Fruitvale Station
Oscar Grant III was shot and killed by BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) Police in Oakland, California on New Years 2009. I was very young when this occurred, but I do remember the protests and riots in Oakland in 2009. However, I didn’t know what they meant at the time. I remember my family members going to vigils at Fruitvale BART station. I remember the city coming together in this tragedy.
In 2013, the movie Fruitvale Station was made about the Oscar Grant story. I watched the movie for the first time this week. It was so hard to watch. The director, as he should, truly humanizes Oscar Grant and paints a picture of who he was as a person. The film shows what an amazing father, son, brother, and friend he was. At the beginning of the movie, Oscar helps a white woman at Trader Joe’s as she is trying to figure out what fish to buy for a Southern-style fish fry. He calls his Grandma Bonnie for her, and Grandma Bonnie helps her get all the ingredients she needs. This is just one example of quite a few instances in the movie where Oscar helps people. There was even a scene where he helped an animal, a pit bull. In the scene, Oscar sees a pit bull get hit by a car and he runs to grab the pit bull from the middle of the street and comfort it as it cries and passes away. This scene is a lot of people’s favorite in the movie. But it is also the scene that makes a lot of people hate the movie. I think that it was a good addition to the storyline, in that it shows that Oscar was a great and loving guy, but it also symbolizes something deeper. Pit bulls are often unjustly feared by people, just as young black men are unjustly feared. But in this scene you really feel for the pit bull; but it’s too late. Just as when an innocent black man is murdered, the same people that feared him now feel for him; but it’s too late.
At the end of the movie, when Oscar is taken off the BART train, restrained, beaten, and insulted by the police, I almost had to look away. The portrayal of this was all too real. Having seen the actual footage from that moment, I knew what was about to happen. Seconds later, the officer shot him in the back. His girlfriend and the mother of his child, Sophina, was just feet away downstairs at the station (in real life and in the movie). She heard the gunshot. The movie showed her confused, yelling, and crying for Oscar. She had no idea what was going on. She saw Oscar's friends handcuffed by police coming down the stairs and in a rage they yelled, “They shot Osc! They shot him” By this part of the movie, I was balling my eyes out. Because this wasn't just a movie. This was real life. I couldn’t believe that this horrendous act had occurred. Still occurs. And for me to see it all play out in the film, at Fruitvale Station, somewhere I have been countless times, it was just too real.
In the movie (I have to keep saying that), when they took Oscar to Highland Hospital in Oakland, it only got more real for me. This part of the movie was too familiar; too close to home. When my uncle was shot, they also took him to Highland. I remember rushing there after we got the call. I remember the hours in that same ICU waiting room as Oscar’s friends and family in the movie. I remember the uncertainty. I remember when they told us he didn’t make it. I truly felt this scene in the movie because I had experienced it. I am not trying to compare my experience to Grant’s family, because they were under extremely different circumstances. However, I am trying to show that this is the experience of many black families in America, who are affected by gun violence in one way or another.
Furthermore, the movie Fruitvale Station was very well done. Very real, very raw. Though it was a bit unsettling to watch for me, I do think that it was necessary I watched it. And if you’re reading this, you should watch it too. Oscar Grant’s story should be heard. May he rest in peace.
