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West Oakland is a traditionally black neighborhood that surrounds the Port of Oakland. It has been heavily gentrified, developed, and restructured over the past

West Oakland is a traditionally black neighborhood that surrounds the Port of Oakland. It has been heavily gentrified, developed, and restructured over the past three decades. Now there is an upper class enclave that has been established near the West Oakland BART station, in Jack London, and in the city of Emeryville. Oh fuck you and your dreadlocks. There are only two photos on that page, so I don't definitively know who these protesters were (although there are no "traditional" blacks in those photos) -- but I know (I have a strong suspicion, I don't factually know) that the protesters were not drawn from the group mentioned above. These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families. The actual, working, poor people in West Oakland were at their first of the two or three jobs they hold. Or they were spending a few rare moments resting, or with their kids. Or they were lining up to get a meal at community kitchen. Actual black people were not part of this protest, because a mob of black people attacking a bus would be getting wall-to-wall coverage on every channel. It would have been responded to with a swift and overwhelming police presence. The same thing happened a few years ago when these same non-workers shut down the Port of Oakland in the name of workers. The people who actually work the port asked that they not disrupt the port, but in the end these dreadlocked, shiftless complainers cost those longshoremen a day in wages -- Viva El Proletariado! What we have today is a group of young, electively poor white kids who are upset that the price of unheated lofts and dingy Victorians are being driven up by people who have the means and motivation to actually own and improve them. That they wrap themselves up in the image of the poor (and yes, mostly black) -- whom they themselves displaced by rushing in to bid up rents with mom and dad's money -- makes this appeal all the more ludicrous. At least the tech gentrifiers will actually improve the fucking place, unlike these leeches! (Source: I live and own property in Oakland) Edited as suggested below by bonemachine.

