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"content": "\u003cp>Long before Lizzo made headlines with her \u003ca href=\"https://variety.com/2019/music/news/lizzo-coachella-weekend-two-sound-issues-1203194220/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a cappella Coachella performance\u003c/a>, collaborated with Missy Elliott and hit No. 1 on the iTunes charts with her new album, millions of Americans already knew her voice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The liberatory, soulful refrain of “Water Me” (“I am free, yeah, yeah!”) accompanied ads for \u003ca href=\"https://www.ispot.tv/ad/dCkO/2018-acura-mdx-by-design-for-any-road-t2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Acura\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ispot.tv/ad/w3wn/directv-now-your-thing-break-up-song-by-lizzo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DIRECTV\u003c/a>; her kiss-off to online haters, “Let ‘Em Say,” soundtracked a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ispot.tv/ad/Amwt/target-well-chosen-song-by-lizzo-and-caroline-smith\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Target commercial\u003c/a>. And, to her \u003ca href=\"https://snobette.com/2018/12/lizzo-weight-watchers-worship-controversy/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">body-positive fanbase’s frustration\u003c/a>, her sexy, self-empowerment anthem “Worship” pumped up dieters in a Weight Watchers commercial. (While I researched these, YouTube’s algorithm also fed me a low-cal margarita ad with Lizzo’s 2019 single, “Juice.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With music sales in decline and streaming royalties estimated at a fraction of a cent per play, musicians have to make strategic moves, once seen as selling out, to survive in today’s market. Given that the entertainment industry favors the thin, the light-skinned and the barely legal, the odds were stacked against Lizzo’s mainstream ascent as a 30-year-old, plus-sized, dark-skinned black woman. Licensing her music for commercials ensured that Lizzo would get paid for her creativity, while many others who look like her don’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/XaCrQL_8eMY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That advertiser friendliness, however, has complicated the way listeners and critics receive her ultra-positive and inclusive new album, \u003cem>Cuz I Love You\u003c/em>. The image of Lizzo as a brand-aligned hashtag-feminist permeated Rawiya Kameir’s controversial \u003ca href=\"https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/lizzo-cuz-i-love-you/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">6.5 Pitchfork review\u003c/a>, where the writer likened her to this generation’s Natasha Bedingfield (ouch), whose nice but toothless girl-power bop “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7k0a5hYnSI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Unwritten\u003c/a>” could play in “any given rom-com or yogurt commercial.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s room for critique of \u003cem>Cuz I Love You\u003c/em>, but it’s unfair to dismiss the content of Lizzo’s work because of its commercial appeal. (John Legend sold Pampers, and Cardi B peddled Pepsi at this year’s Super Bowl, and no one seems to take their creative output any less seriously.) It’s even more unfair to criticize it for what I think the Pitchfork review was really going after: its feel-goodness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/raVe1hZxFAc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, Lizzo has an important role in the music ecosystem. In a world filled with unresolved trauma, where we see daily violence, corruption, racism and sexism amplified in our social feeds, Lizzo offers the perspective of someone who has, against all odds, accepted and moved past her pain into sunnier, more optimistic terrain. She has an abundance mindset in a world of scarcity, and is stubbornly positive in a media climate that thrives on black trauma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trauma is big business. Music about unhealthy coping through drugs, consumerism and violence rules the charts. Black musicians who excavate the depths of racial trauma become lauded as Serious Artists, while those who make uplifting music, with uplifting lyrics, are often scoffed at as corny. (This trend drives media consumption as well: as an editor, I often notice that KQED Arts’ stories highlighting injustice perform astronomically better, traffic-wise, than our stories about solutions.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pop artists who do the difficult work of giving voice to social injustices, like Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé and Solange, deserve all the praise they’re getting. But it’s clear that Lizzo doesn’t get permission to be joyous and carefree in the way that white peers such as Carly Rae Jepsen and Taylor Swift can—easily, profitably and without skepticism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are many stages of healing, and many shades of human emotion. We need songs that give voice to our bad impulses, our grief and our frustration at broken systems. But we also need to dance it out in the mirror sometimes, and that’s why self-love anthems like Lizzo’s “Juice” and “Soulmate” matter too—whether we hear them in a low-cal margarita ad on YouTube, while getting dressed in the morning or in a club with hundreds of strangers searching for connection, understanding or escape.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "In a media climate that thrives on black trauma, some listeners have met Lizzo's ultra-positive message with skepticism. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Long before Lizzo made headlines with her \u003ca href=\"https://variety.com/2019/music/news/lizzo-coachella-weekend-two-sound-issues-1203194220/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a cappella Coachella performance\u003c/a>, collaborated with Missy Elliott and hit No. 1 on the iTunes charts with her new album, millions of Americans already knew her voice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The liberatory, soulful refrain of “Water Me” (“I am free, yeah, yeah!”) accompanied ads for \u003ca href=\"https://www.ispot.tv/ad/dCkO/2018-acura-mdx-by-design-for-any-road-t2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Acura\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.ispot.tv/ad/w3wn/directv-now-your-thing-break-up-song-by-lizzo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DIRECTV\u003c/a>; her kiss-off to online haters, “Let ‘Em Say,” soundtracked a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ispot.tv/ad/Amwt/target-well-chosen-song-by-lizzo-and-caroline-smith\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Target commercial\u003c/a>. And, to her \u003ca href=\"https://snobette.com/2018/12/lizzo-weight-watchers-worship-controversy/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">body-positive fanbase’s frustration\u003c/a>, her sexy, self-empowerment anthem “Worship” pumped up dieters in a Weight Watchers commercial. (While I researched these, YouTube’s algorithm also fed me a low-cal margarita ad with Lizzo’s 2019 single, “Juice.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With music sales in decline and streaming royalties estimated at a fraction of a cent per play, musicians have to make strategic moves, once seen as selling out, to survive in today’s market. Given that the entertainment industry favors the thin, the light-skinned and the barely legal, the odds were stacked against Lizzo’s mainstream ascent as a 30-year-old, plus-sized, dark-skinned black woman. Licensing her music for commercials ensured that Lizzo would get paid for her creativity, while many others who look like her don’t.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/XaCrQL_8eMY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/XaCrQL_8eMY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>That advertiser friendliness, however, has complicated the way listeners and critics receive her ultra-positive and inclusive new album, \u003cem>Cuz I Love You\u003c/em>. The image of Lizzo as a brand-aligned hashtag-feminist permeated Rawiya Kameir’s controversial \u003ca href=\"https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/lizzo-cuz-i-love-you/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">6.5 Pitchfork review\u003c/a>, where the writer likened her to this generation’s Natasha Bedingfield (ouch), whose nice but toothless girl-power bop “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7k0a5hYnSI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Unwritten\u003c/a>” could play in “any given rom-com or yogurt commercial.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s room for critique of \u003cem>Cuz I Love You\u003c/em>, but it’s unfair to dismiss the content of Lizzo’s work because of its commercial appeal. (John Legend sold Pampers, and Cardi B peddled Pepsi at this year’s Super Bowl, and no one seems to take their creative output any less seriously.) It’s even more unfair to criticize it for what I think the Pitchfork review was really going after: its feel-goodness.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/raVe1hZxFAc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/raVe1hZxFAc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Indeed, Lizzo has an important role in the music ecosystem. In a world filled with unresolved trauma, where we see daily violence, corruption, racism and sexism amplified in our social feeds, Lizzo offers the perspective of someone who has, against all odds, accepted and moved past her pain into sunnier, more optimistic terrain. She has an abundance mindset in a world of scarcity, and is stubbornly positive in a media climate that thrives on black trauma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trauma is big business. Music about unhealthy coping through drugs, consumerism and violence rules the charts. Black musicians who excavate the depths of racial trauma become lauded as Serious Artists, while those who make uplifting music, with uplifting lyrics, are often scoffed at as corny. (This trend drives media consumption as well: as an editor, I often notice that KQED Arts’ stories highlighting injustice perform astronomically better, traffic-wise, than our stories about solutions.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pop artists who do the difficult work of giving voice to social injustices, like Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé and Solange, deserve all the praise they’re getting. But it’s clear that Lizzo doesn’t get permission to be joyous and carefree in the way that white peers such as Carly Rae Jepsen and Taylor Swift can—easily, profitably and without skepticism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are many stages of healing, and many shades of human emotion. We need songs that give voice to our bad impulses, our grief and our frustration at broken systems. But we also need to dance it out in the mirror sometimes, and that’s why self-love anthems like Lizzo’s “Juice” and “Soulmate” matter too—whether we hear them in a low-cal margarita ad on YouTube, while getting dressed in the morning or in a club with hundreds of strangers searching for connection, understanding or escape.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Last weekend at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/a27003864/beyonce-omari-hardwick-naacp-awards-reactions/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NAACP Image Awards\u003c/a>, actor Omari Hardwick made headlines for the wrong reasons: invading Beyoncé’s space. Hardwick came over to greet Beyoncé and Jay-Z, and planted a kiss on Beyoncé’s cheek. Then, he doubled back and planted another kiss, this time uncomfortably close to Bey’s mouth. Her face twisted into a subtle cringe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/PopCrave/status/1112450401368977408\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just days before, the 2014 nominee for Nevada lieutenant governor, Lucy Flores, published a \u003ca href=\"https://www.thecut.com/2019/03/an-awkward-kiss-changed-how-i-saw-joe-biden.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">viral essay\u003c/a> about an uncomfortable, similar incident that happened during her campaign. Moments before she took the stage at a speaking engagement, then-vice president Joe Biden—there to endorse her as a candidate—planted a “big, slow kiss” on the back of her head and “inhaled” her hair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was there to promote me as the right person for the lieutenant governor job,” she wrote. “Instead, he made me feel uneasy, gross and confused. The vice president of the United States of America had just touched me in an intimate way reserved for close friends, family or romantic partners—and I felt powerless to do anything about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[pullquote]It seems that no matter how accomplished, professional or polished a woman is—even if she’s Beyoncé—some man will always find a way to disregard her personal space because \u003cem>he \u003c/em>feels like touching her.[/pullquote]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Flores’ essay ran, numerous \u003ca href=\"http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/02/9-times-joe-biden-whispered-in-womens-ears.html?gtm=top\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">photos\u003c/a> of Biden nuzzling, kissing and hugging women and girls from behind at public events resurfaced, stirring up debates about whether his “\u003ca href=\"https://theweek.com/articles/737749/creepy-uncle-joe-biden-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">creepy uncle\u003c/a>” vibe would hinder his viability as a presidential candidate. Like clockwork, Biden’s supporters accused Flores of attempting to sabotage his possible run. And like clockwork, Biden responded in a statement, denying wrongdoing. “Not once—never—did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully,” his statement reads. “But it was never my intention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13854169\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 700px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13854169\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/17-joe-biden-stephanie-carter.w700.h467.jpg\" alt=\"Joe Biden whispers in Christine Carter's ear in 2015.\" width=\"700\" height=\"467\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/17-joe-biden-stephanie-carter.w700.h467.jpg 700w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/17-joe-biden-stephanie-carter.w700.h467-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joe Biden whispers in Stephanie Carter’s ear in 2015. \u003ccite>(Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s hard not to notice the parallels between Biden and Hardwick’s behavior. Both incidents may not have been invasive enough to rise to the level of sexual assault, and no one’s pressing charges here—Beyoncé hasn’t commented, and Flores says Biden didn’t do anything illegal—but this banal form of creepiness, subtle enough to give the offending party plausible deniability, is just one of the world’s many ways of signaling that women don’t have complete control over what happens to our bodies. It seems that no matter how accomplished, professional or polished a woman is—even if she’s Beyoncé—some man will always find a way to disregard her personal space because \u003cem>he \u003c/em>feels like touching her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='More on Biden' link1=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/04/01/708667603/joe-biden-responds-to-allegations-of-inappropritate-behavior,NPR: Joe Biden Responds\" link2=\"https://medium.com/@scarterdc/the-metoo-story-that-wasnt-me-6c1d5eb1e94d,Stephanie Carter: The #MeToo Story That Wasn't Me\" target=_blank]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For women, these small invasions of personal space are a constant of everyday life, and figuring out quiet ways to duck and dodge them is taxing. There’s the acquaintance who holds what was supposed to be a quick hug hello for way too long, leaving us trapped and wondering how to get out of their embrace without “making it weird.” There are the men who “accidentally” rub up against us on public transit; the ones who squeeze past us in crowded rooms while touching the smalls of our backs; the ones who linger watching us at the gym.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This behavior is nothing new, but times are changing. When Adrien Brody surprise-kissed Halle Berry at the Oscars 11 years ago, it was widely celebrated as a magical awards-show moment. (Berry has said that she “\u003ca href=\"https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/halle-berry-recalls-that-adrien-brody-oscar-kiss-w496090/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">doesn’t know\u003c/a>” if she enjoyed it.) The public’s response was decidedly different a decade later, when a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/arts/music/ariana-grande-funeral-groping-bishop-ellis.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pastor\u003c/a> put his hand a \u003cem>little\u003c/em> too close to Ariana Grande’s breast at Aretha Franklin’s funeral, or when actress \u003ca href=\"https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/adam-sandler-claire-foy-graham-norton-show-hand-knee-inappropriate-everyday-sexism-a8027086.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Claire Foy\u003c/a> deflected Adam Sandler’s hand on her knee during a talk show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13854171\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13854171\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/GettyImages-1025541052-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Singer Ariana Grande speaks with Bishop Charles Ellis III after performing at the funeral for Aretha Franklin at the Greater Grace Temple on August 31, 2018 in Detroit, Michigan.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/GettyImages-1025541052.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/GettyImages-1025541052-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/GettyImages-1025541052-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Singer Ariana Grande speaks with Bishop Charles Ellis III after performing at the funeral for Aretha Franklin at the Greater Grace Temple on August 31, 2018 in Detroit, Michigan. \u003ccite>(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When these behaviors happen in public, our brains quickly calculate risk: \u003cem>Do I tolerate a few seconds of discomfort hoping he’ll leave me alone afterwards, or do I speak out and draw more unwanted attention to myself—or worse, provoke anger and retaliation?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Men like Biden and Hardwick hide under the subtlety of their creepiness because how commonplace it is makes it easy to dismiss. But when women and girls are made to live like Ms. Pac-Man, evading potential pursuers day in and day out, it conditions us to question our own bodily autonomy. It puts us on edge. It causes us to question our sanity—whether we’re the only ones turning it into a big deal, since it’s happening in plain sight and no one seems to care. It’s hard to find a voice to speak out when that’s the case, and that needs to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nancy Pelosi told Biden to “\u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/02/pelosi-says-biden-allegations-are-not-disqualifying-1247827\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">join the straight-arm club\u003c/a>” and keep his hands to himself. I’m not calling for a moratorium on friendly hugs, but it would behoove more men to do the same.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Flores’ essay ran, numerous \u003ca href=\"http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/02/9-times-joe-biden-whispered-in-womens-ears.html?gtm=top\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">photos\u003c/a> of Biden nuzzling, kissing and hugging women and girls from behind at public events resurfaced, stirring up debates about whether his “\u003ca href=\"https://theweek.com/articles/737749/creepy-uncle-joe-biden-2020\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">creepy uncle\u003c/a>” vibe would hinder his viability as a presidential candidate. Like clockwork, Biden’s supporters accused Flores of attempting to sabotage his possible run. And like clockwork, Biden responded in a statement, denying wrongdoing. “Not once—never—did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully,” his statement reads. “But it was never my intention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13854169\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 700px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13854169\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/17-joe-biden-stephanie-carter.w700.h467.jpg\" alt=\"Joe Biden whispers in Christine Carter's ear in 2015.\" width=\"700\" height=\"467\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/17-joe-biden-stephanie-carter.w700.h467.jpg 700w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/17-joe-biden-stephanie-carter.w700.h467-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joe Biden whispers in Stephanie Carter’s ear in 2015. \u003ccite>(Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s hard not to notice the parallels between Biden and Hardwick’s behavior. Both incidents may not have been invasive enough to rise to the level of sexual assault, and no one’s pressing charges here—Beyoncé hasn’t commented, and Flores says Biden didn’t do anything illegal—but this banal form of creepiness, subtle enough to give the offending party plausible deniability, is just one of the world’s many ways of signaling that women don’t have complete control over what happens to our bodies. It seems that no matter how accomplished, professional or polished a woman is—even if she’s Beyoncé—some man will always find a way to disregard her personal space because \u003cem>he \u003c/em>feels like touching her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For women, these small invasions of personal space are a constant of everyday life, and figuring out quiet ways to duck and dodge them is taxing. There’s the acquaintance who holds what was supposed to be a quick hug hello for way too long, leaving us trapped and wondering how to get out of their embrace without “making it weird.” There are the men who “accidentally” rub up against us on public transit; the ones who squeeze past us in crowded rooms while touching the smalls of our backs; the ones who linger watching us at the gym.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This behavior is nothing new, but times are changing. When Adrien Brody surprise-kissed Halle Berry at the Oscars 11 years ago, it was widely celebrated as a magical awards-show moment. (Berry has said that she “\u003ca href=\"https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/halle-berry-recalls-that-adrien-brody-oscar-kiss-w496090/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">doesn’t know\u003c/a>” if she enjoyed it.) The public’s response was decidedly different a decade later, when a \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/arts/music/ariana-grande-funeral-groping-bishop-ellis.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pastor\u003c/a> put his hand a \u003cem>little\u003c/em> too close to Ariana Grande’s breast at Aretha Franklin’s funeral, or when actress \u003ca href=\"https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/adam-sandler-claire-foy-graham-norton-show-hand-knee-inappropriate-everyday-sexism-a8027086.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Claire Foy\u003c/a> deflected Adam Sandler’s hand on her knee during a talk show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13854171\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13854171\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/GettyImages-1025541052-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Singer Ariana Grande speaks with Bishop Charles Ellis III after performing at the funeral for Aretha Franklin at the Greater Grace Temple on August 31, 2018 in Detroit, Michigan.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/GettyImages-1025541052.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/GettyImages-1025541052-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/04/GettyImages-1025541052-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Singer Ariana Grande speaks with Bishop Charles Ellis III after performing at the funeral for Aretha Franklin at the Greater Grace Temple on August 31, 2018 in Detroit, Michigan. \u003ccite>(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When these behaviors happen in public, our brains quickly calculate risk: \u003cem>Do I tolerate a few seconds of discomfort hoping he’ll leave me alone afterwards, or do I speak out and draw more unwanted attention to myself—or worse, provoke anger and retaliation?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Men like Biden and Hardwick hide under the subtlety of their creepiness because how commonplace it is makes it easy to dismiss. But when women and girls are made to live like Ms. Pac-Man, evading potential pursuers day in and day out, it conditions us to question our own bodily autonomy. It puts us on edge. It causes us to question our sanity—whether we’re the only ones turning it into a big deal, since it’s happening in plain sight and no one seems to care. It’s hard to find a voice to speak out when that’s the case, and that needs to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nancy Pelosi told Biden to “\u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/02/pelosi-says-biden-allegations-are-not-disqualifying-1247827\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">join the straight-arm club\u003c/a>” and keep his hands to himself. I’m not calling for a moratorium on friendly hugs, but it would behoove more men to do the same.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">I\u003c/span>f Theresa Fortune’s story were a Hollywood film, the trailer would start with a scene of her laying on the floor, in her house. As dramatic music swelled, the camera’s focus would go from Theresa’s face, distraught and in the foreground, to a knife not too far in the distance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suddenly, the music would drop out, and the trailer would cut to her birthday party earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Held a day before her birthday on March 2, Theresa’s party wasn’t your usual birthday celebration. Instead of having drinks at a bar or cutting it up on the dance floor, Rese, as friends call her, hosted an artist talk at a gallery on 15th and Webster in downtown Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The subject of the discussion: mental health and motherhood, from a firsthand account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As people gathered inside, some talked about the rainstorm outside, while others discussed the dark cloud over the Oakland Unified School District, as its teachers had just spent most of the week on strike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On one side of the gallery, a video of Rese walking barefoot in the wilderness, made by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/musiquitomedia/\">Jeremy Allens\u003c/a>, played on a large screen. On the opposite side, photos of Rese were framed and mounted on exposed concrete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The photos, by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/_sjwphotography/\">Stephanie Warner\u003c/a>, depicted a range of Rese’s emotions, reenacting of all the things she’s been through—from being depressed in the shower to feeling delighted while in the presence of her child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They showed a window into a world I had never experienced firsthand, and, as a man, I never will. But I was familiar with the elements. Be it my mom, my sister, my lady—hell, just about every mother I know—they’ve all been through some aspect of what Rese has started talking openly about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13853625\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13853625\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Theresa Fortune in conversation with Jeannine Hooks-Allen\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463.jpg 1616w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Theresa Fortune in conversation with Jeannine Hooks-Allen. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">I\u003c/span>nside the gallery that night, Rese told the story of how she and her former partner came to have their daughter. After the child’s birth, the couple hit hard times financially. That, coupled with a number of other circumstances, caused the two to break up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rese, learning how to navigate single motherhood and overcome financial woes by becoming a culinary artist, was also dealing with postpartum depression. And in the United States, that’s not uncommon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/health/postpartum-depression-drug.html\">a \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> article\u003c/a> published last week, one in seven mothers in the United States deals with postpartum depression. The FDA recently approved new medication to treat postpartum depression, a big move toward recognition of the seriousness of the issue. Maybe next, they’ll see how big the issue is for African American women, especially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Case in point: in Los Angeles, the journalist Priska Neely covers just about all aspects of maternal health, from the \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/2018/08/28/a_message_for_black_moms_keep_calm_and_carry_on_breastfeeding.php?_ga=2.164235771.53458115.1553487726-91259826.1553487726\">importance of breastfeeding\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/2018/06/29/keeping_black_babies_alive_is_a_priority_for_las_top_health_officials.php?_ga=2.126158153.53458115.1553487726-91259826.1553487726\">city-backed solutions\u003c/a> addressing birth-related deaths for black women and black babies. According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/12/07/568948782/black-mothers-keep-dying-after-giving-birth-shalon-irvings-story-explains-why\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">an NPR story\u003c/a> by Renee Montagne, black mothers and children are two to three times more likely to die during the birthing process than any other racial demographic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Essentially, Rese is doing similar work as Priska by tackling multiple aspects of a monumental issue—maternal health. It’s just that Rese does so using her own story and her own art, and asking for the input of others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m creating a platform,” Rese, who has created a company called \u003ca href=\"https://www.cwtc.events/\">Communion with the Community\u003c/a>, tells me. “Using theatre as a space for transparency, and to engage in a dialogue that most people aren’t ready to have out loud.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those taboo subjects include infidelity, healing from trauma, as well as being unemployed and receiving welfare, which Rese addresses openly in her regular schedule of performances. She acknowledges that she’s not in the same financial predicament she once was, and that she’s pursuing a career in the arts in order to get off of government assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And through her art, she helps others recognize that they aren’t alone in their experience. She does that by telling her story. Even the tough part, when she was on the floor, looking at the knife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13853626\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13853626\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Theresa Fortune, reliving her experience, on camera\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452.jpg 1616w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Theresa Fortune relived her experience of postpartum depression for a series of photos by Stephanie Warner. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span>t one point in the conversation on her birthday, Rese got quiet. She held one hand over her pursed lips, starring blankly past the 30 or so people in the audience. “You can tell me,” said the host, Jeannine Hooks-Allen. Rese dropped her hand, giving her mouth space to move, and said, “I’m going to tell everyone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I put my head down and took shorthand notes on my phone as Rese explained how she chose not to take her own life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“I just wanted to smell daughter’s clothes.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“I made a conscious decision to stay. I challenged God.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“If there’s no one to call when you’re drowning in your darkness, it’s OK to talk to yourself.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“Pain is a process, with a purpose.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“Life’s greatest challenge is how to successfully deal with pain.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the last words I have in my notes from that night is a name:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“Mamma Flo.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Florence McCrary, or Mamma Flo as she’s known to many, was in the building that night. She’s the mother of one of Rese’s childhood friends, Erika McCrary, as well as Terrence McCrary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Terrence “T-Mack” McCrary was killed in 2016, on the same corner where Rese’s performance was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I met Mamma Flo before the event started, she told me that she wasn’t avoiding this block: “it’s going to be there.” And then she looked me in my eyes and said, “but if I find the men who did it… well, that’s another story.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Rese, Mamma Flo embodies everything that she aspires to as a mother. “Her ability to show up to this show, and having to walk the same street her son was killed on, spoke volumes to me. She is the essence of strength, grace, purpose and love,” Rese told me afterward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mamma Flo being there also underscored the event’s purpose: to provide a platform of mutual support. “As mothers, oftentimes we’re not allowed to take our capes off and be vulnerable within our moments of pain,” Rese said. “That day, she took her cape off, and still had the ability to flow through her pain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Theresa Fortune hosts a performance with Jason Jasper about health, relationships and family on Sunday, March 31, at the Copper Spoon in Oakland. \u003ca href=\"https://www.cwtc.events/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">I\u003c/span>f Theresa Fortune’s story were a Hollywood film, the trailer would start with a scene of her laying on the floor, in her house. As dramatic music swelled, the camera’s focus would go from Theresa’s face, distraught and in the foreground, to a knife not too far in the distance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suddenly, the music would drop out, and the trailer would cut to her birthday party earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Held a day before her birthday on March 2, Theresa’s party wasn’t your usual birthday celebration. Instead of having drinks at a bar or cutting it up on the dance floor, Rese, as friends call her, hosted an artist talk at a gallery on 15th and Webster in downtown Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The subject of the discussion: mental health and motherhood, from a firsthand account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As people gathered inside, some talked about the rainstorm outside, while others discussed the dark cloud over the Oakland Unified School District, as its teachers had just spent most of the week on strike.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On one side of the gallery, a video of Rese walking barefoot in the wilderness, made by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/musiquitomedia/\">Jeremy Allens\u003c/a>, played on a large screen. On the opposite side, photos of Rese were framed and mounted on exposed concrete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The photos, by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/_sjwphotography/\">Stephanie Warner\u003c/a>, depicted a range of Rese’s emotions, reenacting of all the things she’s been through—from being depressed in the shower to feeling delighted while in the presence of her child.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They showed a window into a world I had never experienced firsthand, and, as a man, I never will. But I was familiar with the elements. Be it my mom, my sister, my lady—hell, just about every mother I know—they’ve all been through some aspect of what Rese has started talking openly about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13853625\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13853625\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Theresa Fortune in conversation with Jeannine Hooks-Allen\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3463.jpg 1616w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Theresa Fortune in conversation with Jeannine Hooks-Allen. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">I\u003c/span>nside the gallery that night, Rese told the story of how she and her former partner came to have their daughter. After the child’s birth, the couple hit hard times financially. That, coupled with a number of other circumstances, caused the two to break up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rese, learning how to navigate single motherhood and overcome financial woes by becoming a culinary artist, was also dealing with postpartum depression. And in the United States, that’s not uncommon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/health/postpartum-depression-drug.html\">a \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> article\u003c/a> published last week, one in seven mothers in the United States deals with postpartum depression. The FDA recently approved new medication to treat postpartum depression, a big move toward recognition of the seriousness of the issue. Maybe next, they’ll see how big the issue is for African American women, especially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Case in point: in Los Angeles, the journalist Priska Neely covers just about all aspects of maternal health, from the \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/2018/08/28/a_message_for_black_moms_keep_calm_and_carry_on_breastfeeding.php?_ga=2.164235771.53458115.1553487726-91259826.1553487726\">importance of breastfeeding\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/2018/06/29/keeping_black_babies_alive_is_a_priority_for_las_top_health_officials.php?_ga=2.126158153.53458115.1553487726-91259826.1553487726\">city-backed solutions\u003c/a> addressing birth-related deaths for black women and black babies. According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/12/07/568948782/black-mothers-keep-dying-after-giving-birth-shalon-irvings-story-explains-why\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">an NPR story\u003c/a> by Renee Montagne, black mothers and children are two to three times more likely to die during the birthing process than any other racial demographic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Essentially, Rese is doing similar work as Priska by tackling multiple aspects of a monumental issue—maternal health. It’s just that Rese does so using her own story and her own art, and asking for the input of others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m creating a platform,” Rese, who has created a company called \u003ca href=\"https://www.cwtc.events/\">Communion with the Community\u003c/a>, tells me. “Using theatre as a space for transparency, and to engage in a dialogue that most people aren’t ready to have out loud.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those taboo subjects include infidelity, healing from trauma, as well as being unemployed and receiving welfare, which Rese addresses openly in her regular schedule of performances. She acknowledges that she’s not in the same financial predicament she once was, and that she’s pursuing a career in the arts in order to get off of government assistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And through her art, she helps others recognize that they aren’t alone in their experience. She does that by telling her story. Even the tough part, when she was on the floor, looking at the knife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13853626\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13853626\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Theresa Fortune, reliving her experience, on camera\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/LRG__DSC3452.jpg 1616w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Theresa Fortune relived her experience of postpartum depression for a series of photos by Stephanie Warner. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span>t one point in the conversation on her birthday, Rese got quiet. She held one hand over her pursed lips, starring blankly past the 30 or so people in the audience. “You can tell me,” said the host, Jeannine Hooks-Allen. Rese dropped her hand, giving her mouth space to move, and said, “I’m going to tell everyone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I put my head down and took shorthand notes on my phone as Rese explained how she chose not to take her own life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“I just wanted to smell daughter’s clothes.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“I made a conscious decision to stay. I challenged God.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“If there’s no one to call when you’re drowning in your darkness, it’s OK to talk to yourself.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“Pain is a process, with a purpose.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“Life’s greatest challenge is how to successfully deal with pain.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the last words I have in my notes from that night is a name:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>“Mamma Flo.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Florence McCrary, or Mamma Flo as she’s known to many, was in the building that night. She’s the mother of one of Rese’s childhood friends, Erika McCrary, as well as Terrence McCrary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Terrence “T-Mack” McCrary was killed in 2016, on the same corner where Rese’s performance was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I met Mamma Flo before the event started, she told me that she wasn’t avoiding this block: “it’s going to be there.” And then she looked me in my eyes and said, “but if I find the men who did it… well, that’s another story.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Rese, Mamma Flo embodies everything that she aspires to as a mother. “Her ability to show up to this show, and having to walk the same street her son was killed on, spoke volumes to me. She is the essence of strength, grace, purpose and love,” Rese told me afterward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mamma Flo being there also underscored the event’s purpose: to provide a platform of mutual support. “As mothers, oftentimes we’re not allowed to take our capes off and be vulnerable within our moments of pain,” Rese said. “That day, she took her cape off, and still had the ability to flow through her pain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Theresa Fortune hosts a performance with Jason Jasper about health, relationships and family on Sunday, March 31, at the Copper Spoon in Oakland. \u003ca href=\"https://www.cwtc.events/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "an-ohio-cousins-spring-break-trip-through-the-bay-area-arts-scene",
"title": "An Ohio Cousin's Spring Break Trip Through the Bay Area Arts Scene",
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"headTitle": "An Ohio Cousin’s Spring Break Trip Through the Bay Area Arts Scene | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">M\u003c/span>y cousin \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/rescataaa/\">Taevon Ransom\u003c/a> landed in Oakland around midnight a few Saturdays ago and told me he was hungry. I asked if he likes sushi. He told me that he’d never had it before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trying new things is the reason why a 20 year-old college student from Columbus, Ohio would visit California for his spring break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Minutes later, we were at Kansai in North Oakland, where before long, he gave up on using chopsticks and began bare-handing a Lion King Roll. Taevon—my college-aged comrade with a passion for rapping and singing—didn’t know it at that moment, but that was the entry point for his tour of arts and culture in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I sat next to him, using my chopsticks to fish noodles out of a bowl, I had no idea Taevon’s trip would allow me to re-see this place I call home, and appreciate it all over again. Through my young cousin’s eyes, I got a quick refresher on the amount of traffic we navigate here; the sunshine glowing off the East Oakland hillside; the drastic income inequality manifested through latent racism, as well as a further appreciation of how superstars—world-renown talents—are just normal people walking the streets of the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The next morning we stood on Faro Point, that little weird peninsula that juts out into the San Leandro Marina, and I gave him the lay of the land: Facebook is that way. E-40 is from up there. And the Pacific Ocean is beyond those funny-shaped buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I wiped my hands. Geography was cake. This arts and culture thing is a bit more complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13853048\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13853048\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-800x600.jpeg\" alt=\"Taevon Ransom at San Leandro Marina\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-1200x900.jpeg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-1920x1440.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taevon Ransom at San Leandro Marina’s Faro Point. // Photo credit Pendarvis Harshaw \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">T\u003c/span>hat evening we slid into West Oakland’s \u003ca href=\"https://alenamuseum.com/\">Alena Museum and Art Gallery\u003c/a> for a working session with artists of all sorts. I’m talking someone painting on a wall over here, someone hemming jeans over there, someone else drawing on paper in such detail that it looked like a printed photo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there was incense burning… And someone brought chili.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a back studio, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/omiiroo/?hl=en\">Githinji Mbire\u003c/a> (you might recognize his work from the scene in \u003cem>Sorry To Bother You\u003c/em>, where Tessa Thompson’s character holds an art opening) was laying out a bunch of art pieces shaped like the continent of Africa—his staple. He’d constructed them from all sorts of pieces of wood, smaller than his other renditions of this design. He told me he plans to sell the small pieces on a sliding scale during the closing event at Alena at the end of this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wait, Alena is closing? Seven Styles, the space’s manager, confirmed that after a long back-and-forth with the property owner, Alena Musuem will close at the end of the month. And on March 30, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/reclaim-our-city-community-art-and-cultural-festival-tickets-58396770312\">they’re hosting one last party\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I gave my cousin some context about Oakland’s recent history with warehouse spaces used for art and music, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/ghost-ship-fire\">the story of the Ghost Ship fire\u003c/a>. I told him how that led to stricter regulations of warehouses where artists work, and simultaneously made places for artists of color harder to secure than ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My old man river tale was interrupted by this kid with glasses named \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/jacobdeloakland/\">Jacob Del Oakland\u003c/a>, asking if anyone in the room rapped. The universe knew to connect Jacob—an MC from Oakland who’s currently a senior at Kenyon College in Ohio—to Taevon, who’s currently a sophomore at Ohio University. The duo instantly clicked, grabbed a mic and went to work. They were later joined by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/ashiakarana/\">Aishia Karana\u003c/a>, who played the guitar and sang a rendition of Andre 3000’s “Prototype,” as \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/cadencemylesmusic/?hl=en\">Cadence Myles\u003c/a> held down the drums.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I laughed as Taevon and Jacob fell the hell back and watched Aishia and Cadence do their thing. So often I’ve seen guys hog the mic in the cipher, but this time the young men just stood back, near the chili that Aishia had brought, and watched in awe for a few.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taevon and I left with Andre 3000’s words stuck in our heads, and we bent a corner or two before we pulled up to my block. Across the street from my apartment, three candles lit the porch of Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney’s residence. I told Taevon how the family is mourning \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-victor-mcelhaney-usc-student-killed-oakland-son-20190311-story.html\">the recent murder of her son, Victor McElhaney\u003c/a>. Victor, a drummer who was well-known in artists’ circles around Oakland, had been shot and killed in a reported botched robbery on USC’s campus in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With heavy hearts, we called it a night and prepared for the morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13853050\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13853050\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-800x600.jpeg\" alt=\"Githinji Mbire at Alena Musuem and Art Gallery in West Oakland\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-1200x900.jpeg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-1920x1440.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Githinji Mbire at Alena Musuem and Art Gallery in West Oakland. // Photo credit Pendarvis Harshaw \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Monday allowed my cousin to see the other side of Bay Area culture: working… all the time. He buried his head in his psychology notebook while I read, wrote and took phone calls in a café.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That evening my cousin attended \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/second_mondays/\">Second Mondays\u003c/a>, an open mic series hosted in \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/afropics1/\">Tayleur Crenshaw\u003c/a>‘s living room. I’d gone to last month’s event, and although I was few years older than most folks in the room, I was there for the vibe. The 25–30 poets, comedians and artists gathered there on a Monday evening were further evidence that there’s a need for safe spaces for artists of color to simply come together and \u003cem>be\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taevon was starting to see that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was also starting to see that women in the Bay Area are uniquely beautiful. When I picked him up from the open mic, he told me he met a girl. I asked what she looked like. He said he couldn’t tell what race she was. I said, yup, that’s the Bay Area for ya.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday was the business side of the arts world. He met my KQED family, and got to attend a pitch meeting. He saw the life-sized Big Bird cutout in the green room, and got a peek at Michael Krasny hosting \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then we ran downtown to have lunch with my friend Teresa Johns at Twitter. Along the way, I asked him to be mindful as to where he sees African American folks in the city. A lot of people who are homeless or in service positions, he observed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teresa, a white woman with a heart of gold, showed Taevon around Twitter headquarters while I sat in the lobby and took more phone calls. While my cousin didn’t like the jackfruit tacos from Twitter’s lunchroom, he appreciated seeing the inner workings of the tech business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We ran from there to Bandcamp’s new office in downtown Oakland. When we parked, Taevon said he had some quarters for the meter—and as he put them into the machine, he was shocked to see how little value each coin had. “Damn, it’s expensive here!” he exclaimed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before we dipped into Bandcamp headquarters, I ran across the street to take a photo of some graffiti: the words “RIP King Victor” painted on a wall at Broadway and 19th, further homage to the life of Victor McElhaney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/dispomax/\">Max Gibson\u003c/a> gave us a quick tour of Bandcamp and a breakdown on how their music streaming business works, we stopped by Youth Radio—just so lil cuz could see where I came from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13853053\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13853053\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/53607267_10102279978037620_2716052307702710272_n-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A dedication to Victor McElhaney on Broadway in Oakland\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/53607267_10102279978037620_2716052307702710272_n-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/53607267_10102279978037620_2716052307702710272_n-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/53607267_10102279978037620_2716052307702710272_n-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/53607267_10102279978037620_2716052307702710272_n.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A dedication to Victor McElhaney on Broadway in Oakland. // Photo credit Pendarvis Harshaw \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">L\u003c/span>ater that evening we pulled up to Zoo Labs, where \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/fuzethemc/\">Fuze The MC\u003c/a> gave us a tour, told us about selling a hologram he’d designed, mentioned his new card game—The Meme Game—and played us some cuts from his latest album. Another example of constantly working in order to make it here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before we ran out of Zoo Labs, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/aquariusjohns/?hl=en\">Jennifer Johns\u003c/a> ran in. I introduced my cousin and told him he just encountered greatness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then we made a beeline to the other side of town, where \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/kvnalln/\">Kevin Allen\u003c/a> was sitting in a studio, fresh back from a trip to Cuba. He spun a couple of tracks for us—including his new album with \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/rootsanbranches/\">DJ Basta\u003c/a>, which drops next month. And another track, a banger of a song, featuring \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/manidraper/\">Mani Draper\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/iamsu/?hl=en\">IamSu!\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By then, it was late, and time to hit Colonial Donuts for the nightcap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the final day of his travels, I took my cousin to Richmond where my college buddy, Charles “Chuck T” Turner Jr., recently opened a studio called \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/richcitystudios/?hl=en\">Rich City Studios\u003c/a>. Taevon got an hour or two of studio time, and laid down some vocals on a track—his mission was complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13853273\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13853273\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond-800x1047.jpg\" alt='Taevon Ransom at Rich City Studios in Richmond // Photo credit Charles \"Chuck T\" Turner Jr. ' width=\"800\" height=\"1047\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond-800x1047.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond-160x209.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond-768x1005.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond-1020x1335.