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Indybay Feature
Oakland Home, Mis-Identified as Fascist on BayAreaAntiFa, attacked last night
Article referenced in my post was formerly posted here, on reddit, and on FireWorks (now both removed) but still live on BayAreaInfanta: http://bayareaantifa.noblogs.org/post/2015/02/04/oakland-fascists-in-north-oaklandtemescal/
Now my friends' home has been attacked, and I am posting for clarification.
1 - Thanks to IndyBay, to reddit author "cosmic" and to FireWorks, for reading my, and our friends' letters, and for taking this article down from your sites. This home is rented by my friends, as well as an Eritrean family, and a Chinese acupuncturist.
2 - The article, posted on BayAreaAntiFA is still live here: http://bayareaantifa.noblogs.org/post/2015/02/04/oakland-fascists-in-north-oaklandtemescal/
And the acupuncturist sign in this article was tagged NO NAZIS IN OTOWN last night. Right in front of my friends and the Eitrean family's home.
The poster of the article even acknowledges errors in its posting:
"Re-post from Indybay, where it has since been deleted. While certain elements may be overconfidently definitive, or simply unsubstantiated, we feel it warrants dissemination regardless."
This BayAreaAntiFa posting is simply irresponsible. I know IndyBay has nothing to do with what's on BayAreaAntiFa, but I'm posting here in hopes that the OP sees and takes down (registration / contact seems impossible on BayAreaAntiFa).
And at the very least, people who WOULD see the BayAreaAntiFa article and take action get all the facts / not put my friends in danger. I understand your desires to bring justice to fascists / nazi's / racists, but you have the wrong target.
I'll edit later this afternoon w/ a video walkaround of the home to dispute the other tag photo in the BayAreaAntiFa posting.
I'm Filipino. I'm friends with the people who legally rent this home. All of them.
They are not fascists.
They are not Nazi's.
They are not racists.
They live in harmony with this neighborhood.
Most of them have grown up in Oakland in lower-middle class families, and are certainly not a part of the gentrification that's overtaking the area.
I'm one of the people who originally asked for this post to be taken down from indybay, as well as my jewish friend Adam, who is their friend as well. One of our friends who's a renter there is Mexican. Our circle of friends includes Peruvians, African Americans (many of whom self-identify as black vs. AA), Mexicans, Hondurans, Japanese, South Korean, Hindi, Jamaicans, Haitians, Hawaiians, Tongans, Brazilians, Indigenous Americans, that I can think of right off the top of my head.
The people who live in this house cannot monitor 24/7 for graffiti. If the BayAreaAntiFa who had posted this had seen this house over the past 5 years, such would be very evident.
Noone is being done a service with this post. Not victims of facism / nazism / racism. Not the impoverished residents of this neighborhood who are threatened by gentrification. And certainly not my friends, who are in no way affiliated with the finger-pointing in this post.
If anything happens to my friends, the Eritrean family, or the Chinese acupuncturist for this post, BayAreaAntiFA are to blame. Not my friends. This does not sit well with me, nor our circle of friends. And despite all the good intentions of the poster, the Real facists / nazi's / racists will continue unabated, and unidentified.
If you have contact with BayAreaAntiFa, please relay my message:
Please, for the love of decency that drives your antifacist efforts, take this post down. Just as you and your friends would want to never be mis-labeled / misidentified / wrongly accused, my friends want the same. And they deserve to be left alone by people who would fashion themselves crusaders of your cause.
This has been written in respect, and I hope you read it with the earnestness that I intend.
Respectfully,
Robert Kurtz
Oakland CA
2 - The article, posted on BayAreaAntiFA is still live here: http://bayareaantifa.noblogs.org/post/2015/02/04/oakland-fascists-in-north-oaklandtemescal/
And the acupuncturist sign in this article was tagged NO NAZIS IN OTOWN last night. Right in front of my friends and the Eitrean family's home.
The poster of the article even acknowledges errors in its posting:
"Re-post from Indybay, where it has since been deleted. While certain elements may be overconfidently definitive, or simply unsubstantiated, we feel it warrants dissemination regardless."
This BayAreaAntiFa posting is simply irresponsible. I know IndyBay has nothing to do with what's on BayAreaAntiFa, but I'm posting here in hopes that the OP sees and takes down (registration / contact seems impossible on BayAreaAntiFa).
And at the very least, people who WOULD see the BayAreaAntiFa article and take action get all the facts / not put my friends in danger. I understand your desires to bring justice to fascists / nazi's / racists, but you have the wrong target.
I'll edit later this afternoon w/ a video walkaround of the home to dispute the other tag photo in the BayAreaAntiFa posting.
I'm Filipino. I'm friends with the people who legally rent this home. All of them.
They are not fascists.
They are not Nazi's.
They are not racists.
They live in harmony with this neighborhood.
Most of them have grown up in Oakland in lower-middle class families, and are certainly not a part of the gentrification that's overtaking the area.
I'm one of the people who originally asked for this post to be taken down from indybay, as well as my jewish friend Adam, who is their friend as well. One of our friends who's a renter there is Mexican. Our circle of friends includes Peruvians, African Americans (many of whom self-identify as black vs. AA), Mexicans, Hondurans, Japanese, South Korean, Hindi, Jamaicans, Haitians, Hawaiians, Tongans, Brazilians, Indigenous Americans, that I can think of right off the top of my head.