api 13y ago
"These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families." That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians.
- thisiswrong 13y ago
  > That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians. The irony is that your comment only emphasizes the severe disconnect between relatively wealthy & employable 'techies' versus the rest of the struggling recession-hit population. It's hard to understand how life has changed since 2007 when, coming from a tech-related field, one generally doesn't suffer the everyday hardships that most Americans endure [1]. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-america-is-mainstream/?_r=0 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-a...
  - api 13y ago
    You're right that techies haven't experienced the great recession... or at least have avoided the worst of it. But the group I am referring to -- overprivileged over-educated trust fund kids engaging in faux-outrage as a form of entertainment -- are also isolated from the realities you mention... perhaps even more so, since techies have to actually work. What these people are doing is basically LARPing. IndyMedia is their big LARPing portal site where they pretend to be radicals. Fuck these people.
  - ye 13y ago
    The irony of your comment only emphasizes how little you understand that NONE of it is techies' fault. Is it their fault they thought about the future and picked tough but useful majors? Is it their fault that hipsters chose art, history, women studies and other (financially) useless stuff, just because that's what they liked to do? Is it their fault that hipsters feel entitled to a high paying job?
    - thomasz 13y ago
      Not everybody can be part of the glorious STEM master race!
      - null_ptr 13y ago
zach 13y ago
So it's hipsters versus nerds now? Has it come to this?
- deleted 13y ago
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- Crito 13y ago
  I wouldn't call it hipsters or nerds. The nerd angle has little to do with it actually, in another city it would be financial workers, or lawyers, or local university students. Anyone that can be spun into an "outsider".
- ritchiea 13y ago
  Let's be real. Some of the nerds are also hipsters.
  - mtdewcmu 13y ago
    It's hipster haves versus hipster have-nots. Where's the sense of hipster fraternity?
- johnamaeda 13y ago
  The problem is that a big corporation like Google gives less than it takes as of now, tax wise, and guarantees their employees a standard of living out of reach for most americans now, or the rest of the world for that matter. A standard of living paid for, in part, by the very same taxes they manage to avoid, along with several other big corporations. Not to mention they are no stranger to the US government, and probably might have helped the very development of those formerly secret and hated programs, also with direct knowledge transfer http://cryptome.org/2013/08/assange-google-nsa.htm http://cryptome.org/2013/08/assange-google-nsa.htm
  - adventured 13y ago
    The people of Google however, pay their fair share of taxes, and don't deserve to have their mode of transportation attacked. The couple billion in taxes Google is managing to dodge is not what enables them to pay their employees so well. Google earned $10.7b in profit last year. Go ahead and take the 20% they 'dodged' in taxes. How exactly does that alter what they can pay their employees (you know, only making $8.x billion)? I'd love to see an explanation for that.
manicbovine 13y ago
It's as if you are auditioning for the Glenn Beck show. That's probably where you belong edit: Since when is political vitriol acceptable for HN? If I wanted to hear bullshit political rants with gems like "traditional blacks" or "fuck you and your dreadlocks", then I'd turn on Fox News or MSNBC. Seriously, traditional blacks with weasely scare quotes? That comment could not be less informative, disingenuous, or falsely provocative. It's like reading something by a slightly racist college freshman.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  Do you understand that you are attacking some of your most powerful political allies, and that it is not helpful to solving the systemic issues contributing to poverty?
  - manicbovine 13y ago
    What in the hell are you talking about? Who have I attacked? None of the people in this thread are my "most important political allies". Did you people read "political debate and logical fallacies for dummies"? How does "fuck you and your dreadlocks" do anything to help people? Should I use that next time I'm volunteering at the soup kitchen? Really, there must be no hope for American politics, because this is probably the most idiotic exchange I'll have today. I presume you have made some assumptions about me, like perhaps I helped to attack this bus? That's funny stuff. Reddit is leaking.
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      > I presume you have made some assumptions about me As you have made assumptions. Many of us are quite left-wing. I would be at home in a European socialist party. However, the escalation to violence against people like me leaves me disinclined to do anything to help you. Giving you more resources would seem to be aiding dangerous criminals.
      - manicbovine 13y ago
deleted 13y ago
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antiterra 13y ago
Your disdain for people who attend Burning Man, have so-called 'useless degrees,' and are self-styled-artists does nothing but discredit you as a reasonable person. Plenty of people who fall into any combination or all of those groups are productive and capable, many of them in the technology/tech startup sectors (and don't have a problem with Google's buses.) EDIT: removed some of my own frothing
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  He's nopt expressing venom for people who/are those things, but for those who use such status to justify the sort of violent nihilism on display in this article. I know lots of Burning Man/weirdo artist types who work hard, care about their neighbors, and manage to express their political views without slinging bricks through windows or justifying intimidation by calling it 'direct action.'
  - antiterra 13y ago
    If he wasn't implicitly being derogatory about those traits (and I think he was) he's certainly not describing them as positive. The other responses echo the attitude that the problem results from these sorts with 'useless degrees.'
    - anigbrowl 13y ago
      Well, it would be easy enough to shoehorn me into that group (I never actually got around to attending Burning Man, but I have a lot of roots in the 90s SF rave scene, for example), and to me he's critiquing the sort of people who treat their membership of certain affiliate group(s) as a justification for self-indulgent behavior that comes at others' expense. I don't see any point in making this into a long spiraling subthread that only the two of us will read, so let me stop here by asking you to consider some other interpretations of the original comment besides the worst one. It might have been worded a bit better but as a fellow resident of Oakland I share the writer's frustration with the local 'revolutionaries.'
    - jessedhillon 13y ago
deleted 13y ago
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gohrt 13y ago
So... we need to organize a working class resistence against the... pretend working class resistance? Not even joking. If the imposter protestors make it acceptable for "civilized" folk to have a reactionary attitude against equality concerns, they will become a (perhaps unwitting) tool of oppression of the poor, who do have valid (if unvoiced) concerns.
- Crito 13y ago
  It's a good point. These protesters, far from helping the 'locals', are giving them a worse reputation. Among it's other problems, Oakland is now "the city that smashes buses", even if the people who did it really have nothing to do with Oakland. The residents of Oakland have every right to be angry with these protesters.
  - bilbo0s 13y ago
    They have the right... but they're not angry. In fact... it's a pretty good bet that the average "traditional" resident of that area is not even aware of the fight. The original poster was right, the "traditional" residents in Oakland are just struggling to make ends meet. They're not going to look up from their grind because some upper-middle class kids want to fight each other. Those who are aware... probably think about it in the same light as the Samuel L Jackson character "Zeus" in the Die Hard movie... "THAT'S A WHITE MAN!!! WITH WHITE PROBLEMS!!!" And just like "Zeus", that's how they will perceive it, since they feel it doesn't affect them. (And they are probably right... they won't get anything out of that fight anyway. I mean, we say they will get a worse reputation... but the reality is... the law abiding "traditional" residents don't care about reputation... you can't pay rent with it.)
- api 13y ago
  Abso-fucking-lutely. Like I said elsewhere I used to live in a "trendy" place that had a huge contingent of these obnoxious faux-radicals. They would organize this silly clownish protests of GMO foods, "chemtrails," free this, liberate that, whatever, and they'd march around looking like clowns in front of all kinds of trendy businesses catering to hippie-tourists and retired old white people. These businesses in turn paid their workers shit wages with no benefits. How do I know? Because I was good friends with a number of these workers, who never had anything to do with the IndyMedia traustafarian clown show. I never saw a single one of these outrage-er-tainment fuckups protests unfair wages or lack of benefits. They only protested trendy issues of no relevance to the actually underprivileged. I propose national trustafarian beat-down day.
ritchiea 13y ago
