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A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.   In this two-part series of Oakland Asian Cultural Center's “Let's Talk” podcast Eastside Arts Alliance is featured. Elena Serrano and Susanne Takehara, two of the founders of Eastside Arts Alliance, and staff member Aubrey Pandori will discuss the history that led to the formation of Eastside and their deep work around multi-racial solidarity.   Transcript: Let's Talk podcast episode 9  [00:00:00] Emma: My name is Emma Grover, and I am the program and communications coordinator at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, known also as OACC. Today we are sharing the ninth episode of our Let's Talk Audio Series. Let's Talk is part of OACC'S Open Ears for Change Initiative, which was established in 2020. With this series, our goals are to address anti-Blackness in the APIA communities, discuss the effects of colorism and racism in a safe space, and highlight Black and Asian solidarity and community efforts specifically in the Oakland Chinatown area. Today's episode is a round table discussion with Elena Serrano, Susanne Takahara, and Aubrey Pandori of Eastside Arts Alliance.  [00:00:53] Aubrey: Hello everybody. This is Aubrey from Eastside Arts Alliance, and I am back here for the second part of our Let's Talk with Suzanne and Elena. We're gonna be talking about what else Eastside is doing right now in the community. The importance of art in activism, and the importance of Black and Asian solidarity in Oakland and beyond.  So I am the community archivist here at Eastside Arts Alliances. I run CARP, which stands for Community Archival Resource Project. It is a project brought on by one of our co-founders, Greg Morozumi. And it is primarily a large chunk of his own collection from over the years, but it is a Third World archive with many artifacts, journals, pens, newspapers from social movements in the Bay Area and beyond, international social movements from the 1960s forward. We do a few different programs through CARP. I sometimes have archival exhibitions. We do public engagement through panels, community archiving days. We collaborate with other community archives like the Bay Area Lesbian Archives and Freedom Archives here in Oakland and the Bay Area. And we are also working on opening up our Greg Morozumi Reading Room in May. So that is an opportunity for people to come in and relax, read books, host reading groups, or discussions with their community. We're also gonna be opening a lending system so people are able to check out books to take home and read. There'll be library cards coming soon for that and other fun things to come.  [00:02:44] So Suzanne, what are you working on at Eastside right now? [00:02:48] Susanne: Well, for the past like eight or nine years I've been working with Jose Ome Navarrete and Debbie Kajiyama of NAKA Dance Theater to produce Live Arts and Resistance (LAIR), which is a Dance Theater Performance series. We've included many artists who, some of them started out here at Eastside and then grew to international fame, such as Dohee Lee, and then Amara Tabor-Smith has graced our stages for several years with House Full of Black Women. This year we're working with Joti Singh on Ghadar Geet: Blood and Ink, a piece she choreographed, and shot in film and it's a multimedia kind of experience. We've worked with Cat Brooks and many emerging other artists who are emerging or from all over, mostly Oakland, but beyond. It's a place where people can just experiment and not worry about a lot of the regulations that bigger theaters have. Using the outside, the inside, the walls, the ceiling sometimes. It's been an exciting experience to work with so many different artists in our space.  [00:04:03] Elena: And I have been trying to just get the word out to as many different folks who can help sustain the organization as possible about the importance of the work we do here. So my main job with Eastside has been raising money. But what we're doing now is looking at cultural centers like Eastside, like Oakland Asian Cultural Center, like the Malonga Casquelord Center, like Black Cultural Zone, like the Fruitvale Plaza and CURJ's work. These really integral cultural hubs. In neighborhoods and how important those spaces are.  [00:04:42] So looking at, you know, what we bring to the table with the archives, which serve the artistic community, the organizing community. There's a big emphasis, and we had mentioned some of this in the first episode around knowing the history and context of how we got here so we can kind of maneuver our way out. And that's where books and movies and posters and artists who have been doing this work for so long before us come into play in the archives and then having it all manifest on the stage through programs like LAIR, where theater artists and dancers and musicians, and it's totally multimedia, and there's so much information like how to keep those types of places going is really critical.  [00:05:28] And especially now when public dollars have mostly been cut, like the City of Oakland hardly gave money to the arts anyway, and they tried to eliminate the entire thing. Then they're coming back with tiny bits of money. But we're trying to take the approach like, please, let's look at where our tax dollars go. What's important in a neighborhood? What has to stay and how can we all work together to make that happen?  [00:05:52] Susanne: And I want to say that our Cultural Center theater is a space that is rented out very affordably to not just artists, but also many organizations that are doing Movement work, such as Palestinian Youth Movement, Bala, Mujeres Unidas Y Activas, QT at Cafe Duo Refugees, United Haiti Action Committee, Freedom Archives, Oakland Sin Fronteras, Center for CPE, and many artists connected groups.  [00:06:22] Aubrey: Yeah, I mean, we do so much more than what's in the theater and Archive too, we do a lot of different youth programs such as Girl Project, Neighborhood Arts, where we do public murals. One of our collective members, Angie and Leslie, worked on Paint the Town this past year. We also have our gallery in between the Cultural Center and Bandung Books, our bookstore, which houses our archive. We are celebrating our 25th anniversary exhibition.  [00:06:54] Susanne: And one of the other exhibits we just wrapped up was Style Messengers, an exhibit of graffiti work from Dime, Spy and Surge, Bay Area artists and Surge is from New York City, kind of illustrating the history of graffiti and social commentary.  [00:07:30] Elena: We are in this studio here recording and this is the studio of our youth music program Beats Flows, and I love we're sitting here with this portrait of Amiri Baraka, who had a lot to say to us all the time. So it's so appropriate that when the young people are in the studio, they have this elder, magician, poet activist looking at him, and then when you look out the window, you see Sister Souljah, Public Enemy, and then a poster we did during, when Black Lives Matter came out, we produced these posters that said Black Power Matters, and we sent them all over the country to different sister cultural centers and I see them pop up somewhere sometimes and people's zooms when they're home all over the country. It's really amazing and it just really shows when you have a bunch of artists and poets and radical imagination, people sitting around, you know, what kind of things come out of it. [00:08:31] Aubrey: I had one of those Black Power Matters posters in my kitchen window when I lived in Chinatown before I worked here, or visited here actually. I don't even know how I acquired it, but it just ended up in my house somehow.  [00:08:45] Elena: That's perfect. I remember when we did, I mean we still do, Malcolm X Jazz Festival and it was a young Chicana student who put the Jazz Festival poster up and she was like, her parents were like, why is Malcolm X? What has that got to do with anything? And she was able to just tell the whole story about Malcolm believing that people, communities of color coming together  is a good thing. It's a powerful thing. And it was amazing how the festival and the youth and the posters can start those kind of conversations.  [00:09:15] Aubrey: Malcolm X has his famous quote that says “Culture is an indispensable weapon in the freedom struggle.” And Elena, we think a lot about Malcolm X and his message here at Eastside about culture, but also about the importance of art. Can we speak more about the importance of art in our activism?  [00:09:35] Elena: Well, that was some of the things we were touching on around radical imagination and the power of the arts. But where I am going again, is around this power of the art spaces, like the power of spaces like this, and to be sure that it's not just a community center, it's a cultural center, which means we invested in sound good, sound good lighting, sprung floors. You know, just like the dignity and respect that the artists and our audiences have, and that those things are expensive but critical. So I feel like that's, it's like to advocate for this type of space where, again, all those groups that we listed off that have come in here and there's countless more. They needed a space to reach constituencies, you know, and how important that is. It's like back in the civil rights organizing the Black church was that kind of space, very important space where those kind of things came together. People still go to church and there's still churches, but there's a space for cultural centers and to have that type of space where artists and activists can come together and be more powerful together.  [00:10:50] Aubrey: I think art is a really powerful way of reaching people. [00:10:54] Elena: You know, we're looking at this just because I, being in the development end, we put together a proposal for the Environmental Protection Agency before Donald (Trump) took it over. We were writing about how important popular education is, so working with an environmental justice organization who has tons of data about how impacted communities like East Oakland and West Oakland are suffering from all of this, lots of science. But what can we, as an arts group, how can we produce a popular education around those things? And you know, how can we say some of those same messages in murals and zines, in short films, in theater productions, you know, but kind of embracing that concept of popular education. So we're, you know, trying to counter some of the disinformation that's being put out there too with some real facts, but in a way that, you know, folks can grasp onto and, and get.  [00:11:53] Aubrey: We recently had a LAIR production called Sky Watchers, and it was a beautiful musical opera from people living in the Tenderloin, and it was very personal. You were able to hear about people's experiences with poverty, homelessness, and addiction in a way that was very powerful. How they were able to express what they were going through and what they've lost, what they've won, everything that has happened in their lives in a very moving way. So I think art, it's, it's also a way for people to tell their stories and we need to be hearing those stories. We don't need to be hearing, I think what a lot of Hollywood is kind of throwing out, which is very white, Eurocentric beauty standards and a lot of other things that doesn't reflect our neighborhood and doesn't reflect our community. So yeah, art is a good way for us to not only tell our stories, but to get the word out there, what we want to see changed.  So our last point that we wanna talk about today is the importance of Black and Asian solidarity in Oakland. How has that been a history in Eastside, Suzanne?  [00:13:09] Susanne: I feel like Eastside is all about Third World solidarity from the very beginning. And Yuri Kochiyama is one of our mentors through Greg Morozumi and she was all about that. So I feel like everything we do brings together Black, Asian and brown folks. [00:13:27] Aubrey: Black and Asian solidarity is especially important here at Eastside Arts Alliance. It is a part of our history. We have our bookstore called Bandung Books for a very specific reason, to give some history there. So the Bandung Conference happened in 1955 in Indonesia, and it was the first large-scale meeting of Asian and African countries. Most of which were newly independent from colonialism. They aimed to promote Afro-Asian cooperation and rejection of colonialism and imperialism in all nations. And it really set the stage for revolutionary solidarity between colonized and oppressed people, letting way for many Third Worlds movements internationally and within the United States.  [00:14:14] Eastside had an exhibition called Bandung to the Bay: Black and Asian Solidarity at Oakland Asian Cultural Center the past two years in 2022 and 2023 for their Lunar New Year and Black History Month celebrations. It highlighted the significance of that conference and also brought to light what was happening in the United States from the 1960s to present time that were creating and building solidarity between Black and Asian communities. The exhibition highlighted a number of pins, posters, and newspapers from the Black Liberation Movement and Asian American movement, as well as the broader Third World movement. The Black Panthers were important points of inspiration in Oakland, in the Bay Area in getting Asian and Pacific Islanders in the diaspora, and in their homelands organized.  [00:15:07] We had the adoption of the Black Panthers 10-point program to help shape revolutionary demands and principles for people's own communities like the Red Guard in San Francisco's Chinatown, IWK in New York's Chinatown and even the Polynesian Panthers in New Zealand. There were so many different organizations that came out of the Black Panther party right here in Oakland. And we honor that by having so many different 10-point programs up in our theater too. We have the Brown Berets, Red Guard Party, Black Panthers, of course, the American Indian Movement as well. So we're always thinking about that kind of organizing and movement building that has been tied here for many decades now.  [00:15:53] Elena: I heard that the term Third World came from the Bandung conference. [00:15:58] Aubrey: Yes, I believe that's true.  [00:16:01] Elena: I wanted to say particularly right now, the need for specifically Black Asian solidarity is just, there's so much misinformation around China coming up now, especially as China takes on a role of a superpower in the world. And it's really up to us to provide some background, some other information, some truth telling, so folks don't become susceptible to that kind of misinformation. And whatever happens when it comes from up high and we hate China, it reflects in Chinatown. And that's the kind of stereotyping that because we have been committed to Third World solidarity and truth telling for so long, that that's where we can step in and really, you know, make a difference, we hope. I think the main point is that we need to really listen to each other, know what folks are going through, know that we have more in common than we have separating us, especially in impacted Black, brown, Asian communities in Oakland. We have a lot to do.  [00:17:07] Aubrey: To keep in contact with Eastside Arts Alliance, you can find us at our website: eastside arts alliance.org, and our Instagrams at Eastside Cultural and at Bandung Books to stay connected with our bookstore and CArP, our archive, please come down to Eastside Arts Alliance and check out our many events coming up in the new year. We are always looking for donations and volunteers and just to meet new friends and family.  [00:17:36] Susanne: And with that, we're gonna go out with Jon Jang's “The Pledge of Black Asian Alliance,” produced in 2018.  [00:18:29] Emma: This was a round table discussion at the Eastside Arts Alliance Cultural Center with staff and guests: Elena, Suzanne and Aubrey.  Let's Talk Audio series is one of OACC'S Open Ears for Change projects and as part of the Stop the Hate Initiative with funds provided by the California Department of Social Services in consultation with the commission of Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs to administer $110 million allocated over three years to community organizations. These organizations provide direct services to victims of hate and their families and offer prevention and intervention services to tackle hate in our communities. This episode is a production of the Oakland Asian Cultural Center with engineering, editing, and sound design by Thick Skin Media.  [00:19:18] A special thanks to Jon Jang for permission to use his original music. And thank you for listening.  [00:19:32] Music: Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it. We are all part of one another. Don't become too narrow, live fully, meet all kinds of people. You'll learn something from everyone. Follow what you feel in your heart. OACC Podcast [00:00:00] Emma: My name is Emma Grover, and I am the program and communications coordinator at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, known also as OACC. Today we are sharing the eighth episode of our Let's Talk audio series. Let's talk as part of OACC's Open Ears for Change Initiative, which was established in 2020. With this series, our goals are to address anti-blackness in the APIA communities, discuss the effects of colorism and racism in a safe space, and highlight black and Asian solidarity and community efforts specifically in the Oakland Chinatown area.   [00:00:43] Today's guests are Elena Serrano and Suzanne Takahara, co-founders of Eastside Arts Alliance. Welcome Elena and Suzanne, thank you so much for joining today's episode. And so just to kick things off, wanna hear about how was Eastside Arts Alliance started?   [00:01:01] Susanne: Well, it was really Greg Morozumi who had a longstanding vision of creating a cultural center in East Oakland, raised in Oakland, an organizer in the Bay Area, LA, and then in New York City where he met Yuri Kochiyama, who became a lifelong mentor.   [00:01:17] Greg was planning with one of Yuri's daughters, Ichi Kochiyama to move her family to Oakland and help him open a cultural center here. I met Greg in the early nineties and got to know him during the January, 1993 “No Justice, No Peace” show at Pro Arts in Oakland. The first Bay Graffiti exhibition in the gallery. Greg organized what became a massive anti-police brutality graffiti installation created by the TDDK crew. Graffiti images and messages covered the walls and ceiling complete with police barricades. It was a response to the Rodney King protests. The power of street art busted indoors and blew apart the gallery with political messaging. After that, Greg recruited Mike Dream, Spy, and other TDK writers to help teach the free art classes for youth that Taller Sin Fronteras was running at the time.   [00:02:11] There were four artist groups that came together to start Eastside. Taller Sin Fronteras was an ad hoc group of printmakers and visual artists activists based in the East Bay. Their roots came out of the free community printmaking, actually poster making workshops that artists like Malaquias Montoya and David Bradford organized in Oakland in the early 70s and 80s.   [00:02:34] The Black Dot Collective of poets, writers, musicians, and visual artists started a popup version of the Black Dot Cafe. Marcel Diallo and Leticia Utafalo were instrumental and leaders of this project. 10 12 were young digital artists and activists led by Favianna Rodriguez and Jesus Barraza in Oakland. TDK is an Oakland based graffiti crew that includes Dream, Spie, Krash, Mute, Done Amend, Pak and many others evolving over time and still holding it down.   [00:03:07] Elena: That is a good history there. And I just wanted to say that me coming in and meeting Greg and knowing all those groups and coming into this particular neighborhood, the San Antonio district of Oakland, the third world aspect of who we all were and what communities we were all representing and being in this geographic location where those communities were all residing. So this neighborhood, San Antonio and East Oakland is very third world, Black, Asian, Latinx, indigenous, and it's one of those neighborhoods, like many neighborhoods of color that has been disinvested in for years. But rich, super rich in culture.   [00:03:50] So the idea of a cultural center was…let's draw on where our strengths are and all of those groups, TDKT, Taller Sin Fronters, Black artists, 10 – 12, these were all artists who were also very engaged in what was going on in the neighborhoods. So artists, organizers, activists, and how to use the arts as a way to lift up those stories tell them in different ways. Find some inspiration, ways to get out, ways to build solidarity between the groups, looking at our common struggles, our common victories, and building that strength in numbers.   [00:04:27] Emma: Thank you so much for sharing. Elena and Suzanne, what a rich and beautiful history for Eastside Arts Alliance.   [00:04:34] Were there any specific political and or artistic movements happening at that time that were integral to Eastside's start?   [00:04:41] Elena: You know, one of the movements that we took inspiration from, and this was not happening when Eastside got started, but for real was the Black Panther Party. So much so that the Panthers 10-point program was something that Greg xeroxed and made posters and put 'em up on the wall, showing how the 10-point program for the Panthers influenced that of the Young Lords and the Brown Berets and I Wor Kuen (IWK).   [00:05:07] So once again, it was that Third world solidarity. Looking at these different groups that were working towards similar things, it still hangs these four posters still hang in our cultural, in our theater space to show that we were all working on those same things. So even though we came in at the tail end of those movements, when we started Eastside, it was very much our inspiration and what we strove to still address; all of those points are still relevant right now.   [00:05:36] Susanne: So that was a time of Fight The Power, Kaos One and Public Enemy setting. The tone for public art murals, graphics, posters. So that was kind of the context for which art was being made and protests happened.   [00:05:54] Elena: There was a lot that needed to be done and still needs to be done. You know what? What the other thing we were coming on the tail end of and still having massive repercussions was crack. And crack came into East Oakland really hard, devastated generations, communities, everything, you know, so the arts were a way for some folks to still feel power and feel strong and feel like they have agency in the world, especially hip hop and, spray can, and being out there and having a voice and having a say, it was really important, especially in neighborhoods where things had just been so messed up for so long.   [00:06:31] Emma: I would love to know also what were the community needs Eastside was created to address, you know, in this environment where there's so many community needs, what was Eastside really honing in on at this time?   [00:06:41] Elena: It's interesting telling our story because we end up having to tell so many other stories before us, so things like the, Black Arts movement and the Chicano Arts Movement. Examples of artists like Amiri Baraka, Malaguias Montoya, Sonya Sanchez. Artists who had committed themselves to the struggles of their people and linking those two works. So we always wanted to have that. So the young people that we would have come into the studio and wanna be rappers, you know, it's like, what is your responsibility?   [00:07:15] You have a microphone, you amplify. What are some of the things you're saying? So it was on us. To provide that education and that backstory and where they came from and the footsteps we felt like they were in and that they needed to keep moving it forward. So a big part of the cultural center in the space are the archives and all of that information and history and context.   [00:07:37] Susanne: And we started the Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival for that same reason coming out of the Bandung Conference. And then the Tri Continental, all of this is solidarity between people's movements.   [00:07:51] Emma: You've already talked about this a little bit, the role of the arts in Eastside's foundation and the work that you're doing, and I'd love to hear also maybe how the role of the arts continues to be important in the work that you're doing today as a cultural center.   [00:08:04] And so my next question to pose to you both is what is the role of the arts at Eastside?   [00:08:10] Elena: So a couple different things. One, I feel like, and I said a little bit of this before, but the arts can transmit messages so much more powerfully than other mediums. So if you see something acted out in a theater production or a song or a painting, you get that information transmitted in a different way.   [00:08:30] Then also this idea of the artists being able to tap into imagination and produce images and visions and dreams of the future. This kind of imagination I just recently read or heard because folks aren't reading anymore or hardly reading that they're losing their imagination. What happens when you cannot even imagine a way out of things?   [00:08:54] And then lastly, I just wanted to quote something that Favianna Rodriguez, one of our founders always says “cultural shift precedes political shift.” So if you're trying to shift things politically on any kind of policy, you know how much money goes to support the police or any of these issues. It's the cultural shift that needs to happen first. And that's where the cultural workers, the artists come in.   [00:09:22] Susanne: And another role of Eastside in supporting the arts to do just that is honoring the artists, providing a space where they can have affordable rehearsal space or space to create, or a place to come safely and just discuss things that's what we hope and have created for the Eastside Cultural Center and now the bookstore and the gallery. A place for them to see themselves and it's all um, LGBTA, BIPOC artists that we serve and honor in our cultural center. To that end, we, in the last, I don't know, 8, 9 years, we've worked with Jose Navarrete and Debbie Kajiyama of Naka Dance Theater to produce live arts and resistance, which gives a stage to emerging and experienced performance artists, mostly dancers, but also poets, writers, theater and actors and musicians.   [00:10:17] Emma: The last question I have for you both today is what is happening in the world that continues to call us to action as artists?   [00:10:27] Elena: Everything, everything is happening, you know, and I know things have always been happening, but it seems really particularly crazy right now on global issues to domestic issues. For a long time, Eastside was um, really focusing in on police stuff and immigration stuff because it was a way to bring Black and brown communities together because they were the same kind of police state force, different ways.   [00:10:54] Now we have it so many different ways, you know, and strategies need to be developed. Radical imagination needs to be deployed. Everyone needs to be on hand. A big part of our success and our strength is organizations that are not artistic organizations but are organizing around particular issues globally, locally come into our space and the artists get that information. The community gets that information. It's shared information, and it gives us all a way, hopefully, to navigate our way out of it.   [00:11:29] Susanne: The Cultural Center provides a venue for political education for our communities and our artists on Palestine, Haiti, Sudan, immigrant rights, prison abolition, police abolition, sex trafficking, and houselessness among other things.   [00:11:46] Elena: I wanted to say too, a big part of what's going on is this idea of public disinvestment. So housing, no such thing as public housing, hardly anymore. Healthcare, education, we're trying to say access to cultural centers. We're calling that the cultural infrastructure of neighborhoods. All of that must be continued to be supported and we can't have everything be privatized and run by corporations. So that idea of these are essential things in a neighborhood, schools, libraries, cultural spaces, and you know, and to make sure cultural spaces gets on those lists.   [00:12:26] Emma: I hear you. And you know, I think every category you brought up, actually just now I can think of one headline or one piece of news recently that is really showing how critically these are being challenged, these basic rights and needs of the community. And so thank you again for the work that you're doing and keeping people informed as well. I think sometimes with all the news, both globally and, and in our more local communities in the Bay Area or in Oakland. It can be so hard to know what actions to take, what tools are available. But again, that's the importance of having space for this type of education, for this type of activism. And so I am so grateful that Eastside exists and is continuing to serve our community in this way.   What is Eastside Arts Alliance up to today? Are there any ways we can support your collective, your organization, what's coming up?   [00:13:18] Elena: Well, this is our 25th anniversary. So the thing that got us really started by demonstrating to the community what a cultural center was, was the Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival, and that this year will be our 25th anniversary festival happening on May 17th.   [00:13:34] It's always free. It's in San Antonio Park. It's an amazing day of organizing and art and music, multi-generational. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful day. Folks can find out. We have stuff going on every week. Every week at the cultural center on our website through our socials. Our website is Eastside Arts alliance.org, and all the socials are there and there's a lot of information from our archives that you can look up there. There's just just great information on our website, and we also send out a newsletter.   [00:14:07] Emma: Thank you both so much for sharing, and I love you bringing this idea, but I hear a lot of arts and activism organizations using this term radical imagination and how it's so needed for bringing forth the future that we want for ourselves and our future generations.   [00:14:24] And so I just think that's so beautiful that Eastside creates that space, cultivates a space where that radical imagination can take place through the arts, but also through community connections. Thank you so much Elena and Suzanne for joining us today.   [00:14:40] Susanne: Thank you for having us.   [00:15:32] Emma: Let's Talk Audio series is one of OACC'S Open Ears for Change projects and is part of the Stop the Hate Initiative with funds provided by the California Department of Social Services. In consultation with the commission of Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs to administer $110 million allocated over three years to community organizations. These organizations provide direct services to victims of hate and their families, and offer prevention and intervention services to tackle hate in our communities.   This episode is a production of the Oakland Asian Cultural Center with engineering, editing, and sound design by Thick Skin Media. A special thanks to Jon Jang for permission to use his original music, and thank you for listening.   [00:16:34] Music: Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it. We are all part of one another. Don't become too narrow. Live fully, meet all kinds of people. You'll learn something from everyone. Follow what you feel in your heart. The post APEX Express – August 14, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

