The Berkeley Oak Grove Tree Sit [2006-2007,] and
#OO!: A Photographer’s Urban Studies and Sub-cultural Related Sociological
Assessment
I came to the Berkeley Oak Grove tree
sit in 2006 after reading a little blurb about it in The San Jose Mercury News. At this point I should tell you that I
have spent most of my life in the east bay and bay area. [I’m a rider hommie!]
Anyway, urban studies casual vernacular aside, in 2006 I would come to visit
the Oak Grove several times from the south bay to attempt photography. I was
between my fine arts undergrad and my fine arts grad programs. I took a nine
year undergraduate sabbatical starting around 1996 due to a student loan
application mishap. I did a lot of blue collar work then, I was always scraping
by and I haven’t had too much steady employment since.
Before I moved back to the east-bay
I didn’t really get as much out of my photos at the tree sit as I would have
hoped. Once I was living in West Oakland in 2007 however, that had changed. I
became a regular activist, at least I thought so. I photographed especially in
the last four months of activity at the grove / Piedmont Avenue. It should be
remembered as yet the world’s longest running urban tree sit of 648 days. I’m
imagining the events surrounding the XL pipeline may also break new records.
Let’s hope for something positive.
There was a tall, older bicyclist I knew
and we would exchange road rage in the east bay whenever we met, it became a
pretty fucking pointless effort. He showed up at Berkeley Critical Mass, and
the Oak Grove protest from time to time, and we finally got sick of the
conflict thankfully. From that time onward I decided to treat all cyclists like
brothers and sisters regardless of my thoughts of who I considered them to be,
a lesson in karma. During a protest event at the tree sit sometime in 2007, we
had blockaded Piedmont Avenue; this was a regular activity of the tree sit. It
had become very difficult to get food and supplies to the tree sitters. The UC
Berkeley administration had hired workers to encircle the Grove with tall
fencing. The UCBPD were a constant presence. In retrospect with all of the
security costs that the UCB took on to “secure” the grove it would have saved
them at least half a million dollars if they had endeavored to remove and
replant the endangered trees. This is a practice that is more common in Japan,
where costs are high and resources tight. Their practice involves replanting
somewhere for a year to ascertain the stability of the tree in question, and if
it is healthy then it is moved onward for park service or some kind of
landscaping. The point actually was that placing a stadium on a fault line for
the purpose of deforestation was not logical, the stadium has been there since
the 30s, before that time UC science professors had used the area as a natural
habitat for educational purposes, destroying an ecosystem and building in that
area is not very intelligent. They wanted to build a NFL training center for
their star athletes. So they eventually did. To say the least preventive
maintenance and diplomacy are not the strong points of the University of
California agenda. The UCBPD knocked my tall nearly senior citizen friend face
down from a standing position onto the street. He actually bounced a bit, it
was really dreadful, and I was horrified. I was also really angry so I was
motivated to take a lot of photographs.
The tree sit lawyer got my photos on CD,
which I delivered to her Berkeley residence, and I had burnt the CD at home.
The gentleman in question was acquitted and a UCB police officer received a
damning reprimand. It was too much work however for a simple abuse case I was
told, however the trauma and the injury to the individual made up for that at
least tenfold, from the lawyer’s perspective, it was cause worthy. So anyway
FUCK YEAH! GO COPWATCH! That was my first occurrence of photographing police
abuse, or having my photographs used for such a purpose.
I got so sick and tired of witnessing
police harassment and abuse. My living conditions at the time had deteriorated
to the level of volatility also, so my life was a lot like WW3. It was good training;
I couldn’t really photograph at Occupy without these kinds of experiences. Also
at the Oak Grove in another instance during the Piedmont Avenue blockade an
Asian woman stood by her vehicle while her young son sat in the passenger seat.