It seems like you're correct in this case. Or at the very least there is no evidence for their implication that the protesters were black Oakland residents. That said, let's not allow laziness on the part of the reporter who filed this story, and elective poor dreadlocked white kids to distract us from the real problem that is class disparity in the west. The elite live under different rules than the rest and the middle class is dwindling. That's way more important than bad reporting, which is just a footnote.
batbomb 13y ago
People with enough of their parents money don't move to West Oakland. People who can't afford anything else and aren't afraid of getting robbed once a year do. Typically, yes, there's a bunch of kids from the "middle class", but most the ones I know are also "working poor" because they work in some sort of service industry. Other parts of Oakland, sure. Not the core part of West Oakland though. But you are also right, this wasn't West Oakland, or even lower class vs. Google. This was "activism class" vs Google. Which tends to describe hippies and burners. Source: I've spent inordinate amounts of time near Willow Park.
zsiddique 13y ago
Local blogs are reporting the story: http://sfist.com/2013/12/20/angry_protesters_smash_google_bus_w.php http://sfist.com/2013/12/20/angry_protesters_smash_google_bu... and it seems to back your theory. I dont think I see a single person of minority in the protest. Also the local sites are doing a better job at reporting the story then this bias site.
9999 13y ago
Re: The port shutdown: The longshoremen's union supported the Occupy shutdown, but were contractually obligated not to participate in the protest. Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/occupy-oakland-shuts-down-port/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/occupy-oakland-shuts-down-port/ Since almost everything else you said is anecdotal, it's hard for me to respond to, but your statement about the longshoremen, that's certainly wrong. In general, the people that you are deriding and caricaturing represent the first wave of gentrification, and those people actually do make meaningful contributions to the areas they move into. Think of the excellent restaurants, concert venues, boutiques, bars, etc. that exist in Oakland now--that's first wave gentrification. Those people are also historically more aware of their surroundings and the culture that they are moving into and tend to show solidarity with the lower income residents that they are paving the way towards displacement for. On the other hand, the second wave of gentrifiers tends to dramatically increase the cost of living, rate of displacement, and tends to care very little about the plight of their fellow citizens. The Google buses are a convenient symbol for economic disparity though, and I often wonder why Google doesn't try to do a real public works project instead of simply creating a segregated system of buses. Why not add wi-fi to public buses? Why not extend the light rail system into the valley? Why not donate a whole lot of money to a public mental health project so there aren't so many deranged lunatics screaming on public transit? If they did that, then they will have created a more comfortable environment not only for their own employees, but for the entire community.
- jessedhillon 13y ago
  ...but your statement about the longshoremen, that's certainly wrong. No, it's right. ILWU (the union) leadership has made statements such as "Organization from outside groups attempting to co-opt our struggle in order to advance a broader agenda is quite another and one that is destructive to our democratic process and jeopardizes our over two year struggle in Longview." [1] So I may not have been right about them speaking out specifically against the Oakland shut down, but in general the union leadership is against strikes. Although, of course, they take great pains to not alienate potential ideological allies while rejecting calls to shut down ports. The sentiment is at least mixed, as you can see from other coverage: [2] "Leaders of the ILWU, which represents thousands of longshoremen, spoke out in recent weeks against the coordinated effort by Occupy protesters to blockade ports from Anchorage to San Diego" "This is joke. What are they protesting?" Christian Vega, 32, who sat in his truck carrying a load of recycled paper from Pittsburg said Monday morning. He said the delay was costing him $600. "It only hurts me and the other drivers. We have jobs and families to support and feed. Most of them don't," Vega said. [1] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/occupy-oakland-west-coast-port-shutdown http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/occupy-oakland-west-... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/12/occupy-oakland-ports_n_1144476.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/12/occupy-oakland-port...
bilbo0s 13y ago
This is the general arc of "gentrification". First, a few places in the neighborhood are rehabbed by developers. Next the "...Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the ... overprivileged..." move in to the rehabbed areas and the (usually) blacks have to move out. These hippy - artist types make the neighborhood more attractive to people even further up the food chain. (Read techies). And soon the time comes for the hippy - artists to move out. The hippy - artists are unhappy... but the reality is... this is no more than what they did to the blacks. Soon the time will come for the techies to move out... and, I'm sure, they will be unhappy as well when their time comes. This same progression happens all over. I think Harlem is probably one of the best examples. (It's WAY ahead of SF area in that regard). Blacks had to move when the artists showed up because they could no longer afford it. Then, when the techies and yuppies showed up... the hippies, artists and teachers hit the roof, because it was their turn to move. Harlem is at the stage now where the celebrities and bankers are showing up ... and like clockwork ... the techies are hitting the roof because it's their turn to move. The thing is ... in the end ... they all moved. They didn't engage in violence. That people are upset should be expected... but I would point out that places like Harlem have gone through this process with multiple populations without violence. It can be done.
- dualogy 13y ago
  Is there some migration back to where all the celebrities and bankers came from?
  - bilbo0s 13y ago
    I wouldn't know... I suspect not... probably just the people that don't leave those buildings combine units. And then, of course, there are the foreigners who just buy apartments and never live in them. It's just a couple of guesses, but I think that's probably how that space is reallocated in those areas. I seriously doubt the displaced techies and hospital administrators can afford to go buy in those areas. I think it's off to Brooklyn (or maybe queens???) with them... at least until the bankers show up there.
- 13y ago
bonemachine 13y ago
These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families. Oh, get off it, man. All that we "know" about the perpetrators at this point is that they were apparently (1) young and (2) non-black. As to the rest the attributes you impute to them -- as of yet we don't "know" any of these to be fact. At best all you can honestly say at this point would be: Now I don't know for a fact, but ya know, I have a hunch these are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, etc etc ... This is not nit-picking. The fact that you're saying that you "know" everything about their demographic / psychographic makeup when in fact you are merely speculating is what's part of the broader problem here: rather than elucidating the problem, you're subverting the discourse. And more to the point: you're pushing people's buttons, by appealing to stereotypes and their own identity- and privilege-based insecurities. In so many words: you're placing the race card. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_card
- jessedhillon 13y ago
  a) I have no objection to this phrase and will edit my comment thus. b) I'm reacting to the race card being employed by people who are tokenizing and mascotifying (to coin phrase) the same people who they themselves pushed out!
  - bonemachine 13y ago
    I'd just prefer that we stick to the main point -- that the "anarchists"' actions were basically thuggish and coercive in nature, that is to say, anything but "anarchistic." Anything else (e.g. speculation as to their education or class background) is a distraction from what should be the key takeaway here. But overall, fair enough, and thanks for the clarifying edit.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
wavesounds 13y ago
I've gotten into some 'debates' with friends on facebook who are are in the 'anarchist/burner/hipster' persuasion. And It's mostly scape-goating programmers for rents going up. But I do think the Startup community in particular could do a better job interacting with the communities we live in. Especially as more and more people jump on the startup bandwagon and don't really understand the hacker/nerd ethos of protecting the little guy that most of us embrace. The recent remarks of the founder of Anglehack come to mind as something that gives the community a very bad name http://valleywag.gawker.com/happy-holidays-startup-ceo-complains-sf-is-full-of-hum-1481067192 http://valleywag.gawker.com/happy-holidays-startup-ceo-compl... Edit: I do realize more programmers moving to the bay means higher rents I just think its the fault of SF for not building enough housing http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francisco-exodus/7205/ http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francis...
- api 13y ago