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond-917x1200.jpg 917w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond.jpg 1228w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taevon Ransom at Rich City Studios in Richmond // Photo credit Charles “Chuck T” Turner Jr. \u003ccite>(Charles \"Chuck T\" Turner Jr. )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He networked. He performed. He recorded. He ate well and he even saw family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before we left Richmond to head to the airport, I poked my head into the \u003ca href=\"http://www.eastbaycenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">East Bay Center for the Performing Arts\u003c/a>—just to introduce myself to the organization, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. In the lobby, there was a memorial table for Victor McElhaney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taevon and I then piled into the car to beat the five o’clock traffic. He held the aux cord, playing tracks from folks on the other side of the country, like Lil Tjay, Tae Fresh and Moneybag Yo—a bit of a cultural exchange, if you will. He said the highlight of his trip was the night at Alena—and that the lowlight was not getting any further than just meeting a girl. We laughed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as drove down 580, near the Grand Avenue exit in Oakland, I pointed out a recently posted hand-printed sign on an overpass: “Love Life 2019.” I told my cousin how that was slogan championed by Lynette Gibson McElhaney a few years ago, as a way to dispel the notion that Oakland is a city of death and despair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taevon said he admired how our community is attempting to come together, and wrap their arms around the McElhaney family. He also noted the amount of Maseratis he’d seen casually cruising the streets. He laughed at the fact there was a “packaged” date on a bag of marijuana. He pointed to the deep green springtime East Bay hillside in amazement. He got the experience he bargained for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I can’t afford to get my family a leg up in college, like some people here in the Bay Area, but I can afford to give them a first class ticket to the wealth that is arts and culture here in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’ll be back again soon. And next time, we’re doing Ethiopian food.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">M\u003c/span>y cousin \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/rescataaa/\">Taevon Ransom\u003c/a> landed in Oakland around midnight a few Saturdays ago and told me he was hungry. I asked if he likes sushi. He told me that he’d never had it before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trying new things is the reason why a 20 year-old college student from Columbus, Ohio would visit California for his spring break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Minutes later, we were at Kansai in North Oakland, where before long, he gave up on using chopsticks and began bare-handing a Lion King Roll. Taevon—my college-aged comrade with a passion for rapping and singing—didn’t know it at that moment, but that was the entry point for his tour of arts and culture in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I sat next to him, using my chopsticks to fish noodles out of a bowl, I had no idea Taevon’s trip would allow me to re-see this place I call home, and appreciate it all over again. Through my young cousin’s eyes, I got a quick refresher on the amount of traffic we navigate here; the sunshine glowing off the East Oakland hillside; the drastic income inequality manifested through latent racism, as well as a further appreciation of how superstars—world-renown talents—are just normal people walking the streets of the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The next morning we stood on Faro Point, that little weird peninsula that juts out into the San Leandro Marina, and I gave him the lay of the land: Facebook is that way. E-40 is from up there. And the Pacific Ocean is beyond those funny-shaped buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I wiped my hands. Geography was cake. This arts and culture thing is a bit more complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13853048\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13853048\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-800x600.jpeg\" alt=\"Taevon Ransom at San Leandro Marina\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-1200x900.jpeg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1-1920x1440.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3778-1.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taevon Ransom at San Leandro Marina’s Faro Point. // Photo credit Pendarvis Harshaw \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">T\u003c/span>hat evening we slid into West Oakland’s \u003ca href=\"https://alenamuseum.com/\">Alena Museum and Art Gallery\u003c/a> for a working session with artists of all sorts. I’m talking someone painting on a wall over here, someone hemming jeans over there, someone else drawing on paper in such detail that it looked like a printed photo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And there was incense burning… And someone brought chili.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a back studio, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/omiiroo/?hl=en\">Githinji Mbire\u003c/a> (you might recognize his work from the scene in \u003cem>Sorry To Bother You\u003c/em>, where Tessa Thompson’s character holds an art opening) was laying out a bunch of art pieces shaped like the continent of Africa—his staple. He’d constructed them from all sorts of pieces of wood, smaller than his other renditions of this design. He told me he plans to sell the small pieces on a sliding scale during the closing event at Alena at the end of this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wait, Alena is closing? Seven Styles, the space’s manager, confirmed that after a long back-and-forth with the property owner, Alena Musuem will close at the end of the month. And on March 30, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/reclaim-our-city-community-art-and-cultural-festival-tickets-58396770312\">they’re hosting one last party\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I gave my cousin some context about Oakland’s recent history with warehouse spaces used for art and music, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/ghost-ship-fire\">the story of the Ghost Ship fire\u003c/a>. I told him how that led to stricter regulations of warehouses where artists work, and simultaneously made places for artists of color harder to secure than ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My old man river tale was interrupted by this kid with glasses named \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/jacobdeloakland/\">Jacob Del Oakland\u003c/a>, asking if anyone in the room rapped. The universe knew to connect Jacob—an MC from Oakland who’s currently a senior at Kenyon College in Ohio—to Taevon, who’s currently a sophomore at Ohio University. The duo instantly clicked, grabbed a mic and went to work. They were later joined by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/ashiakarana/\">Aishia Karana\u003c/a>, who played the guitar and sang a rendition of Andre 3000’s “Prototype,” as \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/cadencemylesmusic/?hl=en\">Cadence Myles\u003c/a> held down the drums.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I laughed as Taevon and Jacob fell the hell back and watched Aishia and Cadence do their thing. So often I’ve seen guys hog the mic in the cipher, but this time the young men just stood back, near the chili that Aishia had brought, and watched in awe for a few.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taevon and I left with Andre 3000’s words stuck in our heads, and we bent a corner or two before we pulled up to my block. Across the street from my apartment, three candles lit the porch of Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney’s residence. I told Taevon how the family is mourning \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-victor-mcelhaney-usc-student-killed-oakland-son-20190311-story.html\">the recent murder of her son, Victor McElhaney\u003c/a>. Victor, a drummer who was well-known in artists’ circles around Oakland, had been shot and killed in a reported botched robbery on USC’s campus in Los Angeles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With heavy hearts, we called it a night and prepared for the morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13853050\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13853050\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-800x600.jpeg\" alt=\"Githinji Mbire at Alena Musuem and Art Gallery in West Oakland\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-800x600.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-160x120.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-1020x765.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-1200x900.jpeg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788-1920x1440.jpeg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/IMG_3788.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Githinji Mbire at Alena Musuem and Art Gallery in West Oakland. // Photo credit Pendarvis Harshaw \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Monday allowed my cousin to see the other side of Bay Area culture: working… all the time. He buried his head in his psychology notebook while I read, wrote and took phone calls in a café.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That evening my cousin attended \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/second_mondays/\">Second Mondays\u003c/a>, an open mic series hosted in \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/afropics1/\">Tayleur Crenshaw\u003c/a>‘s living room. I’d gone to last month’s event, and although I was few years older than most folks in the room, I was there for the vibe. The 25–30 poets, comedians and artists gathered there on a Monday evening were further evidence that there’s a need for safe spaces for artists of color to simply come together and \u003cem>be\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taevon was starting to see that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was also starting to see that women in the Bay Area are uniquely beautiful. When I picked him up from the open mic, he told me he met a girl. I asked what she looked like. He said he couldn’t tell what race she was. I said, yup, that’s the Bay Area for ya.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday was the business side of the arts world. He met my KQED family, and got to attend a pitch meeting. He saw the life-sized Big Bird cutout in the green room, and got a peek at Michael Krasny hosting \u003cem>Forum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then we ran downtown to have lunch with my friend Teresa Johns at Twitter. Along the way, I asked him to be mindful as to where he sees African American folks in the city. A lot of people who are homeless or in service positions, he observed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teresa, a white woman with a heart of gold, showed Taevon around Twitter headquarters while I sat in the lobby and took more phone calls. While my cousin didn’t like the jackfruit tacos from Twitter’s lunchroom, he appreciated seeing the inner workings of the tech business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We ran from there to Bandcamp’s new office in downtown Oakland. When we parked, Taevon said he had some quarters for the meter—and as he put them into the machine, he was shocked to see how little value each coin had. “Damn, it’s expensive here!” he exclaimed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before we dipped into Bandcamp headquarters, I ran across the street to take a photo of some graffiti: the words “RIP King Victor” painted on a wall at Broadway and 19th, further homage to the life of Victor McElhaney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/dispomax/\">Max Gibson\u003c/a> gave us a quick tour of Bandcamp and a breakdown on how their music streaming business works, we stopped by Youth Radio—just so lil cuz could see where I came from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13853053\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13853053\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/53607267_10102279978037620_2716052307702710272_n-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"A dedication to Victor McElhaney on Broadway in Oakland\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/53607267_10102279978037620_2716052307702710272_n-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/53607267_10102279978037620_2716052307702710272_n-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/53607267_10102279978037620_2716052307702710272_n-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/53607267_10102279978037620_2716052307702710272_n.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A dedication to Victor McElhaney on Broadway in Oakland. // Photo credit Pendarvis Harshaw \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">L\u003c/span>ater that evening we pulled up to Zoo Labs, where \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/fuzethemc/\">Fuze The MC\u003c/a> gave us a tour, told us about selling a hologram he’d designed, mentioned his new card game—The Meme Game—and played us some cuts from his latest album. Another example of constantly working in order to make it here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before we ran out of Zoo Labs, \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/aquariusjohns/?hl=en\">Jennifer Johns\u003c/a> ran in. I introduced my cousin and told him he just encountered greatness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then we made a beeline to the other side of town, where \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/kvnalln/\">Kevin Allen\u003c/a> was sitting in a studio, fresh back from a trip to Cuba. He spun a couple of tracks for us—including his new album with \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/rootsanbranches/\">DJ Basta\u003c/a>, which drops next month. And another track, a banger of a song, featuring \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/manidraper/\">Mani Draper\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/iamsu/?hl=en\">IamSu!\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By then, it was late, and time to hit Colonial Donuts for the nightcap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the final day of his travels, I took my cousin to Richmond where my college buddy, Charles “Chuck T” Turner Jr., recently opened a studio called \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/richcitystudios/?hl=en\">Rich City Studios\u003c/a>. Taevon got an hour or two of studio time, and laid down some vocals on a track—his mission was complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13853273\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13853273\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond-800x1047.jpg\" alt='Taevon Ransom at Rich City Studios in Richmond // Photo credit Charles \"Chuck T\" Turner Jr. ' width=\"800\" height=\"1047\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond-800x1047.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond-160x209.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond-768x1005.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond-1020x1335.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond-917x1200.jpg 917w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Taevon_Richmond.jpg 1228w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taevon Ransom at Rich City Studios in Richmond // Photo credit Charles “Chuck T” Turner Jr. \u003ccite>(Charles \"Chuck T\" Turner Jr. )\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He networked. He performed. He recorded. He ate well and he even saw family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before we left Richmond to head to the airport, I poked my head into the \u003ca href=\"http://www.eastbaycenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">East Bay Center for the Performing Arts\u003c/a>—just to introduce myself to the organization, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. In the lobby, there was a memorial table for Victor McElhaney.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taevon and I then piled into the car to beat the five o’clock traffic. He held the aux cord, playing tracks from folks on the other side of the country, like Lil Tjay, Tae Fresh and Moneybag Yo—a bit of a cultural exchange, if you will. He said the highlight of his trip was the night at Alena—and that the lowlight was not getting any further than just meeting a girl. We laughed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as drove down 580, near the Grand Avenue exit in Oakland, I pointed out a recently posted hand-printed sign on an overpass: “Love Life 2019.” I told my cousin how that was slogan championed by Lynette Gibson McElhaney a few years ago, as a way to dispel the notion that Oakland is a city of death and despair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Taevon said he admired how our community is attempting to come together, and wrap their arms around the McElhaney family. He also noted the amount of Maseratis he’d seen casually cruising the streets. He laughed at the fact there was a “packaged” date on a bag of marijuana. He pointed to the deep green springtime East Bay hillside in amazement. He got the experience he bargained for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I can’t afford to get my family a leg up in college, like some people here in the Bay Area, but I can afford to give them a first class ticket to the wealth that is arts and culture here in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’ll be back again soon. And next time, we’re doing Ethiopian food.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Adrian Burrell, Police Brutality and Accountability: A Film We Haven't Seen Yet",
"headTitle": "Adrian Burrell, Police Brutality and Accountability: A Film We Haven’t Seen Yet | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span>drian Burrell could name his first unofficial documentary film \u003cem>Police Accountability\u003c/em>, with the subtitle \u003cem>I Could’ve Been Killed While Filming This\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In actuality, Burrell hasn’t released a documentary film yet. He worked as an associate producer on the \u003ca href=\"https://filmpulse.net/sxsw-2013-licks-review/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2013 film \u003cem>Licks\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, and he has one or two documentaries of his own set to drop later this year. That’s amidst getting accepted to Stanford’s MFA program, as well as UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. He’s also wrapping up a photo exhibition, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://asaadiq.com/events/\">Mama’s Babies: An Account of Black Matriarchy in America\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, which runs through March 6 at 1090 Gallery in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Burrell’s unofficial first documentary has been shared pretty widely over the past few weeks. It takes place in late January of this year, when Burrell stepped out of his house and encountered Vallejo Police Department officer David McLaughlin in his driveway, conducting a traffic stop of his cousin. Attempting to be vigilant and create his own document of the account, Burrell took out his phone and began filming the interaction from his front porch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was very lucky in my situation,” Burrell told me. “The way I pulled out my phone, and talked calmly. The whole time I was just thinking: ‘Let me do everything to make myself not threatening… I’m doing everything to make this person with the gun and the authority not scared.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once Burrell began filming, the officer’s attention was diverted from Burrell’s cousin to Burrell. Video shows the officer approaching Burrell; you can hear commotion between the two as the camera shakes and eventually falls, and then the video cuts off. That’s when McLaughlin reportedly tackled Burrell and handcuffed the young man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After being ushered into the patrol car, Burrell identified himself as a former Marine. “I told him that my shoulder was hurting,” Burrell told me. “‘I have a prior injury from the military, could you handcuff me from the front?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burrell, whose car was parked in the driveway with a United States Marine Corps sticker on the back bumper, said the officer changed his tone, and told him that they “don’t do that to servicemen.” The officer then reportedly released him from the cuffs, and thanked Burrell for his service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13852505\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13852505\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Adrian Burrell at the opening of his photography exhibition, 'Mama's Babies,' at 1090 Gallery in San Francisco.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adrian Burrell at the opening of his photography exhibition, ‘Mama’s Babies,’ at 1090 Gallery in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Adrian Burrell)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">B\u003c/span>urrell lived to tell his story. The officer went on with his job, as he’s done \u003ca href=\"http://www.ktvu.com/news/marine-vet-says-vallejo-cop-assaulted-him-for-filming-traffic-stop\">in the past\u003c/a>—when he was reportedly sued for civil rights violations, or when he was one of four officers who shot and killed a man in Richmond, or when he held a man at gunpoint and allegedly falsified reports to claim he was in possession of a controlled substance. Or even when he was \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cr7vHo-DbA\">filmed pulling a gun on someone in Walnut Creek\u003c/a>, an incident occurring while McLaughlin was off duty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine if that officer were held accountable for his actions. Burrell, who has found legal representation from the law offices of John Burris, wants to see that a reality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, Burris’ office filed a class-action lawsuit against the Vallejo Police Department—a suit that includes the high-profile case of the killing of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/us/willie-mccoy-police-shooting.html\">Willie McCoy\u003c/a>, who was shot an estimated 25 times after officers found him asleep in a parked car with a gun on his lap on Feb. 9.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During a press conference, Burris said, “The Willie McCoy death is one of the most egregious effects of police brutality I’ve ever seen. This young man was shot to pieces; over 25 times he was shot. He wasn’t even given an opportunity to live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13852493\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13852493\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.FilmStill-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A scene from Adrian Burrell's upcoming documentary 'Cousins,' shot in Oakland.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.FilmStill-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.FilmStill-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.FilmStill-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.FilmStill-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.FilmStill.jpg 1100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A scene from Adrian Burrell’s upcoming documentary ‘Cousins,’ shot in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Adrian Burrell)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Burris then addressed Adrian Burrell’s altercation with an officer—noting the multiple accounts of previous violations by the officer at the center of Burrell’s case. “It raises the question of what kind of accountability the department has with individual officers,” said Burris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As long as an officer gets away with it,” he added, “then they feel like they’re entitled to engage in this kind of misconduct.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I talked with Burrell, he told me that he believes that the lack of accountability for cases of police brutality is a deeply rooted systematic issue—much deeper than just one officer, or even one department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He acknowledged that there are some small immediate actions that could move his community toward a remedy, like Vallejo organizing an external police oversight commission. Burrell also suggested allowing the community to have a say in who gets hired to police the community—for example, requiring potential officers to spend time at a local nonprofit or center, and then letting the community members vote on their ability to police the neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That may seem like a far-fetched idea to throw out there. But \u003cem>something\u003c/em> has to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13852490\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13852490\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Burrellin2013-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Adrian Burrell in 2013.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Burrellin2013-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Burrellin2013-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Burrellin2013-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Burrellin2013.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adrian Burrell, camera in hand, in 2013.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“California has people on both sides who care,” Burrell told me, “but the state has a lot of issues that bleed underneath the surface, and this is one of those things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hear him. Police brutality, racism and lack of accountability are a part of a deeply rooted structure that’s foundational in this land we call America. And yeah, even fake-ass “liberal” Northern California is a part of America too, no matter how much people want to rebrand it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are these lofty ideas of going in different directions when it comes to policing, but they’re usually in conflict with how the infrastructure innately works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People want to make changes,” said Burrell. “But at the end of the day, the railroad goes north, south, east, and west.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13852495\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13852495\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Adrian Burrell outside of Vallejo City Hall.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adrian Burrell outside of Vallejo City Hall. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">I\u003c/span> got off the phone and my train of thought took me from station to station, places where police brutality or malpractice had occurred as of late, and accountability was nowhere to be found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I thought about the railroad museum in Sacramento, and how no too far from it last week, the District Attorney announced that there would be no charges for the officer who shot and killed Stephon Clark last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Further down Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor route, in my hometown of Oakland, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/03/06/oakland-federal-monitor-calls-police-chiefs-take-on-pawlik-shooting-disappointing-wants-cops-to-face-stiffer-discipline/\">news just came out\u003c/a> revealing that Judge Warsaw, the Federal Judge overseeing the Oakland Police Department, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/03/06/oakland-federal-monitor-calls-police-chiefs-take-on-pawlik-shooting-disappointing-wants-cops-to-face-stiffer-discipline/\">called out\u003c/a> current Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick for mishandling a police shooting of \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/disappeared-in-death/Content?oid=18890563\">Joshua Pawlik\u003c/a> last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A rare instance of some form of police accountability was brought about last year with the passing of \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1421\">SB 1421\u003c/a>, a bill allowing public access to records of police officers’ misconduct and shootings. It’s the same bill that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/SF-police-union-seeks-to-block-release-of-officer-13661989.php\">SF Police Union\u003c/a> and a gang of other departments across the state, as well as the state’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra, are blocking the enforcement of. Which, in turn, has caused media outlets to file lawsuits, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11730624/kqed-sues-attorney-general-fighting-for-access-to-police-misconduct-and-shooting-records\">including KQED\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13852491\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 515px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13852491\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianMamasrev.jpg\" alt=\"From Adrian Burrell's 'Mama's Babies' exhibition at 1090 Gallery in San Francisco.\" width=\"515\" height=\"596\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianMamasrev.jpg 515w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianMamasrev-160x185.