2700 Block of Grande Vista, Oakland

As I sat on my bedroom couch relishing my brilliant second half wager on the Saints for Monday Night Football, I flipped through the local stations and immediately a local news story shifted my mood. The KTVU Bay Area Fox 2 News reported that for no reason, three men in Oakland beat down a five-foot-tall 80-year-old Chinese woman. The senseless and barbaric act only preceded the recent CQ Press announcement that Oakland ranked 5th in the nation’s crime ratings (New Orleans pulled in the top spot). For those of us from Oakland, this isn’t the first case of senseless violence in the town.

Where in July 2004, a group of teen boys between ages 16-20 were arrested for beating a homeless man to death with wooden boards and shooting him with BB guns. 

With this recent assault, the following is an excerpt from the FOX KTVU Bay Area news report:

OAKALND, Calif. – Oakland police Monday night asked for the public’s help in the search for three young men who viciously beat a little old lady last week, leaving her hospitalized and fighting for her life.

The attack took place last Thursday while the elderly Chinese woman was collecting cans and bottles in the 2700 block of Grande Vista Avenue in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood. Oakland police are calling this attack barbaric and investigators are asking the public for help in solving the crime.

Robert Burks lives just steps from where the 80-year-old woman was severely beaten that Thursday evening around 6 p.m.

“She was right here, between the sidewalk and the street. It was full of blood,” remembered Burks. “They kicked her and kicked her and beat her with a stick and broke it in two. Then they stood by her laughing.”

The victim is described as being under than five feet tall and weighing a mere one hundred pounds. Yet police say three men in their twenties ganged up on her and beat her unconscious, but did not take anything from her.

[...]

Oakland police and the mayor’s office announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the three suspects. Police say the 80-year-old victim is in the hospital suffering from life-threatening injuries.

Full Report: http://www.ktvu.com/news/18056017/detail.html

 

I’m not ready to begin claiming hate crime or that this assault carried underlying ethnic motivation, but the incident certainly begs the question whether the same thing would have occurred if the old lady was white, black, Latino, green, blue, or anything else. 

The Bay Area has seen it’s share of senseless hate crimes over the years and though we never know what drives the minds of the degenerates who commit such heinous acts, any interracial crime today seems to revive the vestiges of our racially conscious American past. In the Bay Area, most notably Silvia Kim’s story in 1997 first comes to mind after hearing about this act.

Sylvia Kim 1997

Sylvia Kim

In 1997, as Sylvia Kim walked out of a crowded bookstore in San Francisco’s Union Square, a tall Caucasian male approached and confronted Sylvia and said to her “My mother is not Chinese, but you are,” before assaulting Sylvia. Sylvia, a 50-year old Korean-born citizen, tried her best to avoid the situation, but the man was persistent and violence soon ensued. In San Francisco’s crowded downtown commercial area, the man at one point picked Sylvia up and threw her against a wall as bystanders walked by. The Caucasian male was never caught and remains at large today.

Race In America

10 years have passed since Sylvia’s story and here we are faced with news of another barbaric assault. Again, we don’t know if race had anything to do with the Oakland case. But here we are in the 21st century, are soon-to-be President Obama is black and some will go as far as to say racism is a thing of the past. But as glaring incidents like this case continue, you can still peoples true feelings in unaccountable YouTube comments, and Red states voting more Republican than ever, racism still permeates through American Society.

To the miscreants that attacked the elderly lady, people have to step up for justice to be served.