  I think the rent issue is definitely real, but isn't the fault of techies. It's the fault of several interacting factors: (1) Anti-development mentality on the part of city councils, zoning boards, etc. (2) Geographic containment of the area. (3) Shitty public transit and overcrowded roads. (4) Foreign investors driving up the price of RE. ... in roughly that order. #1 is largely the fault of this same stereotypical bunch of braindead trustafarian hippies, since they tend to oppose building pretty much anything because it destroys the Earth, man. In so doing they play their role in the gentrification cycle, constraining supply to drive up rents and drive out the genuinely underprivileged. As I said elsewhere: fuck these people.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    #1 is also the fault of conservative property owners, because building new housing lowers the prices of existing houses.
    - api 13y ago
      Yes, it's sort of a de-facto alliance: conservative property owners and clueless braindead slacktivists. Remove the slactivists and their flimsy environmental arguments from the equation and the purely greed-driven NIMBYism of the property owners will become much harder to defend/justify.
JumpCrisscross 13y ago
Fun writeup. Wrong attitude. Silicon Valley technology, this is Manhattan finance with a word of advice. We know the roots of the problem are housing supply restrictions and a lack of mass transit. In essence, City Hall problems. So why are they able to pin the blame on you? Because you're painting a target on your back. Ducking your heads makes you a low-risk scapegoat. Scoffing at the less fortunate, regardless of whether they "deserve" it, makes you a juicy red political filet. I'm not saying you need to up volunteering incentives for technology workers or visibly join hands with your foes and fight City Hall for more housing including, yes, the affordable kind. But don't throw daggers when you're down. As it stands, you're right but you're down.
- bilbo0s 13y ago
  In Houston I, and several others who live behind the gates on Sunset, have taken to volunteering A LOT of time in Third Ward for this very reason. You're a lot tougher target when your head is raised and you have a track record of advocating for the REAL underprivileged. Because chances are, the people denigrating you would never dare go to a place like Third Ward. (Which is a shame... because the people there are quite nice actually.)
  - JumpCrisscross 13y ago
    Can't agree more - I volunteer at an after school programme in Harlem. It connected me with a driven, intelligent 2nd grader who couldn't concentrate because three square meals a day were beyond his family's budget. That pisses one off enough to find real solutions, not duck for political cover.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - chao- 13y ago
    Montrose resident here. I don't have anyone denigrating me, but I wouldn't mind helping out folks in the Third Ward. Do you volunteer with any particular group or charity?
- 13y ago
duairc 13y ago
“I own property”
dylandrop 13y ago
It's understandable that you'd be upset if you knew this was a case of rich white kids playing the race card, but you don't -- all we know is that some of the protesters were white. Making generalizations is counterproductive. "These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families." ..because this is all obvious evidence of the article.
louthy 13y ago
> These are Burning Man hippies... Clearly a man with inside knowledge. Which BM hippies was it? Larry Page and Sergey Brin perhaps?
wil421 13y ago
> These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families. New name for them: Hipstervists
blhack 13y ago
>These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors This is such a stupid position to take. First of all, do you realize that those "Burning Man Hippies" are, uh, literally the people who started google? Do you realize that google has made enormous donations to those "burning man hippies"? And yes, "uesless degrees". History, art, literature, these are all "useless" of course, the only valid degrees are either hard science and hard engineering, I'm sure? What aspects of life do you enjoy, man? A good design aesthetic? Cause that's art... Or, perhaps good food? That's also art. Maybe a good book, wait... Architecture? Beauty? Something? Possibly something that poets and artists have given you a context for, or study? -- This is such a stupid lazy attitude to take. Come out of your hole sometime and you'll find a whole world out here full of things that you can enjoy. Just try to steer clear of those pesky "artists" who got useless degrees. -- The people who are crying about google's buses are idiots. Don't group them together with artists or "burning man hippies".
- hcurtiss 13y ago
  I think by "useless," he meant, "useless for purposes of making money."
  - etjossem 13y ago
    Apple made a lot of money by not thinking this way, and other big companies in SV have started to notice. Skilled industrial/UX designers often come out of a humanities or art major. In fact, so do developers, product managers, and marketing staff. Blame the protesters for throwing bricks into a bus window, but don't blame their majors.
    - Crito 13y ago
      I don't think this is a case of Apple employees smashing up Google buses. Maybe their peers from college who got the same degrees went off to find productive jobs, but I am struggling to believe that these particular people did. If you cannot leverage your degree, then your degree is worthless (at least in your hands).
danudey 13y ago
A very similar situation is happening in Vancouver. In the older part of town, just past Gastown, Vancouver's original neighbourhood, lies the Downtown East Side. The DTES is 'Canada's poorest postal code', and is home to a large population of Vancouver's homeless. In true Canadian fashion, it's generally a safe and vibrant area, both despite and because of the homeless population living there (compared to the suburbs, where bored teenagers assault the elderly for something to do). Recently, a few businesses have been cropping up; one of them, Save on Meats, opened a butcher shop and a diner; more accurately, re-opened, as Save on Meats was a cornerstone of the neighbourhood for decades before the previous owners closed it. The current owner bought the building, renovated it (or, more accurately, refurbished and restored it), began hiring the homeless and poor of the neighbourhood, and began a series of social programs aimed at benefitting the area. Their sandwich counter, a street-facing breakfast sandwich dispensary, introduced 'sandwich tokens', which can be bought from them in quantity and traded in by anyone for a warm meal. It's a convenient way to give someone something that you know will be traded in for food, without having to go out of your way to purchase it. Everyone loves it, and even the police who patrol the DTES will give out tokens to people in the neighbourhood. Another restaurant opened lately, called Pidgin, across from a location called Pigeon Park, a common area of congregation for the DTES's residents, homeless or otherwise. On occasions, it's blocked off and turned into a giant street market, where individuals sell whatever items they've managed to scrounge up, trade, for, buy, or sell. Pidgin is a nice restaurant, it's the upper end of midrange, a place you could certainly go to in jeans and a button-down, but you might fit in better in a suit and tie. Then came the protesters. The protesters came, spurred on by a feeling that Pidgin was making fun of the homeless people across the street, like a slap in the face. Ignoring the fact that Pidgin also hires people from the neighbourhood, the protesters congregated outside of the restaurant every day, shouting and harassing the restaurant, the staff, and the patrons. All this despite the fact that the people who actually live in the area disagree with them; both the homeless and jobless poor and the more well-to-do people who live, work, and own businesses in the area. The other facet that the protesters seem to ignore is that part of the problem with the homeless population in Vancouver is a problem of perception; many people, especially those from the suburbs, see the DTES as full of dirty violent criminals, where you'll get knifed for your sneakers before you know it, Canada's Detroit. The reality is that these are just normal people in awful circumstances, making the best of what they have. The more people who see that, and who see how wrong their horrible misconceptions about the poor are, the easier it will be to gain support from the voting populace to improve conditions there, and the less uphill the fight will be to convince others that these people aren't lost causes cluttering up the streets of Vancouver's history. The protesters never cared though. Even after being told by police to stop harassing people, even after being told off by people who've run businesses in the DTES for years, and working against the needs and wishes of the community in the DTES, they kept protesting. And what population of them even live in the area? What population knows anything about the homeless that they're white-knighting? None of them. They're largely comprised of people from the suburbs, people who commute from all over the region to tell everyone how these people feel without ever asking them. Some leaders of the protest were even forced to give up their allegiances with organizations who actually aim to help the homeless populations, because their missions were so at odds and they were giving these charitable organizations such a bad name. So the idea that trust-fund hipsters and well-meaning interlopers will thrust themselves violently and unnecessarily into a 'class warfare' which didn't exist (or wasn't as heated or unpleasant) before their interference isn't a strictly Oakland issue either. This behaviour, which focusses on driving people apart and creating open conflict where none existed, contrasts directly with what is necessary, which is for people to understand one another and interact. It's pretty sad.

