Crosscurrents

San Francisco's Mayor Daniel Lurie has made changes to the city's harm reduction policy. And not everyone supports them. Today, how the new policy is impacting the people who receive these services. Then, a Black culture space in the city is closing its doors for a few years.

For more than 25 years, the City of San Francisco has used an approach called “harm reduction” to help people struggling with substance abuse. It's common in California. The key tenet of harm reduction is: meet people where they're at, so that they can manage their substance use and stay alive. That can involve giving people clean supplies to consume drugs.But the harm reduction approach is at the heart of a conflict. On the one side are some San Francisco elected officials, business owners, and residents who associate it with open air drug use and crime. On the other side are nonprofit organizations that say harm reduction services save lives. KALW's Stafford Hemmer has the story. 

A treasured Black arts and culture space, in the Fillmore-Western Addition neighborhood, is closing for a few years. The African American Art & Culture Complex has served the community for 37 years. They're closing so the city can do seismic renovation on the building. But what happens when an important community space has to shut down, even temporarily Ashley Smiley, who goes by her last name, is the program coordinator for the African American Art and Culture Complex. Smiley spoke with KALW's Jenee Darden on the “The Sights + Sounds Show” about the center's longtime impact and what this closure means. 

Now for some poetry that celebrates queer brown love. Here is San Francisco poet Flavia Elisa Mora reading her piece “Xochipilli.” 

The Public Media Journalists Association, or PMJA, just announced their 2026 winners and KALW is proud to have taken three awards, so today we bring the second place winner for Enterprise Journalism, our story about how unhoused community members find shelter and support at SFO.

Today, a tenant who is about to be evicted commemorates their apartment that hosted 35 years of performance. Then, a classic Dracula story gets revamped. Plus, a poem about another monster that refuses to die.

It's been nearly 130 years since Bram Stoker's novel “Dracula” was published. Over time, artists have reimagined the blood-thirsty monster in many ways. Now, San Francisco Playhouse is taking a stab at the classic story, with a feminist twist.

A dancer is evicted from a San Francisco home with deep roots in their experimental dance community.

Revisiting The Gay Life is a new 12-episode series from KALW's Queer Power Hour. It explores a pivotal moment in SF's LGBTQ history — from the rise of Harvey Milk to the early days of what would later be called AIDS.

It's World Cup fever! So today, we go on a little Bay Area tour of how Jordanian and Algerian fans are getting hyped for their big match. 

The Jordanian national soccer team is playing in the World Cup for the first time in history. The Bay Area Jordanian American community is a tightly knit community of just a few thousand people. A group of enthusiastic fans gathered for a street party in downtown San Mateo to celebrate. Today, Crosscurrents host takes us to that street party, to hear what this historic moment means for Jordanians in the Bay Area.

"Nashama" is the nickname of the Jordanian national soccer team. It's a word for a group of people who are chivalrous and brave...but it also relates to being generous and hospitable. Mazra, a restaurant in San Bruno, serves food from the Levant—the area that covers Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. Today, how this spot on the Peninsula embodies Nashama through food. 

Ahead of the Jordan-Algeria World Cup match, KALW's Hana Baba headed over to a favorite community store—South Berkeley Meat and Produce. People visit from all over the state to shop for nostalgic items from Algeria. It's got a large butcher counter with all kinds of halal meat cuts, including a staple Algerian sausage called Merguez.

How far would you go to get your hands on a cassette tape? Today, we meet two music archivers from Oakland. First an Afghan man's odyssey to preserve his cultural music. Then, a young woman from Sudan is digitizing old music cassettes for a new diaspora generation.

The Taliban retook power in Afghanistan in 2021, after the hasty conclusion to a 20 year U.S. occupation. Since then, music has been officially banned in the country. Musicians are driven underground, instruments are destroyed, and recordings are contraband.Here in the East Bay, one Afghan-American is working hard to preserve what he can. He's digitizing tapes he's sourced from back home and posting them in an online database he started calling the Afghan Cassette Archive. But getting those tapes out of Afghanistan is not as simple as an online order… It's an illegal, expensive, and dangerous odyssey.Reporter Christopher Alam met up with Omid J, aka OMJVinyls, at his Oakland studio to check out his rare collection.

