Icheoku says just take a look at those squirrel-eyes and condescending look of Chinese Mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan, at the departing black Police Chief, Anthony Bates, and the body language spoke it all - a kind of "just hurry up and get the fuck out of here" body language and demeaning look. What a day in the formerly Black Panthers city by the bay that a black police chief is frustrated out of his job in a black city by a frigging Chinese woman? Once again the endangered species in America's work places have lost a city job and in a city supposedly black, founded and nurtured by blacks; and internationalized by the Black Panthers Organization? The fast becoming new minority among the minorities of America, the usually outnumbered-folks of America has lost one of their own's food-basket and in Oakland for crying out loud? In a well orchestrated move, the recently elected mayor by default, a Chinese woman, cleverly manipulated the black police chief out of office as she forced his resignation by making it very difficult if not utterly impossible for the chief to effectively function as a chief. Icheoku queries, how can you ask a man to police a city as dangerous and crime-laden as Oakland, reputed to be the most violent crime ridden city in California, without providing him necessary tools and manpower with which to do the job? First the city reduced the number of available police staff for the chief from 803 to 651 and severely cut his operational budget; they also set aside three crime-fighting proposals that the chief had supported; they also refused to implement federal court's mandated reforms of the city's police department just to give him a bad name as 'a not good enough incompetent black chief;' and lastly the chief was buffeted by a mayor that is bigoted and who never saw anything good of a black police chief from day one; forcing him to do so much with so very little as to compromise his ability to maximally function effectively and to the best of his ability?
With the mayor's drowning waters to his neck, the chief had to "resign" - a politically correct term deployed not to rankle the polity any further. In the forced-out police chief's words, he said "I found myself with limited control, but full accountability." Icheoku says who could operate under such an unwanted environment made more difficult by a mayor who cannot stand black people especially one manning her city's police department? Should this particular blackman turn into "angry blackman in America," people will pretend not to know where he is coming from; but such shabby treatment as he just received in the hands of the Chinese Mayor of City of Oakland is the reason why some people in America are seen or perceived as perpetually being angry? Icheoku says America cannot fully heal until there is a real searching of souls and change in peoples perception of others who do not look like them; when content of one's character becomes the overriding factor and not just skin's pigmentation or melanin. Icheoku makes bold to say that were Police Chief Bates any other race including Chinese, his condition of work would have been much merrier and tools of trade adequately provided to enable him succeed and succeed well.
Sadly enough, the mayor is blaming the failure to reform her city's police department on the outgoing chief; needless to say that the reform was mandated by a Federal Court since 2000 ever before the chief was hired on October 2009; and with so many thorns and road blocks strewn along his path to make any reform impossible under him, only as expected to now blame him for failure to comply with the court's order. This shameless Chinese Mayor of Oakland is saying with bold face that she didn't ask the police chief to resign? Quoting her, she said, "I didn't ask him to leave, but if he were to leave, this is a good time so somebody else can move this next phase forward." Icheoku says such lines as this are familiar as they are akin to the other firing words, "you have no problem with us, you did a good job, but we have decided to let you go;" and you are lost by the oxymoron.
Icheoku says to the Chinese mayor of Oakland, if publicly you did not ask Chief Bates to leave, yet makes it impossible for the chief to do his job, who is being fooled here? Who among us cannot read in between the lines unless those words "by necessary implication" have lost their meaning on you, Madam Chinese Mayor? We all understands fully the nature of the game and how people protect their rear-ends by turning themselves into the man behind the mask or the puppet strings puller just to protect themselves both legally and politically. So Madam Chinese mayor of Oakland, you do not need to tell the chief "You are fired" before he reads your lips and body language, including your evil-eyes that you want him so long gone that standing beside him on a podium is one hell of a disgusting chore for you! Look at the picture above, Madam. But hey, this is America and people understand that racism is very much alive and well; admitted most of it have gone subterranean. Icheoku says I don't need you to call me a nigger for me to know that you are looking at me and thinking of me as one - it is most times inbred and intuitive.
The Mayor did not ask him to leave, yet her city dillydallied on all the chief's proposed crime fighting programs to move the city forward in its crime fighting effort or lack thereof? They delaying approval for their implementation continuously and without any cogent reason whatsoever, including the chief's planned expansion of an existing civil gang injunctions, implementing youth curfews and beefing up a loitering ordinance. Icheoku says that similar measures were implemented in a sister city across the bay, San Francisco, successfully and it made San Francisco a very safe city; yet a black police chief adopted same for Oakland but city officials will have none of it. It is also important to note that some of these measures were in place and being implemented before the arrival of the now departing chief but were stalled by city bureaucracy under the outgoing chief and Icheoku would like to add, on purpose. But what do they care - they do not live in those crime infested neighborhoods of East Oakland and it is not their people and young ones that are daily being mowed down with AK-47s in the streets of East Oakland.
It is also heart-wrenching that Chief Bates came to Oakland police department committed to do the right thing to help folks move away from unnecessary violence against themselves but is now leaving frustrated? Views which was echoed by Oakland city council member Ignacio De La Fuente when he said, "We should be ashamed that we can't retain a chief who actually wants to do his job." To this Icheoku adds, such is the plight of the blackman in America, who although come well prepared to get a job done but is never allowed, motivated and at best ill-motivated to do the job when hired and eventually frustrated and/or fired from the job; much unlike his counterparts of other races who operate on much better pillow-top like conditions.
This chief severally complained of the straight-jacket condition he was forced to do his job in, as Oakland police chief; but no one listened at the city hall as they methodically perfected and implemented a well choreographed template to shove him out of the chief's seat. They literally undermined his every effort to be as good a chief as he can be - they cut his staff, cut his budget, curbed the use of gang injunctions which had worked very well in the past, grounded the police crime helicopter and you wonder what the city expected him to do in hot pursuits of criminals and also refused to implement curfews in gang-riddled neighborhoods. To add insult to injury, the city undercut his powers by directly negotiating with the city's police union, giving them a four day 10-hour shifts per week instead of the more flexible five-day, 8-hour shifts which made it easier for a chief to deploy officers as the need arises. Who would take the shafting of his rear in this manner except a shriveling ass-licker, who values a job more than his integrity, which fortunately the chief is not. Icheoku applauds the chief's courageous' enough is enough approach to the unfriendly climate created in Oakland city hall by the Chinese city mayor. The chief was somebody before the Oakland city job and would remain a somebody thereafter; and like other forced out black top officials of Oakland city, with time he will land something bigger and greener elsewhere.
A willing soul, who came to Oakland police department, prepared and ready to do his job as the police chief, has now been frustrated and forced out of the department, leading to his lament that 'it was difficult in Oakland for a "chief to be chief." His marginalisation was so bad and so obvious that one commentator said, 'Chief Anthony Bates "was a chief in title only and he refused to play that game. Who could blame him." Icheoku says and so goes the story of every blackman trying to keep his job in America - either you condescendingly kowtow to dictations of every sort from all manners of funny looking people, whose qualifier might be their lighter paler skin, with grave heart-attack triggering silence or your ass is history in that workplace. But in the case of Chief Anthony Bates, he was courageous enough to walk away with his heads high instead of becoming a poodle of a Chinese mystery woman; who magically found herself occupying the Oakland city mayor's seat which was won by Senator Don Peralta, by reason of the ridiculous "ranked choice vote or second-overall best-option" mayoral ballot system implemented in Oakland last November. What a day in Oakland that a city, literally found and groomed by the Black Panther's Movement is now at the mercy of a Chinese Mayor who sees "repugnance" in a black police chief and wanted him out ever before she was sworn in?
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