Black Lives Matter Protester Rejects Oakland Police’s Offer to BBQ Together

It worked in Wichita, Kansas, but in Oakland it’s a different story. A story has gone viral about Black Lives Matter protesters who joined law enforcement for a community cookout. The barbecue was seen as a way to start dialogue between activists and to help ease the racial tension that has gripped the nation amid high-profile police shootings and the targeted shootings of officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

Oakland Police Department invited local Black Lives Matter protesters to partake in a similar-minded barbecue like the one in Wichita.

At Wednesday’s divest from the police demonstration held at Oakland’s Police Union headquarters, where activists U-locked and chained themselves to the building’s doors, KTVU’s Henry Lee spoke with Karissa Lewis, a self-described “black-liberal farmer” and protester with Black Lives Matter. She was asked if she would accept the OPD’s offer.

Her answer: “Barbecue’s aren’t going to stop the brutality that black folks are facing. A barbecue is definitely not going to stop this blockade. And as a radical-black farmer from East Oakland–I eat pigs, I don’t eat with them.”

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