Crime in Oakland, CA, United States

We own a restaurant in Oakland, and so I have interactions with locals many dozens, if not hundreds of times each day. I will start by saying that many of the citizens here are actually very kind and generous to those who are "down and out", as in extremely down and out and once they decide your a part of their community, they'll look out for you. My wife and I feel loved and accepted in the community, but I also experience overt hatred towards my race and towards myself, just because I'm white. I'd say that 90 percent of the people I encounter each day are good to us, now that we've been in the community for some time and we're always friendly and try to be helpful and show mutual respect.

That said, The crime here is out of control. I hear gunshots at night at least once or twice each week. There are shanty-towns made up of hundreds of broken down RVs and shacks made of trash and debris lining many of the roads. They pile junk and trash all the way out into the middle lanes of some of the roads and fentanyl addicts nodding out and doing the "fentanyl fold", ODing and passing out on sidewalks all over town. The police are rarely seen, and a neighboring restaurant was robbed this week and the police didn't show up for over and hour. I might see the police passing trough our neighborhood once or twice a week at best. They've falsely reported that crime is down, but in fact it has skyrocketed while the way they report the crime stats has ben manipulated to make it look as if things are improving.

There are legions of NGOs collectively taking in hundreds-of-millions of dollars in federal, state, local and donated funds and delivering almost nothing in actual services, unless you consider fostering a victim mentality as a service. The NGOs only exist for their own benefit, but they do contribute mightily to the politicians who continue to funnel massive amounts of tax dollars back to the NGOs, who are aware of which socialist politicians butter their bread and keep the wheels of their graft train rolling.

I live in Oakland and agree with the comment about dropping the bomb on Oakland. I am ok being here while it drops, if it means this place can vaporize. There are the hills for the wealthy and the flats for the rest. The location and nature potential is astounding here. People are nasty and generally embrace lack of education with a focus on ghetto culture. Robbing you gives them street cred. If they rob you wearing pants around the ankles, double points. The people are the only thing that make this area crap. I am white and had a lot of hateful racist crap thrown at me because of it here. Gentrified? Maybe the prices, not the culture. Living here is a prison sentence for me. Love makes you make terrible choices sometimes.