Oak-Anon and the In-N-Out conspiracy

I like Oakland. I like some of the cute neighborhoods, the food, the architecture, the classic 90’s hip-hip from the city, and the topography. I spent some of my teen years in Oakland, I was homeless here in my 20’s, and I did a lot of drugs in some of the town’s infamous crackhouses. From the wealthy enclave of Piedmont, to moving heroin from the traphouses of the East to the West, to sleeping outside in the lower bottoms, I’ve experienced Oakland through multiple lenses. But I wasn’t born here, and I don’t have the inflexible pride that some of the devout cling onto. The town has some problems, and it’s ok to admit this. Some, namely progressive activists and “journalists” who aren’t even from here, have painted themselves into a corner. Although Oakland may not be the absolute hell-hole that right-wing media claims it is, it’s still not doing great. In fact, it’s doing pretty bad. You don’t have to be a “conservative” or a “grifter” to admit this. But more importantly, nothing has a chance of improving until we do.

The In-N-Out on Hegenberger announced that it will be closing in March due to rampant crime. Although this location, like all In-N-Out locations, is highly profitable, the company feels that it can no longer jeopardize the safety of its employees and customer base. Sounds pretty straight forward. Of course our joke of a mayor, Sheng Thao, immediately stated that property crime had gone down in the area because of license plate readers she had installed in the area. Anyone with a brain knows that these do nothing. Why would anyone commit a crime in Oakland with their own car when driving without a license plate or even stealing a car has been decriminalized? Regardless, even if one of these license plate readers were to catch someone, there’s little to no punishment for anything less than murder and rape in Oakland nowadays. The message is out: Anything besides murder and rape will be “punished” with a diversion program, and guess what? There’s no penalty for not attending said diversion program. Somehow in the span of 10 years criminal justice reform went from “No one should be in prison for weed” to “do as thou wilt”. And nothing will change until normal people admit that this is not ok. Sure, Fox News says it’s not ok, and they’re correct. But so many are still holding onto the notion that if Fox News says anything, the opposite is true. And this mindset will only sink Oakland deeper into despair. Humility goes hand-in-hand with dignity, but many residents still lack both.

The faux-progressives were on fire after In-N-Out’s announcement, claiming it was a corporate conspiracy. They’re probably just closing to get some free advertising on Fox News. In-N-Out, a highly successful corporation that notoriously has little to no advertising, closed a highly-profitable store to get a night of advertising on Fox News. Another faux-progressive said to me that In-N-Out fought the fast food minimum wage hike last year, and were probably closing because it passed. In-N-Out, the highest paying fast food restaurant with a CEO that rates higher in employee satisfaction than Microsoft and Salesforce, has a 99% approval rating on Glassdoor.com, and where the average manager makes $163,000, was promoted within, and has stayed with the company for 17 years, closed a single location because of the minimum wage hike. Oak-anon has reached levels of delusion that would make a Soviet Apparatchik cringe.

They said the same thing about Le Cheval. It was a conspiracy to…what? Get some air-time? One of the most loved and successful restaurants in Oakland literally closed it’s doors to dominate a local news cycle for a few days? And now we’re seeing the same thing happen with the Fillmore Safeway in San Francisco. Everything’s a conspiracy. The Safeway is only threatening to close to get…free security handouts from the city? Even if Safeway was lying about the shoplifting and crime, why in the fuck would they make it up in order to get free security to combat a non-existent crime wave?

What more has to happen for these people to admit there’s a problem? Again, I’m not saying that every square foot of Oakland is a hell-hole. And yes, some of the doom and gloom is a little exaggerated, but one thing’s for certain: the longer we uphold the fantasy that everything’s ok and we continue to normalize antisocial behavior, the “Fox News” version of the truth becomes more accurate by the day. Hell, they’re far closer to the truth already than any of these Oak-Anon wingnuts.