Youths warned against Mehserle protesters

Kevin Grant has just three words to say to Oakland youth these days: "Don't get pimped."

Or sometimes: "Don't get used."

Grant is the Violence Prevention Network Coordinator for the city of Oakland. And, every Friday night for the past 10 weeks, at Tassa Farango Recreation Center Park on 85th Avenue, Grant has spent an hour counseling young men in a midnight basketball program.

The 70 or so participants call it No Workshop - No Jump Shot.

Recently, the discussions have inevitably turned to the trial of Johannes Mehserle, the white former BART police officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant, a young black passenger, on a train platform on New Year's Day 2009.

Kevin Grant - who is not related to Oscar Grant - holds a fiercely Oakland-centric viewpoint that places above all else the well-being of Oakland's people, property and especially the at-risk young people and parolee population he is responsible for reaching.

To out-of-town protesters, he says: "If you (are) so down with the cause, let's kick it off in your neighborhood, not in mine."

Grant has conveyed that message from Juvenile Hall to the school district's summer school program at Oakland Technical High School to the Boys & Girls Club and mandatory parole meetings. His outreach workers do the same on the streets of Oakland from Thursday to Saturday nights.

At the recreation center two Fridays ago, Grant spoke about a flyer he saw publicizing post-verdict demonstrations planned for Oakland and noted that it showed protesters from Oregon with bullhorns in hand.

"We ain't got bullhorns in the hood!" he said. "Nobody's mama went out and bought them bullhorns."

Grant, who spent time incarcerated as both a juvenile and an adult, said his own past allows him to speak in real terms with young adults from some of Oakland's toughest neighborhoods.

A few young men even felt comfortable enough to speak their true minds.

"A lot of the youngsters don't watch the news, but some of the hard-core kids said if they (demonstrators) bust a window at Foot Locker, 'I'm gettin' off,' " Grant said.

Grant accepts the candor and then busts out with the knowledge and wisdom that only time and experience can provide - and prays that his kids are listening.

"Yeah, they'll get us all riled up, and by the time we get down to the corner, they're at home watchin' us go to jail on TV," he replied.

He points out to everyday people that if they are not the ones choreographing the demonstration, they risk becoming unwitting pawns carrying out an agenda other than their own.

"We don't know how to manipulate a crowd and cause a spark that starts with a rock and ends up with a car overturned down the block," Grant said. "And what happens? We end up doing something we never meant to do when we left our house this morning."

Grant says his office is polling youth about the verdict and demonstrations and believes that the message is sinking in.

"The biggest strength we have is from Oscar's family," Grant said. "They have lost their child to violence, and they don't want any more, and if you're going to stand up for the family, then you have to respect that."

For Grant's family, the last words he ever spoke, "You shot me," have come to hold a profound significance that reaches beyond his death, said Cephus Johnson, Grant's uncle and a family spokesman.

"We are praying that no one else be hurt or killed because of a movement started by Oscar's death," he said. "Our family doesn't want to hear those words again, not from a protester, not from anybody."

"Do not allow elements outside our community to sway our coalition and carry out their agenda," he said. "Please. Don't get pimped."

Chip Johnson's column appears in the Chronicle on Tuesday and Friday. E-mail him at chjohnson@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle