric Slide ✊🏾 #townbusiness #lol pic.twitter.com/c4azBJwDrp
— Tariq Nasheed 🇺🇸 (@tariqnasheed) May 12, 2018
Late last month a woman called the police on a Black family barbecuing in the park. The incident is now added to a slew of recent occurrences where the cops were called on Black people engaging in seemingly innocent activities. From Black artists accused of robbing a home as they left an Airbnb with their luggage to two young entrepreneurs accused of trespassing while sitting down in a Starbucks. On Thursday, a group of Oakland locals protested with a huge cookout celebration.
At Lake Merritt Park in Oakland, a white woman named Michelle Snider captured video of another white woman berating some Black folks and threatening to call the police on them for allegedly barbecuing in the wrong part of the park. An agitated Snider can be heard saying, “This is exactly what is the problem with Oakland today. This lady wants to sit here and call the police on them for having a barbecue at the lake as if this is not normal.”
The woman reportedly waited for two hours until the police arrived. When they finally arrived she told them, “I reported over two hours ago some people were illegally grilling in the park with a charcoal grill where they’re not supposed to. I was waiting there for a response because I was told they were coming. After two hours, I just called the non-emergency line, and in the interim these people came up and started harassing me, physically pushing me.”
Videos of Oakland locals celebrating in protest have since gone viral. Kids were playing, the electric slide was a hit and other classic songs like “Poison” by R&B group BBD. One person who tweeted out the video called it the “best revenge ever”.
Here’s what happened yesterday at that park in Oakland…a mixed (mainly black) crowd of people went in protest to party and bbq. They played music, the kids played & jumped rope and everyone had a great time. Best revenge ever. pic.twitter.com/Ulkvp4actz
— Rhetta Put Yo Mask On Hussein (@TheBlkPolitico) May 11, 2018
Oakland Mayoral candidate Cat Brook chimed in about the incident stating, “when you engage law enforcement in these kinds of things you are opening the door for things to go very wrong, the potential for arrests like in Philadelphia with those two black men or worse physical assault or death and I don’t believe in this day and age that white folks don’t know that.”
