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It was only a matter of time. Just a matter of a few years before the crime we read about and see in the mainstream media news outlets hit the new media circuit, specifically video distribution services like YouTube and now it's a regular happening, largely ignored by the blogs. No more, at least here in my blog network.
I warn you. What you're about to see are a series of videos created in Oakland, California that are violent but give a real view of what's happening in East Oakland. The YouTube channel creating the videos in this case, there are other examples, is called "EASTOAKAND106" which is to give the location that's the focal point of their vlogging activity: the neighborhood around 106th avenue and Mac Arthur Boulevard in East Oakland and the nightime (and some times, daytime) "sideshows" that take place.
The sideshow is a variation of cruising in the summer, where one gets in their car and drives up and down a street just to look at others in their cars doing the same thing. It's that simple. Teenage girls wear little at all and guys come out to see them and the cars, but in recent years its turned into a "skid mark" competition where at times someone fires a gun.
Street Justice
The first video I posted at Oakland Focus few days ago and it shows a couple of young black men seemingly harassing a white man wearing little in the way of clothes because it apparently from the video they made him take them off. But they claim - or at least someone who sent a message to me - that man was trying to sell drugs on their block and himself was harming a homeless man. Moreover, in the video, he reportedly asked them "What kind of African are you?" - smart move, right? So from their point of view, they were just administering justice:
The Sideshow
This second video gives one an idea of what a night at "The Sideshow" is like. Here, cars burn rubber in a circle in the middle of an intersection while some of the passengers, like the young fellow in the white shirt who steps out of the Lexus sedan, run out of the cars in a kind of game to try and get out of the way of the vehicles as they move.
The third video below was uploaded on July 21st and is best described by using the video makers own words on the video's YouTube page:
Grey Mustang at the sideshow putting it down hard as he always do. This was at 90th & Bancroft which is one of the main spots it goes down. The starting on 1:33--end of vid it isa live shoot out. it was some people shooting at each other. This happens all the time at the sideshows people shooting or being shot at. It seems this is a normal night in a East Oakland Sideshow.
Here's that video:
Video uploads like that are common on YouTube, but ignored by the blogs and news bureaus, while city government just doesn't know they're there. But if coverage of this side of urban life were common, perhaps we could bring these dangerous activities to a peaceful end. I certainly hope that Oakland government officials don't try to have the videos taken down - that would be a mistake. Regardless of how you feel about the videos they're the only window we have to see what's really happening in East Oakland.
It's the same story as it has been in Oakland for some time: black kids with nothing to do and little supervision making their own fun and games using cars and in some cases guns and with a potentially dangerous outcome.
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