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 515px) 100vw, 515px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From Adrian Burrell’s ‘Mama’s Babies’ exhibition at 1090 Gallery in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Adrian Burrell)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I thought about the people standing behind Adrian when he spoke in front of Vallejo City Hall, holding signs with the names of loved ones who had killed by law enforcement. The majority of those killed were men of color, while a lot of the people holding signs were women of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mothers. Sisters. And the signs they held all communicated the same request: accountability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are campaigns, external review boards, federal monitors, chest cameras, dash cameras and even citizens using their own cameras, the question remains: how can we hold officers accountable for instances of police misconduct?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with the introduction of \u003ca href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB392\">AB 392\u003c/a>, a bill working its way through the state’s assembly which would change the allowed procedure for when an officer can use deadly force, and help hold officers accountable, I find it hard to have hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because even though it sounds good, as we’ve seen time and time again, that “light at the end of the tunnel” could very well be the same old train coming. For Adrian. For so many mothers’ sons. For all of us.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "When Adrian Burrell was tackled and handcuffed for legally filming a police officer, he became part of a long, seemingly unstoppable pattern.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span>drian Burrell could name his first unofficial documentary film \u003cem>Police Accountability\u003c/em>, with the subtitle \u003cem>I Could’ve Been Killed While Filming This\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In actuality, Burrell hasn’t released a documentary film yet. He worked as an associate producer on the \u003ca href=\"https://filmpulse.net/sxsw-2013-licks-review/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2013 film \u003cem>Licks\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, and he has one or two documentaries of his own set to drop later this year. That’s amidst getting accepted to Stanford’s MFA program, as well as UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. He’s also wrapping up a photo exhibition, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://asaadiq.com/events/\">Mama’s Babies: An Account of Black Matriarchy in America\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, which runs through March 6 at 1090 Gallery in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Burrell’s unofficial first documentary has been shared pretty widely over the past few weeks. It takes place in late January of this year, when Burrell stepped out of his house and encountered Vallejo Police Department officer David McLaughlin in his driveway, conducting a traffic stop of his cousin. Attempting to be vigilant and create his own document of the account, Burrell took out his phone and began filming the interaction from his front porch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was very lucky in my situation,” Burrell told me. “The way I pulled out my phone, and talked calmly. The whole time I was just thinking: ‘Let me do everything to make myself not threatening… I’m doing everything to make this person with the gun and the authority not scared.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once Burrell began filming, the officer’s attention was diverted from Burrell’s cousin to Burrell. Video shows the officer approaching Burrell; you can hear commotion between the two as the camera shakes and eventually falls, and then the video cuts off. That’s when McLaughlin reportedly tackled Burrell and handcuffed the young man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After being ushered into the patrol car, Burrell identified himself as a former Marine. “I told him that my shoulder was hurting,” Burrell told me. “‘I have a prior injury from the military, could you handcuff me from the front?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burrell, whose car was parked in the driveway with a United States Marine Corps sticker on the back bumper, said the officer changed his tone, and told him that they “don’t do that to servicemen.” The officer then reportedly released him from the cuffs, and thanked Burrell for his service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13852505\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13852505\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Adrian Burrell at the opening of his photography exhibition, 'Mama's Babies,' at 1090 Gallery in San Francisco.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianPhotoShow.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adrian Burrell at the opening of his photography exhibition, ‘Mama’s Babies,’ at 1090 Gallery in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Adrian Burrell)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">B\u003c/span>urrell lived to tell his story. The officer went on with his job, as he’s done \u003ca href=\"http://www.ktvu.com/news/marine-vet-says-vallejo-cop-assaulted-him-for-filming-traffic-stop\">in the past\u003c/a>—when he was reportedly sued for civil rights violations, or when he was one of four officers who shot and killed a man in Richmond, or when he held a man at gunpoint and allegedly falsified reports to claim he was in possession of a controlled substance. Or even when he was \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cr7vHo-DbA\">filmed pulling a gun on someone in Walnut Creek\u003c/a>, an incident occurring while McLaughlin was off duty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine if that officer were held accountable for his actions. Burrell, who has found legal representation from the law offices of John Burris, wants to see that a reality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, Burris’ office filed a class-action lawsuit against the Vallejo Police Department—a suit that includes the high-profile case of the killing of \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/us/willie-mccoy-police-shooting.html\">Willie McCoy\u003c/a>, who was shot an estimated 25 times after officers found him asleep in a parked car with a gun on his lap on Feb. 9.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During a press conference, Burris said, “The Willie McCoy death is one of the most egregious effects of police brutality I’ve ever seen. This young man was shot to pieces; over 25 times he was shot. He wasn’t even given an opportunity to live.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13852493\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13852493\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.FilmStill-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A scene from Adrian Burrell's upcoming documentary 'Cousins,' shot in Oakland.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.FilmStill-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.FilmStill-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.FilmStill-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.FilmStill-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.FilmStill.jpg 1100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A scene from Adrian Burrell’s upcoming documentary ‘Cousins,’ shot in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Adrian Burrell)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Burris then addressed Adrian Burrell’s altercation with an officer—noting the multiple accounts of previous violations by the officer at the center of Burrell’s case. “It raises the question of what kind of accountability the department has with individual officers,” said Burris.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As long as an officer gets away with it,” he added, “then they feel like they’re entitled to engage in this kind of misconduct.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I talked with Burrell, he told me that he believes that the lack of accountability for cases of police brutality is a deeply rooted systematic issue—much deeper than just one officer, or even one department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He acknowledged that there are some small immediate actions that could move his community toward a remedy, like Vallejo organizing an external police oversight commission. Burrell also suggested allowing the community to have a say in who gets hired to police the community—for example, requiring potential officers to spend time at a local nonprofit or center, and then letting the community members vote on their ability to police the neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That may seem like a far-fetched idea to throw out there. But \u003cem>something\u003c/em> has to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13852490\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13852490\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Burrellin2013-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Adrian Burrell in 2013.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Burrellin2013-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Burrellin2013-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Burrellin2013-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/Burrellin2013.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adrian Burrell, camera in hand, in 2013.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“California has people on both sides who care,” Burrell told me, “but the state has a lot of issues that bleed underneath the surface, and this is one of those things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I hear him. Police brutality, racism and lack of accountability are a part of a deeply rooted structure that’s foundational in this land we call America. And yeah, even fake-ass “liberal” Northern California is a part of America too, no matter how much people want to rebrand it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are these lofty ideas of going in different directions when it comes to policing, but they’re usually in conflict with how the infrastructure innately works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People want to make changes,” said Burrell. “But at the end of the day, the railroad goes north, south, east, and west.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13852495\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13852495\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Adrian Burrell outside of Vallejo City Hall.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianBurrell.MAIN_.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adrian Burrell outside of Vallejo City Hall. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">I\u003c/span> got off the phone and my train of thought took me from station to station, places where police brutality or malpractice had occurred as of late, and accountability was nowhere to be found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I thought about the railroad museum in Sacramento, and how no too far from it last week, the District Attorney announced that there would be no charges for the officer who shot and killed Stephon Clark last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Further down Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor route, in my hometown of Oakland, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/03/06/oakland-federal-monitor-calls-police-chiefs-take-on-pawlik-shooting-disappointing-wants-cops-to-face-stiffer-discipline/\">news just came out\u003c/a> revealing that Judge Warsaw, the Federal Judge overseeing the Oakland Police Department, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/03/06/oakland-federal-monitor-calls-police-chiefs-take-on-pawlik-shooting-disappointing-wants-cops-to-face-stiffer-discipline/\">called out\u003c/a> current Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick for mishandling a police shooting of \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/disappeared-in-death/Content?oid=18890563\">Joshua Pawlik\u003c/a> last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A rare instance of some form of police accountability was brought about last year with the passing of \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1421\">SB 1421\u003c/a>, a bill allowing public access to records of police officers’ misconduct and shootings. It’s the same bill that the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/SF-police-union-seeks-to-block-release-of-officer-13661989.php\">SF Police Union\u003c/a> and a gang of other departments across the state, as well as the state’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra, are blocking the enforcement of. Which, in turn, has caused media outlets to file lawsuits, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11730624/kqed-sues-attorney-general-fighting-for-access-to-police-misconduct-and-shooting-records\">including KQED\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13852491\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 515px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13852491\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianMamasrev.jpg\" alt=\"From Adrian Burrell's 'Mama's Babies' exhibition at 1090 Gallery in San Francisco.\" width=\"515\" height=\"596\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianMamasrev.jpg 515w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/03/AdrianMamasrev-160x185.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 515px) 100vw, 515px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From Adrian Burrell’s ‘Mama’s Babies’ exhibition at 1090 Gallery in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Adrian Burrell)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I thought about the people standing behind Adrian when he spoke in front of Vallejo City Hall, holding signs with the names of loved ones who had killed by law enforcement. The majority of those killed were men of color, while a lot of the people holding signs were women of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mothers. Sisters. And the signs they held all communicated the same request: accountability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are campaigns, external review boards, federal monitors, chest cameras, dash cameras and even citizens using their own cameras, the question remains: how can we hold officers accountable for instances of police misconduct?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with the introduction of \u003ca href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB392\">AB 392\u003c/a>, a bill working its way through the state’s assembly which would change the allowed procedure for when an officer can use deadly force, and help hold officers accountable, I find it hard to have hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because even though it sounds good, as we’ve seen time and time again, that “light at the end of the tunnel” could very well be the same old train coming. For Adrian. For so many mothers’ sons. For all of us.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">W\u003c/span>hen former President Barack Obama came to Oakland last week for the national My Brothers Keeper convention, he had no idea he’d be sitting next to Leo Mercer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sure, he knew he’d be talking to Steph Curry during the town hall discussion at Oakland’s Scottish Rite Temple, where attendees from across all states would be in the house. And I’d imagine Obama was told he’d be asked questions by a few of the young men who sat around him on stage during the conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then there was Leo Mercer, sitting just a few feet away from him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leo wore a blazer over his hoodie, his long locs done up as if they were defying gravity. I watched him go from wiggling in his seat as the microphone was passed his way to standing firm and delivering a sincere two-part question to the former leader of the free world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What role does music have in your life?” asked Leo, a 27-year-old Oakland native. “And what role can music have when it comes to liberation, policy change, social change and all those other items?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Are you a musician?” Obama said, answering Leo’s question with a question. “Yeah,” Leo replied. “I’ll have to listen to some of your tracks now,” Obama said, before going into riff about the discipline it takes to become a professional musician.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re like most people, you’d be thrilled to hear Obama say he’ll check out your music. But I couldn’t help but notice that after his pivot, Obama didn’t really answer Leo’s question at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13851827\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13851827\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Leo Mercer at Lake Merritt in Oakland.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Leo Mercer at Lake Merritt in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span> couple days ago, I called Leo to chop it up about his experience. Just as I figured, it was business as usual on a Monday morning. He was on BART, headed to a healing circle with the organization he works for, Urban Peace Movement, taking time to honor the lives of those who had recently passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I could hear the train doors open and close in the background as we talked about how it felt to be on that stage, sitting a church aisle’s distance from the first African-American President this country has seen. When he asked Obama about music, Leo said, he noticed the same thing I’d noticed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He didn’t answer the part about what role music can play in terms of social movements and liberation,” said Leo. “He answered the first part, ‘What role does music play in your life?’ So, that was cool—but it would’ve been dope if answered the other part.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leo went on to talk about another music reference Obama made while on stage, one that the media jumped on, when he implied that confident young men don’t need to act like rappers in music videos with gold jewelry and “eight women around you twerking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just saw this article in the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> that was \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/opinion/my-brothers-keeper-obama.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">kind of shitting on us\u003c/a>. Basically saying Obama was scolding us. I disagree with that… talking about Obama was scolding us, talking about we don’t need to be wearing big chains,” said Leo. “They were basically misinterpreting how Obama was trying to get to us. And, to be honest, he was just keeping it real with us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leo noted that the whole conference was about supporting young men—and even if Obama’s “scolding” didn’t come off as supportive to some, Leo understood the intention behind the statement. He understood how that tied into the overall theme of the conference. Hell, that understanding of confidence is probably why he landed in the seat he was in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He told me he got turned down twice before his request to attend was accepted, once through an Instagram competition and again when he applied through Urban Peace Movement. He finally got the green light through the Urban Strategies Council. And when he walked in the door of that conference last week, he says he walked in there trying to gloat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ya’ll not about to just have this conference out here and exclude the Oakland cats—the authentic Oakland cats!” said Leo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13851822\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13851822\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Former president Barack Obama and the Warriors' Stephen Curry at the My Brither's Keeper conference in Oakland, Feb. 19, 2019.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former president Barack Obama and the Warriors’ Stephen Curry at the My Brother’s Keeper conference in Oakland, Feb. 19, 2019. Photo credit Pendarvis Harshaw \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span>s far as being on stage with Obama, Leo, a performer in his own right, says he had some butterflies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was nervous, but I was nervous in a way that was like, this is the uncle I ain’t seen in a minute,” said Leo, with a laugh. “I was nervous, but not nervous enough to be shaking and shit. I felt like talking to him, it was just like talking to Prince.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leo wasn’t talking about the Prince of \u003cem>Purple Rain\u003c/em>. Dr. Prince White was one of Leo’s mentors; he was also a friend of mine. Prince \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandnorth.net/2018/09/04/remembering-the-social-justice-advocate-dr-prince-white/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">passed last August\u003c/a>. He’s one of the people Leo was headed to honor during the healing circle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before he passed, Dr. Prince White did all he could to push Leo into political arenas. About two years ago, Prince pulled strings and got Leo to \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf7PAlJm2x0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">perform a spoken word piece\u003c/a> in front of current State Superintendent of Schools Tony Thurmond, Assembly member Rob Bonta, and Senator Nancy Skinner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I took photos at that event. That’s about the time I took note of Leo’s potential. But I didn’t know too much of Leo’s backstory until we talked this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I didn’t know his father was killed in West Oakland’s Lower Bottoms neighborhood in 1993, while Leo’s mother was pregnant with his sister.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I didn’t know Leo and his family spent time homeless after losing their house in the Bushrod neighborhood, during the first wave of what we’ve come to realize is a massive overhaul of this town we call home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I didn’t even know that Leo had dropped a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzd-8gmWz2w\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new video for his latest song “Back”\u003c/a> just a few days ago. A song Leo says directly correlates to the question he posed to President Obama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzd-8gmWz2w\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanna see what the future holds / for a brother like me, with the truth in his soul,” he raps. Overall, he said, the song is about “how I’m doing community organizing and how I’m shut out of certain spaces because of my tenacity, and how I may intimidate people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ve seen Leo’s fiery spirit firsthand. I’ve also seen how it can get things done. Case in point: when he and a number of other artists in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.determinationmedia.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DetermiNation Mens Group\u003c/a> dropped “\u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/235669867\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Free Young Baby Huey\u003c/a>.” The song raised awareness for Dajon Ford, then being \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/08/18/former-oakland-football-star-charged-as-an-adult-in-juvenile-armed-robbery-case-to-be-released/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">held in Santa Rita Jail for nearly four years without trial\u003c/a> for charges related to a robbery. Since he’d been charged as an adult for a crime committed as a juvenile, the implementation of Prop. 57 allowed Ford, Leo’s childhood friend, to be released.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In that music video, playing the role of a reporter is Nicole Lee, the executive director of the Urban Peace Movement. She was also in the building for Leo and Obama’s interaction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m really proud of him,” Lee said, talking about Leo. “This conference is amazing, and it’s a national conference that’s in Oakland, and there’s a lot of voices here from all over the country. And on one hand, that’s cool, and on the other hand, we want to make sure the voices of the people in our city of Oakland are represented. And I think Leo was the perfect person to rep the town and the East Bay.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d agree. And I’d also say that Leo already knows what role music has in working toward social change; he’s lived it. And after seeing him press Obama on the idea, and learning more about his story, I’d not only listen to his music—he’d have my vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "When Leo Mercer, 27, sat onstage next to Obama last week in Oakland, there was no way the former president could have known his whole story.",
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"title": "Sitting at the Right Hand of President Obama | KQED",