July 20,2025 Enoch Hawkins had a difficult upbringing in West Oakland, CA but things changed when he was introduced to Dr. Marshall and the Omega Boys Club. Enoch learned how to deal with his anger, fear and pain which has enabled him to discover what he loves- travel! He has visited over 27 countries and…

RyanNicole is an actress and Grammy-nominated hip hop artist who co-wrote and co-stars in the musical “Co-Founders.” In it one young brilliant coder is trying to save her childhood home in West Oakland by succeeding in the tech world. 

The Wood Street encampment in West Oakland was at one point the largest homeless encampment Northern California. In 2023, the city of Oakland completed final evictions of Wood Street residents. Dozens of Wood Street residents ended up at a city-funded shelter site where part of the encampment used to be. It includes an RV park and a "community cabins" site. Now, this shelter site is scheduled to close on Monday. Today, Oakland journalist and filmmaker Caron Creighton tells us about the cabin sites, and introduces us to two unhoused people who have been living there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The mission of Law & Disorder is to expose, agitate and build a new world where all of us can thrive. But how do we get there? How do we build a world many of us have only seen in our dreams? That's where we believe the artists come in. So, each week we feature an artist, holding down a weekly residency with us, helping us to imagine a different, more liberated world. Our Resistance in Residence Artist this week is poet Zouhair Mussa. Zouhair is a Sudanese/Nubian-American community organizer and multi-disciplinary artist from West Oakland. His art is based on the life he has lived and aims at addressing that which is detrimental to him and his community. He seeks to shed light on injustices that plague the places he calls home. He uses his art to remember the fallen and dreams of healing the struggle. Most importantly, he wants to uplift and inspire change with the aid of his artistic expression. Zouhair was a 2019 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate Finalist. — Subscribe to this podcast: https://plinkhq.com/i/1637968343?to=page Get in touch: lawanddisorder@kpfa.org Follow us on socials @LawAndDis: https://twitter.com/LawAndDis; https://www.instagram.com/lawanddis/ The post Resistance in Residence w/ Zouhair Mussa appeared first on KPFA.

“In the course of saying no with their bodies, they were met with more violence… including moms who were carrying babies on their backs and were pushed to the edge of the river — and had to choose the river.” That's Abby Reyes, author of “Truth Demands: A Memoir of Murder, Oil Wars and the Rise of Climate Justice.” In today's episode, she shares deeply emotional stories of the price paid by environmental defenders. And she also shares her own stories of resilience and joy in the aftermath of grief. In many parts of the world, fossil fuel interests and their political allies have gone so far as to weaponize pollution as policy to push out marginalized communities. Alexis Madrigal, host of KQED's Forum and author of “The Pacific Circuit,” describes how this happened in West Oakland, beginning as early as the 1930s: “You see them just saying it. We know this is gonna make housing worse. We know this is gonna make people's lives worse, but this is the plan.” And yet here, too, local communities stand up for environmental justice. Guests:  Alexis Madrigal, Co-Host, Forum, KQED Margaret Gordon, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project Abby Reyes, Author; Director, Community Resilience Projects, UC Irvine On June 4, Climate One is hosting a special screening of the documentary “Good Grief: The 10 Steps” followed by a climate anxiety workshop. Join us for this intimate conversation about the importance of mental health live at The Commonwealth Club. Tickets are available through our website. Support Climate One by going ad-free! By subscribing to Climate One on Patreon, you'll receive exclusive access to all future episodes free of ads, opportunities to connect with fellow Climate One listeners, and access to the Climate One Discord. Sign up today. For show notes and related links, visit our website. Ad sales by Multitude. Contact them for ad inquiries at multitude.productions/ads Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“In the course of saying no with their bodies, they were met with more violence… including moms who were carrying babies on their backs and were pushed to the edge of the river — and had to choose the river.” That's Abby Reyes, author of “Truth Demands: A Memoir of Murder, Oil Wars and the Rise of Climate Justice.” In today's episode, she shares deeply emotional stories of the price paid by environmental defenders. And she also shares her own stories of resilience and joy in the aftermath of grief. In many parts of the world, fossil fuel interests and their political allies have gone so far as to weaponize pollution as policy to push out marginalized communities. Alexis Madrigal, host of KQED's Forum and author of “The Pacific Circuit,” describes how this happened in West Oakland, beginning as early as the 1930s: “You see them just saying it. We know this is gonna make housing worse. We know this is gonna make people's lives worse, but this is the plan.” And yet here, too, local communities stand up for environmental justice. Guests: Alexis Madrigal, Co-Host, Forum, KQED Margaret Gordon, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project Abby Reyes, Author; Director, Community Resilience Projects, UC Irvine On June 4, Climate One is hosting a special screening of the documentary “Good Grief: The 10 Steps” followed by a climate anxiety workshop. Join us for this intimate conversation about the importance of mental health live at The Commonwealth Club. Tickets are available through our website. Support Climate One by going ad-free! By subscribing to Climate One on Patreon, you'll receive exclusive access to all future episodes free of ads, opportunities to connect with fellow Climate One listeners, and access to the Climate One Discord. Sign up today. For show notes and related links, visit our website. Ad sales by Multitude. Contact them for ad inquiries at multitude.productions/ads Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's episode of Africa Today is preempted by special programming for KPFA's 2025 Spring Fund Drive. KPFA presents a special edition of East Bay Yesterday, recorded live in West Oakland. To support our mission, please donate here or call (800) 439-5732 (800-HEY-KPFA).   The post Special Spring Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.