She was very talkative. At the Oak Grove Berkeley tree sit we were trained to
integrate with the public and in this case the drivers to keep them informed,
to help them chill out for a while, turn off their engines, read a book, maybe
chat with them about the tree sit, offer them condolences for the wait, etc. It
was seen as an opportunity to make a connection with the outside community. The
fucking cops man. At first her not going into her car and ignoring the cops
seem pretty much normal it should be noted. The UC pigs kept telling her to go
into her car. It really didn’t help that she was one of the first three cars in
front of the blockade. Eventually I was almost begging her to sit in her car,
warning her. I was going back and forth with my camera, always walking around
trying to be observant. This incident was worse. In front of her kid the cop
violently shook her. Like I’m going to shake some sense into you somehow high velocity
vibrating is going to really positively help your brain. She was traumatized,
the kid was traumatized, and I was WW3 angry as fuck as usual. Patients, time,
pain and calmness management had already become major tasks at the Berkeley Oak
Grove tree sit. The Asian woman was handcuffed, it was so awful. This lady
wasn’t very much older than I and I could do nothing. She spoke with our
attorney who was present, and they reviewed my photos. The woman should have pressed charges, we didn’t
want to give her too much pressure however, and I had already explained to the
attorney how I couldn’t get her to heed the police warnings. She told the TV
news reporters that although she could almost accept the apologies given to her
by the police officer and the UCBPD it was not her intension to press charges.
She also explained on television that although what the officer did was
basically assault [she played it down and said “wrong,” the newscaster
explained it was assault somehow,] that she would still encourage her son to
respect the authority of the police of some such bullshit. I don’t recall the
specific wording. The whole ordeal was terrible. Adding insult to injury was a
major activity of the UCBPD at that time in the protest. I haven’t seen either
the cyclist or the Asian lady in quite some time now. We live in an age of
spoiled community. http://www.flickr.com/photos/darinbaueroakgroveberkeley/5478617298/in/set-72157623954170126; This is the
main photograph in the set that clearly shows the anguish of the Asian woman
who was being harassed and abused by the UCBPD. She is a very strong woman to
have tolerated that. You need a flickr account and the authorities may be
watching so be forewarned, you might consider a secure channel. There may have
been a video also, but I am guessing it was deleted as per her request.
Zachary Running Wolf would joke that he
lined his PD yellow slips on his wall like a collage or wallpaper. Zach
received hundreds of arrests during the tree sit. Occupy Oakland is pretty good
at telling off the cops, we at the Berkeley Oak Grove received honorary
accreditation in shit talking with significant immediacy, sophistication, and
extreme grandeur. Also it was usually a pretty boring place to be. I don’t have
any examples for you at the moment, so I apologize, you might be able to
imagine. You can also probably imagine how creative some of the citations
became. Jay-walking? Really? [Remember this predates NDAA and CISPA, although
the police seemed aware of encapsulation as a tactic.] Verbal abuse, just
complete bullshit charges, especially considering the police liked to pretend
that they could give fair exchange in tense situations. They weren’t fair at
all and I dislike imagining their insipid behavior. Photographing ZRW became a
steady source of indybay.org fodder for me. Oscar Grant, John Woo, Critical
Mass, for a time I was ZRW’s media person, sometimes I still am.
Most of what I learned about
photo-documentation of activism, I learned at the Grove. In 1988 or 89 George
Bush Senior was to attend a $10,000 a plate fundraiser dinner by some old lady
in Orinda, she grew everything in her home garden. I did some black and white
photos and mostly didn’t know what I was looking for, I was in high school. Lines
of cops and protest stickers on the back of people’s leather jackets such as Act-Up! was one image of mine. Somebody
got arrested for throwing a tomato at the limousine, but that was on the other
side of town. I was the only punk enthusiast at my section of the protest. Many
of the protesters were from San Francisco. In regards to the sub-culture I was
informed that punks never want to protest seriously, that was the consensus at
the time.
Today that seems somewhat less the case.