"description": "When Leo Mercer, 27, sat onstage next to Obama last week in Oakland, there was no way the former president could have known his whole story.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">W\u003c/span>hen former President Barack Obama came to Oakland last week for the national My Brothers Keeper convention, he had no idea he’d be sitting next to Leo Mercer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sure, he knew he’d be talking to Steph Curry during the town hall discussion at Oakland’s Scottish Rite Temple, where attendees from across all states would be in the house. And I’d imagine Obama was told he’d be asked questions by a few of the young men who sat around him on stage during the conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But then there was Leo Mercer, sitting just a few feet away from him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leo wore a blazer over his hoodie, his long locs done up as if they were defying gravity. I watched him go from wiggling in his seat as the microphone was passed his way to standing firm and delivering a sincere two-part question to the former leader of the free world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What role does music have in your life?” asked Leo, a 27-year-old Oakland native. “And what role can music have when it comes to liberation, policy change, social change and all those other items?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Are you a musician?” Obama said, answering Leo’s question with a question. “Yeah,” Leo replied. “I’ll have to listen to some of your tracks now,” Obama said, before going into riff about the discipline it takes to become a professional musician.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re like most people, you’d be thrilled to hear Obama say he’ll check out your music. But I couldn’t help but notice that after his pivot, Obama didn’t really answer Leo’s question at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13851827\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13851827\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Leo Mercer at Lake Merritt in Oakland.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3162.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Leo Mercer at Lake Merritt in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span> couple days ago, I called Leo to chop it up about his experience. Just as I figured, it was business as usual on a Monday morning. He was on BART, headed to a healing circle with the organization he works for, Urban Peace Movement, taking time to honor the lives of those who had recently passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I could hear the train doors open and close in the background as we talked about how it felt to be on that stage, sitting a church aisle’s distance from the first African-American President this country has seen. When he asked Obama about music, Leo said, he noticed the same thing I’d noticed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He didn’t answer the part about what role music can play in terms of social movements and liberation,” said Leo. “He answered the first part, ‘What role does music play in your life?’ So, that was cool—but it would’ve been dope if answered the other part.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leo went on to talk about another music reference Obama made while on stage, one that the media jumped on, when he implied that confident young men don’t need to act like rappers in music videos with gold jewelry and “eight women around you twerking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just saw this article in the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> that was \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/opinion/my-brothers-keeper-obama.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">kind of shitting on us\u003c/a>. Basically saying Obama was scolding us. I disagree with that… talking about Obama was scolding us, talking about we don’t need to be wearing big chains,” said Leo. “They were basically misinterpreting how Obama was trying to get to us. And, to be honest, he was just keeping it real with us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leo noted that the whole conference was about supporting young men—and even if Obama’s “scolding” didn’t come off as supportive to some, Leo understood the intention behind the statement. He understood how that tied into the overall theme of the conference. Hell, that understanding of confidence is probably why he landed in the seat he was in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He told me he got turned down twice before his request to attend was accepted, once through an Instagram competition and again when he applied through Urban Peace Movement. He finally got the green light through the Urban Strategies Council. And when he walked in the door of that conference last week, he says he walked in there trying to gloat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ya’ll not about to just have this conference out here and exclude the Oakland cats—the authentic Oakland cats!” said Leo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13851822\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13851822\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Former president Barack Obama and the Warriors' Stephen Curry at the My Brither's Keeper conference in Oakland, Feb. 19, 2019.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/LRG-DSC3152.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former president Barack Obama and the Warriors’ Stephen Curry at the My Brother’s Keeper conference in Oakland, Feb. 19, 2019. Photo credit Pendarvis Harshaw \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">A\u003c/span>s far as being on stage with Obama, Leo, a performer in his own right, says he had some butterflies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was nervous, but I was nervous in a way that was like, this is the uncle I ain’t seen in a minute,” said Leo, with a laugh. “I was nervous, but not nervous enough to be shaking and shit. I felt like talking to him, it was just like talking to Prince.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leo wasn’t talking about the Prince of \u003cem>Purple Rain\u003c/em>. Dr. Prince White was one of Leo’s mentors; he was also a friend of mine. Prince \u003ca href=\"https://oaklandnorth.net/2018/09/04/remembering-the-social-justice-advocate-dr-prince-white/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">passed last August\u003c/a>. He’s one of the people Leo was headed to honor during the healing circle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before he passed, Dr. Prince White did all he could to push Leo into political arenas. About two years ago, Prince pulled strings and got Leo to \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf7PAlJm2x0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">perform a spoken word piece\u003c/a> in front of current State Superintendent of Schools Tony Thurmond, Assembly member Rob Bonta, and Senator Nancy Skinner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I took photos at that event. That’s about the time I took note of Leo’s potential. But I didn’t know too much of Leo’s backstory until we talked this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I didn’t know his father was killed in West Oakland’s Lower Bottoms neighborhood in 1993, while Leo’s mother was pregnant with his sister.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I didn’t know Leo and his family spent time homeless after losing their house in the Bushrod neighborhood, during the first wave of what we’ve come to realize is a massive overhaul of this town we call home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I didn’t even know that Leo had dropped a \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzd-8gmWz2w\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">new video for his latest song “Back”\u003c/a> just a few days ago. A song Leo says directly correlates to the question he posed to President Obama.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Fzd-8gmWz2w'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Fzd-8gmWz2w'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>“I wanna see what the future holds / for a brother like me, with the truth in his soul,” he raps. Overall, he said, the song is about “how I’m doing community organizing and how I’m shut out of certain spaces because of my tenacity, and how I may intimidate people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ve seen Leo’s fiery spirit firsthand. I’ve also seen how it can get things done. Case in point: when he and a number of other artists in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.determinationmedia.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DetermiNation Mens Group\u003c/a> dropped “\u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/235669867\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Free Young Baby Huey\u003c/a>.” The song raised awareness for Dajon Ford, then being \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/08/18/former-oakland-football-star-charged-as-an-adult-in-juvenile-armed-robbery-case-to-be-released/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">held in Santa Rita Jail for nearly four years without trial\u003c/a> for charges related to a robbery. Since he’d been charged as an adult for a crime committed as a juvenile, the implementation of Prop. 57 allowed Ford, Leo’s childhood friend, to be released.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In that music video, playing the role of a reporter is Nicole Lee, the executive director of the Urban Peace Movement. She was also in the building for Leo and Obama’s interaction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m really proud of him,” Lee said, talking about Leo. “This conference is amazing, and it’s a national conference that’s in Oakland, and there’s a lot of voices here from all over the country. And on one hand, that’s cool, and on the other hand, we want to make sure the voices of the people in our city of Oakland are represented. And I think Leo was the perfect person to rep the town and the East Bay.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d agree. And I’d also say that Leo already knows what role music has in working toward social change; he’s lived it. And after seeing him press Obama on the idea, and learning more about his story, I’d not only listen to his music—he’d have my vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "theater-workers-liftthecurtain-on-racism-after-lawsuit",
"title": "Theater Workers ‘#LiftTheCurtain’ on Racism After Lawsuit",
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"headTitle": "Theater Workers ‘#LiftTheCurtain’ on Racism After Lawsuit | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>It was a standing room-only crowd as supporters of Stephen Buescher, the plaintiff in a discrimination lawsuit against his former employer American Conservatory Theater (ACT), gathered Wednesday evening to discuss racism in the theater world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13851200/former-american-conservatory-theater-actor-files-racial-discrimination-lawsuit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a complaint filed a day prior\u003c/a>, Buescher alleges that ACT, where he held faculty and creative roles for ten years until 2018, created a racially hostile environment and systematically discriminated against black artists, staff and students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”flaueC6OR4YAZwC6XQROSareU5dK0Gtj”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The event in the 92-seat theater at Pianofight in San Francisco was billed “#LiftTheCurtain on Racial Inequity in the Arts.” For more than an hour, Buescher, current staff and students at American Conservatory Theater and other theater figures passed a microphone to share their frustrations with being typecast, tokenized and silenced as black artists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It began with poems from Jerrie Johnson, one of several ACT graduate students present, followed by Buescher. Choking up, he called his experience at the company a “long, silent, lonely road” before saying that, in the wake of the lawsuit, he’s heard from many theater figures with similar accounts. Most of the following speakers said they now felt emboldened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13851345\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13851345\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Margo Hall encouraged the audience to complicate black stereotypes.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Margo Hall encouraged the audience to complicate black stereotypes. \u003ccite>(Sam Lefebvre/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stephanie Wilborn, community programs manager at ACT, read a prepared piece about being one of few black workers at the company, including references to colleagues inappropriately touching and commenting on her hair. “It means having a board member ask you your name for the fifth time and then ask what year you’re graduating,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve worked at ACT for three years and what Stephen has courageously said to [the media] is true.” Wilborn continued, “I’ve seen it happen and it’s happened to me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Margo Hall, the prominent local actor and educator who recently appeared in \u003cem>Blindspotting\u003c/em>, drew shouts and applause as she encouraged the audience to complicate black stereotypes. “Hell, my uncle was a pimp—but he had a life, he had a story,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to embrace your stories because someone has created a narrative around those stories. We get to tell the truth about them. Keep thinking about that.” [contextly_sidebar id=”SxQaArjM4knABlFrFzPhB63EHl6NBVrd”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ellen Sebastian Chang, the longtime local theater fixture who co-created the site-specific ritual performance series \u003cem>House/Full of Black Women\u003c/em> with Amara Tabor-Smith, emphasized how the racial wealth gap colors the arts. And at the same time black people are alienated from arts organizations, she said, black cultural products are in demand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So when I get triggered by \u003cem>Fairview\u003c/em> at Berkeley Rep and the spirit comes over me and I jump up and say, ‘Look at how black women are doing CPR on the failing heart of America’—and doing it for fucking minimum wage—and then the white folks run up to me and go, ‘Are you okay?’” She continued, “Then I say fuck off, ‘cus I’m not okay!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13851344\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13851344\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Ellen Sebastian Chang emphasized how the racial wealth gap impacts the arts.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ellen Sebastian Chang emphasized how the racial wealth gap impacts the arts. \u003ccite>(Sam Lefebvre/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In response to the lawsuit, ACT issued a statement describing institutional changes including hiring a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant and a new human resources director. Buescher called the changes “superficial,” and other speakers made it a refrain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How many folks in this space are currently involved in some kind of diversity, equity and inclusion work?” asked artist and activist Claudia Alick. Dozens of hands shot up. “Okay, so, this is the question that I’ve been holding on to this week: Are we helping organizations perform the optics of justice while maintaining systems of injustice?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Buescher’s complaint, filed by Oakland civil rights firm Medina Orthwein LLP, alleges ACT subjected him and other black instructors and students to “racial profiling, tokenism, exploitation, racial casting, disparate treatment and retaliation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13851342\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13851342\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-800x533.jpg\" alt='Artist and activist Claudia Alick asked listeners if they were only helping organizations \"perform the optics of justice.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist and activist Claudia Alick asked listeners if they were only helping organizations “perform the optics of justice.” \u003ccite>(Sam Lefebvre/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The complaint singles out former Artistic Director Carey Perloff and director Melissa Smith for making racially insensitive comments, explicitly refusing to advance black artists, and dismissing formal complaints from staff and students. After Buescher took his concerns to the board, the suit alleges, his pay and credit were withheld in retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are deeply saddened by the legal complaint we received from Mr. Buescher this morning,” ACT said in a statement. “As a former valued member of the American Conservatory Theater faculty, Mr. Buescher significantly contributed to the success of the institution, so much so that we made multiple efforts to retain him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Supporters of former American Conservatory Theater instructor Stephen Buescher gathered Wednesday evening to discuss racism in the Bay Area theater world.",
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"title": "Theater Workers ‘#LiftTheCurtain’ on Racism After Lawsuit | KQED",
"description": "Supporters of former American Conservatory Theater instructor Stephen Buescher gathered Wednesday evening to discuss racism in the Bay Area theater world.",
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"headline": "Theater Workers ‘#LiftTheCurtain’ on Racism After Lawsuit",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It was a standing room-only crowd as supporters of Stephen Buescher, the plaintiff in a discrimination lawsuit against his former employer American Conservatory Theater (ACT), gathered Wednesday evening to discuss racism in the theater world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13851200/former-american-conservatory-theater-actor-files-racial-discrimination-lawsuit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a complaint filed a day prior\u003c/a>, Buescher alleges that ACT, where he held faculty and creative roles for ten years until 2018, created a racially hostile environment and systematically discriminated against black artists, staff and students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The event in the 92-seat theater at Pianofight in San Francisco was billed “#LiftTheCurtain on Racial Inequity in the Arts.” For more than an hour, Buescher, current staff and students at American Conservatory Theater and other theater figures passed a microphone to share their frustrations with being typecast, tokenized and silenced as black artists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It began with poems from Jerrie Johnson, one of several ACT graduate students present, followed by Buescher. Choking up, he called his experience at the company a “long, silent, lonely road” before saying that, in the wake of the lawsuit, he’s heard from many theater figures with similar accounts. Most of the following speakers said they now felt emboldened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13851345\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13851345\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Margo Hall encouraged the audience to complicate black stereotypes.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/MArgo-Hall.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Margo Hall encouraged the audience to complicate black stereotypes. \u003ccite>(Sam Lefebvre/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stephanie Wilborn, community programs manager at ACT, read a prepared piece about being one of few black workers at the company, including references to colleagues inappropriately touching and commenting on her hair. “It means having a board member ask you your name for the fifth time and then ask what year you’re graduating,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve worked at ACT for three years and what Stephen has courageously said to [the media] is true.” Wilborn continued, “I’ve seen it happen and it’s happened to me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Margo Hall, the prominent local actor and educator who recently appeared in \u003cem>Blindspotting\u003c/em>, drew shouts and applause as she encouraged the audience to complicate black stereotypes. “Hell, my uncle was a pimp—but he had a life, he had a story,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to embrace your stories because someone has created a narrative around those stories. We get to tell the truth about them. Keep thinking about that.” \u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ellen Sebastian Chang, the longtime local theater fixture who co-created the site-specific ritual performance series \u003cem>House/Full of Black Women\u003c/em> with Amara Tabor-Smith, emphasized how the racial wealth gap colors the arts. And at the same time black people are alienated from arts organizations, she said, black cultural products are in demand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So when I get triggered by \u003cem>Fairview\u003c/em> at Berkeley Rep and the spirit comes over me and I jump up and say, ‘Look at how black women are doing CPR on the failing heart of America’—and doing it for fucking minimum wage—and then the white folks run up to me and go, ‘Are you okay?’” She continued, “Then I say fuck off, ‘cus I’m not okay!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13851344\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13851344\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Ellen Sebastian Chang emphasized how the racial wealth gap impacts the arts.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Ellen-Sebastian-Chang.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ellen Sebastian Chang emphasized how the racial wealth gap impacts the arts. \u003ccite>(Sam Lefebvre/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In response to the lawsuit, ACT issued a statement describing institutional changes including hiring a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant and a new human resources director. Buescher called the changes “superficial,” and other speakers made it a refrain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How many folks in this space are currently involved in some kind of diversity, equity and inclusion work?” asked artist and activist Claudia Alick. Dozens of hands shot up. “Okay, so, this is the question that I’ve been holding on to this week: Are we helping organizations perform the optics of justice while maintaining systems of injustice?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Buescher’s complaint, filed by Oakland civil rights firm Medina Orthwein LLP, alleges ACT subjected him and other black instructors and students to “racial profiling, tokenism, exploitation, racial casting, disparate treatment and retaliation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13851342\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13851342\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-800x533.jpg\" alt='Artist and activist Claudia Alick asked listeners if they were only helping organizations \"perform the optics of justice.\"' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Claudia-Alick.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist and activist Claudia Alick asked listeners if they were only helping organizations “perform the optics of justice.” \u003ccite>(Sam Lefebvre/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The complaint singles out former Artistic Director Carey Perloff and director Melissa Smith for making racially insensitive comments, explicitly refusing to advance black artists, and dismissing formal complaints from staff and students. After Buescher took his concerns to the board, the suit alleges, his pay and credit were withheld in retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are deeply saddened by the legal complaint we received from Mr. Buescher this morning,” ACT said in a statement. “As a former valued member of the American Conservatory Theater faculty, Mr. Buescher significantly contributed to the success of the institution, so much so that we made multiple efforts to retain him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "far-from-parkland-spotlight-teens-in-east-oakland-want-to-tell-their-stories",
"title": "Far From Parkland Spotlight, Teens In East Oakland Want To Tell Their Stories",
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"headTitle": "Far From Parkland Spotlight, Teens In East Oakland Want To Tell Their Stories | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr />\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.npr.org/player/embed/692823424/693851818\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" 0=\"title="NPR\" 1=\"embedded\" 2=\"audio\" 3=\"player"></iframe\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the nation marks one year since the Parkland school shooting, many Americans are thinking about how the conversation about kids and gun violence has shifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the weeks and months after a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., students took to the streets and the airwaves to call for fundamental change in America’s gun laws. Stoneman Douglas students and students nationwide rallied in an effort to prevent that kind of massacre from happening again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”WTfQuekzzxIPqsBrz9uxOGDjmIff8WE4″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so far in 2019, according to an analysis by Pacific Standard, \u003ca href=\"https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-116th-congress-is-refocused-on-gun-control-in-the-wake-of-parkland\">the 116th Congress has already introduced 33 gun control bills\u003c/a>, a number not seen since the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for some young people, a year’s attention on events like Parkland hasn’t turned into the attention they’re asking for: a spotlight on the everyday gun violence they experience in their neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We might not see all of our friends die at the same time, but we’re definitely seeing people fade away to the same fate, just on multiple occasions,” says Gabriel Patten, 18, a student at Castlemont High School in East Oakland, Calif. “You’re like, I just hope I make the right decisions today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13850836\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13850836\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Memorial crosses for homicide victims are erected at St. Columba Catholic Church in Oakland, Calif. In East Oakland, where gun violence is chronic, some are grateful that America is paying more attention to it — but they would also like a focus on neighborhoods like theirs.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Memorial crosses for homicide victims are erected at St. Columba Catholic Church in Oakland, Calif. In East Oakland, where gun violence is chronic, some are grateful that America is paying more attention to it — but they would also like a focus on neighborhoods like theirs. \u003ccite>(James Tensuan for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“Distorted our perception of reality”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patten and other students from Castlemont High have conflicted feelings at the first anniversary of the Parkland shooting. On one hand, they say, they are grateful that America is paying more attention to gun violence. On the other, they know that the gun violence that affects them, sometimes daily, gets much less attention than mass shootings that happen at places like Parkland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland had 75 homicides in 2017, with \u003ca href=\"https://issuu.com/youthalive/docs/ya_annualreport2018.print\">46 of those in East Oakland\u003c/a>, where Patten and classmates Ajahnay Cooper, 17, and Armon Hurst, 18, attend school. That’s about one homicide per week in the youths’ neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13850834\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13850834\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Ajahnay Cooper, 17, can point out the corner store near campus she is still afraid to visit after someone she knew was shot there, and she remembers that the shooting got so bad in the neighborhood on New Year's Eve, she and her family were forced out of their home for the night.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ajahnay Cooper, 17, can point out the corner store near campus she is still afraid to visit after someone she knew was shot there, and she remembers that the shooting got so bad in the neighborhood on New Year’s Eve, she and her family were forced out of their home for the night. \u003ccite>(James Tensuan for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cooper, Hurst and Patten all have vivid memories of the multiple times gun violence has touched their lives. All three students are members of an Oakland-based violence intervention program called Youth ALIVE! and they remember when one of their program counselors was shot just outside the high school. Hurst can recall being held up at gunpoint at an East Oakland McDonald’s and the multiple times he had to run from bullets in his neighborhood. Cooper can point out the corner store near campus she is still afraid to visit after someone she knew was shot there, and she says that the shooting got so bad in the neighborhood on New Year’s Eve, she and her family were forced out of their home for the night. She sometimes carries a knife or pepper spray in her neighborhood to feel safer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13850839\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13850839\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-800x266.jpg\" alt=\"Memorials for victims of gun-related homicide in Oakland.\" width=\"800\" height=\"266\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-800x266.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-768x255.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-1020x339.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-1200x398.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-1920x637.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Memorials for victims of gun-related homicide in Oakland. \u003ccite>(James Tensuan for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s actually, like, numbing,” Hurst says. “You don’t even feel the pain no more. You know something might go on today. When people really ask me if I feel safe at home or at school, it’s neither.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They say they’re never really sure which classmate may have brought a gun to school. They say they aren’t sure when they may have to run from gunfire. And they say they don’t know when a small high school dispute might turn into violence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students say the kind of day-to-day gun violence they experience is under-covered in the press. And they have a point. A mass shooting anywhere in the country usually garners more national media attention than a single shooting or homicide that happens regularly in neighborhoods like East Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13850835\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13850835\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_299_slide-c63a8784d4cddd8044950db7c39a277238b76502-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Gabriel Patten, 18, a student at Castlemont High School in East Oakland, Calif., is a member of an Oakland-based violence intervention program called Youth ALIVE! He remembers when one of the program counselors was shot just outside the school.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gabriel Patten, 18, a student at Castlemont High School in East Oakland, Calif., is a member of an Oakland-based violence intervention program called Youth ALIVE! He remembers when one of the program counselors was shot just outside the school. \u003ccite>(James Tensuan for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The higher the shooting’s death toll, the greater the coverage, says Joel A. Capellan at Rowan University, who studies mass shootings. “No. 1 is how lethal the shooting is,” Capellan says. “That’s the most predictive factor when it comes to not only which shootings get presented by the news but also how much they are presented.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This already makes the everyday violence in places like East Oakland less likely to get widespread attention. And then there are other elements that seem to determine coverage, he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When the victims are younger … particularly white children and white teenagers, that seems to be a pretty big factor,” Capellan says. “When they’re black and poor, they get no attention, or very little attention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The way mass shootings are covered has “fundamentally distorted our perception of reality,” he says. “The public generally thinks that there are more mass shootings than there actually are in real life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13850840\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13850840\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Crosses erected at a local church for every homicide victim in Oakland, Calif.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crosses erected at a local church for every homicide victim in Oakland, Calif. \u003ccite>(James Tensuan for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“It’s our time to talk”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vast majority of gun deaths — \u003ca href=\"https://www.bradycampaign.org/sites/default/files/Brady-Guns-Suicide-Report-2016.pdf\">more than two-thirds\u003c/a> — in America every year are suicides. Mass shootings account for about \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/02/01/170872321/study-most-gun-deaths-happen-outside-of-mass-shootings\">1 percent of all gun-related deaths \u003c/a>in the U.S. every year. Even as the rate of mass shootings has increased over the past several years, they are a small fraction of gun deaths in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t solve a problem when we don’t know what’s happening,” says Pamela Mejia, head of research at the Berkeley Media Studies Group, which examines mass media and its connection to public health. “If the coverage is overwhelmingly driven by very high profile but fundamentally fairly rare issues … what people, voters, policymakers … are learning about and having a sense of as the norm is only those very isolated incidences. And then the solutions that they’re thinking about are really solutions that only address those specific problems.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13850837\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13850837\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A memorial for a victim of gun-related homicide outside Castlemont High School.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A memorial for a victim of gun-related homicide outside Castlemont High School. \u003ccite>(James Tensuan for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Hurst, Cooper and Patten, the students at Castlemont High, hope that the Parkland shooting anniversary is a moment for all Americans to think about the ways gun violence affects people in communities like theirs and to look farther than Parkland to see the reality of gun violence all over America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also have a few words for the students at Parkland, who have galvanized the nation over the past year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have to respect them for their leadership,” Hurst says. “I would just say that you were blessed with all that media attention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patten echoes the sentiment. “I would tell them, I’m sorry for what you went through,” he says, “but it’s our time to talk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr />\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Anjuli Sastry and Jordana Hochman produced and edited the broadcast version of this \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510317/its-been-a-minute-with-sam-sanders\">It’s Been A Minute\u003c/a>\u003cem> episode. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/div>\n",
