Art

OPD squad car of fallen officer revamped into Oakland’s first police low rider

“This is Jose,” said Captain Steven Tull of Oakland’s Police Department (OPD) District 4. “He doesn’t think about himself — he thinks about others.” Jose Ortiz, a longtime community organizer in the Fruitvale district, smiled humbly as he was honored in many testimonies delivered by attendees at his appreciation event last Saturday evening inside the gym of the Manzanita Recreation Center. Ortiz’s business partner Big Lou Feliciano and members of his Street Inspiration Low Rider Car Club were joined by…

Oakland’s unconventional third Youth Poet Laureate finds her voice

17-year-old Sophie Elkin, named Oakland’s 3rd Youth Poet Laureate in August, writes about what she knows: the grit and grandeur of Oakland’s people and places and the less tangible but no less real world of adolescence. After a childhood struggling to come out to herself and her parents, Sophie hopes her poetry will help other women to find their voices the way she has.