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ariesgem

(1,634 posts)
Thu Oct 15, 2015, 10:35 PM Oct 2015

Singing While Black: Oakland choir threatened with ‘nuisance’ fines, gentrifiers complaining.



Oakland choir threatened with ‘nuisance’ fines after tech workers enter neighborhood

Members of a black church choir are blaming an influx of affluent tech workers for their group facing thousands of dollars in fines.

Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in West Oakland received a cease-and-desist letter from the city threatening them with $500 a day in fines plus a $3,500 nuisance fee, CBS San Francisco reports. Church members believe the sudden complaints about the choir are due to the fact the area is becoming gentrified.

Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in West Oakland received a cease-and-desist letter from the city threatening them with $500 a day in fines plus a $3,500 nuisance fee, CBS San Francisco reports. Church members believe the sudden complaints about the choir are due to the fact the area is becoming gentrified.

“Kind of hard to believe because we’ve been here about 65 years in the community and all of a sudden we get some concerns about the noise,” Thomas A Harris III, the pastor at Pleasant Grove, told the local CBS station.

The church just happens to be in a neighborhood full of the Victorian homes that characterize the Bay Area, and they’re being snapped up by wealthy tech industry workers, church officials told CBS.

“Those persons who are just new arrivals should not come and try to change the culture that existed before they arrived here,” George Holland, president of the local NAACP branch, told CBS. “We cannot have people come attack churches about music.”

The NAACP is also criticizing the way the city is handling the matter by simply slapping the long-standing church with threats instead of seeking a dialogue between the church and people making the complaints for a resolution.

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/singing-while-black-oakland-choir-hit-with-nuisance-fines-after-tech-workers-enter-neighborhood/
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Singing While Black: Oakland choir threatened with ‘nuisance’ fines, gentrifiers complaining. (Original Post) ariesgem Oct 2015 OP
Freedom of Religion does not apply to a church choir? Downwinder Oct 2015 #1
We lived next to a (white) Pentecostal church in Dallas Recursion Oct 2015 #6
I would be happy to listen to the singing! Lulu Belle Oct 2015 #2
k&r Starry Messenger Oct 2015 #3
That is interfering with their freedom of expression. lpbk2713 Oct 2015 #4
Inappropriate complaints 2naSalit Oct 2015 #5
Kick Liberal_in_LA Oct 2015 #7
Oakland's about to get very interesting Prism Oct 2015 #8
Here's a winning comment. Igel Oct 2015 #9
Singing to sky fairies has no place in a modern secular nation! Nuclear Unicorn Oct 2015 #10
The music and logosoco Oct 2015 #11

Recursion

(56,582 posts)
6. We lived next to a (white) Pentecostal church in Dallas
Fri Oct 16, 2015, 12:45 AM
Oct 2015

We called the cops on them most weekends because they were so damn loud, well past midnight. (Those of us on the block basically had a sign-up sheet for who would call on a given weekend.)

Lulu Belle

(70 posts)
2. I would be happy to listen to the singing!
Thu Oct 15, 2015, 11:09 PM
Oct 2015

There's nothing like good, godly music to make a person feel great!

lpbk2713

(42,697 posts)
4. That is interfering with their freedom of expression.
Thu Oct 15, 2015, 11:38 PM
Oct 2015



And they were expressing themselves that way years before the whiners moved in.

Igel

(35,199 posts)
9. Here's a winning comment.
Fri Oct 16, 2015, 06:54 AM
Oct 2015

"Those persons who are just new arrivals should not come and try to change the culture that existed before they arrived here."

I keep hearing this. Sometimes it's considered evil, narrow-minded, exclusionary; sometimes enlightened, expansive, inclusionary.

A = A.

logosoco

(3,208 posts)
11. The music and
Fri Oct 16, 2015, 08:26 AM
Oct 2015

architecture are the few things I honestly like about religion.

I would be planning a lot of Christmas caroling if I was in this church!

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