'People here don't matter': arrival of coronavirus-hit ship in Oakland plucks at old hurts

The port of Oakland spans more than 800 acres of land along the waterfront and includes 20 berths and an international airport. Its towering cranes are the first thing to greet visitors driving in from San Francisco, a constant flow of trucks and containers humming below.

California officials chose the port this week to dock the Grand Princess, the coronavirus-stricken cruise ship originally headed for San Francisco, citing the port’s scale and its transportation connections. Emergency workers would easily be able to isolate an 11-acre stretch while passengers disembarked to their quarantine locations, officials said.

Related: Hundreds on coronavirus-hit Grand Princess anxiously wait to disembark

But to many in Oakland, a historically more racially diverse and impoverished city long overshadowed by its counterpart across the bay, the decision – however rational - plucked at old hurts, steeped in racial and environmental discrimination.

“There’s a feeling, particularly among people of color in this city, that things keep happening to us and not for us,” said Oakland activist Cat Brooks. “When something like this [cruise ship] happens, that allows for a breeding ground of hysteria and mistrust.”

The decision over the Grand Princess fanned a longstanding tension between San Francisco and Oakland, a dynamic entrenched in inequality and economic disparity. San Francisco became the center of the latest tech boom, while Oakland remained its rustier, more industrial counterpart. Oakland was the place San Franciscans turned to for affordable housing, until Oaklanders could no longer afford to live in their own city.

The median household income in San Francisco is more than $104,000 while in Oakland, it’s $68,000. San Francisco’s poverty rate teetered at 11% while Oakland’s pushed 18%. Oakland had the Golden State Warriors – then the star basketball team moved to San Francisco after becoming a dominant force in the NBA.

“If you look at the type of comments that Oakland people have been posting about on social media, it’s not like anybody would wish ill on the ship passengers,” the Oakland council member Rebecca Kaplan said. “It’s that this is a pattern and a history that San Francisco treats Oakland this way. They’re using Oakland to solve a San Francisco problem.”

It’s a continuing theme, she said. Kaplan pointed to Oakland’s current housing affordability crisis, which she blames in part on San Franciscans moving to Oakland for cheaper housing and then driving up the costs.

“San Francisco builds jobs but not housing, and then expects Oakland to house the workforce that serves the profits of San Francisco,” Kaplan said. “That has been an ongoing problem for at least a couple of generations.”

This cuts particularly deeply in communities of color, which comprise almost 72% of Oakland’s population, many of whom found themselves getting pushed out of their own neighborhoods. Jhamel Robinson, an Oakland activist who co-founded BBQ’n While Black after a white woman called the police over two black men barbecuing at Lake Merritt, called this “the gentrification plague”.

For Robinson and other Oaklanders of color, this was why the decision to reroute the cruise ship to Oakland felt insidious. The West Oakland neighborhoods bordering the port are historically some of the city’s poorest and most polluted. Last month, a West Oakland high school was shut down after trichloroethylene was found in the groundwater under the campus.

While the risk of viral contamination is low – the ship’s passengers were isolated and moved to quarantine outside the city, with none remaining in the community – for some of Oaklanders, it felt like an intentional risk.

“I think that it’s important for people to remember that for black people in particular, there’s no logical reason for us to believe anything that comes out of the mouths of health officials, government officials or elected officials,” Brooks said. “When you look at the history of sterilization, experimentation, purposely infecting people, there’s a long history in this country where black people were purposely exposed for a variety of different reasons.”

Assembly member Rob Bonta, who represents Oakland, addressed these issues in a Facebook post.

“I am very sensitive to the perception that the Grand Princess being berthed and disembarked at the Port of Oakland – instead of in San Francisco – is wrong and unjust,” he wrote. “Frankly, that was my first reaction. It is absolutely appropriate to view this through the historical context and lens of environmental racism and injustice in Oakland, specifically in West Oakland, including exposure to toxics, dirty air and lead.

“But from my vantage point and in my estimation, after being briefed, informed and hearing directly from the team collaborating to execute this operation, my view is that the disembarkation operation of the Grand Princess is not at all the same.”

Kaplan made a point to note that objections to the decision to dock had nothing to do with the passengers on the ship. “Oakland is always willing to take in refugees,” she said. But officials could act quickly to protect Oakland’s vulnerable populations in the same way they acted quickly to dock the cruise ship.

“Yes, the state should stand up for the people on the ship, but also for the people in danger on the streets right now,” she said. “A bunch of high-ranking state officials moved heaven and earth to help them, and bless them, but we have people in desperate need, people who need hand-washing stations and public toilets right now, and the state needs to take action.”

BBQ’n While Black had planned a community baby shower to take place in West Oakland. After the cruise ship docked, Robinson said they decided to postpone the event as a precaution.

“It’s frustrating,” he said. “We’re trying to do something good for the community and trying to give back to the community and it feels like these barriers are in the way. We chose West Oakland [for the event] because we know there’s a dire need there.”

A need, he said that is now put on hold for the needs of the passengers on the cruise ship.

“To me personally, it makes it seem like people in these communities don’t matter,” he said.