Today, how the political fight over college access is impacting Bay Area students. Then, we bring you readings on grief, intimacy and rest from Black Women writers.

With graduation season wrapping up, many teenagers around the Bay Area are celebrating the end of high school and are making plans to begin college. But in Washington DC, policymakers are fighting over college access.In the past year, the Trump Administration has worked quickly to dismantle the Department of Education. And one of the major programs they want to eliminate is called TRIO, a federally-funded initiative that helps low-income students and those who would be the first in their families to go to college. Thousands of those students in the Bay Area get support from TRIO programs to get into college and graduate. KALW reporter Anna Casalme visited two programs in San Francisco to understand what this political fight means for students. 

“When We Exhale” is a new anthology collection of poetry, essays, and other writings, where Black women reflect on rest, grief, intimacy, cultural memory and healing. Jenee Darden, is the host of the KALW's Sights and Sounds show recently welcomed the authors behind the anthology to our live event space in downtown SF. It was a night of poetry, fellowship, and connection.In this excerpt from the event, we begin with Jenee's conversation with one of the book's co-editors, Alie Jones. Then, we hear “A recipe for Exhale Cake” by Adrienne Danyelle Oliver. And, writer Ayodele Nzinga brings us an excerpt of her piece “a breath in three movements.” 

One San Francisco band has been going strong for 144 seasons. Today, we're hitting the high notes with the Golden Gate Park Band's music director. Then, the Conservatory of Flowers' corpse flower is about to bloom again. Plus, we stop by the San Francisco dragon boat festival!

If you go out to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on any given Sunday from April to September… and you wander over to the concourse between the California Academy of Sciences and the DeYoung museum of fine arts… you'll hear the Golden Gate Park Band playing at the Spreckels Temple of Music. And, when I say any Sunday, I mean it. Because the band is now in their 144th season. That's since 1882!And though the concerts have been happening for nearly a century and half, the music is very eclectic. They're a blend of all types of music from soul, to Disney songs, to Ukrainian music, and so much more. German Gonzalez is the current music director and conductor of the Band. He recently spoke with KALW's Jenee Darden for the Sights and Sounds Show. In this excerpt from their conversation, German talks about his music journey and what he's looking forward to performing with his band.

Over the weekend, San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers announced that their corpse flower, named 'Scarlet,' would be blooming in the next 7 to 14 days. It's an event that usually makes the news because these flowers can take up to ten years to reach their first bloom and they can smell like… death. But they're also endangered. And one of the Conservatory's neighbors, the California Academy of Sciences, has been working with a national effort to preserve this rare plant's DNA. KALW's Wren Farrell took a look at the program in 2024 when the Academy's corpse flower ‘Mirage' had its own bloom. 

As the Bay Area summer heats up, more people are spending time by the water, and sometimes you might catch the rhythmic and competitive sounds of Dragon Boat Racing. The sport is over two thousand years old and originates in China. The boats are long, thin and often decorated with dragon heads and tails. They are also very fast, powered by a team of either 10 or 20 people, these boats are propelled quickly with top tier teams hitting an average of 70-80 strokes per minute. And this Saturday the San Francisco Dragon Boat Festival is kicking off its first races at Lake Merced! Reporter Jacky Chiu, headed down to Lake Merced to bring us this story from 2016.

For a decade, an Oakland center has been helping local young people discover the joy of writing. Today, we hear about their new anthology of works by 4th graders. Then, we find out how the whole city of San Francisco was blamed for a murder in its streets.   

In April 2023, tech executive Bob Lee was found near San Francisco's Embarcadero with severe stab wounds. He later died from these injuries. Shortly after his death, some of the loudest voices in tech rushed to blame a chaotic, violent City. Out of twelve murders that took place in the city that year, it was the only one to garner international attention, fueling a narrative that Lee was killed because of a general lack of safety/ in a city that had failed to keep law and order. But, it was eventually determined that his killing stemmed from a personal connection. So what really happened? What does Lee's death really signify?That's what Shawn Wen sought to find out. She's the creator and producer of the podcast Foundering. Shawn spoke with Mission Local's Joe Eskenazi at KALW's live event space in downtown San Francisco. In this excerpt from their conversation, Shawn and Joe consider what this case meant to a fractured city. 

