June 1, 2007

Oakland effectively banned street shrines by fiat in 2004, and other cities like Boston are following suit.

The results in Oakland are more murals to memorialize the deceased, more youth wearing (often hand painted) memorial Tees, RIP tags up the Avenues and elsewhere, and a greater visibility of a community's mourning. It's not the community that police chiefs like to recognize, but the deceased were family members, school friends, block friends, church friends . . .

This dehumanization of grief and loss in larger city policies is abhorrent. How are these neighborhood shrines any different from the shrines on highways for folks killed in car wrecks? A matter of location? Assumed criminal activity? Do parents and friends grieve any less in the ghettos of Oakland and Boston than elsewhere?