Oaklands Toolbox For Revolution
Citizens of Oakland and the greater Bay Area are being displaced by rising living costs associated with the booming tech industry in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. Many of us have called this town our home for generations, and have developed a strong sense of pride in being a part of a city that has been the breeding ground for so many political and art based movements throughout history.
When mobilizing my community for the preservation of culture in a city where new influxes of industry threaten to uproot the very foundation of what makes these cities a hub for creative thinkers, activists, and artists, I believe that the principles of engaging the audience, branding the movement, and relating these issues to people's daily lives (among many others) are important principles to preserve in order to achieve this goal.
By engaging the audience, we will continue to inspire the community to produce the art that has made the city something worth preserving. By hosting events showcasing the broad variety of art makers that call this city Home, the feeling that we have the power to preserve this in the face of big money will be fortified and propagated. When people feel like they are a part of this artist community, they will be more active in maintaining the community for themselves and their peers. Branding, although being a tactic associated with big business (essentially ‘the problem’), is something that we will need to utilize to preserve our town. By maintaining the recognizable ‘brand’ of Oakland artists, we can become a more recognizable force in the equation. No longer can ‘colonists’ continue to move into these neighborhoods and impose their view of what would make it a better community for the upper class when the current community is organized and recognizable. Through a stronger, more unified ‘brand’ of community, we can begin to reclaim these spaces that have been ours for generations. While this issue is affecting everybody in this city, it is too easy for some to be passive and disengaged in fighting the forces that are pushing us out. For some, the rise in expensive coffee shops and national corporate headquarters seems like a pleasant alternative to questionably hygienic family businesses and parking garages marbled with tags and pot-ash. But what about when the city that has shaped you into the critically thinking, radically engaged artist that you are starts buffing your fills and pricing you out? Will you quietly pack up and move east? Hell no! This city is home for a wide breadth of artists and activists, and the effects of the change will begin to hurt some before it hurts others. What we have to remember is that we are all part of this place together, and allowing our comfortability with that change to phase out members of our community will come around and bite us sooner or later.
So many tactics can be applied to preserving this community. The variety of mediums wielded by our community is too wide to narrow down a selection to endorse specifically. As an artist whose work exists largely within the support for the arts, I believe that the best thing that myself and my collaborators can do is to continue to provide a space for young artists to produce and perform whatever it is that they feel is important. Whether it’s rap that outlines the realities of coming to age in this changing society, or psychedelic renderings of Mac Dre, the art that comes out of our generation will be integral in preserving what makes Oakland, for lack of a more fitting phrase, fresh as fuck. For me this means engaging the existing venues that have been a home for radical expression, and letting the community know that the new generation is not going to take this lying down.
The theory of commodity fetishism seems to be very applicable to this cause. The gentrifier will hide behind the construct of financial capital influx and ‘upscaling’ as inevitable occurrences in any desirable location. The Oakland Bay Area has always been a large center for industry and production. From metal workers to longshoreman, the marginalized ‘proletariat’ has always been the source of radical art and political movements. It is with these citizens that the power to produce change lies. Remembering this will go far in empowering us to fight the forces that threaten our community with the ‘inevitability’ of the well endowed pushing us out.
The balance between expressive and instrumental actions is an important concept in any movement intending to create social change. As a young activist who was involved in many demonstrations before understanding the difference between the two, it has become paramount to me that the impact of one's demonstration is well thought out before blocking a freeway. It is easy to produce an adverse affect by appearing exclusively reactionary when attempting to engage an issue. In terms of the kind of activism I engage in with my group of collaborators, it seems important to ensure that these events are focused towards engaging more of the community than those directly involved with producing, or enjoying, the work. We must use what we have begun to cultivate to spread the overarching idea that preserving Oakland’s ability to produce critical, free spirited artists and activists is something that the new generation will fight tooth and nail to maintain. It is by doing this that we will be able to inspire the older generations not to give in to the stress of the changing environment, because let's face it, they still own the place. Without the hope that what they have worked so hard to create will be appreciated and preserved, it would be too easy to ‘sell out’ and ditch the dream of the Bay Area as a place where marginalized artists can survive and thrive.
I believe that it is possible to restore Oakland and the Bay Area's ability to support struggling artists, as it has for decades. We have always fought valiantly to maintain a space to practice what we believe, and we can do it again, and again, and again.
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