api 13y ago

"These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families." That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians.

thisiswrong 13y ago
> That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians. The irony is that your comment only emphasizes the severe disconnect between relatively wealthy & employable 'techies' versus the rest of the struggling recession-hit population. It's hard to understand how life has changed since 2007 when, coming from a tech-related field, one generally doesn't suffer the everyday hardships that most Americans endure [1]. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-america-is-mainstream/?_r=0 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-a...
- api 13y ago
  You're right that techies haven't experienced the great recession... or at least have avoided the worst of it. But the group I am referring to -- overprivileged over-educated trust fund kids engaging in faux-outrage as a form of entertainment -- are also isolated from the realities you mention... perhaps even more so, since techies have to actually work. What these people are doing is basically LARPing. IndyMedia is their big LARPing portal site where they pretend to be radicals. Fuck these people.
- ye 13y ago
  The irony of your comment only emphasizes how little you understand that NONE of it is techies' fault. Is it their fault they thought about the future and picked tough but useful majors? Is it their fault that hipsters chose art, history, women studies and other (financially) useless stuff, just because that's what they liked to do? Is it their fault that hipsters feel entitled to a high paying job?
  - thomasz 13y ago
    Not everybody can be part of the glorious STEM master race!
    - null_ptr 13y ago

zach 13y ago

So it's hipsters versus nerds now? Has it come to this?

deleted 13y ago
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Crito 13y ago
I wouldn't call it hipsters or nerds. The nerd angle has little to do with it actually, in another city it would be financial workers, or lawyers, or local university students. Anyone that can be spun into an "outsider".
ritchiea 13y ago
Let's be real. Some of the nerds are also hipsters.
- mtdewcmu 13y ago
  It's hipster haves versus hipster have-nots. Where's the sense of hipster fraternity?
johnamaeda 13y ago
The problem is that a big corporation like Google gives less than it takes as of now, tax wise, and guarantees their employees a standard of living out of reach for most americans now, or the rest of the world for that matter. A standard of living paid for, in part, by the very same taxes they manage to avoid, along with several other big corporations. Not to mention they are no stranger to the US government, and probably might have helped the very development of those formerly secret and hated programs, also with direct knowledge transfer http://cryptome.org/2013/08/assange-google-nsa.htm http://cryptome.org/2013/08/assange-google-nsa.htm
- adventured 13y ago
  The people of Google however, pay their fair share of taxes, and don't deserve to have their mode of transportation attacked. The couple billion in taxes Google is managing to dodge is not what enables them to pay their employees so well. Google earned $10.7b in profit last year. Go ahead and take the 20% they 'dodged' in taxes. How exactly does that alter what they can pay their employees (you know, only making $8.x billion)? I'd love to see an explanation for that.

manicbovine 13y ago

It's as if you are auditioning for the Glenn Beck show. That's probably where you belong edit: Since when is political vitriol acceptable for HN? If I wanted to hear bullshit political rants with gems like "traditional blacks" or "fuck you and your dreadlocks", then I'd turn on Fox News or MSNBC. Seriously, traditional blacks with weasely scare quotes? That comment could not be less informative, disingenuous, or falsely provocative. It's like reading something by a slightly racist college freshman.

nknighthb 13y ago
Do you understand that you are attacking some of your most powerful political allies, and that it is not helpful to solving the systemic issues contributing to poverty?
- manicbovine 13y ago
  What in the hell are you talking about? Who have I attacked? None of the people in this thread are my "most important political allies". Did you people read "political debate and logical fallacies for dummies"? How does "fuck you and your dreadlocks" do anything to help people? Should I use that next time I'm volunteering at the soup kitchen? Really, there must be no hope for American politics, because this is probably the most idiotic exchange I'll have today. I presume you have made some assumptions about me, like perhaps I helped to attack this bus? That's funny stuff. Reddit is leaking.
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    > I presume you have made some assumptions about me As you have made assumptions. Many of us are quite left-wing. I would be at home in a European socialist party. However, the escalation to violence against people like me leaves me disinclined to do anything to help you. Giving you more resources would seem to be aiding dangerous criminals.
    - manicbovine 13y ago

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antiterra 13y ago

Your disdain for people who attend Burning Man, have so-called 'useless degrees,' and are self-styled-artists does nothing but discredit you as a reasonable person. Plenty of people who fall into any combination or all of those groups are productive and capable, many of them in the technology/tech startup sectors (and don't have a problem with Google's buses.) EDIT: removed some of my own frothing

anigbrowl 13y ago
He's nopt expressing venom for people who/are those things, but for those who use such status to justify the sort of violent nihilism on display in this article. I know lots of Burning Man/weirdo artist types who work hard, care about their neighbors, and manage to express their political views without slinging bricks through windows or justifying intimidation by calling it 'direct action.'
- antiterra 13y ago
  If he wasn't implicitly being derogatory about those traits (and I think he was) he's certainly not describing them as positive. The other responses echo the attitude that the problem results from these sorts with 'useless degrees.'
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    Well, it would be easy enough to shoehorn me into that group (I never actually got around to attending Burning Man, but I have a lot of roots in the 90s SF rave scene, for example), and to me he's critiquing the sort of people who treat their membership of certain affiliate group(s) as a justification for self-indulgent behavior that comes at others' expense. I don't see any point in making this into a long spiraling subthread that only the two of us will read, so let me stop here by asking you to consider some other interpretations of the original comment besides the worst one. It might have been worded a bit better but as a fellow resident of Oakland I share the writer's frustration with the local 'revolutionaries.'
  - jessedhillon 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

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gohrt 13y ago

So... we need to organize a working class resistence against the... pretend working class resistance? Not even joking. If the imposter protestors make it acceptable for "civilized" folk to have a reactionary attitude against equality concerns, they will become a (perhaps unwitting) tool of oppression of the poor, who do have valid (if unvoiced) concerns.