Cats may dominate his life, but Adam Myatt -- aka The Catman of West Oakland -- is also a working audio engineer and a longtime musician who somehow makes time for it all. Meowzers, it's a lot! In this special episode, we visit the Catman in his personal studio and mixing space, Hand Me Down Recording, to find out about his wild journey to becoming the Bay Area's most famous cat rescuer, how his musical projects play a role in his cat-centric life, and the local community of musicians he actively supports. Adam's Selections: "Living The Dream" - James & Evander (2012) "One Pacifico Swing" - Hoodcats (2012) "Swaying in Debris" - Professor Mum (2024) "Sandwiches" - Daniel Lee Diemidio (2025) "Chariots of Fur" - Ambient Mewsic (from the album Music for Cats to Nap To/2025)

Hi Everybody!  This Sunday April 6th is Soul Deluxe 2025 at 7th West Oakland from 12pm-8pm with 20 DJs and 2 areas of Music (House & Hip Hop).  It will be family friendly and all people under age 18 will get in free!  Hope you can join us for this Birthday Celebration under the Sun!  Make Love, Not War!  Peace, Theo :)

On March 25, I interviewed Alexis Madrigal and Noni Session in front of a sold out crowd at Spire in West Oakland. Madrigal is the author of an essential new book called “The Pacific Circuit: A Globalized Account of the Battle for the Soul of an American City.” He is also host of KQED's Forum, a longtime journalist, and a dear friend. Noni Session is a third generation West Oaklander and the executive director of East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative, a community-funded organization that challenges displacement with cooperative economic strategies. Through her groundbreaking work with EB PREC, Session is rebuilding local institutions, such as Esther's Orbit Room, and also removing housing from the speculative market to create permanently affordable, community-controlled homes. Our discussion explored themes that connect Madrigal's book and Session's revitalization projects, the history of West Oakland's role in the global economy, and much more. Don't forget to follow the East Bay Yesterday Substack for updates on events, boat tours, exhibits, and other local history news: substack.com/@eastbayyesterday For photos and links related to this episode, visit: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/people-of-the-pacific-circuit/ Donate to keep this show alive: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

When global trade reshapes a city, who pays the price—and who fights back?Beautiful West Oakland, California Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and get exclusive access to bonus episodes. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Listener Tadd Williams often sees the 16th Street Station from I-880. It's a huge, stately building in the Beaux-Arts style. It's looking a little rundown now, but it was clearly once dazzling. In today's episode, we explore how this spot was important to West Oakland's Black community and the Civil Rights Movement. And we get a promising update on it's future. Additional Reading How Oakland's 16th Street Station Helped Build West Oakland and the Modern Civil Rights Movement Transcript of this episode Legacy of the Pullman Car Porters Sign up for our newsletter Enter our Sierra Nevada Brewing Company monthly trivia contest Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was reported by Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz and Christopher Beale. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Alana Walker, Holly Kernan and the whole KQED family.

Today, we visit the intersection of arts, culture, and sports, in San Francisco. The year of the snake meets the NBA All Star Game with a new sculpture. Then, one music venue in West Oakland holds the neighborhood's history… and its future. It's a visit to Esther's Orbit Room. 'Warrior Serpent' celebrates Chinese New Year and the NBA All Star Game Esther's Orbit Room builds on its history as a Black cultural hub in West Oakland

About 20 years ago, Joey Santore went from illegally riding freight trains across the country to working as a “train man” for Union Pacific. His official duties, which included driving the trains, gave him a unique look at the decline of the East Bay's industrial sector and blue collar workforce. Spending time in decaying factories and train yards also sparked his interest in nature, as he saw plants and animals returning to repopulate these post-industrial spaces. Eventually Joey finally got fed up with his corporate railroad bosses and quit working on trains in order to focus full-time on nature. His wildly successful podcast and video series Crime Pays, but Botany Doesn't now attracts legions of fans from all over the world who tune in to hear Joey share his vast knowledge of plants along with a healthy dose of socio-political analysis thrown into the mix. Although Joey no longer lives in West Oakland, he returned for a visit recently to check on “the illegal garden” he left behind. While he was in town, we caught up on everything from his craziest memories of the train years to his observations about the Bay Area's many fascinating ecosystems. Don't forget to follow the East Bay Yesterday Substack for updates on events, boat tours, exhibits, and other local history news: https://substack.com/@eastbayyesterday Special thanks to the sponsor of this episode: For 112 years, Children's Hospital in Oakland has been a foundational part of keeping our local communities healthy and happy. UCSF is proud to celebrate its award-winning care at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in Oakland, throughout the East Bay, and around the Bay Area. Thank you to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in Oakland for being a proud sponsor of East Bay Yesterday. East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your donations. Please make a pledge to keep this show alive www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday. More details here: https://eastbayyesterday.com/episodes/freight-trains-plants-and-a-vanishing-world/

Donald Trump becomes the first convicted felon elected president of the United States, also the oldest person, the wealthiest person, and apparently the first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote. Republicans have also won the Senate, and remains to be seen if they also win the House. To discuss what happened, we're joined by John Nichols, National Affairs Correspondent for the Nation. 0:20 -What happens to the criminal and civil cases against Trump now? Jeremy Stahl is Jurisprudence editor at Slate.  0:33 – Latinos, immigration and the election Oscar A. Chacón is Senior Strategy Advisor for Alianza Americas.  0:45 – The impact on the war on Palestine and US solidarity movements Khury Petersen-Smith, Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he researches U.S. empire, borders, and migration. 1:10 – San Francisco sees a swing to the right Tim Redmond is the founder of 48hills, and has covered San Francisco for more than 30 years.  1:25 – Oakland votes to recall both mayor and district attorney Pecolia Manigo is the political director of Oakland Rising, which mobilizes and educates voters in the flatlands – East and West Oakland – around issues of social justice. 1:35 – What happened in Los Angeles: District Attorney's race Melina Abdullah is a Vice Presidential candidate who ran this election as an Independent with Dr Cornel West. She's a professor of pan-African studies at Cal State Los Angeles, as well as the co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter and co-founder of Black Lives Matter Grassroots. 1:45 – California ballot propositions Keyan Bliss is a community organizer with the Anti Police Terror Project in Sacramento, where he also serves as a commissioner on the Sacramento Community Police Review Commission.  Co-hosted by Cat Brooks and Brian Edwards-Tiekert.  The post Post-Election Day 2024 Special appeared first on KPFA.

After several months of chasing one another, we are excited to sit down with the two men behind Foragers Market Co. Justin Johal and Harv Singh are the curators of our Livermore Farmers Market, along with San Ramon, Niles Fremont, and West Oakland. Since taking over management of our Livermore farmers, these two have completely revitalized how our community ability to come together and celebrate all that defines #eatlocal #drinklocal #livelocal In 2023 Diablo Magazine awarded Foragers Market the East Bay Farmers Market Visionary Award. Tune in now and learn more about what it takes to create and manage amazing regional farmers market. Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to stay tuned with all our regional happenings.

Comprehensive coverage of the day's news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice. Trump called for 100% tariffs on cars made in Mexico as part of US manufacturing plan. Biden delivered final speech to U.N., addressing global challenges and optimism as Zelensky echoed calls for upholding international law amid war with Russia. U.S. officials say the Biden administration will send Ukraine an undisclosed number of medium-range cluster bombs, along with rockets, artillery, and armored vehicles, as part of a military aid package totaling about $375 million. New briefing by environmental group Oil Change International says rich countries could mobilize over $5 trillion annually for climate action by ending oil subsidies, imposing polluter levies, and cracking down on tax evasion. Marcellus Williams was executed today, becoming the third Missouri inmate put to death this year and the 100th since the state resumed using the death penalty in 1989. Oaxacan immigrants in California's Central Valley work to share indigenous culinary traditions with the wider community. Unhoused rights activists protested in West Oakland after the mayor announced increased encampment sweeps following Supreme Court ruling. The post Trump calls for 100% tariffs on cars made in Mexico – September 24, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.

