Photo credit: Miscellaneous sources
My friend Klas Bergman, a Swedish journalist, saw the movie “Fruitvale Station” the other night, about the tragic fate of Oscar Grant, shot down by a policeman for nothing at a BART Station in Oakland, California on New Year January 1, 2009.
The new film, a debut by 27-year-old Ryan Coogler, has been lauded by the critics after having won the big prize at the Sundance Film Festival earlier in the year. It’s easy to draw a parallel between Grant, played by Michael B. Jordan — “Wallace” to every fan of “The Wire” — and Trayvon Martin, both young black men, almost boys, and both killed for no reason by white men.
Photo credit: sourceliferadio.com
“In “Fruitvale Station,” we get to follow Oscar Grant’s last 24 hours, filled with his frustration, confusion, love for his daughter, and his caring mother. It’s a simple and good story. Grant is not perfect, far from it………… he deals grass, has been in jail, has lost his job,” Bergman told Hollywood on the Potomac. “But he is also a good guy, eminently charming — you like him….. a lot. And when he is shot down in the chaos on the platform at the Oakland BART station, it was deeply upsetting because it was all so unfair. He was just out on New Year’s eve with his girlfriend and friends to see the fireworks…
Photo credit: Courtesy of Fruitvale Station
But here, just like in the Trayvon Martin case, it was presumed that Grant and his young black friends were up to no good, that they were responsible for the melee on the BART train, while the white boys, who started the fight, went home, untouched by the cops. In Martin’s case, it was an untrained white man with a gun; in Grant’s case, white cops with guns clearly in over their heads, totally unprepared for a situation like this.”