Crito 13y ago
It's a good point. These protesters, far from helping the 'locals', are giving them a worse reputation. Among it's other problems, Oakland is now "the city that smashes buses", even if the people who did it really have nothing to do with Oakland. The residents of Oakland have every right to be angry with these protesters.
- bilbo0s 13y ago
  They have the right... but they're not angry. In fact... it's a pretty good bet that the average "traditional" resident of that area is not even aware of the fight. The original poster was right, the "traditional" residents in Oakland are just struggling to make ends meet. They're not going to look up from their grind because some upper-middle class kids want to fight each other. Those who are aware... probably think about it in the same light as the Samuel L Jackson character "Zeus" in the Die Hard movie... "THAT'S A WHITE MAN!!! WITH WHITE PROBLEMS!!!" And just like "Zeus", that's how they will perceive it, since they feel it doesn't affect them. (And they are probably right... they won't get anything out of that fight anyway. I mean, we say they will get a worse reputation... but the reality is... the law abiding "traditional" residents don't care about reputation... you can't pay rent with it.)
api 13y ago
Abso-fucking-lutely. Like I said elsewhere I used to live in a "trendy" place that had a huge contingent of these obnoxious faux-radicals. They would organize this silly clownish protests of GMO foods, "chemtrails," free this, liberate that, whatever, and they'd march around looking like clowns in front of all kinds of trendy businesses catering to hippie-tourists and retired old white people. These businesses in turn paid their workers shit wages with no benefits. How do I know? Because I was good friends with a number of these workers, who never had anything to do with the IndyMedia traustafarian clown show. I never saw a single one of these outrage-er-tainment fuckups protests unfair wages or lack of benefits. They only protested trendy issues of no relevance to the actually underprivileged. I propose national trustafarian beat-down day.

ritchiea 13y ago

It seems like you're correct in this case. Or at the very least there is no evidence for their implication that the protesters were black Oakland residents. That said, let's not allow laziness on the part of the reporter who filed this story, and elective poor dreadlocked white kids to distract us from the real problem that is class disparity in the west. The elite live under different rules than the rest and the middle class is dwindling. That's way more important than bad reporting, which is just a footnote.

batbomb 13y ago

People with enough of their parents money don't move to West Oakland. People who can't afford anything else and aren't afraid of getting robbed once a year do. Typically, yes, there's a bunch of kids from the "middle class", but most the ones I know are also "working poor" because they work in some sort of service industry. Other parts of Oakland, sure. Not the core part of West Oakland though. But you are also right, this wasn't West Oakland, or even lower class vs. Google. This was "activism class" vs Google. Which tends to describe hippies and burners. Source: I've spent inordinate amounts of time near Willow Park.

zsiddique 13y ago

Local blogs are reporting the story: http://sfist.com/2013/12/20/angry_protesters_smash_google_bus_w.php http://sfist.com/2013/12/20/angry_protesters_smash_google_bu... and it seems to back your theory. I dont think I see a single person of minority in the protest. Also the local sites are doing a better job at reporting the story then this bias site.

9999 13y ago

Re: The port shutdown: The longshoremen's union supported the Occupy shutdown, but were contractually obligated not to participate in the protest. Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/occupy-oakland-shuts-down-port/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/occupy-oakland-shuts-down-port/ Since almost everything else you said is anecdotal, it's hard for me to respond to, but your statement about the longshoremen, that's certainly wrong. In general, the people that you are deriding and caricaturing represent the first wave of gentrification, and those people actually do make meaningful contributions to the areas they move into. Think of the excellent restaurants, concert venues, boutiques, bars, etc. that exist in Oakland now--that's first wave gentrification. Those people are also historically more aware of their surroundings and the culture that they are moving into and tend to show solidarity with the lower income residents that they are paving the way towards displacement for. On the other hand, the second wave of gentrifiers tends to dramatically increase the cost of living, rate of displacement, and tends to care very little about the plight of their fellow citizens. The Google buses are a convenient symbol for economic disparity though, and I often wonder why Google doesn't try to do a real public works project instead of simply creating a segregated system of buses. Why not add wi-fi to public buses? Why not extend the light rail system into the valley? Why not donate a whole lot of money to a public mental health project so there aren't so many deranged lunatics screaming on public transit? If they did that, then they will have created a more comfortable environment not only for their own employees, but for the entire community.

jessedhillon 13y ago
...but your statement about the longshoremen, that's certainly wrong. No, it's right. ILWU (the union) leadership has made statements such as "Organization from outside groups attempting to co-opt our struggle in order to advance a broader agenda is quite another and one that is destructive to our democratic process and jeopardizes our over two year struggle in Longview." [1] So I may not have been right about them speaking out specifically against the Oakland shut down, but in general the union leadership is against strikes. Although, of course, they take great pains to not alienate potential ideological allies while rejecting calls to shut down ports. The sentiment is at least mixed, as you can see from other coverage: [2] "Leaders of the ILWU, which represents thousands of longshoremen, spoke out in recent weeks against the coordinated effort by Occupy protesters to blockade ports from Anchorage to San Diego" "This is joke. What are they protesting?" Christian Vega, 32, who sat in his truck carrying a load of recycled paper from Pittsburg said Monday morning. He said the delay was costing him $600. "It only hurts me and the other drivers. We have jobs and families to support and feed. Most of them don't," Vega said. [1] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/occupy-oakland-west-coast-port-shutdown http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/occupy-oakland-west-... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/12/occupy-oakland-ports_n_1144476.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/12/occupy-oakland-port...