What is our relationship to the land, to its other-than-human inhabitants, and to the rest of humanity? These are fundamental questions for thinking through how we can transform ourselves in ways that allow a multiplicity of ecologies and human communities to thrive alongside one another. And these questions are not just fundamental to us as individuals—they are essential to how we view our cultures, traditions, institutions, and ways of knowing.Layel Camargo lives at the vibrant intersection of ecological justice, queer liberation, and indigenous culture—a cultural space that offers a distinctive vantage point on how our societies work, while holding enormous potential to both see and reorient our relationships to the land and to one another.Layel Camargo is an organizer and artist who advocates for the better health of the planet and its people by restoring land, healing communities, and promoting low-waste and low-impact lifestyles. Layel is a transgender and gender non-conforming person who is an indigenous descendant of the Yaqui and Mayo tribes of the Sonoran Desert.I met Layel at a climate storytelling retreat in New York City in 2019, where I became a huge fan of their work and of their way of being in the world.Layel is a founder of the Shelterwood Collective, a Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ-led community forest and retreat center, healing people and ecosystems through active stewardship and community engagement.Our conversation explores the idea of culture as strategy in confronting the climate crisis, diving into Layel's work in video, podcasting, and poetry and the origins of their approach to this work of healing people and planet.You can listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms.Please rate, review, and share to help us spread the word!Layel CamargoLayel Camargo is a cultural strategist, land steward, filmmaker, artist, and a descendant of the Yaqui tribe and Mayo tribes of the Sonoran Desert. Layel is also transgender and non-binary. They graduated from UC Santa Cruz with dual degrees in Feminist Studies and Legal Studies. Layel was the Impact Producer for “The North Pole Show” Season Two. They currently produce and host ‘Did We Go Too Far' in conjunction with Movement Generation. Alongside Favianna Rodriguez and at the Center for Cultural Power, they created ‘Climate Woke,' a national campaign to center BIPOC voices in climate justice. Wanting to shape a new world, they co-founded ‘Shelterwood Collective'. The collective is a land-based organization that teaches land stewardship, fosters inventive ideation, and encourages healing for long-term survival. Layel was a Transformative Justice practitioner for 6 years and still looks to achieve change to the carceral system in all of their work. Most recently, Layel was named on the Grist 2020 Fixers List, and named in the 2019 Yerba Buena Center of the Arts list of ‘People to Watch Out For.'Quotation Read by Layel Camargo“You wanna fly, you got to give up the s**t that weighs you down.” - Toni Morrison, Song of SolomonRecommended Readings & MediaTranscriptIntroJohn Fiege  What is our relationship to the land, to its other-than-human inhabitants, and to the rest of humanity? These are fundamental questions for thinking through how we can transform ourselves in ways that allow a multiplicity of ecologies and human communities to thrive alongside one another. And these questions are not just fundamental to us as individuals—they are essential to how we view our cultures, traditions, institutions, and ways of knowing.Layel Camargo lives at the vibrant intersection of ecological justice, queer liberation, and indigenous culture—a cultural space that offers a distinctive vantage point on how our societies work while holding enormous potential to both see and reorient our relationships to the land and to one another.And besides that, Layel is hilarious.Layel Camargo My passion for humor has come from has been maintained by a lot of data and information that I've gotten around just the importance of people being able to process things through laughter. And that the climate crisis is nothing to make mockery and or to laugh, there's this is very serious. The ways in which our species is kind of being at threat of extinction, and right before our eyes. But I think that as humans, we're so complex and layered, and we're so beautiful in the sense that we get to feel so intensely, and feeling is what motivates us to take action. And laughter helps you process so much data quicker, it helps you be able to take something in, embrace it, release, and then have it make an impression.John Fiege  I'm John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis.Layel Camargo is an organizer and artist who advocates for the better health of the planet and its people by restoring land, healing communities, and promoting low-waste, low-impact lifestyles. Layel is a transgender and gender non-conforming person who is an indigenous descendant of the Yaqui and Mayo tribes of the Sonoran Desert.I met Layel at a climate storytelling retreat in New York City in 2019, where I became a huge fan of their work and of their way of being in the world.Layel is a founder of the Shelterwood Collective, a Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ-led community forest and retreat center, healing people and ecosystems through active stewardship and community engagement.Our conversation explores the idea of culture as strategy in confronting the climate crisis, diving into Layel's work in video, podcasting, and poetry and the origins of their approach to this work of healing people and planet.Here is Layel Camargo.ConversationJohn FiegeHow you doing?Layel Camargo I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing?John Fiege I'm doing well. I've got this thing in my throat. I, so I'm going to be drinking a lot of tea. And I might have to have a bathroom break. Know, I have forgotten to take my allergy medicine. And here we are. Great. Yeah. So can you start out by telling me where you grew up? And how you viewed your relationship to the rest of nature when you were a kid?Layel Camargo Yeah. Um, I can start off by Yeah. talking a little bit about where I grew up. Yeah, so I grew up on the Mexican border between Tijuana and San Diego. And my upbringing was in this very highly dense migrant community from Latinx to Philippines, because of the proximity to the military base. It was very military towns, pretty much the professions. They're like you're either work for Homeland Security, the military or police. And I didn't really notice what my upbringing was like till I left. But I grew up crossing the border back and forth. My grandmother migrated from the Sonoran Desert, to Tijuana. And that's basically where my mother was born. And she grew. She went to high school in San Diego, which is why I can say I'm an American citizen, but I'm a descendant of the Maya or the uremic tribes, my grandmother said, and then my grandfather said, The yucky tribes of the Sonoran Desert so I think for me, my connection ecologically was like the ocean Because I grew up in a beach city, and then it was also the desert, because of all the stories and my grandmother's connection to sanada. So high, I never felt like I was at home because as a queer person paid never really fit into the conservative nature of San Diego due to how militarized it is, and all this stuff. But it was through a drive, which I took from Northern California, down to Sonora, where my grandmother's family lives, when I drove through the saguaros and Arizona that I remember seeing the Saguaro forests and just like needing to pull over and just like, take them in. And I had this a visceral feeling that I don't think I've ever had before of just like being home. And I think this, this experience was like in 2016 2017. And that's when I realized that, in theory, I was a climate activist, I cared about the planet. But it wasn't until that moment that I was like, oh, what I'm actually doing is like actually fighting for us to return to be in better relationship with the planet. And this is where I belong, this is my source of my route, these trees and this desert. So because of that, and growing up in proximity to the beach, water conservation has always been an area of like passion for me and caring about the ocean, which pushed me to a practice of lowering my plastic consumption and being more mindful of oil consumption. And the desert has always been a source of like grounding in regards to like place and knowing that I come from the earth. So it's kind of like I was gonna say, it's kind of like, I'm from a lot of places, I moved to Northern California in 2006. So I love the forest. But nothing speaks to my heart, like the beach in the desert.John Fiege Well, they have sand in common. Is there? Is there a tension between the ocean pulling you in the desert pulling you or is it? Is it a beautiful harmony?Layel Camargo It's a bit of a tension. But I would say that in my body, it feels the same. They both dehydrate me and over, over like it's just a lot of heat, typically. So yeah, that it's different for Northern California beaches, because they're a little bit more Rocky and more cold. You have to wear more layers. Right? definitely like to where I grew up, it's it is warm, the sandy ness. That's a great connection, I definitely need to make that a little bit more concrete.TotallyJohn Fiege cool. Well, can you tell me more about the path you took from the neighborhood where you grew up in San Diego, to studying at UC Santa Cruz and what that experience was like for you?Layel Camargo Yeah, I, I went. So I grew up in a home where there was a lot of violence, which is very common in a lot of migrant-specific and indigenous communities. And I kind of came into my teenage years, like really realizing that I was different, but I didn't know how when it kind of got summarized in college around my queerness my sexuality and my gender, but just feeling this need of like needing to leave. It just didn't make sense for me to be there. And with that being said, I had a wonderful community. I still have quite a few friends in San Diego that I keep in touch with my sisters live there. And I was actually just started last weekend. So I, when I was in San Diego, I think a lot of my trauma responses of like, just ignore what doesn't make sense and just keep moving forward was how I kind of functioned. And that race. And I loved it, I succeeded at it. I've actually realized that I'm a performance artist because of that upbringing. Like I, you know, was captain of the water polo team. I was president of my senior class, I was featured in newspapers for my swimming. I was a competitive swimmer for 10 years. I I did, I did a you know, a good job. I had advanced placement classes and honors classes and I was well rounded but in the inside, I just didn't feel like I belonged. So I picked UC Santa Cruz to go to college because it was the farthest University and the University of California system that had accepted me. And they went and I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I visited the campus like two to three weeks before I had to actually be there to live on campus. Bass. And when my dad drove me, drove me up with my whole family drove me up and they left me they were like, are you sure you want to say I'm like, I got this, like, it was all redwoods. So it was definitely like, we went down to the local store. And it was like all these like hippie dreadlock, folks. And I was like, I don't even know what I got myself into. But I'm getting this degree, so we're good. And it was a big culture shock, I think for a lot of black and brown and indigenous youth when they have to leave their communities to attend. What is like better economic opportunities outside of them it is it's, it's more than just having to adjust, it's having to really like, Oh, I had to let go of everything I knew. And in order for me to take the most out of college, and I was fortunate enough that I had a container a university is like a container for young folks that I wasn't having to leave for work or opportunities. And so I fully immersed myself, and it allowed me to be able to identify myself sexually and through my gender, and a gave me solace, when you know, my family rejected me for coming out. And I think that I'm so fortunate that I had that experience. And then I also was able to gain double bachelor's when feminist studies and legal studies which allowed me to have some upward mobility that my family hadn't had, traditionally I was, I am the first person in my whole family to attend a four year university after high school. So I'm definitely very grateful that that path took me there. And at this point, I feel like it was not only good for me, but it was good for my whole family for me to have taken that journey.John Fiege And did you come out to them? In college or before college?Layel Camargo in college? Yeah, I was my second year, I had my first girlfriend. And I was a Resident Advisor, always I'm always trying to be the overachiever. So I was like Resident Advisor of my college, I was like, involved in every club, I was part of the dance team. And, you know, my mom called me, I just decided to actually move in with my girlfriend the following quarter. And she was like, What are you doing? I was like, Oh, my girlfriend's house. And she was like, why do you have to tell me those things. And I'm just like, because I'm not gonna lie to you. And she was like, I know, you're gay, but I just don't need you to rub it in my face. And I was like, then I guess we can't talk. And so we didn't talk for three months. And then she called me It's, it's, it's hard, you know, like, going to college is hard, especially when I went to very marginalized public schools before that. So I was struggling academically. And my solace was, like, being involved on campus, like to meet some social needs. And I was in, I was in a retention program for black and brown youth from urban communities. So that helped a lot. But I, I, my mom kind of rupturing that, really. I didn't realize what the impact was until probably a quarter the quarter into after that. And she called me three months later, and was like, so are you not gonna talk to me? And I was like, you're the one that doesn't talk to me. And she was like, well, let's just let's just try to make this work. And so we, you know, it took probably five to six years for my family to kind of fully integrate my, you know, my, my lifestyle as they, as they call it. The magic word of magic word. Yeah.John Fiege Yeah, wow. Well, you know, that's just what you need, right in the middle of college trying to adapt to, you know, crazy new culture and world is for your family to reject you.Layel Camargo Yeah, yeah. It's definitely one of those things that like a lot of queer LGBTQ folks. I, I feel like it's so normalized to us, right? And it's just like, well, when you come up, just expect to lose everything. And I think it is it now until I'm like, in my 30s, that I realized how painful that is, and how, like, it's just like, you know, one of the core things I think, as a human species is to know that you belong somewhere. And if you don't belong at home, then where do you belong? And I think for many of us, we've had to go through that unconsciously, without really thinking through that we're seeking to belong. And this theme of belonging has been something that's been coming up as I'm I navigate like, my professional career now is that like, I really do want people to feel like they belong somewhere. And the only thing I feel like makes sense as we all belong to the planet. We all belong to the same descendants and how we got here as a species and that I think that's being rejected from my family allowed me to be like weird do I belong? And so I fortunate that I had a best friend who was also queer. I had my queer community I had student governments and students social organizing. And then when I graduated, I was like, wait, like, Where else do I belong? So I went to my natural habitats like to the beach, and I picked up surfing again and scuba diving. And then it was like, Oh, I actually like I belong to the earth. Like, that's where I belong.John Fiege That's beautiful. Yeah. I love that. Oh, I am hearing some background noise.Layel Camargo Is it audio? Or is it just like,John Fiege people laughing?Layel Camargo It's my partner's on an Akai here, I'm going to shoot her a quick text. She like gets really loud because she gets so excited. Just going to share a quick text.John Fiege So before coming to climate justice work, you worked as an organizer with the Bay Area transformative justice collective. Can you tell me how your work in transformative justice informed your understanding of the climate crisis and how you approach ecological concerns?Layel Camargo Yeah, so I I organized with transformative justice for about six years. And then I you know, for folks who don't know, transformative justice is an alternative response model to violence, harm and hurt. And so similar to restorative justice, which works with the carceral system, so police, judicial systems, etc. to reform in order to help alleviate some of the biases that exists in the systems, transformative justice, as there's those systems actually don't serve certain communities like migrants, folks like that are trans, just the way that those systems just inherently violate certain people who are not included in our society fairly, was like, transparent justice exists to serve folks who cannot access or choose not to access or use the carceral system. So if you will, if you believe in defunding the police, and let's say you're sexually assaulted, you're probably not going to call the police for a rape kit, because there's probably ways that you've experienced those systems as harmful or violent. So when I started organizing were transferred to justice the spoke to me as somebody who had just come out as trans, somebody who grew up in a mixed status family, have relatives who have been deported. And I realized, like, Oh, it's actually worth investing in alternative models, besides the police. In order for us to get our needs met when crisises do happen, because they happen to all of us. And I was in it for six years, you know, we had built up, I had built a great capacity to work with people who had caused harm people who are caused domestic violence, sexual assaults and transforming their behavior and working towards reparation of relationships and or just like helping victims be able to move on after something like that happens. And it's it wasn't an easy task. And what we would come back to is we would spend like the first front of the months, trying to make sure that people's basic needs were met in order for them to slow down enough to process what had just happened. And basic needs included food included shelter, if they lived near, you know, a toxic site, what was infringing on their health, making sure that they had access to health coverage or health benefits. And that was about 60% of what we're doing was making sure that we could get the basics kind of stable so that they could jump into really honoring what it was a justice look like for them. And in doing this a handful of times, not too many, I will say I didn't think thankfully, we had a team. And so I did wasn't always having to handle everything. And we, the experiences that I did have, I was like, man, if people just had, like, a healthy environment where having to fight for housing wasn't a thing. Like we could just actually say, this is where I was born, this is where I belong, and I'm in relationship with the land. And that's how I feed myself, I clothe myself, like all these things that are kind of like indigenous traditional ways, then people could actually solve a lot of their crisis. He's in the moment without having it to be delayed years or having to rely on for it to get outsourced through the carceral system in order for them to feel like they get a minuscule amount of justice. And so I started to just be more cognizant of the way that we interact with the planet and how are everything from our legal structures to our economic structures are just completely devastating. Our environment that have led for us not to have good air quality for us not to have good clean water for us not to feel like we've belong to the earth that is right beneath us that we like, are in relationship with, with the rest of you know, most of our lives. And I, at the time I was living in West Oakland and I had just looked into the air quality report in the area I lived in, and I had the worst air quality in the whole Bay Area. And I started noticing my dog started developing like little spots on her skin, I started having like a lot of chronic coughing. And I was looking at how much money I was making. And so at the time, I was doing a lot of our pop ups, I was really passionate about zero waste, I cared about veganism, a lot of it was through the planet, and it just slowly started shifting away from Yes, I care about how we respond to violence and harm and all of that. And I want us to have alternatives that meet the needs of folks who fall through the waistline of certain systems. And at the same time, we don't even have clean water to come home to to drink when something violent happens, like we have to go buy it from, you know, a grocery store. Most of us don't even test our tap water anymore, because it's just consistently, we just grew up thinking that it doesn't, it's dirty, it's gross, it's non potable, so Right, right. I think at that moment, my heart just completely was like, I want to dive into this work 100% I want to fight for people to have clean air, like if you can't breathe, then you can't, you can't even do a lot, a lot of things. And so many black and brown people who grew up in rural communities have high rates of asthma have like low life expectancy because of air pollution, to you know, the logistics industry etc. And I just kind of fell in with all my heart in like, if I'm, if I'm against plastic put which at the time I was, like vegan for the planet and vegan for my health. And I was also really passionate about reducing plastic use. And I was like, if these are two things that I care about, I want to do it at a larger scale. So it meant that I had to really make those connections of if I want to end gender based violence, if I want to end large forms of violence, I have to start with the one common thing we have that we're constantly extracting and violating, which is the earth. And I think that that led me towards climate justice, because that is the most critical environmental crisis that we're in at this moment.John Fiege So what is the climate crisis? What what what causes is how do you how do you think about culture as a source of power and strategy for climate crisis?Layel Camargo Yeah, I mean, I this is this is really, you know, this, that this is what I do for my life is I spent the last 7 to 8 years really strategizing around what are the cultural shifts that are needed in order for us to be able to be in right relationship with the planet where things like the climate crisis are not happening, so that we can have an economic system and a political system that is serves the planet and the needs of our of us living and thriving, not surviving, which is I think, what we're stuck in as a global society now. And the, we have like quite a few things to kind of look at historically. And I think that there is a dominance of, which is we now know, it is like white supremacy, which is the idea that one group of human is like better than another group of human, and that because of that, everybody else needs to conform to the languages, the culture, the food, the clothes, the housing structures, that are pervasive, and that in, you know, the Euro centric way of living, and that has created a monoculture that is now spread at a global scale. And it's even because it's an economic sister in their economic system. Now we have global stock markets. Now we have the extraction at a global scale, for the sourcing of consumer goods that are all homogenous, and there. There's just one kind of how we do things. And I think the crisis that we're in is the ways that human have removed ourselves from our natural biodiversity relationships with our ecological systems. And then as removing ourselves we have are allowed for the rupture of a relationship that is very needed, which is if we're not integrated into the trees that are natural in our environment into trimming certain invasive species and supporting other biodiverse relationships around us, then we're crippling the ability of the soil to be healthy of the air to have the most amount of oxygen Have you Now we know that we need to be trapping carbon at such high rates. And I think that with a crisis that we're in is that we've allowed and have fallen victims to white supremacy, which was facilitated by colonization, that I, you know, that dominance of one group of people in the way of existing, and I think that's where we're at. I mean, if you look at the kelp forests, the kelp forest needs the otters, they need the, the sea urchins. But when you remove the otters and the sea urchins, you know, are not being preyed upon at a normal scale. And that's, you know, we're connecting it to white supremacy, let's assume that the sea urchins are like the dominant and because they're, they're the ones that ruled the kelp species are starting to be eradicated, and some of them are becoming a threat of extinction. And without a healthy kelp forests, you don't have healthy oxygen and maintenance of the acidification in the ocean, which, you know, couple that with global warming, and you basically have the rapid eradication of so many other natural ecosystems in the ocean that we need to survive. And so when you have one species dominating over another, it leads towards a crisis. So I think we're in a imbalance of relationships because of, of white supremacy. And that's what's causing the climate crisis we have. We have a monoculture. And so just as you look at mono cropping, as you look at anything that eradicates the health of the soil, because it doesn't have the reciprocal relationships that it needs from other crops, and are the resting in order for the soil to be healthy. This might not be speaking to everybody who's listening. But it makes sense that like, Yeah, definitely. The environment crisis is a symptom of Yes. Oh, the climate crisis is a symptom of a larger systemic problem.John Fiege Yeah. And in so many ways, white supremacy was created by colonialism, like, white supremacy is the cultural system that in some ways had to emerge to justify the political and economic brutality of colonialism. You know, it was a it was it was a way of organizing and understanding the world that justified these terrible things that were happening. And they're so it goes so much hand in hand.Layel Camargo Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I could talk about this for hours, because there's just so many ways in which we can break it down to the minute level. And then there's so many ways that we can think about solutions. And a lot of my my work and my passion is really bringing as much power as I can to black, indigenous and people of color. Because the retention of culture, language, and different ways of engaging with the world, everything from how we grow our food to how we dress and what we celebrate. And where we honor is what's going to help us be more resilient towards the impending and the realism of what the climate crisis means to a lot of our communities.John Fiege Yeah, totally. Yeah. And you're you're living and working at this really interesting intersection between ecological justice, queer liberation and indigenous culture. Can Can you talk a bit about the intersections of your identity and cultural background and their importance to you and how you orient yourself to this work?Layel Camargo Yeah, definitely. So as I mentioned, I'm a descendant of the Yaki and the Mio tribes in the Sonoran Desert. And I didn't really realize how much this matter to me, I think till about like five to six years ago, because I grew up because of the borders. Technically, I'm Mexican descent, and Mexican American salesperson in this country. But the Mexican government is similar to what we're talking about white supremacy was created by European settlers and, and a hybrid of mixture of stealing of indigenous cultures. And there are so many subgroups of different indigenous cultures. And my heritage is that both my grandfather and my grandmother's tribe as they were nomadic, and they used to migrate up and down the Sonoran Desert, before the border was there from seasonally for survival. And there's so many ways that like food that we eat, how we dress, how we talk that I didn't realize like, Oh, that makes me so much more than just Mexican American. It makes me more than just Latinx. And I think my background and being in such close proximity to immigration and the necessity of immigration or to survive because my grandmother came to Tijuana because it was industrialized and she needed work. And so when they migrated, they like left everything behind. And they never went back. Like, I think so many people leave their home, thinking that they're going to go back and they don't, their children are born in different places. And eventually, that led me to be born in a different country. And so because of that background, I am so keen to issues around native sovereignty and land back here in the United States is like the retention of keeping people in the place of their origin is a climate solution. It's a way of keeping that ancestral knowledge in the place that is needed. I mean, here in Northern California, we look at the wildfire crisis, and it's due to climate change. And it's also due to the lack of forest management, that our indigenous relatives that are native to that area have been robbed of the opportunity to maintain those forests at the scale, which is needed in order to adapt and prepare for wildfires. Yeah,John Fiege yeah, with with the prescribed burning, and all that maintenance that used to happen. That was invisible in so many ways to the European colonists, they didn't even understand that that was going on, or how it worked.Layel Camargo Yeah, and I feel like, you know, it goes back to the monoculture. And I think, because I have indigenous ancestry, because I understand the nature of needing to migrate. And the realities of migrant experience, I think I feel so passionate about keeping people in their place of origin as much as possible, and allowing for people to move freely when they have to. And I think as as the climate crisis gets worse, I started to realize just what a disservice we have made by instilling borders by having governments that have been so gatekeeping and operating off of scarcity, that we've kind of mandated a world where people can move freely people, and people have to leave their place of origin. And that these two paradox that we exist in, is creating the dehumanization of a group of people that if you cannot sustain yourself in your place of origin, because of global extraction, by the way, because of environmental degradation and the economic viability of your area, and how that creates wars and mass extraction, that that is why people migrate. But yet those same people who are creating those systems that make it difficult for you to stay in your place of origin have also created borders to not let you move freely. That paradox to me is also part of this climate crisis as because many of us are going to have to leave john, at some point, there's going to be floods, there's going to be hot water, we're experiencing a drought prices in California, I'm actually living between northern California and Southern California already. And a lot of it is because of the wildfires and my family's down here. And my family's at threat of sea level rise by living in San Diego, which San Diego filed a lawsuit against Exxon and Chevron. And I think one or two other oil companies is we're all we're all existing now in this global climate crisis, that it's not quite in our face every day, but we feel it seasonally now, so we're gonna have to be able to move. Right? So yeah, and last to say is like similar to my cultures I have I lived with an end an endocrine illness. And so air pollution is something that could severely impede my ability to