KALW's Jeneé Darden who grew up in East Oakland in the ‘80s and ‘90s… and her little kid self would've loved a place like Chapter 510. The youth writing center provides a safe and empowering learning space for young writers. And Chapter 510 centers Black, brown and queer voices… and publishes their works. Their latest book is “When the Stars Bloom in Oakland: An Anthology of Poems by Fourth Graders.” Janet Heller is an Oakland poet and a co-founder of Chapter 510. Anjali Emsellem is a writer and educator who teaches in the program. They spoke to Jenee for KALW's the sights and sounds show. Here's an excerpt from their conversation. 

Here is Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo reading her poem “It is I, the immigrant.”

Today, we speak with one of the lawyers that exposed a culture of corruption and racism in Oakland's Police department. Then, for the past year, our Audio Academy fellows have been working hard to report sound rich stories from all over the bay area. Today, we pay them a tribute of thanks. 

Oakland's Police Department has been under federal oversight since 2003. The oversight began after a civil rights lawsuit was filed on behalf of 119 residents, most of them Black men, who alleged that multiple Oakland police officers had beaten and planted evidence on them.Yesterday we heard from Darwin BondGraham, news editor at The Oaklandside and co-author of the book, "The Riders Come Out At Night," an exhaustive history of decades of corruption inside the OPD.Today, we hear from John Burris, one of the civil rights attorneys who represented those residents and spearheaded the legal fight to reform the Oakland Police Department. Burris says the department has been reformed. 

Every September, KALW welcomes a new cohort of eight fellows to our Audio Academy training program that's now in its thirteenth year. Over a span of 9 months the current cohort has been hard at work learning what it takes to report and produce sound rich audio features. Stories that allowed them to follow their curiosity, go deeper on urgent issues or celebrate the communities holding people together. Tonight we have the bittersweet honor of graduating this year's cohort, so today we're bringing you a special tribute. It's a collection of clips from their best work. ‘Finding faith in the fight against artificial super intelligence' by Arlen Levy 'The show must go on: Tito Soto and SF's iconic Oasis drag club' by Stafford Hemmer ‘In Oakland, the musical legacy of Japanese American incarceration still resonates' by Cara Nguyen ‘Goalball emboldens blind athletes on the court and in their lives' by Rachel Longan ‘Women, non-binary players tackle America's Game' by Jordan Karnes ‘How queer communities are seeing themselves reflected in tide pools' by Anna Casalme ‘Berkeley's Warming Hut offers a safe space' by Viviana Vivas ‘Who put up all those gates in the Sunset?‘ by Rae Kim 

After more than two decades, Oakland's Police Department is on track to be released from federal oversight. Today, the future of Oakland's PD. Then, the Flor Y Canto literary festival returns to San Francisco's Mission District.

Oakland's Police Department has been under federal oversight since 2003, but this year that will be coming to an end. The oversight began after a civil rights lawsuit filed on behalf of 119 residents, most of them Black men, who alleged that multiple Oakland police officers had beaten and planted evidence on them. To understand what this moment means, KALW's Sunni Khalid spoke with Darwin BondGraham, the news editor at The Oaklandside. He is also the author, along with Ali Winston, of the book, "The Riders Come Out At Night," an exhaustive look at the scandal that shook the city of Oakland, as well as a history of decades of corruption inside the OPD.

Flor Y Canto, translates to “flower and song.” This weekend San Francisco's Mission District will be home again to the weekend-long literary festival known as Flor Y Canto. The streets of the City's Latino Cultural District will be filled with vibrant events, decorations, and music. All centered around the works by Latine writers, with readings happening all throughout the neighborhood. KALW's Jenee Darden spoke with two organizers of the festival for “The Sights + Sounds Show," poets Lourdes Figueroa and Josiah Luis Alderete, host of KALW's “Bay Poets.” Here's an excerpt of their interview.

Today, an East Bay author channels the monsters of injustice into a new horror novel. Then, one bookstore owner is helping people connect and envision brighter futures.

