From the Streets III: Operation Dignity

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From the Streets II: Vets Helping Vets

For more, see www.OpenToSolutions.com

From the Streets

Operation Dignity operates a homeless mobile outreach program in Oakland that attempts to provide basic food and clothing to Alameda County’s large homeless population. On a recent ride-along with their team, I met Trina. Currently homeless, she shared her experience of living on Oakland’s streets:

– Eric Zassenhaus

A Chilling Reminder of Domestic Violence

Here a video posted by CNN: “A woman turns down her estranged boyfriend’s proposal on TV. She is later found dead. CNN’s Al Goodman reports.”

As the report says, a Russian immigrant appears on a Spanish television show in Spain where she is reunited with her estranged boyfriend. This despite having a restraining order on him. During the telecast, the boyfriend proposes marriage, but she says no. Days later, she is found stabbed to death and the boyfriend is arrested for murder.

This story is a tragedy only made worse by the fact that 3 million viewers watched the couple on TV.

- Brian Aguilar

D-real, For Real

As we had previously stated (see our November 18th, 2007 post “How to avoid the funk“), we are going more in-depth in our street-level youth violence reporting with stories about the young people living in East Oakland. Given that Youth UpRising has been our starting point for this Web-based journalism project, we decided to start our in-depth reporting series with Derell Armstead, also know as D-real. He is a regular at the center and has participated in many dance battles that took place there.

We asked Derell if we could come see where he lives and ask him more questions about his life, where he’s from, what he’s doing now and where’s he’s going. That day, he was hanging out with his little brother, Nevin, who he takes care of since he became his guardian. Derell took us to 68th and MacArthur Blvd., where he lives so we could “see exactly how it is.” With this apartment, for which he pays the rent while also helping out his mother and sister who live elsewhere in the city, he can provide a safe space for his brother to hang out, eat and sleep.

Derell talked about maturity and growth and we couldn’t stop thinking that he is only 18 years old. We went on to ask him about his work experience and how he is getting by financially. He mentioned that he has worked for Youth Employment Partnership over the summer as member of Team Oakland.

In Team Oakland, youth receive classroom training in social and environmental issues and on-the-job training in landscaping, mural painting, urban gardening, and litter abatement. Team Oakland was created in partnerships with the City of Oakland Public Works Agency and the UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources. Derell talked about how he chose to work with a West Oakland team to clean up the neighborhood.

Then we asked Derell about his thoughts on role models. He talked about his lack of a role model in his own life, apart from rappers like Pharell Williams who designs his own clothes and who has “gone through it” as Derell says. In his view, being a role model is mostly about having been through similar experiences and therefore being able to understand the path one must take to succeed. Derell now makes his own clothes and with his brother they showed us one of their matching outfits.

In this interview, we learned that Derell is a very unique individual with many talents and he is now doing well for himself and his family in Oakland. But at the same time, his past and his experiences are similar to many other young African-American men in Oakland. The data and reports from both the Alameda County Public Health Department and the Alameda County Probation Department show that young African-American males are disproportionately more likely to be suspects and victims of homicide, and the same is true for their odds of being in jail or on probation in Oakland.

Derell shared some of his accomplishments with us in light of his experiences growing up in Oakland and having been through jail. He talked about the overcrowding of jails and how being locked up is having your life taken away. He also said that jails house many talented people who are wasting their chances to contribute to their community. Derell also reflects on death in Oakland as he lives across from the cemetery.

Finally, Derell shared his passion for dancing with us. Earlier that day, we had a chance to see him teaching some new moves to his little brother at Youth UpRising. Derell said he thought dancing could “turn his life around” and that it can be the way that “you don’t have to fight.” His little brother, Nevin, likes to dance with him and is already working on his skills. Derell currently teaches dancing in a couple of different locations throughout the city and plans to continue working on his moves, participating in dance battles and seeing where his talent can take him.

Martaina Hardaway conducted this interview. Kash Gaines did the audio recordings. I did the video recordings, editing, production.