reproduce my ability to function. At this point, I spend about four to five days a month in bed, working from bed, and I'm fortunate enough that I get to work remotely. But for a lot of people, we're going to see more and more ways in which the mass destruction of the planet which has led to the climate crisis is how we become to adopt ways of having different abilities or not being able to live our day to day function. So yeah, the intersecting points are just, they're overwhelming. And I think a lot of us are starting to feel that more as things start to kind of get a little worse.John Fiege Right, right. Yeah, I was talking to, to my partner the other day, she was she was talking to a fellow activist about this idea of ableism. And how, you know, so much of the discourse around it is you know, what are your abilities and, and this, this person was talking about how it it's how unstable that is. Like you can be able bodied today and tomorrow, you can be not able bodied in the same way. Because of, you know, like you say the changing air quality or something happens, or you just you're getting old, or you get sick. And it's one of those things that we've so ignored as a culture of what, what ableism really means about our assumptions about the world.Layel Camargo And like the economic viability and how our economic system is just so dependent on us being fully productive 24 seven, which I made a video on this called The Big Sea, which talks about the intersecting points of labor and how the labor crisis is actually the root of our climate crisis. Because if we can have people have a bigger imagination around how they can use their bodies, to serve their own needs, instead of serving the needs of corporate interests, how that would actually alleviate a lot of pressure on the planet. And that that would potentially lead to our most successful outcomes in regards to the climate crisis.John Fiege Yeah, totally, totally. Well, can you tell me about decolonizing conservation in the environmental movement and what that looks like to you?Layel Camargo Yeah, so I, I started during the beginning of the pandemic, I started a nonprofit called shelterwood collective, which is black and brown and indigenous queer folks who are aiming to steward land at the time, I was aiming to sort of land a month ago, we acquired a 900 acre camp in cassada, California, and Northern California and our team is about conservation efforts, specifically with forest resiliency against wildfires. Taking Western Western practices of conservation, mixing them with indigenous practices that are similarly to conservation. And I feel like when we think about conservation efforts, a lot of them have been dictated by European ways of thinking through conserving natural environments, which a lot of it is like humans are bad, nature must be left uncared for. And this does such a disservice because our indigenous ancestors knew that in order for a forest to be thriving, we needed to be in relationship with it, we needed to monitor monitor it, if there was a fun guy or a virus that was spreading their disease, that we could actually help it, he'll help trees, he'll help it spread less, if there was fires that were coming that we could trim, and tend and do controlled burns, if there was, you know, sucks anything happening where a species was struggling, that we could help support its growth and its population by you know, hunting its predators. And so I think that, that is the challenge between indigenous conservation efforts are traditional ways of just being in relationship with the natural environment and conservation is the western conservation is that we have been so removed from what it means to protect water systems, what it means to protect forests, that now we have a crisis of mismanagement we have and that more and more countries are adopting European Western perspectives because of the dominance that white supremacy has instilled that there are certain group of people that know more than we do. And that's just that's created, at least for me feels very heavy on when it comes to wildfires. There is certain areas in Northern California where there have been residential communities that have been built on wildfire lines that we know now, indigenous people knew that like every 30 years, for every 50 years, there would be a wildfire that would run through that area. And now that we're not that it's getting hotter, the gap of that time is getting shortened. And also that we're realizing that the years, hundreds of years of mismanagement, and lack of tending has led to also these extreme wildfires, that's now causing casualties outside of wildlife. And I feel like conservation needs to evolve. I think that there needs to be more understanding around the harm that Western conservation has done to not only the ecosystems but to the people who have traditionally been keeping those ecosystems. And I do feel like it's like it's evolving. I just think that it's not evolving as fast as we need. And unfortunately, with the climate climate crisis, we're gonna have to really come to recognize what do we need to move really fast on on what can wait because it just feels like Everything's urgent, we need to save the oceans as much as we need to save the forest as much as we need to Save the Redwoods as much as we need to take the rain forests and it just feels like and and that is like the natural environment, then we have like the growing list of extinction, threats of extinction for certain animals. And I think that I don't know why just came to my head. And then you have people like Bill Gates who want to eradicate a whole mosquito species. So it just feels like we're gonna have to pick and choose our battles here. And I do feel like coming to reckoning around the harm that this pervasiveness in western conservation, which isn't the idea that sometimes we are harmful to, you know, our natural ecosystems isn't a bad one. Yeah, we are. But how we got here was by completely removing ourselves and not knowing how to take care of those ecosystems, had we been in a relationship with them for the last 100 years, maybe we wouldn't be so wasteful, maybe we would have caught air pollution sooner than then our body is telling us, hey, we don't like this, this is bad, we're gonna die sooner if you keep doing this. And I think that that is a disservice. So it's beautiful to see more forest schools popping up for young people. It's beautiful to see more conservation groups trying to bring in indigenous leaders into the conversations. But I do feel like that overall idea needs to shift. And I also think that the land back movement, which is returning national parks back to indigenous hands, is going to help alleviate some of those major tensions that do not honor that certain people have been doing this for hundreds of years. And if we don't return it in this generation, we just run the risk of losing more language, more culture and more practices that we need at a larger scale.John Fiege Yeah, in protecting ecosystems is just not a complete picture of everything that's needed. Like as you say, it's important on some level, but it's it's not it's not a whole, it's not a whole understanding of of the problem or how to address it. There reminds me I was I was just reading or rereading a bit of Robin wall kimmerer book braiding sweetgrass, and she talks, she talks about this very issue a bunch about, you know, sweet grass in particulars is something where there's this, this back and forth relationship between humans and nature. And she talks about teaching one of her University classes up here in New York, and asking them at the beginning of the semester, you know, whether people are bad for the environment, and almost everybody says yes. And we alsoLayel Camargo have this this perception of we are bad. Right?John Fiege Yeah. Yeah, this Western guilt is pervasive in that as well. Which is,Layel Camargo which is facilitated by religion? Yes, religion has a very good job of making us feel like we are horrible for everything that we have sent us that we need to repent for our whole existence as like, going from embryo to sperm is actually a sin itself. So we're born with so much already on our shoulders.John Fiege I was gonna say Catholic guilt, but I feel like at this point, it's so much broader than that. Yeah, it is. So you work with the Center for cultural power. And, and one of the main projects you've done with them is climate woke. And I'd like to start by saying how much i'd love the artwork of the logo. It says climate woke. And it's in, in the style of this fabulous flashback 1980s airbrushed t shirts, with, you know, rainbow colors and sparkles. And it feels like there's so much meaning embedded in the artwork. And I wondered if you could tell me about climate woke, how the project emerge, but also like how this logo artwork reflects what this project is.Layel Camargo Yeah, so we when we started thinking about what climate woke would be, we didn't know what's going to be called climate woke it was through several meetings with different community partners, different funders and other stakeholders, where we kind of discussed that we wanted a unifying symbol for all the communities that we had been meeting and we kind of landed that we wanted something to look good to represent black Dan Brown young people between the ages of 16 to 25, something that was appealing that somebody would wear with pride. And, you know, at the time, there was a lot of like, different stuff coming up around the importance of wokeness. The it wasn't used as how we use it now, which is like political correctness. It's, it's, it's not where it is now. And so we decided to kind of ride on the, the term itself climate woke, which talks about uses black vernacular very intentionally that this is a racialized issue. And we spoke with several leaders in the black community, and at the time, it felt like it made sense. And, and so we kind of quickly were like, this makes sense kind of work. We want people to wake up to a climate crisis, but also be like down and enjoy it. And that it's different than this doom and gloom narrative that we constantly see when it comes to the environment. As it is kind of depressing when you think about it. But so we wanted it to feel like inviting. And at the time, which I think was like 2017 2018. All these like 90s was like coming back. So we sat with like two or three potential designers, and we didn't really like what we saw. And then it was heavy and agile that he Guess who is kind of a co creator of this. Also, like a globally recognized artist who was like, hold on, I got this and just like hopped on her computer through some colors, did some and we were like, We love it. Like we just love it. We wanted it to be bright. We wanted it to be inviting. And I feel like we've been successful just two weeks ago actually got a text from my executive producer who works on the planet. Well, content, it was like to send a photo of like, I believe it was a young male of color about 21 or 22 years old wearing a climate woke t shirt. And she was like, do you know where that's from? And he was like, No, I have no idea. And I was like, that's how, you know, we succeeded. Because we popularize something, we made it look so good. People don't necessarily need to make the connections, but they'll be promoting our work. And I'm sure and I get so many compliments when I wear t shirts and sweaters. And so she she told him to look up the videos. And you know, she sent me the photo. And she's like, we've I think we've succeeded. And I was like, I think we succeeded, I think we have you know. But at this moment, we are considering evolving the terminology because it doesn't feel as honoring. And we definitely are very sensitive to the fact that we use black vernacular intentionally. And it's time to kind of give it back and think through like what other ways can we popularize other terms to kind of help. It's about it's about to help kind of build the community because it was about building a group of people kind of drawing in a certain community that wouldn't necessarily be about it. And I feel like that to me was like a, we did it. We did it.John Fiege Yeah, it's it's it's definitely one of those terms that the the right has co opted and really done a number on they. Yeah, they're they're good at stealing those terms and turning them on their head. And usually, honestly, as a as a weapon back the other direction. Can you turn down your volume just to hear again, just noticing when you get excited? I get excited so much. Alright, how's that? Right? Great. Yes. So in a couple of your videos, you talk about what being climate milk means to you. And you say it means one, standing up for communities of color and communities most impacted by climate change, to complicating the conversations on climate in the environment. And three, doing something about it. Can you take me through each of these and break them down a bit?Layel Camargo Yeah, so the first one is, can you repeat it again, that's the firstJohn Fiege standing up for communities of color and communities most impacted by climate change,Layel Camargo right? That's right. Yeah, I've said it so much. And we actually haven't even recorded anything because of the pandemic. So I'm like, I haven't said it in a while. Yeah, standing up for communities of color. I think that that one to me specifically spoke to that. We need black, brown and indigenous people to feel protected and seen when it comes to the climate and environmental crisis. And that's everything from activating people in positions of power to empowering the people who come from those communities to know that this is an intersectional issue. I think that the climate crisis traditionally was like a lot of visuals of melting ice caps, a lot of visuals of the polar bears and you It's interesting because as we're getting more people narrative, I feel like the, we need to get a little bit more people narrative. And we need to return those images a little bit back, because the IPCC report has just been highlighting the rapid rates in which we were losing ice. And I think that when I initially thought of this at the time, there wasn't highlights of how indigenous people were protecting the large scale biodiversity that we have on the planet. There wasn't stories of, you know, urban, black or brown youth trying to make a difference around solutions towards climate change. And so I kind of made it my purpose that climate woke represent those demographics that we that I was important for me that black, brown and indigenous people of color were at the center of the solutions. And the complicated conversations and do something about it was that I actually feel like we have a crisis of binary versus complexity in our society. And I think that how we've gotten into this climate crisis is because everything's been painted. So black and white for us, that if you want a job, you have to be harming the planet, if you want to be unemployed, then. And then like all these hippies that are fighting to save the trees, they're taking away your job, you know. So I feel like there's so many ways in which our trauma responses just look for the patterns have been used against us. And it just felt really important for me, that people feel comfortable to complicate as much as possible, where we're gonna need different angles and different ways of looking at solutions that we need to embrace experimentation, where we need to embrace failures, and we need to really let go of these ideas that technology is going to come in and save us technology is a big reason why we got into this mess. And so I think that complicating the conversation to me was about this is like, if you are black, brown, indigenous, and you want to be a part of the climate crisis, but you have no way of integrating yourself besides talking about gender oppression, go for it, look at look at the leaders in this movement, and look at how many women are fighting and protecting, you know, at a larger global scale that don't get the visibility that they deserve. So I feel like that was my aim is to really invite that complexity. And then let's do something about it is that I don't want things to get stuck on the dialog. One of the biggest failures of the United Nations when addressing these crisises is that they don't have global jurisdiction. So they cannot actually mandate and or enforce a lot of these, it's usually done through economic influence, or like if one if we can get a first world to sign on to a certain agreement, then hopefully, they'll all do it. But then who ends up in implementing it, usually it's not the United States and Europe is not the first one to do it. And yet, we are the biggest global polluters on almost every sector you can think of. And I think that the do something about it is, for me a call to action, that we can talk about this, we can try to understand carbon emissions, methane emissions, global greenhouse, carbon markets, carbon, sequestering drawdown methods, we can talk about it. But if we're not doing it, putting it to practice while integrating these other two points, which is centering communities of color, and embracing the complexity of that, then it's nothing, it's pointless. We're just we're just allowing corporations to keep exploiting the planet and governments can keep, you know, sitting back and saying that they're doing something because they're convening people without actually regulating and putting down their foot for us. So, yeah, I think it was trying to summarize just my general feelings of this movement and the ways that there's been just lack of opportunities by not centering certain other people or allowing there to be more complexity.John Fiege Yeah, there's, I find, watching how those un meetings go down. So frustrating. Yes, just, you know, Time after time. It's just maddening. I'd have a hard time working in that space.Layel Camargo Yeah, I think I was fortunate enough to take I voluntarily took like a law class at pace, Pace University, pace law University, and one of the classes was United Nations policy, and so I got to witness the sub All meetings before that big meeting where Leonardo DiCaprio came out and said that we had a climate crisis, which everybody googled what the climate crisis was, I think it was called climate change. It was like the most time climate change was googled in the history of mankind. And I was sitting in those meetings and just seeing how it really is just a lot of countries just try not to step on each other's toes, because relationships translate into the economic sector, that I'm like, wow, y'all, like legit, don't care about the people you're representing?John Fiege Yeah. Yep. Yeah, it's crazy. Well, I wanted to talk a bit about what environmental justice means to you. And I thought we could start with your video called a power to rely on. And in your crudest, you include a statistic in the video that says in the US 75% of all houses without electricity, are on Navajo land. And, and then one of the people you interview in the video with Leah, John's with a group called native renewables, says, whoever controls your water and your power controls your destiny. And that's really powerful statement. Can Can you talk a bit about your experience working on this video, and how it impacted your thinking about environmental justice?Layel Camargo Yeah, so I, I realized that I'm really passionate about renewable energy and alternatives to energy capturing, probably through working on this video. And when we were first thinking about what themes we were going to cover, that's usually how I approached most of the climate world videos as I tried to talk to a few community partners. But mostly, I just do a lot of like, cultural observation, just like what are some of the themes that feel that are kind of resonating for people outside of the sector. So what's resonating for folks outside of the environmental justice world, and, you know, land back native sovereignty is something that's been popularized, especially after the Standing Rock camp, the no dapple camp, and I was noticing that it was kind of dwindling down. But a lot of data was coming up around the fact that a lot of indigenous communities are either sitting around and or holding and protecting 80% of the global biodiversity. And so something that how I approached this video was I wanted to show the native sovereignty piece with the land back as well as my passion for alternatives to our current energy use. And what Haley Johns is somebody who was recommended to me by Jade bug guy who's also featured in the videos, a dear close, like cultural strategist, filmmaker, co conspire in the sector. And she would I had initially approached her and said, I want ndn collective, which is what she works to kind of help us think through the script. And she said, Yeah, we're down and like, we trust you, like, we know you're gonna get the story, right, but we're down. And so it was, it was very easy for us to start with that. And then when I was like, Who do I talk to? They're like, you need to talk to a hayleigh. And I was like, Alright, let's talk to a healer. And so I flew out to Arizona, just to have a scout meeting with her, which I felt like I was chasing her down, because we didn't know she was going to be in Flagstaff, or if she was going to be near Phoenix, like we didn't know. So we were flying in. And we were like, Where are you today? She's like, I'm at my mom's house. I'm with my mom at this hotel. And we're like, Alright, we're coming through. So it felt very, like family off the bat, which now she has been nominated for I forget the position, but it's the internal affairs of Indian energy, energy efforts and some sort. So she's she's doing it at a federal level now. And when I was when I was working on this video, and I had talked to her and I interviewed her as she was giving me a lot of these numbers, and I just realized that, you know, the irony of this country is just beyond what we could imagine. You have a lot of these coal mines that help fuel some of the larger energy consuming cities and in the United States, like Vegas, like la that just consume energy at such high rates that are being powered by coal mines in Navajo or near Navajo Denae reservations. And yet, I was hearing about what halos program and her efforts were just trying to get funding and or subsidies from the government in order to put solar panels on folks his house because the infrastructure doesn't exist. And she was running she's letting me know about that. cost, she's like at $75,000 per house. And then we in order to like run the lines, and that's not even including the solar panel infrastructure. And then if they can't, we can't run the lines, and we're talking about batteries. And she was breaking this all down, I'm like, that is a lot of money. We need to get you that money. And then she started just educating us more through that. So I think I went into this video just knowing that I was going to try to make those connections. But what I realized was that I was actually going in to learn myself, just how much I need to humble myself with the realities that communities who have had less to nothing in certain things, everything from food, to energy to water, have made alternatives that they are, they've already created the solutions like we found one of the elders who had put up one of the first solar panels and Hopi reservation, which I highlighted in my video, she got it 30 years ago, like I, I was flabbergasted that she had the foresight, and the way that she articulated was everything from comfort to entertainment. But at the end of the was she knew she needed power. And she runs a business, the local business won a very few on the reservation that she was passionate enough to keep alive. And so this video just showed me that like, wherever you go, where there has been disenfranchisement, that's where you will find solutions. Because a lot of people have just making do for a long time, it just hasn't been seen, it hasn't been highlighted. Those are the people that like the UN should be talking to the you know, our federal government should be listening to.John Fiege Yeah, and I actually wanted to talk to you about Janice de who's the Hopi elder that you mentioned. And, you know, in particular, how it relates to how depth and skillful you are communicating with people from a wide range of backgrounds. in you, you you use humor a lot. And in this power to rely on video, you're sitting down with Janice day. And talking about how she's one of the first people to get solar power 30 years ago. And you asked her whether the first thing she charged with solar power would be a vibrator. And that was that was that was really funny. And all of a sudden, I'm watching with anticipation, asking myself, how is this woman going to react to that question? And you seem to have such a good read on the people you're speaking with. And I was hoping you could talk a bit more about how you communicate so many, so well and so many in so many different spaces and how you consciously or unconsciously lubricate the relationships with humor.Layel Camargo Yeah, I've been I I think a lot of it is my passion for humor has come from has been maintained by a lot of data and information that I've gotten around just the importance of people being able to process things through laughter. And that the climate crisis is nothing to make mockery and or to laugh, there's this is very serious. The ways in which our species is kind of being at threat of extinction, and right before our eyes. But I think that as humans, we're so complex and layered, and we're so beautiful in the sense that we get to feel so intensely and feeling is what motivates us to take action. And laughter helps you process so much data quicker, it helps you be able to take something in, embrace it, release, and then have it make an impression that is the one line that everybody brings up with that video. So I made the impression. And I hope that people watched it and then wanted to show it to other people. And so I think that, that that knowledge has retained my passion for humor. And then like I said, You know, I grew up in an abusive home where we had to process things fairly quickly in order to be able to function in the world to go to school to go to work. And growing up in a home where there was a lot of violence. I learned how to read people very keenly everything from anticipating when something was going to happen tonight, and I speak about that pretty like nonchalantly because I think a lot of us have a lot of strategies and skills that we've developed because of our traumas and our negative experiences that we've had in the world. And I think they don't often get seen as that we'll just say like, Well, I was just really I'm just really good at reading people and we'll leave it at that and it's like, but what is your learn that from like, there have been many chronic situations where you had to be really good at reading people in order for you to like practice it so clearly in it skillfully. And so I think I honor my experience in that in order for me to do that. And then I think cultural relativity and cultural content petencies is another thing like, Janice de actually reminds me a lot of my grandmother and my grandmother was somebody who was very religious. And at the same time, I always loved pushing her buttons. I would just like try to say things to get her activated. And I knew at the end of the day, she loved me. And that was about it. I didn't have to question whether she loved me because she was upset that I asked her something and appropriately. So I think it's a combination of that. And I'm grateful that I can embody that and be able to offer it to people who are curious about climate change and and feel more invited through laughter than they would about doom and gloom or heavy statistic videos and our ways of gathering information.John Fiege Awesome. Well, another kind of video you made is called consumerism, cancelled prime. And the first shot is you waiting while the camera crew sets up the shot and you're putting items in your Amazon cart on your phone. And then the quote unquote real video begins. And and you say 80% of California's cargo goes through the Inland Empire. And then you yell along expletive that's beeped out. And you ask emphatically his climate, wrote, his climate woke about to ruin amazon prime for me. And and I love how rather than just saying Amazon, or Amazon customers are bad. You're starting by implicating yourself in this system that leads to serious environmental justice issues. And again, it's really funny. Can you talk more about the situation with Amazon and other real retailers? And and how you went about positioning yourself in this story, and using humor again, and self criticism to connect to the audience?Layel Camargo Yeah, I mean, when we first started working on this video, we explore different avenues of that opening scene, when we wanted to highlight community members, I kind of at this point, have a pretty good like tempo of what it is that I want. I want a community member I want somebody who's like academic or scientifically based, and then somebody else who kind of comes in allows her to be more of a creative flow. So we have a pretty good structure at this point of the voices that we seek, we just didn't know how we wanted to hook the audience. And we went back and forth quite a bit on this, the thing that kept coming up was amazon prime memberships are very common. Most people have them most people buy on e commerce and this is pre COVID. And I was keenly aware of that I also knew that Amazon was growing as a franchise to now own Whole Foods that were just like expanding in regards to what it is that they offer people online. And as I mentioned, I, through my passion for reduction of plastic usage and plastic consumption, and plastic waste, I understand the ways that ecommerce has really hurt the planet. So I myself am not an Amazon Prime member, I I don't actually buy online and I allow myself when needed one Amazon thing a purchase a year. And it's like kind of more of a values align thing. So in order for me to reach connecting with somebody who's kind of a little bit more normal in regards to needing to rely on buying online, is I just had to exaggerate what I think happens when you're shopping, which is you look at a lot of stuff, you add them to cart, you get really excited, and then you kind of mindlessly click Buy without knowing what's going to happen. But you're excited when it arrives, surprisingly, because maybe you bought it in the middle of the night while drinking some wine and watching some Hulu. So that's like what I was trying to embody. And then what I was really trying to highlight in this video was I wanted to invite audiences to not feel shame about what they do, like we are we've all been indoctrinated by the system through what our education has taught us. Like we have values of individualism and patriotism and all these things, because that's what we were taught in schools. And that's been used and co opted by corporations in order for us to continue exploiting other humans and the planet. And that's by no fault of our own. That's a design that's an economic model that was designed since the Great Depression. It's just the way that it's been exaggerated and has scaled so quickly is beyond our control where our governments don't even regulate it anymore at the ways in which they should be. And I think that I wanted this to feel like it's not just on you as an individual, but it's specifically if you live in Europe or in the United States. You need to know that we are The biggest consumers on the planet, we have the most economic resources. We actually, if even a fraction of the United States decided to stop shopping at Amazon, we could significantly bring that Empire down. I say Empire pretty intentionally. And we could I mean, I feel like you. And that's and how I understand economics is that all you need to do is impact 10 to 20%. of supply and demand chain in order for a whole corporation to collapse. The problem is, is that our governments always come in to aid these large corporations that are hurting us on the planet by saying that they want to maintain jobs and maintain a GDP are going stock market, which they're reliant on. So this video was meant for audiences. And for people to feel like this is not just on you. But if you live

