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Bittersweet Biopic Recounts Final Hours in Oscar Grant’s Life


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still-from-fruitvale-station.jpg

 

Oscar Grant's Shooting was recorded by witnesses and uploaded to Youtube:

 

 

Grants story was captured in the new film Fruitvale Station, which we reviewed.

 

What I don't understand is why I had never heard this story until I learned about this film.  I did a search of Oscar Grants name on this website and there was nothing (other the information about this film) which is unusual -- especially back then -- because we usually hit on most of the topics of the day.

 

This story, unlike Travon's was captured on film and has tons of eye witnesses.  The shooting was inexplicable.

 

The police officer who served just two years in prison say he was confused between his gun and his taser?!?  Unbelievable.

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  • 2 weeks later...

When I see the trailer for that movie on television I think of the threads you've done on this tragedy.

I haven't seen the movie yet and it appears to have been done by a talented young brother.
However what I do find a little disturbing is the HISTORY of Mr.Grant's life.

According to the film he sold dope, had a trouble life, and even went to prison.
Now although this doesn't necessarily make him a "bad person" and CERTAINLY doesn't warrant him being tossed about and shot in the back by transit cops......it doesn't look good.

It kind of "muddy's" the image of him as a martyr.


I'm not sure if these are actual facts, or if the director used a bit of his poetic license to add to Mr. Grant's character but it certainly doesn't look good for so many Black victims of racism and police brutality to have records of drug involvement and criminality themselves.


Outside of Trayvon Martin, how many times do we have an.....I guess "opportunity" for lack of a better term....of a CLEAR CUT case of a decent Black man with no criminal background who was doing absolutely nothing wrong being hunted down and shot point blank by the police?
Why do so many of these cases end up with the victim being smeared with a shady background?
 

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Pioneer look at it this way, Black men are; arrested and stopped at much higher rates than whites and given much harsher sentences when convicted.  So the probability of any Black man in ANY situation will have a higher likelihood of having a history with the criminal justice system. 

 

There are PLENTY of cases of Black people being gunned down just here in NYC who were COMPLETELY innocent.  One famous was that of  Amadou Diallo.

 

Amadou was killed after Midnight on February 4, 1999, by four New York City police officers from the Street Crime Unit. Amadou had come home from work to his apartment at 1157 Wheeler Avenue in the Soundview Section of the Bronx and decided to go back out to get something to eat. Upon his return, he encountered the police officers who ultimately fired a fuselage of 41 shots, 19 of which riddled his body. Amadou was unarmed and did not threaten the officers in any way. Diallo’s death sparked massive public demonstrations against police brutality and racial profiling.

 

The po-po claimed, of course, that Amadou brandished a weapon.  I guess Five-0 don't watch movies 'cause they could have planted one.

 

I met Amadou's mother on couple of occasions, including this event where you can read more about the case, she is an impressive woman.

 

Man I've been stopped by the police more times than I can remember -- seriously.  One at least three occasions I was concerned about my own safety.  I could have easily -- EASILY behaved in a manner to make the situation much worse, but I kept my cool.  In those situations I had done absolutely nothing wrong.

 

I'm not suggesting that the police are all bad.  But the are working class folks, often in tough, sometimes life threatening situations, and under pressure from everyone. 

 

Officers are modern day overseers or "officeseers" as KRS-1 once described.

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Pioneer look at it this way, Black men are; arrested and stopped at much higher rates than whites and given much harsher sentences when convicted. So the probability of any Black man in ANY situation will have a higher likelihood of having a history with the criminal justice system.

 

Interesting point......

Although I know most police departments tend to stop Black men more than other demographic groups believe it or not I hadn't really looked at it from that point of view.

However, this alleviates my dismay only a little bit because from what I've observed in America so far I'm still convinced that too many Black youth have been given over to a "criminal mind" that seems to JUSTIFY in the minds of too many the rough behavior they get from the police.

When you as a White person grow up in a society where you see Black men....not just on television but in REAL LIFE....bragging about who they busted in the mouth, bragging about how much dope they sold, walking around slinging their arms and rapping to themselves up and down the street, bragging about being a thug or criminal.

These White boys who see this don't erase all of these images when they join the police force, they keep them in their mind if only in the subconscious.

Police officers come from the same population pool that sounds the rest of America, they are human being prone to the same prejudices despite their training.

This doesn't justify shooting an innocent unarmed man in the back then handcuffing him ofcourse, but the criminal mindedness and criminal history of so many of our young brothers put things in context.

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Pioneer the way young Black men present, on the the street, is a direct consequence of living in an oppressive and racist society.  To many that sounds like an excuse, but the situation will not change, indeed it will get worse, until we remedy the underlying problem.

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