Fruitvale BART Station, Oakland, California.
The background image is a satellite photo of the Fruitvale BART area.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#620
Fruitvale BART Station, Oakland, California.
(The background for this drawing is a satellite image of the Fruitvale Station area in Oakland.)
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#619
Fruitvale BART Station, Oakland, California.
I don’t think anyone can overlook the irony that this and a few other recent drawings on this website depict Black men I recently encountered at Fruitvale Station. This, of course, is the very same location where, 4.5 years ago, Oscar Grant lost his life. At first, I thought I’d be troubled by this irony; but, in fact, the contrast between the living Black men I’ve portrayed in the same setting in which an unarmed Black man was shot by BART police gives me a peculiar kind of hope.
The tragic shooting of Oscar Grant on January 1, 2009 could have had a terrorizing effect on Bay Area Black men. It would have been completely understandable if, in the wake of this killing, Bay Area men of African descent had decided to avoid the BART system entirely; and yet they did not. Whether the assailant, Johannes Mehserle, intended to kill Grant or not, this and other so-called accidental shootings of Black men, when taken together, convey the troubling message that it is not the shooters, but Black men themselves who are mistaken — in believing that they have the right to equal protection under (and by) the law; in hoping that, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, they will be presumed innocent; and in behaving as though they have the right to freedom of movement (whether strolling through a gated community in Florida or riding on a Bay Area commuter train on New Year’s Day).
And yet, despite the dehumanizing messages conveyed through the actions and words of those who fear or distrust them, Black men persist in seeing the humanity in themselves and each other, they persist in living their lives as free and equal citizens, and they persist in traveling to the places they need to go, by bus, by ferry, even by train, and even through Fruitvale Station.
PS: The background image is the evening schedule of trains traveling to and from Fruitvale BART.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#618
Bay Area Rapid Transit (or BART) brings me in contact with a broader cross-section of the Bay Area population than just about any other place or public service. In some regions, the public bus system and the public schools serve as that great aggregator of all humanity; but, due to the dramatic class segregation in Oakland and San Francisco, public buses and public schools tend–in both cases–to bring together those who cannot afford a private alternative. BART is one of the few entities that brings together not only a wide range of races, but a wide range of classes, as well. The appeal of quick and convenient travel between the East Bay and San Francisco attracts travelers of all stripes, and the range of ages, classes, subcultures and genders I encounter on the trains between Oakland and San Francisco feels like a truly representative sampling of the region’s much-touted diversity.
The next several drawings reflect the range of men I encountered on a recent trip from Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland to 24th and Mission St. in San Francisco.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#617
On Thursday evening, I took the bus to the Fruitvale BART station, and then I took BART to the Mission district in San Francisco. The man in this drawing got on at the West Oakland stop. I was fascinated by his puffy little pom-pom of a beard. That and his sideburns seemed to be the only hair he could grow on his face, and yet he had a quiet confidence that transcended the particulars of his grooming. You know a brother is cool if he makes a pom-pom beard look fly.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#616
This is the face of a not-so-happy older guy who apparently agreed to accompany his wife on a trip to the craft store. I remain quite amused by the fact that craft stores are so very gendered. Like their male-associated counterpart, the hardware store, the products that craft stores sell are essentially gender neutral; and yet their clientele is anything but. And, to be perfectly honest, hardware stores are not the bastions of maleness and masculinity that they used to be. Take a trip to Home Depot or Ace some time. If you’re there on a weekday, you’ll probably notice that, while most of the contractors who shop at the hardware store are men, the amateurs–the shoppers who are preparing for a do-it-yourself home improvement project or repair–are pretty much all over the gender spectrum. The gender of craft store shoppers, on the other hand, seems to have changed very little since the mid-70s, when craft mega-stores like Michael’s first appeared. No matter where I go, from the Bible belt to the Bay Area, the craft stores are filled with women and girls; but men (and even masculine women) are conspicuously absent. One hypothesis is, of course, that femininity is less fragile than masculinity and, thus, women feel freer to cross gender lines into traditionally male activities like carpentry and plumbing than men feel about crossing into traditionally female activities like quilting and scrapbooking.
Whether or not this is the entirely true, I can say that the man in this drawing, seemed almost comically uncomfortable in his craft store surroundings. While his wife browsed rather leisurely through the Halloween-themed fabric squares, he stood frowning, with his hands awkwardly hanging at his sides, seemingly afraid to even touch anything in the store.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#615
If the number of unemployed and underemployed men asking for food or money outside my local grocery is any measure of the economy, then times are pretty tough. There are more than twice as many people asking for money outside the store than there were even a year ago. And, despite the news of an impending recovery, the number of these men has increased dramatically in just the last two to three months.
As the number of homeless men seeking donations from shoppers has increased, the patience of the customers appears to be wearing thin. When asked for money, most people just keep walking. The number of people who react with anger or frustration, however, seems to be increasing. When approached by a gentleman asking to wash his car windows for spare change, the man in this drawing said nothing, but the curl in his lip made his annoyance quite clear.
The tension between the shoppers and the mostly homeless, mostly African American men who ask them for donations is almost inevitable. I certainly understand the need of Oakland’s most marginalized residents to be able to feed themselves, and when the social safety net has failed you, you really have little recourse but to ask for money from strangers. At the same time, I also understand the frustration of those who are confronted with requests for donations, but who may themselves be struggling financially. Shared financial woes can end up being more divisive than unifying, at least in this case.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#614
Peet’s Coffee and Tea, Fruitvale Ave., Oakland, CA.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#613
Peet’s Coffee and Tea, Fruitvale Ave., Oakland, CA.
Ajuan Mance
1001 Black Men–#612
I passed this gentleman and his seriously beautiful dreadlocks on the sidewalk near Spectator Books on Piedmont Ave. I didn’t have a current photo of that street on my camera, and so I used for the background a stereoscope photo depicting turn-of-the-last-century Broadway in Oakland, instead.
Ajuan Mance