- Yoram Savion

Giving Thanks

Last week, the Youth UpRising staff was passing out food supplies and turkeys to local residents of East Oakland’s Elmhurst district to celebrate Thanksgiving. They do this every year since they’ve been open in 2005 and the event usually brings out mothers, fathers, sons and daughters to claim their turkey to cook for the holiday.

This act of sharing, typically led by churches, represents something very deep and meaningful for me ever since I participated in a similar “giving” in New Orleans’ 9th Ward and Algiers parishes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for Thanksgiving day 2005. I realized then, that this simple act could create powerful moments of bonding in devastated communities in need of help.

After witnessing New Orleans post-Katrina, I came to the conclusion that most of the relief efforts being led in the region could actually be led in many different urban American communities that never saw a hurricane or a flood. On my way back to Oakland, I wondered why people weren’t organizing and doing this in their own communities in the Bay Area.

When I started working with Youth UpRising to train youth reporters to tell their own stories about their community, I began to understand that this is being done here. Moreover, there has been a long legacy of these self-reliance and self-determination efforts from the 60s and 70s with the Black Panthers to this day.

Reflecting on this day, we asked to interview Jessica Bell and her mother Leslie Ann Cole who came by the center to pick up their package of supplies and turkey for Thanksgiving day. Jessica was born and raised in Oakland and she now works at Youth UpRising with the Youth Grant 4 Youth Action team.

Sponsored by the Oakland Fund for Children & Youth (OFCY), Youth Grant 4 Youth A ction is a program of Youth UpRising. In this program, youth are trained to be leaders and grant makers who give money to other young people for projects that benefit the community. The OFCY was established by the Kids First law (Measure K), which came out of a ballot initiative that was put together by youth and adults in Oakland and was passed in November of 1996.

In this interview, Jessica explains that she always thinks about the consequences of violence first to try to avoid getting involved with it. Her mother suggests that strong leadership is necessary to change the situation around.

Kash Gaines conducted this interview. I did the recordings, editing, production.

- Yoram Savion

Not Just Men

Oakland Police are still waiting to talk to the women accused of drowning her 16-month-old baby. Here’s the Oakland Tribune update.  There are other recent cases of mothers allegedly killing their children. Here’s a case in Minnesota and one from Cleveland.

Here’s a story from Slate about parents who kill their children. According to it, although 13 percent of women commit all violent crimes in the country, they commit about 50 percent of all parental murders.

Danielle McNamara

Heading Your Way …

Hello all.

You may have noticed we’ve been a bit quiet on this blog of late. We can tell you it’s not because we’ve forgotten our responsibilities. Wanted to let you know what we’ve been up to.

For the last two weeks, we’ve been reporting on Deaf Hope, a non-profit organization that offers support to deaf survivors of domestic violence. We’ve been doing exhaustive interviews with staff, survivors and others in the community that will help us hail what this small agency has done for the community.

You’ll see this all play out in multimedia soon.

Inching towards deadline,

Brian Aguilar and Danielle McNamara

Anti-Violence Curriculum

I’ve been working on a video about classes for domestic violence perpetrators and wanted to give you a glimpse of the curriculum from Man Alive, a 52-week non-violence program for men. The class is taught by Devon Gaster, an instructor featured in other videos on the blog.

-Laurie Burkitt

Superbowl Violence: Myth?

I heard from a community leader that domestic violence rises every Superbowl Sunday. I couldn’t find any recent statistics, but I did find this article from the Las Vegas Review Journal. Here it is:

Super Bowl myths dispelled

Statistics don’t support domestic violence rumors, police say

By FRANK CURRERI
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Las Vegas police Lt. Brad Simpson wants to set the record straight about domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday: The despicable crime does not peak on the day of America’s most watched sports spectacle.

“It’s a myth,” said Simpson, a police veteran who heads the department’s domestic violence unit.

Simpson doesn’t know how the rumors started or why they have persisted across the country for so long. But statistics compiled by Las Vegas police support his contention and dispel one of the biggest myths associated with the big game.