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This story below reminds me -- in a remote way -- of a small but disturbing matter that happened at Cafe Van Kleef and to me. I was talking to a couple of fellow Cal grad friends who were both white and female when I made a motion that accidentally bumped into this person as he walked by. No big deal, to me. But this guy said "That was intentional" and after I said it wasn't and he was reacting weirdly, then said "It's reverse discrimination in Oakland" -- he was White. I told him to go away as that was sick. This matter r eported in the Sf Chronicle is worse: (02-01) 18:40 PST -- Brandon Manning says he never saw it coming. One minute he was hanging out with seven seemingly friendly guys in a park, the next he said he was on the ground, the blows coming from all sides, a fist or foot landing hard enough to fracture six bones in his face. But it was the words accompanying the blows that made Manning, 24, think he was about to die. &q

More at Inside Bay Area and at Piedmont USD : “Three 12-year-old Piedmont boys are waiting to learn their punishment for spray-painting the "N" word across a Havens Elementary School wall. Police are calling it a hate crime targeting teacher Marjorie Lawson, since it was scrawled outside her office. Lawson is one of two African-American educators in the Piedmont Unified School District. It's still not clear why the young suspects came forward on Dec. 4, but Piedmont Police Department Capt. John Hunt said the boys voluntarily gave statements to both school officials and a detective about the crime. "We then contacted the victim (Lawson) again, to let her know what we learned," he said. "She already had some information from Havens, but we wanted her to know we notified the juvenile probation department and it's up to them how they proceed legally," explained Hunt, who couldn't give too many details since the suspects are underage. "I can te