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"excerpt": "In East Oakland, Calif., where gun violence is chronic, some are grateful that after Parkland, America pays more attention to the issue. But as an East Oakland youth says, \"It's our time to talk.\"",
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"title": "Far From Parkland Spotlight, Teens In East Oakland Want To Tell Their Stories | KQED",
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"headline": "Far From Parkland Spotlight, Teens In East Oakland Want To Tell Their Stories",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr />\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.npr.org/player/embed/692823424/693851818\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" 0=\"title="NPR\" 1=\"embedded\" 2=\"audio\" 3=\"player"></iframe\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the nation marks one year since the Parkland school shooting, many Americans are thinking about how the conversation about kids and gun violence has shifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the weeks and months after a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., students took to the streets and the airwaves to call for fundamental change in America’s gun laws. Stoneman Douglas students and students nationwide rallied in an effort to prevent that kind of massacre from happening again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so far in 2019, according to an analysis by Pacific Standard, \u003ca href=\"https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-116th-congress-is-refocused-on-gun-control-in-the-wake-of-parkland\">the 116th Congress has already introduced 33 gun control bills\u003c/a>, a number not seen since the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for some young people, a year’s attention on events like Parkland hasn’t turned into the attention they’re asking for: a spotlight on the everyday gun violence they experience in their neighborhoods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We might not see all of our friends die at the same time, but we’re definitely seeing people fade away to the same fate, just on multiple occasions,” says Gabriel Patten, 18, a student at Castlemont High School in East Oakland, Calif. “You’re like, I just hope I make the right decisions today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13850836\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13850836\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Memorial crosses for homicide victims are erected at St. Columba Catholic Church in Oakland, Calif. In East Oakland, where gun violence is chronic, some are grateful that America is paying more attention to it — but they would also like a focus on neighborhoods like theirs.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_072_slide-09948e29876a5df6cc29855ecddbaa0e0b18b5b2.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Memorial crosses for homicide victims are erected at St. Columba Catholic Church in Oakland, Calif. In East Oakland, where gun violence is chronic, some are grateful that America is paying more attention to it — but they would also like a focus on neighborhoods like theirs. \u003ccite>(James Tensuan for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“Distorted our perception of reality”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patten and other students from Castlemont High have conflicted feelings at the first anniversary of the Parkland shooting. On one hand, they say, they are grateful that America is paying more attention to gun violence. On the other, they know that the gun violence that affects them, sometimes daily, gets much less attention than mass shootings that happen at places like Parkland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland had 75 homicides in 2017, with \u003ca href=\"https://issuu.com/youthalive/docs/ya_annualreport2018.print\">46 of those in East Oakland\u003c/a>, where Patten and classmates Ajahnay Cooper, 17, and Armon Hurst, 18, attend school. That’s about one homicide per week in the youths’ neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13850834\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13850834\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Ajahnay Cooper, 17, can point out the corner store near campus she is still afraid to visit after someone she knew was shot there, and she remembers that the shooting got so bad in the neighborhood on New Year's Eve, she and her family were forced out of their home for the night.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_351_slide-3780cf5f8096b0e74940f268ca7ff6b00825c1ac.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ajahnay Cooper, 17, can point out the corner store near campus she is still afraid to visit after someone she knew was shot there, and she remembers that the shooting got so bad in the neighborhood on New Year’s Eve, she and her family were forced out of their home for the night. \u003ccite>(James Tensuan for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Cooper, Hurst and Patten all have vivid memories of the multiple times gun violence has touched their lives. All three students are members of an Oakland-based violence intervention program called Youth ALIVE! and they remember when one of their program counselors was shot just outside the high school. Hurst can recall being held up at gunpoint at an East Oakland McDonald’s and the multiple times he had to run from bullets in his neighborhood. Cooper can point out the corner store near campus she is still afraid to visit after someone she knew was shot there, and she says that the shooting got so bad in the neighborhood on New Year’s Eve, she and her family were forced out of their home for the night. She sometimes carries a knife or pepper spray in her neighborhood to feel safer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13850839\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13850839\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-800x266.jpg\" alt=\"Memorials for victims of gun-related homicide in Oakland.\" width=\"800\" height=\"266\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-800x266.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-160x53.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-768x255.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-1020x339.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-1200x398.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc-1920x637.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/untitled-1_custom-d3fe293ff7044c6f91df33c29108aab01d0852dc.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Memorials for victims of gun-related homicide in Oakland. \u003ccite>(James Tensuan for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s actually, like, numbing,” Hurst says. “You don’t even feel the pain no more. You know something might go on today. When people really ask me if I feel safe at home or at school, it’s neither.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They say they’re never really sure which classmate may have brought a gun to school. They say they aren’t sure when they may have to run from gunfire. And they say they don’t know when a small high school dispute might turn into violence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students say the kind of day-to-day gun violence they experience is under-covered in the press. And they have a point. A mass shooting anywhere in the country usually garners more national media attention than a single shooting or homicide that happens regularly in neighborhoods like East Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13850835\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13850835\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_299_slide-c63a8784d4cddd8044950db7c39a277238b76502-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Gabriel Patten, 18, a student at Castlemont High School in East Oakland, Calif., is a member of an Oakland-based violence intervention program called Youth ALIVE! He remembers when one of the program counselors was shot just outside the school.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gabriel Patten, 18, a student at Castlemont High School in East Oakland, Calif., is a member of an Oakland-based violence intervention program called Youth ALIVE! He remembers when one of the program counselors was shot just outside the school. \u003ccite>(James Tensuan for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The higher the shooting’s death toll, the greater the coverage, says Joel A. Capellan at Rowan University, who studies mass shootings. “No. 1 is how lethal the shooting is,” Capellan says. “That’s the most predictive factor when it comes to not only which shootings get presented by the news but also how much they are presented.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This already makes the everyday violence in places like East Oakland less likely to get widespread attention. And then there are other elements that seem to determine coverage, he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When the victims are younger … particularly white children and white teenagers, that seems to be a pretty big factor,” Capellan says. “When they’re black and poor, they get no attention, or very little attention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The way mass shootings are covered has “fundamentally distorted our perception of reality,” he says. “The public generally thinks that there are more mass shootings than there actually are in real life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13850840\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13850840\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Crosses erected at a local church for every homicide victim in Oakland, Calif.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2-1920x1440.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190209_oakland_jt_113-1eb764aaaa97e227bda3a190202937a139f743c2.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crosses erected at a local church for every homicide victim in Oakland, Calif. \u003ccite>(James Tensuan for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“It’s our time to talk”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vast majority of gun deaths — \u003ca href=\"https://www.bradycampaign.org/sites/default/files/Brady-Guns-Suicide-Report-2016.pdf\">more than two-thirds\u003c/a> — in America every year are suicides. Mass shootings account for about \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/02/01/170872321/study-most-gun-deaths-happen-outside-of-mass-shootings\">1 percent of all gun-related deaths \u003c/a>in the U.S. every year. Even as the rate of mass shootings has increased over the past several years, they are a small fraction of gun deaths in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t solve a problem when we don’t know what’s happening,” says Pamela Mejia, head of research at the Berkeley Media Studies Group, which examines mass media and its connection to public health. “If the coverage is overwhelmingly driven by very high profile but fundamentally fairly rare issues … what people, voters, policymakers … are learning about and having a sense of as the norm is only those very isolated incidences. And then the solutions that they’re thinking about are really solutions that only address those specific problems.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13850837\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13850837\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A memorial for a victim of gun-related homicide outside Castlemont High School.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/20190208_oakland_jt_571_slide-af13a56c3f8af5edd924b6f59be2f9e2f32405dd.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A memorial for a victim of gun-related homicide outside Castlemont High School. \u003ccite>(James Tensuan for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Hurst, Cooper and Patten, the students at Castlemont High, hope that the Parkland shooting anniversary is a moment for all Americans to think about the ways gun violence affects people in communities like theirs and to look farther than Parkland to see the reality of gun violence all over America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also have a few words for the students at Parkland, who have galvanized the nation over the past year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have to respect them for their leadership,” Hurst says. “I would just say that you were blessed with all that media attention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patten echoes the sentiment. “I would tell them, I’m sorry for what you went through,” he says, “but it’s our time to talk.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr />\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Anjuli Sastry and Jordana Hochman produced and edited the broadcast version of this \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510317/its-been-a-minute-with-sam-sanders\">It’s Been A Minute\u003c/a>\u003cem> episode. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/div>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Editor’s Note:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"http://madlinesinfo.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MADlines\u003c/a>, aka Maddy Clifford, is an Oakland rapper, poet and activist, as well as an educator in the juvenile justice system. In this personal essay, she delves into her journey of learning to love herself after leaving a toxic relationship.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have a confession to make. I’m not over it. I haven’t healed from the trauma I survived, and I haven’t fully convinced myself that I’m lovable. That realization is painful, but avoiding it would only make me susceptible to repeating my mistakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A story can set you free or keep you confined. The stories we learn about love, about what we deserve, speak volumes. Even as a feminist, I have internalized harmful stories about love. These concepts came at me as a child within my own home. They bombarded me at school and as I walked through the world. I was stalked by societal expectations, harassed by desire even before I grew into my adolescent body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was taught that it isn’t normal to be alone. “Why is a beautiful girl like you still single?” men would ask. I was taught that it is my duty to sacrifice my wellbeing for others. I was taught that it’s normal for relationships to be tiring sites where, as a woman—and, therefore, a nurturer—my job is to act as an unpaid therapist. I was taught that it’s selfish for me to demand respect, to set firm boundaries, to enjoy being in solitude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I knew that these stories were problematic in theory, but I still fell in line. But perhaps one of the most dangerous stories I was ever taught is that physical abuse is the only abuse that matters. Trust me, it isn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Breaking the Curse of a Toxic Attachment\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Over a year ago, I ended a four-year relationship. I loved this person profoundly and thought that we could remain cordial. What I’d hoped would be a normal separation morphed into an unnecessarily agonizing upheaval that impacted my sense of self-worth. Every breakup is hard, but this one changed my life. I had to come face to face with the hard truth: it had never been a normal relationship to begin with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Healing from emotional abuse is particularly challenging because there are no visible scars. Instead, there’s a voice inside your head constantly criticizing you and causing you to question your intuition. There’s a lack of focus, a fatigue like no other. There’s this horrifying realization that a person’s callous responses to how they are impacting you is a reflection of how they’ve always been. I used to believe my ex was just brutally honest. I now know that he used manipulation, sabotage and isolation tactics to break my spirit and feed his fragile ego.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gaslighting is the process of “undermining another person’s reality by denying facts, the environment around them, or their feelings,” writes Yale psychoanalyst Robin Stern in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/12/19/18140830/gaslighting-relationships-politics-explained\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vox article\u003c/a> explaining the phenomenon. To the outside world, perpetrators may appear to be reflective, but within intimate relationships they can be persistently harmful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gaslighting causes victims to be “manipulated into turning against their own cognition, their emotions and who they fundamentally are as people,” writes Stern. Gaslighting can lead to severe depression, health concerns and even suicidal thoughts. To add insult to injury, men have a whole library full of stories to deny women’s pain. When they paint their ex as “crazy,” a chorus of enablers nods in agreement. Nobody talks about the psychological torture that drives a woman to her breaking point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My initial fight or flight response to being bullied was just that—to fight. I’ve since let go of that debilitating experience. I cut off all contact with my ex. I removed the people from my life who were not rooting for me, who were determined to discredit my experience. I cultivated friendships with folks that share my core values. I stopped blaming myself, stopped telling myself that the longest relationship of my life had been an epic failure. Instead, I realized it was a curse that only I could break. I focused on learning to prioritize my wellbeing and trust my intuition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I realized that I will never receive closure from others. Instead, I decided to seek it in myself. Instead of continuing to spiral, I chose to face my pain head on. I chose to heal through my creativity.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A Healthy Love Starts with Yourself\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>What the formerly incarcerated say is that, at first, freedom can seem scarier than a cell. Suddenly, the wind hits your face. Suddenly, all the mechanisms you used to conceal the truth from yourself melt away. Even trauma can have a kind of pattern to it, a consistency. The shock of breaking a harmful pattern is intense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I went through long periods of time when I was so enraged I couldn’t see straight. But anger usually masks grief. A traumatic breakup that altered my reality became a beautiful opportunity to see the self-fulfilling prophecies I needed to break. I used to think that my love was so powerful that it could heal anyone. But this line of reasoning is dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the things they teach you in lifeguard training is how to approach a drowning person. People that can’t swim are fighting a losing battle with the water. They swallow buckets of it. They panic and flail, grasping at anything to keep them afloat. If you try to save them by approaching from the front they will grab you and take you down with them. Loving someone who has intense trauma and refuses to do the real work of healing from it often results in sacrificing your own peace and ability to grow. And the irony is that water is life. We all naturally float.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My self-love journey hasn’t ended. It will last a lifetime. But I know that courage is my compass. My self-preservation is a revolutionary act. In order to truly change, I began writing regularly. I started taking therapy seriously. I took up boxing, channeling my anger for self-defense. I turned to tarot to strengthen my intuition. I interpreted my dreams. I began meditating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People noticed my aura became brighter. Although this drew new lovers to me, I didn’t start a new long-term relationship. Instead, I prioritized loving myself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Self-love is more than spa days and weekend getaways: self-love is strenuous. Self-love can feel like a kind of death. What’s dying is a harmful story. What’s being born is an entirely new you.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Editor’s Note:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"http://madlinesinfo.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MADlines\u003c/a>, aka Maddy Clifford, is an Oakland rapper, poet and activist, as well as an educator in the juvenile justice system. In this personal essay, she delves into her journey of learning to love herself after leaving a toxic relationship.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have a confession to make. I’m not over it. I haven’t healed from the trauma I survived, and I haven’t fully convinced myself that I’m lovable. That realization is painful, but avoiding it would only make me susceptible to repeating my mistakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A story can set you free or keep you confined. The stories we learn about love, about what we deserve, speak volumes. Even as a feminist, I have internalized harmful stories about love. These concepts came at me as a child within my own home. They bombarded me at school and as I walked through the world. I was stalked by societal expectations, harassed by desire even before I grew into my adolescent body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was taught that it isn’t normal to be alone. “Why is a beautiful girl like you still single?” men would ask. I was taught that it is my duty to sacrifice my wellbeing for others. I was taught that it’s normal for relationships to be tiring sites where, as a woman—and, therefore, a nurturer—my job is to act as an unpaid therapist. I was taught that it’s selfish for me to demand respect, to set firm boundaries, to enjoy being in solitude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I knew that these stories were problematic in theory, but I still fell in line. But perhaps one of the most dangerous stories I was ever taught is that physical abuse is the only abuse that matters. Trust me, it isn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Breaking the Curse of a Toxic Attachment\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Over a year ago, I ended a four-year relationship. I loved this person profoundly and thought that we could remain cordial. What I’d hoped would be a normal separation morphed into an unnecessarily agonizing upheaval that impacted my sense of self-worth. Every breakup is hard, but this one changed my life. I had to come face to face with the hard truth: it had never been a normal relationship to begin with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Healing from emotional abuse is particularly challenging because there are no visible scars. Instead, there’s a voice inside your head constantly criticizing you and causing you to question your intuition. There’s a lack of focus, a fatigue like no other. There’s this horrifying realization that a person’s callous responses to how they are impacting you is a reflection of how they’ve always been. I used to believe my ex was just brutally honest. I now know that he used manipulation, sabotage and isolation tactics to break my spirit and feed his fragile ego.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gaslighting is the process of “undermining another person’s reality by denying facts, the environment around them, or their feelings,” writes Yale psychoanalyst Robin Stern in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/12/19/18140830/gaslighting-relationships-politics-explained\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vox article\u003c/a> explaining the phenomenon. To the outside world, perpetrators may appear to be reflective, but within intimate relationships they can be persistently harmful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gaslighting causes victims to be “manipulated into turning against their own cognition, their emotions and who they fundamentally are as people,” writes Stern. Gaslighting can lead to severe depression, health concerns and even suicidal thoughts. To add insult to injury, men have a whole library full of stories to deny women’s pain. When they paint their ex as “crazy,” a chorus of enablers nods in agreement. Nobody talks about the psychological torture that drives a woman to her breaking point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My initial fight or flight response to being bullied was just that—to fight. I’ve since let go of that debilitating experience. I cut off all contact with my ex. I removed the people from my life who were not rooting for me, who were determined to discredit my experience. I cultivated friendships with folks that share my core values. I stopped blaming myself, stopped telling myself that the longest relationship of my life had been an epic failure. Instead, I realized it was a curse that only I could break. I focused on learning to prioritize my wellbeing and trust my intuition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I realized that I will never receive closure from others. Instead, I decided to seek it in myself. Instead of continuing to spiral, I chose to face my pain head on. I chose to heal through my creativity.