(NY Times) Hundreds in Oakland Turn Out to BBQ While Black
They arrived with chicken, sausages and bowls of macaroni salad. D.J.s played hip-hop and 80s hits. Even the fire marshal showed up, as well as police officers who waved hello to passers-by and guided traffic.
What once was a grand tradition in Oakland — a party at Lake Merritt along a placid stretch of the San Francisco Bay — had new life on Sunday, as locals gathered for a picnic called “BBQing While Black.”
“It was epic,” Logan Cortez, an Oakland schoolteacher and an organizer of the event, said. “It was a sea of love and blackness and food and fun.”
Ms. Cortez said she saw the video and wasn’t surprised, given what she described as systemic racism in the town she grew up in. So, she sent a message to a few friends asking them to meet her at Lake Merritt for a barbecue.
“I wanted to deal with my lack of shock,” she said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/us/oakland-bbq-while-black.html
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I grew up in O-Town and Lake Merritt is a great little oasis 
Had a friend post about the BBQ on FB yesterday, she said it was a great way to end their day and feel so proud about our hometown.
Sometimes I miss living in the Bay, the diversity, the many types of food, etc...
Even took the stage and sang a couple songs at one of my bandmates (of numerous bands I've been in) 50th b-day party. He's in a Walnut Creek-based (mostly) Pearl Jam cover band and they reserved a bar in Downtown WC and packed it with friends and family. Saw tons of friends I'd not seen in 10+ years as I now live out of state, it was friggin' awesome.
I'm told I rocked the house, so ... that was cool.
LOVE LOVE LOVE the whole East Bay (and most of the rest of N. Cal), but it's soooo damn expensive to live there, and the traffic has gotten INSANE. But I sure love going back. So beautiful ... and the best peeps live there
BTW, I was born in Oakland, as my brothers were, and my dad grew up there in the 50's (Fenton's is like his favorite place) and lived there most of his life til around 1978. He was an Oakland-based Teamster his whole career minus a brief stint in Vegas. I been to the Oakland Coliseum at least 200 times for games and concerts, my cousin and her family still lives in Oaktown up above Knowland Park in the hills there above the 13, and my Auntie lives just below the 13 since the mid-70's, off of Redwood ... oh, and I gambled at The Oaks in Emeryville ALL THE TIME in the early 2000's ... one of my fave neighborhoods there is Rockridge, by the BART station ... Oh, and I was Married in 2011 at Lake Temescal clubhouse ... The day Al Davis died, in fact ...
You get all that, Agent Mike?
You know when I lived there, until the early 90's just after high school into my 20s, I lived in Oakland and commuted into Lafayette every day...usually I'd cut up the Grizzly Peak and go OVER the hills instead of thru the tunnel...
It didn't phase me then, I thought I'd live there my whole life.
Now, living in rural sierras, my equivalent of a freeway is a two-lane road!
When I go down to visit I almost feel like I am white-knuckling it the whole time! 
but ya, still lots of friends living there, I get to live vicariously as they post pics and events. My actual 30-year HS Reunion is this fall! Can't wait Went to Skyline High in Oakland. (My mom went to Castlemontand my dad to Fremont, circa 1950's)
Fortunately for him (I suppose) he's too poor and frail to own/drive a car so just gets driven around by family members that are still around the area when he has to go somewhere so he doesn't much care.
My mom and stepdad's cabin/retirement home (they're retired but having a hard time giving up their WC home they've had since 1991, so they live in both places, basically) is up in Groveland, which is basically Sierra Foothills just outside Yosemite. It's beautiful up there. I've even lived for a year at their house there, back in the mid aughts ... LOVED IT.
I absolutely LOVE driving 'around' the tunnel via the Berkeley Hills, coming down Fish Ranch ... done it COUNTLESS times. Nowadays it's certainly no faster, but it's even prettier than the freeway through that section of the 24 ...
I have TONS of friends that grew up in Lafayette, and I lived in Orinda for 4 years as a kiddo. Talking my REAL hood, now
Montclair was my stomping ground! Our house was just below Merritt College, where the old Chabot Observatory used to be @ 580&13
Orinda was definitely another haunt!
ha! guess we were neighbors!
A Full Platter o' their Oak-Pit-Smoked Ribs, with the classic brown barbeque sauce ... both split with mah Daddy ...
Sorry to bring it up