bilbo0s 13y ago

This is the general arc of "gentrification". First, a few places in the neighborhood are rehabbed by developers. Next the "...Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the ... overprivileged..." move in to the rehabbed areas and the (usually) blacks have to move out. These hippy - artist types make the neighborhood more attractive to people even further up the food chain. (Read techies). And soon the time comes for the hippy - artists to move out. The hippy - artists are unhappy... but the reality is... this is no more than what they did to the blacks. Soon the time will come for the techies to move out... and, I'm sure, they will be unhappy as well when their time comes. This same progression happens all over. I think Harlem is probably one of the best examples. (It's WAY ahead of SF area in that regard). Blacks had to move when the artists showed up because they could no longer afford it. Then, when the techies and yuppies showed up... the hippies, artists and teachers hit the roof, because it was their turn to move. Harlem is at the stage now where the celebrities and bankers are showing up ... and like clockwork ... the techies are hitting the roof because it's their turn to move. The thing is ... in the end ... they all moved. They didn't engage in violence. That people are upset should be expected... but I would point out that places like Harlem have gone through this process with multiple populations without violence. It can be done.

dualogy 13y ago
Is there some migration back to where all the celebrities and bankers came from?
- bilbo0s 13y ago
  I wouldn't know... I suspect not... probably just the people that don't leave those buildings combine units. And then, of course, there are the foreigners who just buy apartments and never live in them. It's just a couple of guesses, but I think that's probably how that space is reallocated in those areas. I seriously doubt the displaced techies and hospital administrators can afford to go buy in those areas. I think it's off to Brooklyn (or maybe queens???) with them... at least until the bankers show up there.
13y ago

bonemachine 13y ago

These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families. Oh, get off it, man. All that we "know" about the perpetrators at this point is that they were apparently (1) young and (2) non-black. As to the rest the attributes you impute to them -- as of yet we don't "know" any of these to be fact. At best all you can honestly say at this point would be: Now I don't know for a fact, but ya know, I have a hunch these are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, etc etc ... This is not nit-picking. The fact that you're saying that you "know" everything about their demographic / psychographic makeup when in fact you are merely speculating is what's part of the broader problem here: rather than elucidating the problem, you're subverting the discourse. And more to the point: you're pushing people's buttons, by appealing to stereotypes and their own identity- and privilege-based insecurities. In so many words: you're placing the race card. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_card

jessedhillon 13y ago
a) I have no objection to this phrase and will edit my comment thus. b) I'm reacting to the race card being employed by people who are tokenizing and mascotifying (to coin phrase) the same people who they themselves pushed out!
- bonemachine 13y ago
  I'd just prefer that we stick to the main point -- that the "anarchists"' actions were basically thuggish and coercive in nature, that is to say, anything but "anarchistic." Anything else (e.g. speculation as to their education or class background) is a distraction from what should be the key takeaway here. But overall, fair enough, and thanks for the clarifying edit.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

wavesounds 13y ago

I've gotten into some 'debates' with friends on facebook who are are in the 'anarchist/burner/hipster' persuasion. And It's mostly scape-goating programmers for rents going up. But I do think the Startup community in particular could do a better job interacting with the communities we live in. Especially as more and more people jump on the startup bandwagon and don't really understand the hacker/nerd ethos of protecting the little guy that most of us embrace. The recent remarks of the founder of Anglehack come to mind as something that gives the community a very bad name http://valleywag.gawker.com/happy-holidays-startup-ceo-complains-sf-is-full-of-hum-1481067192 http://valleywag.gawker.com/happy-holidays-startup-ceo-compl... Edit: I do realize more programmers moving to the bay means higher rents I just think its the fault of SF for not building enough housing http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francisco-exodus/7205/ http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/10/san-francis...

api 13y ago
I think the rent issue is definitely real, but isn't the fault of techies. It's the fault of several interacting factors: (1) Anti-development mentality on the part of city councils, zoning boards, etc. (2) Geographic containment of the area. (3) Shitty public transit and overcrowded roads. (4) Foreign investors driving up the price of RE. ... in roughly that order. #1 is largely the fault of this same stereotypical bunch of braindead trustafarian hippies, since they tend to oppose building pretty much anything because it destroys the Earth, man. In so doing they play their role in the gentrification cycle, constraining supply to drive up rents and drive out the genuinely underprivileged. As I said elsewhere: fuck these people.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  #1 is also the fault of conservative property owners, because building new housing lowers the prices of existing houses.
  - api 13y ago
    Yes, it's sort of a de-facto alliance: conservative property owners and clueless braindead slacktivists. Remove the slactivists and their flimsy environmental arguments from the equation and the purely greed-driven NIMBYism of the property owners will become much harder to defend/justify.

JumpCrisscross 13y ago

Fun writeup. Wrong attitude. Silicon Valley technology, this is Manhattan finance with a word of advice. We know the roots of the problem are housing supply restrictions and a lack of mass transit. In essence, City Hall problems. So why are they able to pin the blame on you? Because you're painting a target on your back. Ducking your heads makes you a low-risk scapegoat. Scoffing at the less fortunate, regardless of whether they "deserve" it, makes you a juicy red political filet. I'm not saying you need to up volunteering incentives for technology workers or visibly join hands with your foes and fight City Hall for more housing including, yes, the affordable kind. But don't throw daggers when you're down. As it stands, you're right but you're down.