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A Healthy Love Starts with Yourself\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>What the formerly incarcerated say is that, at first, freedom can seem scarier than a cell. Suddenly, the wind hits your face. Suddenly, all the mechanisms you used to conceal the truth from yourself melt away. Even trauma can have a kind of pattern to it, a consistency. The shock of breaking a harmful pattern is intense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I went through long periods of time when I was so enraged I couldn’t see straight. But anger usually masks grief. A traumatic breakup that altered my reality became a beautiful opportunity to see the self-fulfilling prophecies I needed to break. I used to think that my love was so powerful that it could heal anyone. But this line of reasoning is dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the things they teach you in lifeguard training is how to approach a drowning person. People that can’t swim are fighting a losing battle with the water. They swallow buckets of it. They panic and flail, grasping at anything to keep them afloat. If you try to save them by approaching from the front they will grab you and take you down with them. Loving someone who has intense trauma and refuses to do the real work of healing from it often results in sacrificing your own peace and ability to grow. And the irony is that water is life. We all naturally float.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My self-love journey hasn’t ended. It will last a lifetime. But I know that courage is my compass. My self-preservation is a revolutionary act. In order to truly change, I began writing regularly. I started taking therapy seriously. I took up boxing, channeling my anger for self-defense. I turned to tarot to strengthen my intuition. I interpreted my dreams. I began meditating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People noticed my aura became brighter. Although this drew new lovers to me, I didn’t start a new long-term relationship. Instead, I prioritized loving myself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Self-love is more than spa days and weekend getaways: self-love is strenuous. Self-love can feel like a kind of death. What’s dying is a harmful story. What’s being born is an entirely new you.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Quick — think of the most beautiful person you know. Is it your partner? Your mother? Rihanna? (Wait, you know Rihanna? That’s amazing!)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a million different reasons we find certain people beautiful. But there’s no denying that a lot of current beauty standards in the U.S. are based on a particular type of beauty — one that centers a type of white femininity that’s only accessible to a select few.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So this week on \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/547538916/ask-code-switch\">Ask Code Switch\u003c/a>, we’re answering a question from Cecilia Fernandez, of Ann Arbor, Mich. She \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/cecihen/status/1070748668557488129\">tweeted at us\u003c/a> to ask: “Besides the natural hair movement, what other ways have women of color gone to decolonize their beauty routine?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.npr.org/player/embed/685506578/690883289\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>Cecilia — this is a really great question. As someone who spent years flat-ironing my curls and suffering through orthodontia — I was also quite curious about this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So to begin, let’s talk about what it means when we say our notions of beauty are “colonized.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Think about \u003cem>why \u003c/em>that person is beautiful. Is it because of their perfectly white teeth? Their thick, shiny hair? The fact that their features conform perfectly to Western beauty norms?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”ac4Kc47KTVkNZrKGcBQPkpmIG5qZxLZy”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To begin with, a lot of current Western beauty standards celebrate whiteness — not some objective, biological, evolutionary thing, but literally just being a white person. In fact, if you go back and look at the work of some early racial theorists — people like Christoph Meiners and Johann Blumenbach — they defined the category of “white,” or “Caucasian,” as being the most beautiful of the races.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was important for [those racial theorists] to be superior in all areas,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.nellpainter.com/history.html\">Nell Irvin Painter\u003c/a>, an artist and historian who wrote \u003cem>The History Of White People. \u003c/em>She says the group of academics who first created these racial categories were white supremacists, so, “they not only wanted the people they called ‘their women’ to be the most beautiful, and ‘their men’ to be the most virile. They wanted ‘their countries’ to have the best politics. So they wanted to have \u003cem>everything \u003c/em>better. And that included beauty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That association between beauty and whiteness has proven hard to shake. There’s a reason that so many people still think of an “all-American beauty” as a thin, blonde, blue-eyed white woman. It wasn’t until 1940 that the rules were changed to allow women of color to enter the Miss America pageant. Before that, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fifty-years-ago-protestors-took-on-miss-america-pageant-electrified-feminist-movement-180967504/\">official rules stated\u003c/a> that contestants had to be “of good health and of the white race.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decisions about who society holds up as beautiful also have a lot to do with class. Nell Irvin Painter notes that a lot of the things we consider beautiful are actually just proxies for wealth. Think of how much it costs to get cosmetic surgery, or braces, or even a facial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(It’s worth noting that there’s a fair amount of overlap between beauty routines and health or grooming routines. People brush their teeth to prevent cavities, sure, but so many toothpastes also have whitening products. And you could be blowdrying your hair to get it dry, or to make sure it’s shiny and voluminous. In this context, we’re thinking of the purely aesthetic parts of a routine — not ones that have to do with health, functionality or hygiene.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”WlTBAZs0tNJxlDHMF17iYuCiO6fS5UZ3″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, how do you push back against all that? A lot people talk about the importance of buying makeup or fashion designed by women of color. But throughout history, a lot of the most effective movements have been about expanding our ideas of what it means to be beautiful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let’s come back to the natural hair movement for a moment. That came out of the broader \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/10/287320160/stokely-carmichael-a-philosopher-behind-the-black-power-movement\">Black is Beautiful movement\u003c/a> in the 1960s and 70s. That movement — which came in the midst of the broader Black Power and civil rights movements — was about affirming aspects of blackness that had been considered ugly by white, colonial standards. Organizers of the movement started to embrace the political power behind the idea that all aspects of blackness were beautiful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nell Painter says the movement had a huge effect on both her and her family. She says she didn’t start to think of herself as beautiful until she was in her thirties, around the time “black is beautiful” sprung up. A similar thing happened to her mother, who was born in 1917:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“My mother was very beautiful. But my mother was dark-skinned, so she never thought of herself as beautiful. … For black people, the idea of black as beautiful, that was a real breakthrough. And so my mother emerged as a beautiful person, and people told her she was beautiful, and it took her a long time to accept that. I don’t know if she ever really did.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>There are other movements that have tried to address beauty as a political force. There was the \u003ca href=\"https://www.yachana.org/research/indigenismo.html\">indigenismo movement\u003c/a> in Mexico. One of its icons was the artist Frida Kahlo. In her self-portraits, she painted herself dressed in pre-Columbian clothes and hairstyles, with visible facial hair and hair between her eyebrows. Many have described those artistic choices as being a radical rejection of white, colonial beauty standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”j2W8GAu0oa3UKsgcOR1XmP9gZYYo1OyR”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And these days, a lot of women push back on the idea that they should remove facial and body hair in order to be considered beautiful or hygienic or professional. The activist and model Harnaam Kaur has spoken about how her life changed once she decided to \u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mgyj4n/model-harnaam-kaur-on-how-her-beard-is-a-blessing\">stop shaving her beard\u003c/a>: “I feel a lot stronger and liberated to be who I am and accept who I am freely. … I’m here as a woman who’s wearing something that’s supposed to be — in quotations “supposed to be” — a man’s feature.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.thebodypositive.org/\">body positivity movement\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"http://thisisthinprivilege.tumblr.com/faq#beautiful\">fat-acceptance movements\u003c/a> have also consistently pushed back on the idea that thin, young, white, able-bodied women are the epitome of beauty — or that beauty should be a precondition for respect to begin with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing to keep in mind is that beauty is a facet of power. Being considered beautiful can help you gain access to certain spaces, or increase your power in certain settings. By the same token, a perceived lack of beauty, or a refusal or inability to conform to certain beauty standards, also has really tangible consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Noliwe Rooks is a professor at Cornell University who \u003ca href=\"https://africana.cornell.edu/noliwe-rooks\">teaches about the politics of race and beauty\u003c/a>. She says that women are placed in different categories depending on “how they appear in the world,” and that attempts to decolonize one’s beauty routine often lead to pushback from the outside world — especially for black and brown people. She cited Hampton University in Virginia, as an example. The historically black institution \u003ca href=\"https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/virginia-black-college-business-school-dean-stands-decade-old-ban-cornrows-dreadlocks-article-1.1142986\">made news \u003c/a>in 2012 for a policy in the business school that said male students couldn’t have dreadlocks, because they were considered unprofessional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rooks says, “If you’re someone who feels like for body positivity and self affirmation, and adornment, this is what I’m going to do, ‘I want dreadlocks’ — yes you \u003cem>can \u003c/em>do that. You \u003cem>can \u003c/em>decolonize that look in the way that you feel is important to you. But you can’t go to that school like it. … Until recently you couldn’t serve in the military. … There’s all manner of corporate jobs that if you’re decolonizing your body you can’t have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep in mind, Rooks says, that fighting against beauty norms is probably going to be really hard. Obese\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/well/live/fat-bias-starts-early-and-takes-a-serious-toll.html\"> women\u003c/a>, old women, queer women, women of color and all the intersections get particularly scrutinized, even when they’re trying to conform to beauty norms — let alone when they push back against them. “We can live in a world where we try to do battle with those overarching narratives,” Rooks adds. “But the forces pushing back against it in many parts of the world — it’s quite a headwind.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we’re talking about personal beauty, having a beauty routine at all means that you are, consciously or unconsciously, accepting the idea that you need to \u003cem>change\u003c/em>. The way your hair falls or the shininess of your skin or the curl of your eyelashes — it will be more beautiful if you spend time and money to make it different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So back to the question at hand: How do you decolonize the idea that your natural self isn’t adequate?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You could argue that a profound way to decolonize your beauty routine would be to have none, and simply say, “My body and face and are valuable and beautiful without modification.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other really radical thing could be to try reject personal beauty as a measure of worth. Many have argued that beauty should not be a prerequisite, as it so often is, for being treated with respect, kindness or personal autonomy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any way you go about it, the process of decolonizing your beauty routine is probably going to result in a lot of people being uncomfortable with your appearance. It’s also the only way beauty norms have a chance of changing. So you have to know your politics. What are you trying to say with your beauty routine? And what ugly truths are you willing to deal with?\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Do you have thoughts/questions/feelings about race? Need some racial advice in your own life? We want to hear from you! Email us at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CodeSwitch@npr.org\">CodeSwitch@npr.org\u003c/a>, with the subject line “Ask Code Switch,” or fill out \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeZeFoLpWq-HbUBxMpiYGczjsuZJtCbIv8uMiNOoRWTFGDzWg/viewform\">this form\u003c/a> and tell us the deets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR.org\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Is+Beauty+In+The+Eyes+Of+The+Colonizer%3F&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Quick — think of the most beautiful person you know. Is it your partner? Your mother? Rihanna? (Wait, you know Rihanna? That’s amazing!)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a million different reasons we find certain people beautiful. But there’s no denying that a lot of current beauty standards in the U.S. are based on a particular type of beauty — one that centers a type of white femininity that’s only accessible to a select few.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So this week on \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/547538916/ask-code-switch\">Ask Code Switch\u003c/a>, we’re answering a question from Cecilia Fernandez, of Ann Arbor, Mich. She \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/cecihen/status/1070748668557488129\">tweeted at us\u003c/a> to ask: “Besides the natural hair movement, what other ways have women of color gone to decolonize their beauty routine?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://www.npr.org/player/embed/685506578/690883289\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>Cecilia — this is a really great question. As someone who spent years flat-ironing my curls and suffering through orthodontia — I was also quite curious about this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So to begin, let’s talk about what it means when we say our notions of beauty are “colonized.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Think about \u003cem>why \u003c/em>that person is beautiful. Is it because of their perfectly white teeth? Their thick, shiny hair? The fact that their features conform perfectly to Western beauty norms?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To begin with, a lot of current Western beauty standards celebrate whiteness — not some objective, biological, evolutionary thing, but literally just being a white person. In fact, if you go back and look at the work of some early racial theorists — people like Christoph Meiners and Johann Blumenbach — they defined the category of “white,” or “Caucasian,” as being the most beautiful of the races.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was important for [those racial theorists] to be superior in all areas,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.nellpainter.com/history.html\">Nell Irvin Painter\u003c/a>, an artist and historian who wrote \u003cem>The History Of White People. \u003c/em>She says the group of academics who first created these racial categories were white supremacists, so, “they not only wanted the people they called ‘their women’ to be the most beautiful, and ‘their men’ to be the most virile. They wanted ‘their countries’ to have the best politics. So they wanted to have \u003cem>everything \u003c/em>better. And that included beauty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That association between beauty and whiteness has proven hard to shake. There’s a reason that so many people still think of an “all-American beauty” as a thin, blonde, blue-eyed white woman. It wasn’t until 1940 that the rules were changed to allow women of color to enter the Miss America pageant. Before that, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fifty-years-ago-protestors-took-on-miss-america-pageant-electrified-feminist-movement-180967504/\">official rules stated\u003c/a> that contestants had to be “of good health and of the white race.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decisions about who society holds up as beautiful also have a lot to do with class. Nell Irvin Painter notes that a lot of the things we consider beautiful are actually just proxies for wealth. Think of how much it costs to get cosmetic surgery, or braces, or even a facial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(It’s worth noting that there’s a fair amount of overlap between beauty routines and health or grooming routines. People brush their teeth to prevent cavities, sure, but so many toothpastes also have whitening products. And you could be blowdrying your hair to get it dry, or to make sure it’s shiny and voluminous. In this context, we’re thinking of the purely aesthetic parts of a routine — not ones that have to do with health, functionality or hygiene.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, how do you push back against all that? A lot people talk about the importance of buying makeup or fashion designed by women of color. But throughout history, a lot of the most effective movements have been about expanding our ideas of what it means to be beautiful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let’s come back to the natural hair movement for a moment. That came out of the broader \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/10/287320160/stokely-carmichael-a-philosopher-behind-the-black-power-movement\">Black is Beautiful movement\u003c/a> in the 1960s and 70s. That movement — which came in the midst of the broader Black Power and civil rights movements — was about affirming aspects of blackness that had been considered ugly by white, colonial standards. Organizers of the movement started to embrace the political power behind the idea that all aspects of blackness were beautiful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nell Painter says the movement had a huge effect on both her and her family. She says she didn’t start to think of herself as beautiful until she was in her thirties, around the time “black is beautiful” sprung up. A similar thing happened to her mother, who was born in 1917:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>“My mother was very beautiful. But my mother was dark-skinned, so she never thought of herself as beautiful. … For black people, the idea of black as beautiful, that was a real breakthrough. And so my mother emerged as a beautiful person, and people told her she was beautiful, and it took her a long time to accept that. I don’t know if she ever really did.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>There are other movements that have tried to address beauty as a political force. There was the \u003ca href=\"https://www.yachana.org/research/indigenismo.html\">indigenismo movement\u003c/a> in Mexico. One of its icons was the artist Frida Kahlo. In her self-portraits, she painted herself dressed in pre-Columbian clothes and hairstyles, with visible facial hair and hair between her eyebrows. Many have described those artistic choices as being a radical rejection of white, colonial beauty standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And these days, a lot of women push back on the idea that they should remove facial and body hair in order to be considered beautiful or hygienic or professional. The activist and model Harnaam Kaur has spoken about how her life changed once she decided to \u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mgyj4n/model-harnaam-kaur-on-how-her-beard-is-a-blessing\">stop shaving her beard\u003c/a>: “I feel a lot stronger and liberated to be who I am and accept who I am freely. … I’m here as a woman who’s wearing something that’s supposed to be — in quotations “supposed to be” — a man’s feature.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.thebodypositive.org/\">body positivity movement\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"http://thisisthinprivilege.tumblr.com/faq#beautiful\">fat-acceptance movements\u003c/a> have also consistently pushed back on the idea that thin, young, white, able-bodied women are the epitome of beauty — or that beauty should be a precondition for respect to begin with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing to keep in mind is that beauty is a facet of power. Being considered beautiful can help you gain access to certain spaces, or increase your power in certain settings. By the same token, a perceived lack of beauty, or a refusal or inability to conform to certain beauty standards, also has really tangible consequences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Noliwe Rooks is a professor at Cornell University who \u003ca href=\"https://africana.cornell.edu/noliwe-rooks\">teaches about the politics of race and beauty\u003c/a>. She says that women are placed in different categories depending on “how they appear in the world,” and that attempts to decolonize one’s beauty routine often lead to pushback from the outside world — especially for black and brown people. She cited Hampton University in Virginia, as an example. The historically black institution \u003ca href=\"https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/virginia-black-college-business-school-dean-stands-decade-old-ban-cornrows-dreadlocks-article-1.1142986\">made news \u003c/a>in 2012 for a policy in the business school that said male students couldn’t have dreadlocks, because they were considered unprofessional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rooks says, “If you’re someone who feels like for body positivity and self affirmation, and adornment, this is what I’m going to do, ‘I want dreadlocks’ — yes you \u003cem>can \u003c/em>do that. You \u003cem>can \u003c/em>decolonize that look in the way that you feel is important to you. But you can’t go to that school like it. … Until recently you couldn’t serve in the military. … There’s all manner of corporate jobs that if you’re decolonizing your body you can’t have.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep in mind, Rooks says, that fighting against beauty norms is probably going to be really hard. Obese\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/21/well/live/fat-bias-starts-early-and-takes-a-serious-toll.html\"> women\u003c/a>, old women, queer women, women of color and all the intersections get particularly scrutinized, even when they’re trying to conform to beauty norms — let alone when they push back against them. “We can live in a world where we try to do battle with those overarching narratives,” Rooks adds. “But the forces pushing back against it in many parts of the world — it’s quite a headwind.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we’re talking about personal beauty, having a beauty routine at all means that you are, consciously or unconsciously, accepting the idea that you need to \u003cem>change\u003c/em>. The way your hair falls or the shininess of your skin or the curl of your eyelashes — it will be more beautiful if you spend time and money to make it different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So back to the question at hand: How do you decolonize the idea that your natural self isn’t adequate?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You could argue that a profound way to decolonize your beauty routine would be to have none, and simply say, “My body and face and are valuable and beautiful without modification.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other really radical thing could be to try reject personal beauty as a measure of worth. Many have argued that beauty should not be a prerequisite, as it so often is, for being treated with respect, kindness or personal autonomy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any way you go about it, the process of decolonizing your beauty routine is probably going to result in a lot of people being uncomfortable with your appearance. It’s also the only way beauty norms have a chance of changing. So you have to know your politics. What are you trying to say with your beauty routine? And what ugly truths are you willing to deal with?\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Do you have thoughts/questions/feelings about race? Need some racial advice in your own life? We want to hear from you! Email us at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CodeSwitch@npr.org\">CodeSwitch@npr.org\u003c/a>, with the subject line “Ask Code Switch,” or fill out \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeZeFoLpWq-HbUBxMpiYGczjsuZJtCbIv8uMiNOoRWTFGDzWg/viewform\">this form\u003c/a> and tell us the deets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR.org\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Is+Beauty+In+The+Eyes+Of+The+Colonizer%3F&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Look, I don’t know how it happened, but somewhere along the way, the people decided that Jeff Goldblum was worthy of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJelEXaPhJ8&t=29s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">viral remixes\u003c/a>, enormous \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/BlYvP0sH9Oq/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shirtless statues\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/jlarriva/ian-malcolm-from-chaos/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sensual oil paintings\u003c/a>. He of the oddly clipped delivery, the casual aside, the perfect pecs—he is no longer an actor, the world has now voted. He is \u003cem>irony’s figurehead\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If I’ve witnessed anything on the internet in the past 20 years, it’s how easily we can elevate someone only to knock them down. Sometimes it’s simple overexposure, sometimes it’s “problematic” revelations, but sometimes it’s just that the joke has run its course and the subject material is out of gas. That’s where we sit with Jeff Goldblum now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Look, I’d ordinarily say that I could revel in Jeff Goldblum infinitely. He sings jazz cabaret! He \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/11220123/the-gold-standard-jeff-goldblum-talks-fatherhood-jazz-and-aliens-of-course\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">genuinely seems like a good guy\u003c/a>! He has an approach to method acting that appears to be based on, I dunno, his past life as a cereal box!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But folks, we are approaching a saturation point. We are in danger of turning Jeff Goldblum into that most fragile of cultural creatures: the human meme.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which is why it’s important to kick back, unfollow your Jeff Goldblum fan accounts, and return to what’s important by watching some of the guy’s damn movies. This Sunday, Feb. 3, the Alamo Drafthouse allows you to do just that with \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://drafthouse.com/sf/show/the-goldblum-standard-a-jeff-goldblum-mystery-marathon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Goldblum Standard\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, a collection of four of the master’s films.