More people come to protests with digital cameras of some kind and I do my best
to encourage photographers and photography in general. I have my BFA and
Post-Baccalaureate in Photography from The San Francisco Art Institute. Ansel
Adams helped build the darkroom, and there are three Diego Rivera murals on
campus. Annie Lebowitz, Mark Pauline, and Enrique Chagoya are my all time
favorite alumni, look them up. In the early 1990s before his retirement I
lucked out taking a required photo elective with Pirkle Jones. His wife Sofia
and he were amongst the first people to photograph The Black Panthers in
Oakland. His photographs are amazing and quickly became part of the Panther
media at that time in the 1960s. Many memorable images of the Panthers from
early in the movement are his. In the last decade as a return student I was
fortunate enough to attend a photo-documentary class with Darcy Padilla. Her
work of interest was black and white photography of SF Hispanic street gangs,
which I believe she may have photographed as a student at sfai, her emphasis
was the gangster women [Chicanas,] and their culture.
I tend to keep these kinds of things in
mind while photographing at protests; the memories keep me going sometimes. At
the recent Occupy Oakland First Anniversary I was treated to a very exceptional
slideshow presentation. We booed at the cops and cheered for our friends, even
while speeches were being made, and during music performances. It was pretty
cool. To look at my 80 or 90 or so indybay.org photo-documentation articles
type [darin bauer; use spacing and lower case letters,] into the search bar on
the left of the home page. I have a few public websites. I have a lot of protest
documentation, I don’t know if any government agencies are monitoring it, it
can’t be worth it to them, but you know how they are, perhaps a remote server
or a public computer is best if you love to look at good images.
If you look at http://www.artwanted.com/artist.cfm?artid=45308, you will see a
variety of images. Printing costs have become too difficult and most galleries
aren’t interested in helping with printing costs; to put it mildly. I’ll ask
again if #OO art / media can help me out. Image 13 of 21 and 10 of 21 give a
general sense of what a Berkeley Oak Grove / Piedmont Avenue blockade would
look like. Image 11 of 21 is different in that Ayr and ZRW were part of a sage
blessing ceremony of the Oak Grove with Ohlone elder Wounded Knee, (not
pictured.)
If you view my Berkeley Tree Sit “set”
on flickr.com you will receive a much larger interpretation of events at the
Oak Grove. In many cases you will need a flickr account, which is free however.
The photo in the Oak Grove set after Ayr and ZRW in sage ceremony is a picture
during CAL game day with UCB administrator Dan Mogulof [current nemesis of
Occupy University of California Berkeley,] and ZRW facing off. There is another
photograph of Piedmont Avenue with a man with a tee shirt over his face that is
typical of our street blockade also. In order of mention;
http://www.flickr.com/darinbaueroakgroveberkeley/3030099117/in/set-7215762395417026; This is a good
photo of a typically boring day at the Oak Grove tree sit. The following
photograph in that set is of Dumpster Muffin who was very prominent in the Mama
redwood tree’s tree sitter god box, defending the tree. It was good to see her
out of the tree and in good spirits at that time. My overall favorite is of a
young woman with her son and a young man playing guitar in the background. http://www.flickr.com/photos/darinbaueroakgroveberkeley/2726567970/in/set-72157623954170126 There was a
time in 2007 before the fence had been erected by the UCB, the tree camp was a
very nice place at times. I imagine the grove, and how it looked before the
fencing dividing the grove and the stadium. Hippies, travelers and students
harmonizing under the canopy, distinct from the crowds intent on football.
Generations of people…public space is shrinking, the oak grove protest was a
way of coming to terms with how things have changed in the bay area since I was
very young and that photograph typifies the sentiment succinctly. The parties
and celebrations at the grove that I was not able to attend were legendary to
say the least. Almost all of this is available on the internet somewhere.
My “#OO” flickr set is easier to manage.
