Yesterday on this blog we highlighted Piedmont, California, which is 0.8% Black and 3.8% Latinx. Today we look at diversity-is-our-strength Oakland.
Folks in Oakland seem to have a lot more sex. “Cheated On? freeSTDcheck.org”:
Oakland is a center for Rainbow-first retail. Before one can spend $6 on a coffee, for example, one must walk underneath the sacred flag:
Who are the customers for $6 coffees? Quite a few undocumented immigrants, it seems, because the coffee shop is officially a place where migrant customers are safe from ICE thugs. (I didn’t see a bathroom for customers, so I’m not sure just how long a noble undocumented migrant could stay, as a purely practical matter.)
What passion goes hand-in-glove with Rainbow Flag worship? Pro-Hamas advocacy. The windows next to the door of Walden Pond Books.
What’s in the bookstore? Books celebrating a Hamas-/Palestinian Islamic Jihad-ruled “Free Palestine” with a Rainbow Flag in the background:
Detail:
Who among us is obstructing the glorious day when Free Palestine arrives? If we could only “catch a fascist” we, and our Palestinian brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters, might yet be okay.
What language would people speak in Free Palestine? “Queer Arabic”:
Were they any tutorials available on how to be queer? So glad that you asked! You can learn how to cook “Queer Food” from Queers at the Table and put in on a table that is an example of Queer X Design.
How different are readers’ tastes in California vs. the national average? Prominently featured Queers at the Table has just two Amazon reviews is “#753,447 in Books”. Queer X Design is significantly more popular: “#343,353 in Books”.
What about some after-dinner reading? Hijab Butch Blues:
A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran … Through personal experiences, Lamya H navigates the complexities of gender, sexuality and faith as a queer, nonbinary Muslim.
What kind of people want to pay full price for books in the English language? Undocumented migrants who will presumably be shielded from ICE by the merchant:
What if you’re planning to head up the hill to Piedmont and need to agitate against the construction of affordable housing? You can prep by reading Golden Gates, regarding the “housing crisis” that in no conceivable way could have been caused by importing at least 70 million humans (more than the current population of France), mostly low-skill, over the past 50 years.
Criminals don’t tend to either Black or Latinx, but the bookstore says that you should buy “Books on Black, Latinx … history and culture” for people who are current incarcerated.
Piedmont is completely surrounded by Oakland, yet it perversely refuses to join its much larger neighbor. What slogans are appropriate for this situation? Here are some suggestions:
Two-state solution: Yes! Two-city solution: No!
Black Lives Matter (beyond Piedmont Avenue)
The only democracy in the East Bay
etc.