On this day in 1989, the world lost a prominent figure in the civil rights and Black Panther movements, Huey P. Newton. Newton was an influential leader and co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which was established in 1966 in Oakland, California. On August 22, 1989, at the age of 47, he was tragically shot and killed in West Oakland. Newton was a tireless advocate for social justice and civil rights, and his commitment to empowering marginalized communities left a mark on American history. The Black Panther Party's dedication to challenging racial injustice and its efforts to uplift disadvantaged communities continue to influence activists and social justice movements today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do Black-eyed peas have to do with Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower? Much! Join Iya Wanda Ravernell this morning and she will share about this African Disapora staple at The 9th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, Sat. Sept. 14, 2024, 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. @Marston Campbell Park, 17th and West Streets, Oakland CA, 94607.  Enjoy Jazz, Second line bands, Black entrepreneurs, soul food and a special pavilion for children at this free event.  Wanda Ravernell, Executive Director of Omnira Institute  After retiring from a 20-year career in print journalism, she embarked on creating programming that would lead to the creation of Omnira Institute in 2009. As its director, Ravernell has developed and implemented the program known as ‘Roots of Faith/Roots of Freedom,' under the artistic direction of her husband, (Dennis) Tobaji Stewart. Held all over the S.F. Bay Area, the lecture demonstrations draw on the musical framework provided by African ritual bata drums, which is then applied to African American history using a choir comprised of practitioners of African spirituality. The Black-Eyed Pea Festival is her brainchild. Now in its 9 year, the festival celebrates the legacy of African and African American music, food and art. 2. Rebroadcast Black August 2009. This is an early show. I'd just started broadcasting August 29, 2008. Hurricane Katrina Anniversary is August 29. This is the 19th Anniversary. Ashay!  