Just because a photograph makes for decent journalism on indybay.org doesn’t
mean it should appear on the web within a fine art context. The Death of Capitalism on February 29th
2012, Leap Year Day has some prominence in that set. The General Strikes and
Move-In day are also included. During the Scott Olsen ordeal I was talking to
as many people as possible to get a handle on the situation and to make sure
that shit was getting taken care of. The street stragglers from the protest on
Broadway Avenue negotiated amidst tear gas and somehow Jesse was capable to
carry Scott. I have back problems and had been walking and bicycling all day,
and most of that week. Jesse seemed calm and rational, fresh somehow at least
he would appear so at the time, I was uncertain who was going to help. I have
photos from that evening. We kept going back to get tear gassed repeatedly. My
images are mostly of urban landscape portraiture. I have no images of the Scott
Olsen incident. I felt that this was too exploitative to document. People
worried at that moment inquired – but I had to say I couldn’t justify it.
I had never been tear gassed before that
evening. One of the double images I used in my flicker #OO set is among many
more blurry images that I do not choose to publish. This one is okay. http://www.flickr.com/photos/darinbaueroakgroveberkeley/7504915724/in/set-72157630427659640 The protesters
almost appear to be ghost walking. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/10/26/18695170.php : “Todos Los
Negros Valen Berga…Putos!” All black
burqa worth fucking was spray painted on the 19th St. sidewalk
near the stay away order park near Broadway Avenue. It was fresh paint. My
memory of this is not clear, I think someone overheard hispanic cops speaking
and decided to give a warning. Or perhaps Hispanic people had overheard the
police. That was months before the Fuck the Police marches would regularly
organize.http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/10/30/18696031.php The infamous End Police Brutality shields, and march,
one follow up article can be found if you typed my name in the indybay search
engine. Hella Gay, People’s Park tree sit, and People’s Park were also areas I
was interested in photographing. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/12/13/18702713.php
image 640 dsc 02354.jpeg, picture of Occupy Banner on truck during the General
Strike, this went viral! That had never happened to me before. The image of the
bike scouts preceding the late afternoon march with the cranes in the
background with fading sky coloration is in that article as well. [Would make
for a good bike shop photo! Maybe the Hold-Out
anarchists community center in West Oakland will purchase one for their bike
shop.] The first photo in this article really tells a lot about activism’s
sociological demographics-my emphasis obviously.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/11/29/18701319.php; The first
image…you know how Oakland is, a young African American strolls by with his
friends, he is clearly a non-activist. “Check out that shit man! They put a
nigger in a tree!” I mean for fuck sake, really dude. It gave the tree sitter
and I something to laugh about, I think he had tears in his eyes at some point,
keeping good morale up during a tree sit is an imperative. It was simply too
fucking hilarious. You might have had to have been there. That might not have
happened on the same day, although it was the same tree sitter.
As these events transpire within
Oakland as well as around the world, bike block is preventing road rage during
marches, there is more integration within the activist community between
different orientations, within our various sub-cultures, and the cops began
selective arrest tactics, targeting specific people who they believed were
crucial to the movement, just like they did to the Black Panthers back in the
day. Look at these articles and related series carefully. You might be able to
learn something new as you see them differently as time is passing. The actual
physical dynamics of Oscar Grant Plaza I believed would dictate future kettling.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/12/30/18703658.php; This was two
hours of non-stop photographing, arrests, and police brutality. My worst day on
the field ever, many photos at the end of this article of our occupy brother
being pushed, pulled, and twisted against his will, the arrest was obviously
adamantly protested and our occupy brother was tortured by the Oakland Police
for what seemed like forever. OPD officer Christopher Keder was the assailant
in question. My female friend was arrested for possession of a yoga-mat. Other
charges infringed against people’s constitutional rights also.
Other favorites include; http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/01/30/18706165.php Aquapy Lake
Merrit! Not worth the swim! I took a lot of mini tee pee photos, although I
grew weary of it eventually. San Francisco Occupy Capitalism, Occupy Love was a
beautiful and fun Valentine’s Day event, Death of Emeryville Squat Hellarity,
#OO Six month anniversary, [If my camera had not been stolen, Occupy Albany Gil
Tract Farm,] Lakeview Elementary School Occupation, Obama fundraiser protest
and cannabis initiative, Occupy’s First Birthday, and Occupy Oakland’s first
Birthday as well, etc…
Peace.
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