Documentary photography – Oakland Photo Journal

On Sunday, August 27th a right-wing nationalist rally was scheduled to happen at Martin Luther King Jr. Park, in Berkeley’s civic center. The planned hate party was cancelled last minute over “safety” concerns from its organizers. The same predicament had played out the day before in San Francisco, where the organized response to a similar planned rally prompted thousands to march and openly denounce bigotry, racism, and organized hate in their city. What was sensationalized and projected to be a violent weekend of clashes with white nationalists and a left of center responses became an overwhelming, unified response against the hate espoused by neo-Nazis, white Nationalists, and conservative xenophobes from the San Francisco and East Bay community.

Given the outcome of the first battle in Berkeley on April 26th earlier this year and the rage prompted by Charlottesville a few weeks ago, I anticipated a strong response from the Antifa factions that were humiliated as they were punched, kicked, and run out of the civic center last April. Numerous response rallies marched to what many might have imagined was going to be a Berkeley civic center crawling with hate-groups and angry far-Right wingers by late afternoon. What they found was the remnants of a loud, and often volatile debate on hate. Although hate-groups passed on showing up, individuals whose Right-wing, racist convictions are strong enough to risk the public ridicule made their presence known. Just like in Charlottesville, those who came defending far-Right ideas and Trump’s hate mongering agenda were debated, shouted at, and ultimately run out of the grounds.

Exiting the park I had heavy feeling in my heart that had me thinking of Dr. King. Although the rage and indignity arises from love, I couldn’t help but to feel the ruse of power among us. I felt no one won that day. That’s the tragedy of it all. The powder keg was lit in Charlottesville, the clown President gave the flame oxygen, and now we have more tragedy ahead of us.

Interesting times for my camera’s lens, but such a sad state of affairs in the nation.

RIP Heather Heyer.

— JMG, Berkley CA

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Homes for the Homeless (Here/There Series), Berkeley/Oakland CA, Winter 2017.

Gentrification in the East Bay has prompted a rise in homelessness across the region. Outcrops of camps have lined freeway underpasses, abandoned lots, and city corners with enough space to pitch tents. The shots in this series depict the struggle for affordable housing and the manner in which life gravitates around this homeless camp on the Berkley/Oakland border. What in days past has been called the he invisible face of homelessness has become more and more visible and familiar to us as a surge of people around us fall from the grace of stability and are forced to live in tents.

This is the first installment of a series that seeks to invite the public to stop, take a closer look, and prompt viewers to begin an internal or public dialogue about the crisis in homelessness Oakland is currently experiencing.

–JMG

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