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a twist, you won’t know which ones until you get there, but you know what? Unlike the merciless churning cycle of internet celebrity, the man’s movies have never let me down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Goldblum Standard: A Jeff Goldblum Mystery Marathon’ runs Sunday, Feb. 3, at the Alamo Drafthouse in San Francisco. \u003ca href=\"https://drafthouse.com/sf/show/the-goldblum-standard-a-jeff-goldblum-mystery-marathon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which is why it’s important to kick back, unfollow your Jeff Goldblum fan accounts, and return to what’s important by watching some of the guy’s damn movies. This Sunday, Feb. 3, the Alamo Drafthouse allows you to do just that with \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://drafthouse.com/sf/show/the-goldblum-standard-a-jeff-goldblum-mystery-marathon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Goldblum Standard\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, a collection of four of the master’s films.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a twist, you won’t know which ones until you get there, but you know what? Unlike the merciless churning cycle of internet celebrity, the man’s movies have never let me down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" />\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Goldblum Standard: A Jeff Goldblum Mystery Marathon’ runs Sunday, Feb. 3, at the Alamo Drafthouse in San Francisco. \u003ca href=\"https://drafthouse.com/sf/show/the-goldblum-standard-a-jeff-goldblum-mystery-marathon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Righting the Wrongs from the War on Drugs in Oakland",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">M\u003c/span>alcolm Turner is only half-joking when he says he can’t listen to Juvenile’s “Sets Go Up” anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the song he was slapping at max volume when he and our mutual friend Darrell were pulled over by Oakland police back in 2006. You know how it goes: they were stopped for speeding, or maybe a tail light. Asked about any outstanding warrants. One officer smelled marijuana, and before you know it, they were both arrested on charges of possession.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Somehow they managed to call me to come pick up their car. When I pulled up, Malcolm and Darrell, friends who I’d known since before puberty, were both in the back of the patrol car, headed to jail. Even worse, they were en route to a decade of disenfranchisement due to a bag of some damn herbs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were 18 or 19,” Malcolm told me when we talked recently about the impact the arrest had on his life. “That was before I could get into a career. That hindered employment and all that… it damn near will make you want to go back to selling weed!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Malcolm has since had a few legal gigs: a couple stints at Home Depot, working as a security guard, and he’s gone through Laney College’s welding program—only to find that getting a job in that industry wasn’t as easy as they said it’d be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Late last year, though, Malcolm’s search for a career landed him right back where he started: selling weed. This time, legally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last December, I walked into Blunts + Moore marijuana dispensary in East Oakland, and there was my pal Malcolm, smiling, talking to customers and peddling marijuana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13849864\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13849864\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Malcolm Turner helps a customer at Blunts + Moore in Oakland.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Malcolm Turner helps a customer at Blunts + Moore in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">B\u003c/span>ig Mal, as he’s known, was one of the first employees at Blunts + Moore, the first cannabis dispensary in Oakland given a license by way of Oakland’s Cannabis Equity Program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After California legalized the sale of recreational cannabis, Oakland passed a bill that would require at least 50 percent of all cannabis permits to go to applicants of the equity program. To qualify for that program, among other criteria, residents either had to live in a high-crime zone for the past decade, or have been charged with a marijuana-related offense anytime since November of 1996.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over 600 applicants applied. Six of them granted licenses opened in Oakland last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those lucky few, the program not only opens the door to the industry, but also is supposed to work as a sort of business incubator, lending contacts and advice to the new entrepreneurs. They’ve also added no-interest loans as an aspect of the program (since currently no bank allows cannabis businesses to have a bank account, let alone grant them loans). Additionally, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/can-the-state-help-oaklands-equity-program/Content?oid=23672657\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">according to the \u003cem>East Bay Express\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, the city is turning to the State of California to add funds to their effort, as last year’s SB 1294 allows cities with equity programs to tap into a $10 million state fund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with these efforts, the Cannabis Equity Program has gotten a lot of flack, mainly for being touted more as more progressive than it actually is. You have to imagine: you hear “equity program” and you’d think it’s something that levels the playing field. Six dispensaries in Oakland out of 600 applicants leaves a lot of victims of the war on drugs behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it \u003cem>is\u003c/em> a leg up. Brittany Moore, co-founder of Blunts + Moore, acknowledges that she benefits from the program, but says it’s not a standalone solution. “I feel like it’s a little boost. It isn’t a handout. It says, ‘Here is a shot that you would’ve never gotten if it weren’t for this program,’ so I’m grateful for it,” Moore told me as we stood in an office at Blunts + Moore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13849867\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13849867\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Brittany Moore and Alphonso Blunt, cofounders of Blunts + Moore, got an assist from Oakland's Equity Program.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt.jpg 1616w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brittany Moore and Alphonso Blunt, cofounders of Blunts + Moore, got an assist from Oakland’s Equity Program. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Moore’s co-founder, East Oakland native Alphonso Blunt (yes, the owners’ real names are Blunt and Moore) agrees. “It’s not as bad as they say, it just needed funding and education. Because it works, you just need people who know how to talk, how to not give up any of their equity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Equity, in terms of making sure all parties have a fair shot in this “green rush,” as some call it, is important—especially for communities that have suffered due to the war on drugs. And equity, in terms of retaining ownership, is just as important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California brought in a reported $2.5 billion from the marijuana industry last year. And although that was less than projected, the industry overall is growing. The Golden State is just one of 10 states where recreational marijuana currently is legal, and one of over 30 states where medical cannabis is legal. In the next six years, it’s predicted the industry will be worth $25 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13849866\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13849866\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.BluntandCustomer-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Alphonso Blunt and a customer.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.BluntandCustomer-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.BluntandCustomer-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.BluntandCustomer-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.BluntandCustomer-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.BluntandCustomer.jpg 1100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alphonso Blunt and a customer. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nationally, there are a number of people with political will pushing for further legalization of marijuana, including former New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and Earl Blumenauer, a Democratic Representative from Oregon who authored H.R. 420, a bill that would remove marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Acknowledging the industry’s potential, as well as the history of over-policing people of color in low-income communities, is part of what led former Oakland council member Desley Brooks to introduce the Equity program. According to \u003ca href=\"http://openjustice.doj.ca.gov/downloads/pdfs/cd15.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a 2015 report\u003c/a> from then-Attorney General Kamala Harris’s Office, “18 percent of arrestees for marijuana-related felonies in 2014 in the state were black even though, according to the 2010 census, only about 6 percent of California’s population is black. Meanwhile, white people constituted 31 percent of arrestees even though they made up more than 40 percent of the state population in 2010.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand the situation in Alameda County—and specifically Oakland—take a look at \u003ca href=\"https://sparq.stanford.edu/opd-reports\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a 2014 survey\u003c/a> of over 28,000 Oakland Police Department stops of drivers and pedestrians. It found that a ridiculous amount of the stops—60 percent—were of African Americans. Man, African Americans only make up 28 percent of Oakland’s population, and that’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/01/from-black-panthers-to-bbq-becky-the-displacement-of-black-oakland\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">constantly decreasing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13849865\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13849865\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Malcolm Turner is currently the top sales associate at Blunts + Moore.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Malcolm Turner is currently the top sales associate at Blunts + Moore. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">M\u003c/span>alcolm was arrested a few years prior to that study, back when the Oakland Police Department \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_v._City_of_Oakland\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">first landed under federal monitor\u003c/a> for malpractice in communities of color. (Sixteen years later, Oakland is still under that federal monitor.) And despite \u003ca href=\"https://a18.asmdc.org/press-releases/20181001-governor-signs-bonta-bill-reduce-or-remove-outdated-cannabis-convictions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">an Assembly Bill passed last year\u003c/a> to expunge records of those who’ve had marijuana offenses, Malcolm still has his offense on his record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why it’s wild to see him find his footing in this industry. He’s the reason why the legalization of marijuana is important, and even more reason why the Equity Program is important. I’d argue that without the Equity Program—without someone like Moore, who has a background in understanding corporate finance, and Blunt, who has a background in knowing just about everyone in East Oakland—Malcolm wouldn’t have been hired by a dispensary. Especially not by the growing number of \u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/california-makes-marijuana-a-wellness-industry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“luxury cannabis” operations\u003c/a> that have sprung up in California, largely white-owned, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.theganjayoga.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ganga yoga\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://mybestbudca.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">edibles for dogs\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moore told me the story of how Malcolm was hired, out of their pool of over 2,000 applicants. Of course, on the day of interviews, Malcolm showed up to the job fair without a resume. Instead of lying about his printer not working, he told them straight-up that he’d seen the job opening on Instagram and decided to just roll up to the joint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite his lack of preparation—a dealbreaker for most companies—it was wise of Blunts + Moore to hire him. In their first month of operation, with his product knowledge and natural connection with the customer base, Malcolm was their top “budtender.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it boils down to it, Malcolm’s story is just one of thousands, a microcosm of the widespread fallout from the war on drugs. That one traffic stop in 2006 needlessly ruined 10 years of Malcom’s life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while the Equity Program in Oakland has issues, from implementation to administration, after all those years of broken-taillight stops and disproportionate arrests, there’s finally a story of one time local government sort of got something right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the question is how do you bring this to scale in Oakland? And how do you replicate it for other cities, and spread the reparations around?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s certainly helped Big Mal. During that phone call earlier this month, before he hung up, Malcolm laughed as he told me, “I’m staying in this industry; I could become a doctor, and I’d \u003cem>still\u003c/em> have a side gig doing this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that only four of 600 applicants to the equity program were granted licenses. According to Assistant City Administrator Gregory Minor, “the City of Oakland has locally authorized approximately 370 equity applicants for a temporary state license, and six of the eight dispensaries added last year by the City of Oakland are owned-or co-owned by equity applicants.” \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Big Mal was arrested selling weed 13 years ago, ruining his job prospects. Now, he's selling weed again—legally—thanks to Oakland's Equity Program. ",
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"title": "Righting the Wrongs from the War on Drugs in Oakland | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">M\u003c/span>alcolm Turner is only half-joking when he says he can’t listen to Juvenile’s “Sets Go Up” anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-13833985\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_-160x184.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/05/OGPenn.Cap_.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 160px) 100vw, 160px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the song he was slapping at max volume when he and our mutual friend Darrell were pulled over by Oakland police back in 2006. You know how it goes: they were stopped for speeding, or maybe a tail light. Asked about any outstanding warrants. One officer smelled marijuana, and before you know it, they were both arrested on charges of possession.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Somehow they managed to call me to come pick up their car. When I pulled up, Malcolm and Darrell, friends who I’d known since before puberty, were both in the back of the patrol car, headed to jail. Even worse, they were en route to a decade of disenfranchisement due to a bag of some damn herbs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were 18 or 19,” Malcolm told me when we talked recently about the impact the arrest had on his life. “That was before I could get into a career. That hindered employment and all that… it damn near will make you want to go back to selling weed!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Malcolm has since had a few legal gigs: a couple stints at Home Depot, working as a security guard, and he’s gone through Laney College’s welding program—only to find that getting a job in that industry wasn’t as easy as they said it’d be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Late last year, though, Malcolm’s search for a career landed him right back where he started: selling weed. This time, legally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last December, I walked into Blunts + Moore marijuana dispensary in East Oakland, and there was my pal Malcolm, smiling, talking to customers and peddling marijuana.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13849864\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13849864\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Malcolm Turner helps a customer at Blunts + Moore in Oakland.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMalandCustomer.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Malcolm Turner helps a customer at Blunts + Moore in Oakland. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">B\u003c/span>ig Mal, as he’s known, was one of the first employees at Blunts + Moore, the first cannabis dispensary in Oakland given a license by way of Oakland’s Cannabis Equity Program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After California legalized the sale of recreational cannabis, Oakland passed a bill that would require at least 50 percent of all cannabis permits to go to applicants of the equity program. To qualify for that program, among other criteria, residents either had to live in a high-crime zone for the past decade, or have been charged with a marijuana-related offense anytime since November of 1996.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over 600 applicants applied. Six of them granted licenses opened in Oakland last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those lucky few, the program not only opens the door to the industry, but also is supposed to work as a sort of business incubator, lending contacts and advice to the new entrepreneurs. They’ve also added no-interest loans as an aspect of the program (since currently no bank allows cannabis businesses to have a bank account, let alone grant them loans). Additionally, \u003ca href=\"https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/can-the-state-help-oaklands-equity-program/Content?oid=23672657\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">according to the \u003cem>East Bay Express\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, the city is turning to the State of California to add funds to their effort, as last year’s SB 1294 allows cities with equity programs to tap into a $10 million state fund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with these efforts, the Cannabis Equity Program has gotten a lot of flack, mainly for being touted more as more progressive than it actually is. You have to imagine: you hear “equity program” and you’d think it’s something that levels the playing field. Six dispensaries in Oakland out of 600 applicants leaves a lot of victims of the war on drugs behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it \u003cem>is\u003c/em> a leg up. Brittany Moore, co-founder of Blunts + Moore, acknowledges that she benefits from the program, but says it’s not a standalone solution. “I feel like it’s a little boost. It isn’t a handout. It says, ‘Here is a shot that you would’ve never gotten if it weren’t for this program,’ so I’m grateful for it,” Moore told me as we stood in an office at Blunts + Moore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13849867\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13849867\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Brittany Moore and Alphonso Blunt, cofounders of Blunts + Moore, got an assist from Oakland's Equity Program.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.MooreandBlunt.jpg 1616w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brittany Moore and Alphonso Blunt, cofounders of Blunts + Moore, got an assist from Oakland’s Equity Program. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Moore’s co-founder, East Oakland native Alphonso Blunt (yes, the owners’ real names are Blunt and Moore) agrees. “It’s not as bad as they say, it just needed funding and education. Because it works, you just need people who know how to talk, how to not give up any of their equity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Equity, in terms of making sure all parties have a fair shot in this “green rush,” as some call it, is important—especially for communities that have suffered due to the war on drugs. And equity, in terms of retaining ownership, is just as important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California brought in a reported $2.5 billion from the marijuana industry last year. And although that was less than projected, the industry overall is growing. The Golden State is just one of 10 states where recreational marijuana currently is legal, and one of over 30 states where medical cannabis is legal. In the next six years, it’s predicted the industry will be worth $25 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13849866\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13849866\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.BluntandCustomer-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Alphonso Blunt and a customer.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.BluntandCustomer-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.BluntandCustomer-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.BluntandCustomer-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.BluntandCustomer-1020x682.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.BluntandCustomer.jpg 1100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alphonso Blunt and a customer. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nationally, there are a number of people with political will pushing for further legalization of marijuana, including former New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and Earl Blumenauer, a Democratic Representative from Oregon who authored H.R. 420, a bill that would remove marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Acknowledging the industry’s potential, as well as the history of over-policing people of color in low-income communities, is part of what led former Oakland council member Desley Brooks to introduce the Equity program. According to \u003ca href=\"http://openjustice.doj.ca.gov/downloads/pdfs/cd15.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a 2015 report\u003c/a> from then-Attorney General Kamala Harris’s Office, “18 percent of arrestees for marijuana-related felonies in 2014 in the state were black even though, according to the 2010 census, only about 6 percent of California’s population is black. Meanwhile, white people constituted 31 percent of arrestees even though they made up more than 40 percent of the state population in 2010.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To understand the situation in Alameda County—and specifically Oakland—take a look at \u003ca href=\"https://sparq.stanford.edu/opd-reports\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a 2014 survey\u003c/a> of over 28,000 Oakland Police Department stops of drivers and pedestrians. It found that a ridiculous amount of the stops—60 percent—were of African Americans. Man, African Americans only make up 28 percent of Oakland’s population, and that’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/01/from-black-panthers-to-bbq-becky-the-displacement-of-black-oakland\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">constantly decreasing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13849865\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13849865\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product-800x535.jpg\" alt=\"Malcolm Turner is currently the top sales associate at Blunts + Moore.\" width=\"800\" height=\"535\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product-800x535.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product-1200x802.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/BigMal.Product.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Malcolm Turner is currently the top sales associate at Blunts + Moore. \u003ccite>(Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 4.6875em;float: left;line-height: 0.733em;padding: 0.05em 0.1em 0 0;font-family: times, serif, georgia\">M\u003c/span>alcolm was arrested a few years prior to that study, back when the Oakland Police Department \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_v._City_of_Oakland\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">first landed under federal monitor\u003c/a> for malpractice in communities of color. (Sixteen years later, Oakland is still under that federal monitor.) And despite \u003ca href=\"https://a18.asmdc.org/press-releases/20181001-governor-signs-bonta-bill-reduce-or-remove-outdated-cannabis-convictions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">an Assembly Bill passed last year\u003c/a> to expunge records of those who’ve had marijuana offenses, Malcolm still has his offense on his record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why it’s wild to see him find his footing in this industry. He’s the reason why the legalization of marijuana is important, and even more reason why the Equity Program is important. I’d argue that without the Equity Program—without someone like Moore, who has a background in understanding corporate finance, and Blunt, who has a background in knowing just about everyone in East Oakland—Malcolm wouldn’t have been hired by a dispensary. Especially not by the growing number of \u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/california-makes-marijuana-a-wellness-industry\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">“luxury cannabis” operations\u003c/a> that have sprung up in California, largely white-owned, including \u003ca href=\"https://www.theganjayoga.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ganga yoga\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://mybestbudca.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">edibles for dogs\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moore told me the story of how Malcolm was hired, out of their pool of over 2,000 applicants. Of course, on the day of interviews, Malcolm showed up to the job fair without a resume. Instead of lying about his printer not working, he told them straight-up that he’d seen the job opening on Instagram and decided to just roll up to the joint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite his lack of preparation—a dealbreaker for most companies—it was wise of Blunts + Moore to hire him. In their first month of operation, with his product knowledge and natural connection with the customer base, Malcolm was their top “budtender.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it boils down to it, Malcolm’s story is just one of thousands, a microcosm of the widespread fallout from the war on drugs. That one traffic stop in 2006 needlessly ruined 10 years of Malcom’s life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while the Equity Program in Oakland has issues, from implementation to administration, after all those years of broken-taillight stops and disproportionate arrests, there’s finally a story of one time local government sort of got something right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the question is how do you bring this to scale in Oakland? And how do you replicate it for other cities, and spread the reparations around?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s certainly helped Big Mal. During that phone call earlier this month, before he hung up, Malcolm laughed as he told me, “I’m staying in this industry; I could become a doctor, and I’d \u003cem>still\u003c/em> have a side gig doing this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-12127869\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-800x78.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"78\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-400x39.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/09/Q.Logo_.Break_-768x75.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that only four of 600 applicants to the equity program were granted licenses. According to Assistant City Administrator Gregory Minor, “the City of Oakland has locally authorized approximately 370 equity applicants for a temporary state license, and six of the eight dispensaries added last year by the City of Oakland are owned-or co-owned by equity applicants.” \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"soldout": {
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