As the A's wrap up their final season in Oakland, the future of the Coliseum – the team's home for 56 years– may finally be coming into focus. The African American Sports and Entertainment Group (AASEG), a local Black-led development company, is set to purchase the site from the A's and the City of Oakland for over two hundred million dollars. The final signing of those deals, supporters say, will help Oakland balance a tight budget and provide economic opportunities for East Oakland. AASEG plans to fill the complex with housing, sports, entertainment, and retail projects. We'll talk with one of the developers and others about what's next for the site. Guests: Casey Pratt, Chief of Communications, Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao Dan Moore, Bay Area-based freelance writer, his work has appeared in The Atlantic, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Ringer, where he's a contributor. He's also a nominee for the 2024 Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting. Ray Bobbitt, Founder and Managing Member, African American Sports and Entertainment Group David Peters, Founder, West Oakland Cultural Action Network. Oakland native and lifelong Oakland A's fan. -Founder, Black Liberation Walking Tour. Peters is a 3rd generation West Oakland resident and lifelong Oakland A's fan.

The 16th Street Station was built in 1912 to serve as the western depot for Southern Pacific's transcontinental railroad. For millions of people migrating to California, their first up-close glimpse of the Golden State was getting off the train in West Oakland and entering the station's 13,000-square-foot main hall. The room's massive, arched windows allowed light to fill the soaring space. For weary travelers, especially Black families fleeing the Jim Crow south, this building was a beacon of hope. Ron Dellums, Oakland's former mayor and congressman, called the station “Ellis Island for the African American community.” Flash forward to 2024. The 16th Street Station is empty and slowly crumbling – a monument to broken promises and shattered dreams. Why has one of the most architecturally and historically significant buildings in the Bay Area been neglected and mostly vacant for so long? This episode explores the history and potential future of a unique Beaux Arts transit temple. Listen now to hear: Daniel Levy and Feleciai Favroth of the Oakland Heritage Alliance discuss their campaign to save the 16th Street Station; Tom Vinson share memories of his boyhood adventures at the station; and Marcus Johnson discussing his 13-year tenure as the station's property manager. Don't forget to follow the East Bay Yesterday Substack for updates on events, tours, exhibits, and other local history news: https://substack.com/@eastbayyesterday Special thanks to the sponsor of this episode: UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals Oakland, home of the East Bay's only level one pediatric trauma center. I encourage you to read the incredible story of how UCSF Benioff' trauma team saved a teen surfer from paralysis: https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/patient-stories/broken-neck-recovery See photos and links related to this episode at: https://eastbayyesterday.com/

Writer Thomas Page McBee shares about his personal and professional journey examining and reimagining masculinity. Content warning for gun violence at timecodes 28:48 to 31:36. Hosted by Ally Beardsley and Babette Thomas, Gender Spiral is a quest to explore the modern experience of being a human in our gendered world. Check out Thomas' work at his website: https://www.thomaspagemcbee.com/ Check out Babette's 3D Virtual Walking Tour of West Oakland at: westoaklandyesterdaytodaytomorrow.com Support us at patreon.com/GenderSpiralPodcast Follow us on Instagram and TikTok Find the transcript for this episode at genderspiralpod.com/episodes

West Oakland's Loove Moore is a superhero. His special power? His ability to participate. He's a talented musician, dancer, and community documentarian, who interviews people about everything from current events in the Bay Area to how they define love. Plus he can get down behind the camera, producing all of his own stuff. Known for his interview series, The Loove Moore Show and for making songs that sample classic Bay Area tracks, what drives Loove Moore's affinity for culture and dedication to his community is a deep-seated spiritual conviction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are hosting a series of conversations with women about their motherlines. We began in March this year and continue through March 2025. In these conversations over the next year, we will speak to Black women about their motherlines. Our guest today is Makeda Esi Ohemaa aka Sandra Hooper Mayfield. She is the youngest daughter of Ruby Mae, granddaughter of Evie, great-grandaughter of Hester, and great-great-granddaughter of Mary Magdalen. Ruby Mae passed away when she was 36 years old Makeda was 9.  Makeda fell in Love with words when her first-grade teacher read a poem. She is grateful to report, that she is still in Love.  Makeda is a retired mental/behavioral health counselor. At 50 years Makeda returned to academia and earned a BA in business management. Makeda is the former Editor of the South County Post Newspaper, Curator of Sugar Water (An artist support group for girls and women), and the "Third Saturday Open Mic."   Makeda's work is published in three anthologies with the West Oakland Seniors. She is also published in the West Oakland to West Africa anthology. Makeda is a community activist who serves and promotes change through art and literacy in carceral institutions. She is a 7-year cancer survivor whose diagnosis set her free. . . .  We open with Mary Mary's "Shackles," and close with Tracey Chapman's "Stand by Me."

In this podcast, I ask each guest to reflect on the evolution of their career path and work skills. In today's episode, I speak with Ally DeArman. She is the Executive Administrator at Women's Foundation California. Ally partners with the CEO, Leadership Team and Board of Directors on the overall administration and operation of the virtual offices. She comes to the foundation with more than a decade of event management and organizational leadership experience.   Previously, Ally worked UC Berkeley's Executive Education, directed the non profit Food Craft Institute, and helped produce Oakland's Eat Real Festival for 10 years running.  She served three years on the board of Community Foods Market, justice social enterprise in West Oakland. Ally has lived her entire life in California, born and raised in San Diego County, relocated to the Bay Area to attend Stanford University, and currently residing in Oakland's Diamond District with her pets and partner. In this conversation, Ally talks about her path from teenage restaurant hostess to Stanford grad, from  produce worker to UC Berkeley Associate Director and beyond. Lots of insights and laughter in this food, community and leadership-themed episode. Bi-Rite Market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-Rite_Market 18 Reasons https://18reasons.org/ East Bay Asian Youth Center https://ebayc.org/our-journey/ Eat Real Festival https://www.eatrealfest.com/ Food Craft Institute http://www.oaklandmomma.com/2016/09/16/food-craft-institute-fosters-the-art-of-the-edible/ Women's Foundation California https://womensfoundca.org/      

My voice is gone from smoking, talking, interviewing people, laughing, dancing and more! 4/20/2024 was a great time nothing but good vibes, music, vendors and more!!!! Plus I ran into Guapdad4000 at the lake he a rapper from West Oakland and he was hella cool. You have to take the risk go after what you want and Do it!!!! Just the beginning Oakland was lit on national smoke day.

In this episode, we hear how one music venue in West Oakland holds the neighborhood's history and its future. We take a stroll down 7th street, and visit Esther's Orbit Room. Then, we talk about the global rise of African dance music with Tshego Lets-oalo of KALW's music show On Repeat.

J. Stalin is a legendary rapper from West Oakland and the founder of Livewire Records. He grew up loving hip hop and saw it as a way for him to escape the street life. After working in the studio with DJ Daryl, Richie Rich, and the Jacka, Stalin decided to put himself on through his own company. 4rAx is one half of the Mekanix, a producer duo from Oakland. Starting off as a DJ for Digital Underground, he worked with various Oakland artists before meeting J. Stalin. Since producing Stalin's earlier hits, the Mekanix have since gone on to produce albums and songs for some of the Bay's most legendary artists. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/historyofthebay/support

This episode features an interview with Zee Lilani at Kula Nursery in West Oakland, California in January 2024. Zee grows Doodhi (Lauki/Bottle Gourd) and Kalonji (Black Seed/Nigella) seeds for our Truelove Seeds catalog as well as many varieties for Second Generation Seeds at her farm in Petaluma, California. In this episode, we hear how Zee left her work as a hydrologist, became a farmer, worked in food sovereignty and food security supporting other farmers, and then started her own nursery business focused on South Asian plants during the pandemic. During the partition of India, her family was displaced from the city of Surat, in the state of Gujarat, in India to Pakistan. Her work with plants familiar to her mother and grandmother bring Surat back to life many decades later, far from home.    In her words:  'Kula Nursery is a grassroots urban nursery working within and for BIPOC communities to increase food sovereignty through gardening education and culturally relevant plant starts. The mission at Kula Nursery is to reconnect the diaspora with heritage food, strengthen food sovereignty among these communities, and promote cultural and biological diversity. As a heritage nursery, we believe the act of growing, tending to, and eating heritage foods encourages folks to reclaim their power within the local food system while simultaneously honoring and reconnecting to their ancestors, immediate family and community at large.' Basically, this interview is right up our alley at Seeds and their People, focused on how plants connect us to our people, power, place, ancestors, and community.    SEED STORIES TOLD IN THIS EPISODE: Cuban Oregano, Indian Mint, Patta Ajwain, Coleus amboinicus Curry Tree, Murraya koenigii Night Blooming Jasmine, Raat Ki Rani, Queen of the Night, Cestrum nocturnum Mogra, Arabian Jasmine, Belle of India, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Jasminum sambac Henna, Lawsonia inermis Amla, Indian Gooseberry, Emblica officinalis Sugarcane, Saccharum spp. Taro, Colocasia esculenta Bindhi, Okra, Abelmoschus esculentus Doodhi/Lauki, Bottle Gourd, Lagenaria siceraria Kalonji, Black Seed, Nigella, "Onion Seed", Nigella sativa Krishna Tulsi, Ocicimum tenuiflorum Desi Girl Tomato, Solanum lycopersicum Lal Mirch Indian Pepper, Capsicum annuum Baingan Indian Eggplant, Solanum melongena Surti Papdi and Valor Papdi, Lablab purpureus MORE INFO FROM THIS EPISODE: Kula Nursery webpage Kula Nursery Instagram Kula Nursery at Truelove Seeds Second Generation Seeds (direct links to Kula Nursery varieties above) Diaspora Co. Seeds and their People - EP. 22: Gujarati Seeds and Flavors with Nital Vadalia-Kakadia Seeds and their People - EP. 2: Kristyn Leach and Namu Farm ABOUT: Seeds And Their People is a radio show where we feature seed stories told by the people who truly love them. Hosted by Owen Taylor of Truelove Seeds and Chris Bolden-Newsome of Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram's Garden. trueloveseeds.com/blogs/satpradio   FIND OWEN HERE: Truelove Seeds Facebook  |  Instagram  |  Twitter   FIND CHRIS HERE: Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram's Garden   THANKS TO: Zee Lilani Nital Vadalia-Kakadia Ruth Kaaserer Emilio Sweet-Coll

Hi Everyone!  Here is the new mix for February 2024.  Big Thank You to Chris Franz for the Generous Podcast Donation!  You can help out also by sending a Podcast Donation to my email djtheosf@gmail.com via PayPal.  This helps keep the podcast free to download all across the world with fresh new music every month!  Also Soul Deluxe 2024 is Coming Sunday April 7th at 7th West Oakland from 1pm-8pm with David Harness Headlining along with Mario Dubbz, Theo, Hannah Lee, Nesto, and Scott Ducey!  Family & Pet Friendly with a Huge Outdoor Patio area.  Tickets are available now.  Get them while they're hot!  https://events.eventzilla.net/e/soul-deluxe-2024-2138607859?preview=1706404072147&fbclid=IwAR2LjSyMASnxfpaX3up5aZCvYULIPqz0ew8ghg2xvPZLXaMksTU8AD7I9Tk  

In this episode, Richard Lau, the CFO of Mayway Herbs, shares the history of our Mayway Herbs building here in West Oakland, California. We find it pretty fascinating ourselves, and thought you would enjoy this tiny bit of Oakland history.You can access the written article (that has photos!) here.  Select your favorite podcast provider to subscribe and get notified of new recordings!See our Monthly Practitioner Discounts https://www.mayway.com/monthly-specialsSign up for the Mayway Newsletterhttps://www.mayway.com/newsletter-signupFollow ushttps://www.facebook.com/MaywayHerbs/https://www.instagram.com/maywayherbs/

This week we're revisiting a story from our series Mixed: Stories of Mixed-Race Californians. It originally aired in March 2023. Even if he's not always recognized as part of the Asian American community, Oakland-born rapper Guap is fiercely proud of his Filipino roots. On the last track of his 2021 album, 1176, he tells an origin story spanning decades and continents. His grandfather, a Black merchant marine stationed in Subic Bay in the Philippines, ripped the pocket of his uniform. He knew he'd be in big trouble if he didn't fix it, so he found a young Filipina seamstress to repair the pocket — and fell in love. When his time in Subic Bay came to an end, the two married and moved to a one-story house in West Oakland, where they would eventually raise their grandchild Guap, the first-born child of their youngest daughter. Sasha Khokha and Marisa Lagos spoke to Guap about growing up Black and Filipino, the cultural impact his lola had on him, and how his mixed identity shows up in his music.