The people who live in this house cannot monitor 24/7 for graffiti. If the BayAreaAntiFa who had posted this had seen this house over the past 5 years, such would be very evident.
Noone is being done a service with this post. Not victims of facism / nazism / racism. Not the impoverished residents of this neighborhood who are threatened by gentrification. And certainly not my friends, who are in no way affiliated with the finger-pointing in this post.
If anything happens to my friends, the Eritrean family, or the Chinese acupuncturist for this post, BayAreaAntiFA are to blame. Not my friends. This does not sit well with me, nor our circle of friends. And despite all the good intentions of the poster, the Real facists / nazi's / racists will continue unabated, and unidentified.
If you have contact with BayAreaAntiFa, please relay my message:
Please, for the love of decency that drives your antifacist efforts, take this post down. Just as you and your friends would want to never be mis-labeled / misidentified / wrongly accused, my friends want the same. And they deserve to be left alone by people who would fashion themselves crusaders of your cause.
This has been written in respect, and I hope you read it with the earnestness that I intend.
Respectfully,
Robert Kurtz
Oakland CA
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meanwhile, ever think that maybe there is no "bay area antifa" to blame, and that antifascists (like the ones who singled out this house in the first place) operate autonomously? you really think that the people who repost shit to some obscure blog are to blame instead of the people who actually did the graffiti?
not to mention, "attacked" is pretty harsh words for what appears to be written with a marker. i wouldn't mind the front of my house saying "No Nazis In OTown" (especially compared to the "art" next door) unless i had a problem with the message itself...
and in defense of this house, the main argument is "i have friends that are black"? this is what gives you the authority to say whether or not one of your friends is a potential fascist? ha
i've also heard separately from this whole debacle that the house was a squat, by the people that would know these things. i've never seen anyone there that wasn't white. maybe that's a coincidence. maybe your friends aren't fascists but are trying to keep their squatting on the DL so they have to deny both?
If you reread my post, you'll see that I address both the people who posted originally, as well as the people who would be inspired by the posting to take action. Of course both parties would act autonomously.
"Attacked" gets used all the time when accusatory words are graffiti'ed on a person's home.
I'm Filipino. The first person to jump to our friend's defense is Jewish. And yes there are black friends. As well as a multitude of other ethnicities in our circle of friends. And we all know the people who live in this home. Have for years. And they are not Facists, Nazi's, or Racists. The ethnicities of our friends is gives me a right to make this statement a hundred people of color who've known these people for decades wouldn't stay friends with them if they were Nazi's. We Know them.
Your sources for the Squat rumor are wrong. If you look on the right side of the of the home, you'll see 6 well maintained locking mailboxes, that are still in use. My friends are under lease there. They pay PG&E, EBMUD, and Waste Management to manage gas / electric / sewage / recycling / garbage.
Go and talk to the acupuncturist that runs a practice out of the first floor during his business hours. He's licensed by the City of Oakland to operate out of that home.
It's not rocket science. There's no need to hide squatting, because there is no squatting.
Your People Would Know These Things don't know the basic easiest truth: They are wrong. We know the residents of this house personally.
If you don't mind poorly scrawled graffiti declaring "NO NAZIS IN OTOWN" on a business sign attached to the front of your home, go paint one on your own house. My friends do not. My friends do not want to piss their landlord off with some stupid internet flame war physically manifested in graffiti on a sign attached to a business run out of their home.
That address in the photograph from BayAreaAntiFa is 3231 Telegraph. And the BayAreaAntiFa writeup itself lists the address as 3227 Telegraph, as I posted in the screenshot above.
That's because 3227, the shithole home NEXT DOOR is abandoned. (facing our friends' home, it's to the left). The one with the 'art' you refer to. And it's totally possible that's being squatted.
I know this because, as I just found out when trying to type this reply properly, BayAreaAntiFa just deleted the home photo and redacted the address they published:
http://bayareaantifa.noblogs.org/post/2015/02/04/oakland-fascists-in-north-oaklandtemescal/
"The house in questions resides at {Redacted} Telegraph Avenue {Redacted}. The house is squatted and should be in the hands of those dispossessed by gentrification in North Oakland, not imported nazis."
BayAreaAntiFa posted the article, singling our friends' home out, and under false pretense / limited information. For proof of such, look no further than the home's image now being missing and the address being redacted from their article:
http://bayareaantifa.noblogs.org/post/2015/02/04/oakland-fascists-in-north-oaklandtemescal/
My friends who live in that home, as well as our circle of friends, did not scrawl NO NAZIS IN OTOWN graffiti on their home in some misguided attempt to "mislead people what facists are and what fascism is by leading people to a dead end" - to quote you.
We're all adults. With jobs. And goals. And lives. Lives that don't include high school games like making up a fake antifa campaign based on bad intel and the reprecussions of such.
We did not want to be a part of this.
We do not want to be a part of this now.
I don't even want to be typing this, but I have to. Now.
Because people like You are so wrapped up in your cause that you think anyone who crosses paths with antifa that doesn't have your special antifa club card, or dental-floss stitched antifa silkscreen vest patch, or whatever it is that gives you safe passage in the antifa circles, is another enemy.
AntiFa? Good for you. You've got a lot of bravery, and we commend you. Please just direct it in the proper direction, and not at our friends.