bilbo0s 13y ago
In Houston I, and several others who live behind the gates on Sunset, have taken to volunteering A LOT of time in Third Ward for this very reason. You're a lot tougher target when your head is raised and you have a track record of advocating for the REAL underprivileged. Because chances are, the people denigrating you would never dare go to a place like Third Ward. (Which is a shame... because the people there are quite nice actually.)
- JumpCrisscross 13y ago
  Can't agree more - I volunteer at an after school programme in Harlem. It connected me with a driven, intelligent 2nd grader who couldn't concentrate because three square meals a day were beyond his family's budget. That pisses one off enough to find real solutions, not duck for political cover.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- chao- 13y ago
  Montrose resident here. I don't have anyone denigrating me, but I wouldn't mind helping out folks in the Third Ward. Do you volunteer with any particular group or charity?
13y ago

duairc 13y ago

“I own property”

dylandrop 13y ago

It's understandable that you'd be upset if you knew this was a case of rich white kids playing the race card, but you don't -- all we know is that some of the protesters were white. Making generalizations is counterproductive. "These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families." ..because this is all obvious evidence of the article.

louthy 13y ago

> These are Burning Man hippies... Clearly a man with inside knowledge. Which BM hippies was it? Larry Page and Sergey Brin perhaps?

wil421 13y ago

> These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families. New name for them: Hipstervists

blhack 13y ago

>These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors This is such a stupid position to take. First of all, do you realize that those "Burning Man Hippies" are, uh, literally the people who started google? Do you realize that google has made enormous donations to those "burning man hippies"? And yes, "uesless degrees". History, art, literature, these are all "useless" of course, the only valid degrees are either hard science and hard engineering, I'm sure? What aspects of life do you enjoy, man? A good design aesthetic? Cause that's art... Or, perhaps good food? That's also art. Maybe a good book, wait... Architecture? Beauty? Something? Possibly something that poets and artists have given you a context for, or study? -- This is such a stupid lazy attitude to take. Come out of your hole sometime and you'll find a whole world out here full of things that you can enjoy. Just try to steer clear of those pesky "artists" who got useless degrees. -- The people who are crying about google's buses are idiots. Don't group them together with artists or "burning man hippies".

hcurtiss 13y ago
I think by "useless," he meant, "useless for purposes of making money."
- etjossem 13y ago
  Apple made a lot of money by not thinking this way, and other big companies in SV have started to notice. Skilled industrial/UX designers often come out of a humanities or art major. In fact, so do developers, product managers, and marketing staff. Blame the protesters for throwing bricks into a bus window, but don't blame their majors.
  - Crito 13y ago
    I don't think this is a case of Apple employees smashing up Google buses. Maybe their peers from college who got the same degrees went off to find productive jobs, but I am struggling to believe that these particular people did. If you cannot leverage your degree, then your degree is worthless (at least in your hands).

danudey 13y ago

A very similar situation is happening in Vancouver. In the older part of town, just past Gastown, Vancouver's original neighbourhood, lies the Downtown East Side. The DTES is 'Canada's poorest postal code', and is home to a large population of Vancouver's homeless. In true Canadian fashion, it's generally a safe and vibrant area, both despite and because of the homeless population living there (compared to the suburbs, where bored teenagers assault the elderly for something to do). Recently, a few businesses have been cropping up; one of them, Save on Meats, opened a butcher shop and a diner; more accurately, re-opened, as Save on Meats was a cornerstone of the neighbourhood for decades before the previous owners closed it. The current owner bought the building, renovated it (or, more accurately, refurbished and restored it), began hiring the homeless and poor of the neighbourhood, and began a series of social programs aimed at benefitting the area. Their sandwich counter, a street-facing breakfast sandwich dispensary, introduced 'sandwich tokens', which can be bought from them in quantity and traded in by anyone for a warm meal. It's a convenient way to give someone something that you know will be traded in for food, without having to go out of your way to purchase it. Everyone loves it, and even the police who patrol the DTES will give out tokens to people in the neighbourhood. Another restaurant opened lately, called Pidgin, across from a location called Pigeon Park, a common area of congregation for the DTES's residents, homeless or otherwise. On occasions, it's blocked off and turned into a giant street market, where individuals sell whatever items they've managed to scrounge up, trade, for, buy, or sell. Pidgin is a nice restaurant, it's the upper end of midrange, a place you could certainly go to in jeans and a button-down, but you might fit in better in a suit and tie. Then came the protesters. The protesters came, spurred on by a feeling that Pidgin was making fun of the homeless people across the street, like a slap in the face. Ignoring the fact that Pidgin also hires people from the neighbourhood, the protesters congregated outside of the restaurant every day, shouting and harassing the restaurant, the staff, and the patrons. All this despite the fact that the people who actually live in the area disagree with them; both the homeless and jobless poor and the more well-to-do people who live, work, and own businesses in the area. The other facet that the protesters seem to ignore is that part of the problem with the homeless population in Vancouver is a problem of perception; many people, especially those from the suburbs, see the DTES as full of dirty violent criminals, where you'll get knifed for your sneakers before you know it, Canada's Detroit. The reality is that these are just normal people in awful circumstances, making the best of what they have. The more people who see that, and who see how wrong their horrible misconceptions about the poor are, the easier it will be to gain support from the voting populace to improve conditions there, and the less uphill the fight will be to convince others that these people aren't lost causes cluttering up the streets of Vancouver's history. The protesters never cared though. Even after being told by police to stop harassing people, even after being told off by people who've run businesses in the DTES for years, and working against the needs and wishes of the community in the DTES, they kept protesting. And what population of them even live in the area? What population knows anything about the homeless that they're white-knighting? None of them. They're largely comprised of people from the suburbs, people who commute from all over the region to tell everyone how these people feel without ever asking them. Some leaders of the protest were even forced to give up their allegiances with organizations who actually aim to help the homeless populations, because their missions were so at odds and they were giving these charitable organizations such a bad name. So the idea that trust-fund hipsters and well-meaning interlopers will thrust themselves violently and unnecessarily into a 'class warfare' which didn't exist (or wasn't as heated or unpleasant) before their interference isn't a strictly Oakland issue either. This behaviour, which focusses on driving people apart and creating open conflict where none existed, contrasts directly with what is necessary, which is for people to understand one another and interact. It's pretty sad.