Last month, the two sides met face to face at a rally to stop gun violence at Oakland’s Lake Merritt that was organized, in part, by the police department. I wasn’t there, but my colleague Lee Fang was. He described the scene as “surreal,” with families, mostly African-American, mourning the deaths of their loved ones, while a small group of mostly white protesters jeered at them for collaborating with the police. Towers, who attended the event and spoke directly to the protesters, described them as “a lot of white folks that don’t even live out here.”

The protesters, for their part, basically accused Towers and other African-American families there of being tokens or stooges of the police. In a tweet the same day, Cat Brooks’ group echoed that sentiment: “OPD are exploiting Oaklanders pain to make sure they keep getting the largest chunk of the money.”

When I asked Brooks if she supports the abolition of police, she said, “Absolutely. Unapologetically.” Describing the role of the police in society, she said, “Their job is to maintain the status quo. And the status quo is race-based capitalism. And so they are the front line soldiers of the larger system of white supremacy, which is the engine of this country, both here locally and globally.”

But when I went to a barbershop with Towers, the opinions I heard were more complicated. Over an hour-long conversation between a half-dozen black men about the causes of violence in their neighborhoods, none of them blamed white supremacy. “Our youth are not killing each other because of the white man,” said Towers.