Every morning when I look at my bathroom mirror, I notice how my face has changed since I first started noticing that my face does indeed change during my teen years, almost 30 years ago. I notice now how my face has steadily gotten chubbier and the lines around my eyes aren’t as …Read more…
East Oakland Hip Hop Cultural Icon
I love hip-hop and rap music; they’re my favorite genres. Don’t get me wrong, I like jazz, R&B, reggae, soca, salsa, hard rock, pop, alternative, and etcetera, so I do have diversified taste. However, what makes me go crazy/lose my mind is words on a drum beat. I’m not a radiohead, but when I listen …Read more…
Beloved Oakland 2018
It was at the moment that Yuri Kochiyama’s daughter was accepting the award for her mother, presented by Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter. Images of Yuri were projected on the screen behind the stage, one of which was the photo of Yuri holding a bleeding Malcolm X in her arms in his …Read more…
The Power of Christ in East Oakland
Missio Dei Oakland (MDO) is a house church network that is positively serving disadvantaged people in East Oakland through compassion, personal connection and spreading the gospel. In July 2012, a church start -up team of four individuals moved to Oakland to plant the ministry with the goal of creating a church for people who didn’t …Read more…
Honoring Anhatapu in Huichin
One of my top three favorite things to do as a kid-besides hiding behind the huge wall of a prickly pear cactus in my backyard or laying on one of two hammocks that were between the three cherry trees to space out-was climbing trees. Hurling my lil’ brown body higher, higher with a tinge of …Read more…
Super Blue Blood Moon Over East Oakland
The Super Blue Blood Moon as it appeared over East Oakland
Profile of The East Oakland Switchboard
The East Oakland Switchboard is located right around the corner from me. For three years, I’ve walked and ridden past it and wondered what the business does. Formerly homeless, I could tell it was a non-profit organization, but because I have never seen any lines of people around it, I remained mystified. I could …Read more…
Design your destiny then print BIG.
Some people wait on life to define them and others design and define life for themselves. When you get that opportunity to show off your design, make sure you print big. Early Eighties In the early eighties, Dawaud Muhammad remembers black homeowners whose parents had migrated to Oakland from Louisiana and Mississippi as his neighborhood …Read more…
Sweet and Bitter
I’m leaving my $1400 – a-month two-bedroom rented house, locking my closet door; otherwise, known as my front door, with the leaky roof above it. I lock the two locks on my security door and walk down the steps to my non-shrub lined trail because someone has stolen them! Neither my front nor back yards …Read more…
Hope Dealers and Spirit Wheelers
The East side of the O in the Wild Wild West, California’s desert and no man’s land. This desert isn’t only craving water but thirsty for so much more. Seminary to Havenscourt is not yet “the deep” but it’s so deep. Liquor stores and laundromats; check cashing’s and smoke shops. The largest most dominant …Read more…