Bonus Episode: Autodesk AIHow is AI reshaping the way architects design, collaborate, and innovate?On this bonus episode of Practice Disrupted, we sit down with Amy Bunszel, the Executive Vice President of Architecture, Engineering and Construction Design Solutions at Autodesk, and Ryan McNulty, Principal of MBH Architects, to dive into the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates to architectural practice — including The Phoenix, one of Ryan's recent projects recently showcased at AU 2023.First, Amy describes the positive impact of AI and how the technology can help the built world — and its customers — improve the sustainability of projects. She explains the role Autodesk AI plays in delivering more innovative projects to clients in a way that will transform both the industry and individual practice. AI can help with three things: automation, augmentation, and vast data analysis. The sustainability challenges in the world are also accelerating the need for change. The built environment is responsible for 42% of annual global CO2 emissions. Now is the time to leverage all the great technology we can to drive towards some of these important goals. - Amy BunszelFrom there, Ryan illustrates why and how AI can be useful for architecture from a project standpoint. He shares how AI helps to diminish architectural administrative tasks and focus on architectural decisions — one example being The Phoenix, a West Oakland affordable housing project created in collaboration with Autodesk. We also learn Ryan and Amy's future plans for integrating AI into different projects and tools in support of the changing profession. To wrap up the episode, Ryan and Amy provide tips for architecture students integrating AI into their practice and share their individual aspirations for how AI can positively impact and shape their environments. Tune in next week for an episode about employee wellness and organizational culture in design firms.Guests:Amy Bunszel, EVP AEC Design at Autodesk manages product strategy and execution for Autodesk's 3D design portfolio including the Autodesk Architecture, Engineering and Construction Collection, AutoCAD family, Autodesk Revit, and more.  With more than 20 years' of experience innovating software products across the architecture, engineering, and construction, manufacturing and media and entertainment industries, Amy inspires innovative strategy while driving large-scale agile software development around the globe. Amy combines her roots as a start-up co-founder with deep product management knowledge and large-scale product execution expertise to build high performing teams focused on delivering value to their customers.  Ryan McNulty, Principal MBH Architects has an innate ability to unify project stakeholders to create successful projects with meaning and respect to local context. Ryan is known for his keen thirty-thousand-foot view of projects while closely managing every detail. This holistic design approach informs the decision-making process and allows effective communication at every stage, making him an asset to MBH's broad array of project types — from workspace and labs, to multi-family and hospitality projects. Ryan brings deep experience with complex structures, managing client goals, community hearings, and stakeholder coordination. He is currently principal-in-charge of a a large commercial project in Los Angeles, as well as a confidential residential development in New York City.

Inside of a classic Queen Anne Victorian in West Oakland, photographer Traci Bartlow displays beautifully framed images of the people who shaped hip-hop culture here in the Bay Area, and across the nation. Photos of Outkast and Queen Latifah, Busta Rhymes and ODB, hang alongside images of the Luniz and Shock-G, as well as E-40 and The Click. While the photos tell a story about what life was like in growing up in Oakland, it's her house, which is a photography museum and a boutique hotel, that tells the complex story of multiple generations of Black folks, land ownership and community appreciation. This episode originally aired on October 14, 2022

On this day in 1989, the world lost a prominent figure in the civil rights and Black Panther movements, Huey P. Newton. Huey Newton was an influential leader and co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which was established in 1966 in Oakland, California. On August 22, 1989, at the age of 47, he was tragically shot and killed in West Oakland. Huey Newton was a tireless advocate for social justice and civil rights, and his commitment to empowering marginalized communities left a mark on American history. The Black Panther Party's dedication to challenging racial injustice and its efforts to uplift disadvantaged communities continue to influence activists and social justice movements today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this Roots Radio episode, co-hosts Lisa Bonta Sumii and Richie Nuñez feature singer/songwriter, Fantastic Negrito.Fantastic Negrito takes you on a journey, portraying a narrative of triumph over adversity. His journey is a representation of a musician from Oakland who experienced the zenith of securing a million-dollar record contract, plummeted into the abyss after a life-threatening car accident that resulted in a coma, and is now witnessing a resurgence that has brought him from the alleys of Oakland to international fame.This man's life story is as compelling as his music because his experiences shape his sound. The music, inspired by a life full of trials, is an expression of black roots music, woven with elements of slide guitar, drums, and piano. The tunes convey an atmosphere of urgency, desperation, and tension.Negrito earned nationwide recognition when he clinched the first NPR Tiny Desk contest in 2015. He followed up this success with Grammy wins for all three of his albums: The Last Days of Oakland (2017), Please Don't Be Dead (2019), and Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? (2021). The most recent album includes collaborations with fellow Tiny Desk winner Tank (Tank and the Bangas) and the Bay Area icon E-40.Negrito's journey has been full of exciting turns in recent years. His independent record label, Storefront Records in West Oakland, launched his two newest projects. White Jesus Black Problems (2022) and Grandfather Courage (2023) explore the forbidden love story of his ancestors — a white Scottish indentured servant and an enslaved African man on a Virginia tobacco plantation in the 1750s. White Jesus Black Problems is accompanied by a 42-minute video available for viewing on YouTube.Additionally, Negrito has initiated The Storefront Market, an outdoor community market located at Storefront Records. The tenth iteration of this market recently partnered with Thrive City at The Chase Center, home to The Golden State Warriors in San Francisco. This partnership offered a platform for various Bay Area artists and vendors to showcase their work in the city.Lisa Bonta Sumii, LCSW, CSW | Athlete Mindset podcast host:Lisa is a psychotherapist and mental performance consultant to high-performing athletes at the youth, collegiate, Olympic-hopeful, and professional levels. She is the first-ever Mental Health & Performance Coach for the Oakland Roots SC, a men's professional soccer team, in the USL. Lisa is the Founder & CEO of AthMindset, a diverse team of licensed mental health clinicians and mental performance consultants, who serve alongside her.Fantastic Negrito: Wikipedia | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify | YouTubeWrapping up:Athlete Mindset is part of the KazSource Podcast NetworkPresented by SportsEpreneur: a digital sports media brand for entrepreneurs engaged in sportscontent brings people together: KazCMSocial media and more:Lisa Bonta Sumii: LinkedIn | Twitter | AthMindset websiteRichie Nuñez: LinkedInSportsEpreneur:  TikTok | Instagram | TwitterRelated episodes to Fantastic Negrito | Oakland “Roots Radio”:Sports As An Outlet | Oakland “Roots Radio”Play Music, Live Music With Mara Hruby | Oakland “Roots Radio”Jimmie Bell: “I Got the Courage to Start Over” | Buckeye FocusedTwo current projects:We published a book! Check it out on Amazon: Altered State of AffairsShort-form video production: KazCMCredits:This podcast was produced by the team at KazCMBeat Provided By freebeats.io | Produced By White HotSportsEpreneurThe post Fantastic Negrito | Oakland “Roots Radio” appeared first on SportsEpreneur.

Until recently Wood Street in West Oakland was the site of the largest homeless encampment in Northern California. To launch our new series on homelessness in the Bay Area, Forum broadcasts live from Wood Street. We'll talk with people who lived in the encampment before it was cleared by the city in April, and with city and county officials, about alternatives to encampments for unhoused people and Oakland's strategy for addressing the homelessness crisis. Guests: Erin Baldassari, housing affordability reporter, KQED LaTonda Simmons, interim homeless administrator, city of Oakland Lucy Kasdin, director, Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless Moose, former resident, Wood Street encampment

Katie talks to the hosts of THIS IS REVOLUTION podcast (TIR) about Black Marxist politics which frequently gets left out, coopted or distorted. TIR was started by long time musician and overall troublemaker Jason Myles in late fall of 2019 in West Oakland, CA. After about a year through the recommendation of Touré Reed, Jason met Black Agenda Report and Huffington Post columnist Pascal Robert. The two bonded over their Marxian class analysis and other topics that they felt was missing in an understanding of the concept of “Black politics”. Pascal continues to write for Black Agenda Report as well as an occasional column in Newsweek, while Jason is a columnist at Sublation Magazine as well as the host of TIR. The two have no signs of slowing down their intellectual output as Pascal is working on a book on Haitian history and Jason continues to expand the show in various directions from live shows, to a feature length video essay that he will be screening for live audiences by year's end. Find Jason & Pascal's great work at - https://www.thisisrevolutionpodcast.com/ Check out their articles https://www.newsweek.com/obsession-black-white-wealth-gap-protects-elites-opinion-1661910 https://www.sublationmag.com/post/stakes-is-high-addicted-to-the-spectacle Eventbrite link for the live taping with Briahna Joy Gray in NYC on June 10, 2023! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/katie-halper-show-live-with-briahna-joy-gray-tickets-643828447217 ***Please support The Katie Halper Show *** For bonus content, exclusive interviews, to support independent media & to help make this program possible, please join us on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/thekatiehalpershow Follow Katie on Twitter: @kthalps Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/rkEk75Emhy

For decades, a dedicated, but shrinking, contingent of Oakland A's fans piled into the Coliseum season after season, banging on drums and sporting their green and gold gear with pride. They did so despite the looming possibility that the team would depart. Now that team owners struck a deal to build a stadium in Las Vegas, scores of Oakland A's fans are feeling stunned, dejected and hurt. The Vegas proposal comes after numerous failed attempts to find a new home in the Bay Area. We'll talk about how fans are coping and what could happen next in the A's long and complicated stadium saga. Related articles: The A's Are A Poison Pill, by Ray Ratto Guests: Ann Killion, sports columnist, San Francisco Chronicle David Peters, member, Howard Terminal Community Benefits Agreement Steering Committee; founder, Black Liberation Walking Tour; 3rd generation West Oakland resident and lifelong Oakland A's fan Melissa Lockard, senior editor and staff writer, The Athletic; founder, the Oakland Clubhouse - a blog that covered Oakland A's prospects; lifelong A's fan Bryan Johansen, co-owner, Last Dive Bar - small business that makes Coliseum-inspired merchandise and puts on events to rally support to keep the A's in Oakland

What was once Northern California's largest homeless encampment is coming to a close. The Wood Street Encampment under I-880 in West Oakland is undergoing its final phase of clearance to make way for affordable housing. KCBS Radio's Holly Quan caught up with colleague Matt Bigler to hear about the hundreds of people who have called this space home, and to dive into why the city decided to clear it.

Even if he's not always recognized as part of the Asian-American community, Oakland-born rapper Guap is fiercely proud of his Filipino roots. On the last track of his 2021 album, 1176, he tells an origin story spanning decades and continents. His grandfather, a Black merchant marine, stationed in Subic Bay in the Philippines, found himself with a rip in the pocket of his uniform. He found a young Filipina seamstress to repair the pocket and fell in love. When his time in Subic Bay came to an end, the two married and moved to a one-story house in West Oakland, where they would eventually raise their grandchild Guap, the first born child of their youngest daughter. 1176, created in collaboration with Filipino-American producer !llmind, is Guap's most personal work to date. It's the culmination of a circuitous path into the music industry, from first getting recognition as a scam rapper to being featured on a Marvel movie soundtrack. For the series Mixed: Stories of Mixed Race Californians, hosts Sasha Khokha and Marisa Lagos spoke to Guap about growing up Black and Filipino, the cultural impact his Lola had on him, and how his mixed identity shows up in his music.

An emerging class of corporate landlords has made millions of dollars by buying and renting out homes in low-income, Black neighborhoods. Chronicle data reporter Susie Neilson joins host Cecilia Lei to talk about one example in West Oakland and a worrying national trend of neglected properties and eviction threats. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Got a tip, comment, question? Email us: fifth@sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California's temperate weather is one reason why homelessness is so visible. But with climate change, warmer and wetter weather are making the emergency on the streets even more dire.  At what remains of the Wood Street encampment in West Oakland, people without shelter are experiencing flooding and a fight to stay warm amid a series of atmospheric rivers hitting the Bay Area in recent weeks. Residents of Wood Street say the services the city is offering doesn't meet their needs.  But it's not just the threat of another rainstorm looming over the encampment; the city has plans to evict those remaining at Wood Street once and for all.  Guest: Erin Baldassari, Housing Affordability Reporter for KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chef Tanya Holland's new cookbook – like her family – is rooted in the people and the food of the historical migration from the South to the West. Holland, legendary for her former West Oakland soul food restaurant Brown Sugar Kitchen, weaves recipes with stories of California's Black culinary pioneers and food industry entrepreneurs in her new cookbook, “California Soul: Recipes from a Culinary Journey West”. We talk with her about the stories that food holds and her California Soul. Guests: Tanya Holland, author, "California Soul" and "Brown Sugar Kitchen: New-Style, Down-Home Recipes from Sweet West Oakland;" host, "Tanya's Kitchen Table" on the Opra.

UC Berkeley graduate student Ziad Shafi was surprised when he arrived in the Bay Area and saw that BART trains only have one route through San Francisco. He'd taken metro trains in Prague, Stockholm and Washington, D.C., where the route maps are shaped like spiderwebs — allowing riders to get in striking distance of anywhere in the city. But BART looks more like a tree. He asked: "Why do four of the five BART lines go all the way from West Oakland to Daly City together?" KQED transit editor Dan Brekke gives us some BART history and offers an outlook for what's next for public transit in the Bay Area. Additional Reading: Podcast Episode: You're Really Really Curious About BART (Apple Podcasts) Podcast Episode: Why Are BART Trains So Loud? (Apple Podcasts) Olivia's Instagram Sign up for the monthly Bay Curious newsletter Read the transcript here. Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was reported by Dan Brekke. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz and Brendan Willard. Our Social Video Intern is Darren Tu. Additional support from Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

Gentrification in Oakland has been a focal point of local organizers, publications, and creatives for the last decade. As rising rent prices continues to displace families that for generations have called Oakland “home”, and forced others out onto the streets, Episode 7 of Tales Of The Town highlights oakland community members who are trying to find their way through a city that prioritizes profit over people Guests: Mistah Fab: rapper, producer, songwriter. Owner of Dope Era Clothing store. Uncle Freddie: Abbas' Uncle. Artist and Fabricator. Oakland Native. Ronnie Stewart: executive director of west coast blues society. Historian of 7th street in West Oakland. Brandi Summers: professor and author of Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of Race in a Post-Chocolate City.

A scripted drama / dark comedy told through the voices that make up the quickly gentrifying neighborhood of West Oakland neighborhood. Narrated by Kelsey Grammer, The Lower Bottoms delivers mesmerizing characters voiced by Ryan Destiny (Star) and Theo Rossi (Luke Cage), corruption, tension, suspicion, greed, and passion. The Lower Bottoms: Season 2 is out now wherever you get your podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Eighteen months after opening the doors at West Oakland's Horn BBQ, Matt Horn has lines down the block, a second restaurant, and a new cookbook out this week—but finding that success was far from easy. Matt talks to Dave and Chris about the many long nights and moments of truth along the way, as well as the meal in Japan that Dave can't stop thinking about, hangover salvation, bloomin' onions, the 3 a.m. internal BBQ monologue, repo man Heston Blumenthal, burning the boats behind you, BBQ omakase, cooking hot links until they burst, Coke vs. Pepsi, where Matt's eating in Oakland, and having faith in the fire vs. just wanting to eat the brisket already. Hosts: Dave Chang and Chris Ying Guest: Matt Horn Producer: Sasha Ashall Additional Production: Jordan Bass and Lala Rasor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices