A study in contrasts

The following describes the scene downtown near the Powell Street Cable Car turnaround (read: heavy pedestrian traffic) Saturday afternoon.

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He: Jeans, dark jacket, tennis shoes.

Them: Neon yellow jackets and caps.

He: Silent.

Them: Megaphones.

He: Looked at with curiosity by passers-by, with a handful of people stopping every now and then. Or just ignored.

Them: Looked at with venom and animosity - yelled at, spat at, argued with, cussed out.

He: One man, one sign.

Them: Three people, many signs . . . and did I mention the megaphone?

He: Can usually be found on this spot all weekend - if not everyday.

Them: Newcomers, or perhaps a one-day-only type of thing.

He: On the sign, "JESUS LOVES YOU"

Them: On their signs and in their speech, "JESUS HATES YOU" and "YOU'RE GOING TO HELL" and "THE CITY IS GOING TO BURN BECAUSE OF FAGS LIKE YOU"

To him I said: "Thank you, brother, for speaking the truth faithfully. I appreciate you and you got it right, man. Jesus loves, not hates."

To them I said: Nothing. My anger was such that I couldn't even speak and was on the verge of tears. Who are these people to come into this city and fuel the flames of hate? Almost all of SF embraces the thought that "Christians" are hate-filled, judgmental, uncaring and stupid. WAY TO REINFORCE THAT STEREOTYPE, neon-yell0w-jacket-wearers-of-hate. The minority Christian community here spends a hell of a lot of time fighting this uphill battle - the battle of proving to the city that we do NOT practice hate, nor do we hate the city and the people in it. Au contraire - Jesus preached LOVE. LOVE thy neighbor as thyself. The greatest gift...to lay down one's life for one's friends. For God so LOVED the [entire] WORLD, that He gave His only begotten Son . . .
I have lived here for 8 years, and I cannot tell you what a difficult battle it is to fight against those stereotypes of what a Christian is. Many times colleagues and friends will say to me - with honest shock - "Wait...you're a Christian? But you're so cool - and you don't hate me!"

NO, I don't hate you. I love you. I even love the people I bitch about - the Code Pinkers and the protesters blocking traffic (yet again) and the Muni drivers who cut me off. But I have NO tolerance for and I was full ofpassionate dislike hatred for the people wearing the yellow jackets with "Jesus hates you" written all over them. But what I hate even more is the fact that I couldn't get it under control enough to confront them on Saturday with a cool head.

At least Code Pink hasn't resorted to smashing and torching. (Yet).

....I could NOT believe tonight's SFGATE article on the protests happening in Oakland today.

[Backstory: A BART cop shot and killed a man - WHO WAS ALREADY HANDCUFFED AND ON THE FLOOR - on New Year's Day in a BART station in Oakland. If you really must, there are tons of videos floating around on the 'net with the actual shooting. They are even playing it on our local news. But I'm not going to link to one here. ANYWAY. As such, people are protesting - as well they should - this whole thing.]

During this evening's protest, things started getting out of hand and protestors started torching cars and smashing random storefronts. REAL productive. However, this one section of the article stood out to me as a huge WTF:

Protesters smashed the storefronts of McDonald's as well as stores called Creative African Braids and Oakland Yoon's Pharmacy. Cars along 14th Street were smashed, and some were set ablaze.

A woman walked out of Creative African Braids holding a baby in her arms.

"This is our business," she shouted. "This is our shop. This is what you call a protest?"

Nia Sykes, 24, of San Francisco, a protester who was with the group, said, "I feel like the night is going great. I feel like Oakland should make some noise. This is how we need to fight back.

"It's for the murder of a black male," said Sykes, who is black. The demonstration "is totally appropriate."

Sykes had little sympathy for the owner of Creative African Braids.

"She should be glad she just lost her business and not her life," Sykes said. She added that she did have one worry for the night: "I just hope nobody gets shot or killed."

Wait...WHAT? A protestor from San Francisco thinks it's TOTALLY APPROPRIATE to smash in an unaffiliated local business?? How the hell does that make any sense???? PEOPLE. It is horrible and awful and beyond belief how that boy was killed by the BART cop, and the cop should face the consequences for that. HOWEVER.....I am pissed off for the folks who own the braids place - I mean, really...especially right now when local small businesses are suffering anyway, let's just add a huge-ass repair bill on top of that?? UGH. That is horrible and I just don't get it.