In the novel, “The Curse of Hester Gardens” a Black mother lives in a Michigan housing project with her teen sons. She's raising them alone while her husband serves time in prison. Hester Gardens is haunted and cursed.. But not just by ghosts. Injustices like systemic oppression, poverty, and gun violence have also become monsters in the residents' lives. Tamika Thompson is the author of  “The Curse of Hester Gardens.” She is from Detroit and now lives in the East Bay. She talked with KALW's Jeneé Darden, host of the Sights and Sounds show. In this excerpt from their conversations, she reflects on how her personal experience witnessing gun violence growing up in Detroit inspired her book.

Black horror can be informed by past trauma and that sometimes gives us glimpses of the future. In Octavia Butler's classic 1993 book “Parable of the Sower,” natural disasters are on the rise, people are vanishing, and America just became “Great Again.” Today, some people are looking to genres like Black horror and Afro-Futurism as a guide for the times. In this story from 2025, Reporter Kristal Raheem went to meet Isis Asare owner of Sistah Sci-Fi bookstore, who's helping people navigate our present day reality with speculative fiction. Note: Sistah SciFi has a LOT going on, including another event honoring Octavia Butler's legacy at the San Francisco Library's main branch this Sunday at 2pm. 

The Bay Area Video Coalition has had a big impact on local media for half a century. Now it looks to the future. Then, the story of a Liberian immigrant's first encounters with American life. From Liberia, to a pioneering Oakland dance company.

If you've made media art in the Bay Area sometime in the last fifty years… you probably know the Bay Area Video Coalition: BAVC. Around 2,500 students and media makers of various ages take classes at BAVC every year. And BAVC artists have received Oscar nominations, and won Emmys!One of their students was KALW's Jeneé Darden, who is now the host of the Sights and Sounds show. To mark their 50th anniversary, she recently spoke to BAVC executive director, Paula Smith Arrigoni, and Caron Creighton, an instructor at BAVC. In this excerpt from their conversation they talk about how quickly the media landscape is changing, and what media training and education look like today, looking to the future.

June is National Immigrant Heritage Month. And that brings us to another legacy Bay Area arts institution was founded by immigrants from west Africa: Diamano Coura West African Dance Company in Oakland. Founded by award winning artistic directors,  Zakarya and Naomi Diouf,  They've been performing and teaching dance from Western and Central Africa since 1975. Over the decades, Diamano Coura dancers have hailed from countries like Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo… Next we'll share one of our favorite stories, from my first years at KALW - about one of their dancers who immigrated from Liberia.Karsumo Massaquoi loved, and lived, to dance. But, he almost didn't survive to do either. 

Immigrant artists have a big impact on their adopted countries, but many also leave a legacy in their countries of origin. Daisy Zamora has been a foundational force of poetry here in San Francisco… but before she left her home of Nicaragua she was an active combatant in the movement to topple the Somoza dictatorship in the early 70's.Today she is a professor of Latina/Latino Studies at San Francisco State. Here, Bay Poets host Josiah Luis Alderete reads her poem 'Another Time,' that was published in 1992.

Today, we explore a series that captures San Francisco at the height of the AIDS epidemic. It's a conversation with the host of “When We All Get To Heaven.” Then, we visit the Bay Area's first women's sports bar- Rikki's. Plus, a poem about found family. 

Pride Month is a time to celebrate accomplishments of LGBTQ+ individuals, and commemorate the ongoing fight for the whole community to gain equality and justice. It's also a time to remember and honor those we've lost. That includes the millions of people that have died of AIDS-related illness.That's the aim of the Peabody award winning documentary project, ‘When We All Get To Heaven.' With archival tape it tells the story of one of the first gay-positive churches, the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco during the height of the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s. The 10 episode series brings to life a community facing personal, social, and political trials, including the deaths of hundreds of its members. It premiered in October 2025. And KALWs Crosscurrents host Hana Baba spoke with the host and co-creator of the series Lynne Gerber. 

In June 2025, San Francisco welcomed its first women's sports bar: Rikki's! In honor of Rikki's first anniversary, here's the story of how it came to be, from the host of Bounce, KALW's Erin Lim.