Community

Women and hip-hop: A discussion in downtown Oakland

On Friday, the Betti Ono art gallery in downtown Oakland hosted a panel discussion about women and Hip-Hop. The “My Art, My Culture: Women, media, and Hip-Hop” three-part discussion was the product of the combined efforts of a number of Bay Area arts organizations including Beats, Rhymes, and Life, which uses Hip-Hop to empower young people, and the Daughters of Dilla Project, which offers media arts programs for girls.

Adoptable animal of the week: Yoshimi

Oakland North is continuing with our feature. Every week, Oakland Animal Services will spotlight an “Animal of the Week” that’s up for adoption at their facility. This week it’s a cat named Yoshimi. Yoshimi is a smart & loyal girl, approximately 2-3 years old, who is part Maine Coon and part Samurai warrior. Like all good samurai, Yoshimi cautiously observes her surroundings before settling in. Once she feels safe, however, she is very affectionate – she loves to snuggle close to her human…

At estate sales, people find more than just “stuff”

Every weekend there’s a sign posted on some telephone pole for an estate sale.  Maybe you’re someone who follows the signs, but if you’re not, you might be surprised by what people can get out of these sales. Listen to the audio piece to hear more about fans of Oakland’s estate sales and the people who make them happen.

OUSD votes to revoke American Indian Model Schools charters

At a long-awaited special school board meeting, and after over six months of hearings and notices, Oakland Unified School District board members voted to revoke the three American Indian Model Schools’ (AIMS) charters. The 4-3 vote came after Superintendent Tony Smith recommended the board revoke the charters, and after a particularly emotional and dramatic series of public comments and discussion.

Youth Alive! tries to break cycle of violence in Oakland

In a Castlemont High School classroom converted into a theater for the day, seven-year-old Junior returned home from school to face his parents after receiving a bad report card. “How the hell did you get an ‘F’ in English?” the father asked. “Are you stupid?” Junior kept his head down. “You should act like a man,” the father said. And that’s where Caheri Gutierrez, a 23-year-old woman who has dedicated her life to mentoring teenagers about causes and consequences of…

Oakland by the ZIP code: Photos from the 94607

Enjoy the photo gallery for our weekly series, The Pulse of Oakland. This week’s featured ZIP code is 94607. The area includes the waterfront, Chinatown, West Oakland and the Port of Oakland. Oakland North reporters will be taking photographs documenting each of the ZIP codes in Oakland over the next few months. Every neighborhood is diverse and different, and we want to capture that. Of course, we can’t see everything in Oakland ourselves. So we also want to know how…