Oakland Gentrification–Get Rid Of Poor Residents–Forcibly When Necessary [Picture]

How A Brutal Beating Became The Symbol Of Oakland’s Gentrification Struggle

In a city wrestling with fast-rising housing costs and demographic change, a security guard’s attack of a poor black man at Whole Foods has come to represent what many black residents fear: Oakland wants them.  

A dispute a few aisles away punctured the quiet hum of the supermarket: A customer was arguing with a couple of Whole Foods employees about a problem with his welfare benefits card, more commonly known as an EBT card. The employees wanted the man to go to the customer service counter and let others through. The shopper kept arguing and wouldn’t budge. One of the store’s armed security guards moved in and tried to escort him away, the sisters said.

That’s when the confrontation turned violent. The security guard twice swung the man into the concrete wall, pinched his nose, and put him in a headlock, the sisters said. “It’s like the security guard was re-enacting a Mortal Kombat scene,” Zoe said.

In only a few seconds, the shopper — a 27-year-old black male who hasn’t been identified — was left sprawled on the pavement outside the store, unconscious and bleeding from the head and face. The security guard quickly closed the doors to the store, casting the man out into the darkness. The sisters watched in bewilderment, almost absentmindedly paying for their items.

“In the moment, I couldn’t really fathom what had just happened,” Julia said. “I feel bad that I finished the purchase.”

When the sisters got outside, they were surprised to find the man still on the ground. He was motionless but still breathing. Someone called 911. Zoe took pictures while everyone waited for an ambulance.

Courtesy Zoe Marks

In her photos, the man’s plaid boxers are exposed, his jeans pulled down around his knees. In another image, his arms are folded under his head as a pool of blood forms underneath him. Another shows him on a gurney, surrounded by three emergency responders with his neck in a brace. There are no pictures of his face. “I’m adamant about protecting his identity,” said Zoe, a lecturer at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh, who was in town for a conference.

When it opened in September 2007, this Whole Foods was celebrated as the first new grocery store in Oakland in 20 years. But in a city of about 414,000 where little affordable housing is being built, and poorer residents find themselves unable to find a home, the store has gone from a symbol of progress to one of exclusion.

More than a month later, little is known about the men involved in the commotion that prompted all of the renewed focus on the store. The city’s police and fire departments haven’t identified either of the men in their sparsely detailed and heavily redacted reports from the scene. Whole Foods wouldn’t comment on whether cameras in the store had recorded footage of the alleged attack. No charges have been filed, and Oakland Police said the investigation is still ongoing.

After the sisters gave their statements to the police, they plopped down at one of the tables outside of the Whole Foods with a couple of other witnesses. They all tried, but failed, to make sense of what they had seen.

“It was definitely a shocking thing to see,” said Adam Sussman, who arrived at the store just as the man was tossed onto the sidewalk. “There was a lot of anger at what the security guard had done.”

Once the sisters were by themselves, on the short, brisk walk home in the dark, they debated whether to share their pictures on social media. “The shock and sorrow had passed and we were angry,” Julia said. “It wasn’t until we got home that we tried to be more … we thought about the next step.”

Zoe spent the next hour crafting a 178-word Facebook post and attached her photos from the scene. “I’m sorry for more graphic images of violence against black citizens,” she wrote. “Does anyone know with whom and how we can share this story most justly and effectively?”

Although she had only around 500 followers, Zoe tweeted the images at the Whole Foods account and by the next morning, they had been shared nearly 4,000 times on Facebook and viewed about 70,000 times on Twitter, thanks to a boost from anti–police brutality activists and community leaders. “We take this very serious,” Whole Foods tweeted back to her. “We are investigating this immediately.” But a week later, frustrated with perceived inaction on the store’s part, protesters stormed the aisles of Whole Foods, forcing it to close early.

The timing, and symbolism, of the incident and the subsequent images weren’t lost on those who live in this rapidly changing city. In the very emblem of gentrification — a retailer that has come to symbolize white bohemian affluence, the kind that enjoys the “grit” of an urban neighborhood but not the people already living there — a poor black man was assaulted, ejected, and left to bleed on the ground, personifying the fear of many black residents: Oakland wants them out.