Community
If you live in the Bay Area, there’s one question you’ve probably asked at some point: why on earth doesn’t BART run past midnight? Over Presidents’ Day Weekend, it did.
Trayvon Martin was killed more than six weeks ago, and Oakland and Sanford, Florida are nearly 3,000 miles apart. But that didn’t dim the outrage of a group of about 30 people gathered at the intersection of International Boulevard and 71st Avenue in East Oakland on Tuesday afternoon to “demand justice for Trayvon Martin.”
“It’s been six weeks since Trayvon was murdered and Zimmerman is still walking free. What kind of a system is this?” said D’andre Teeter of Berkeley, an organizer for the demonstration. “This is a system that protects this kind of racism.”
Oakland North is continuing with our feature. Every week, we will publish a photo submitted by one of our readers. This week’s photo is by David Bayless.
Many of the 20,000 people from Ethiopia and Eritrea living in the Bay Area call Oakland home. Oakland North is taking a look at the culture and history of the Ethiopian or Eritrean community in Oakland with “East Africans in Oakland” a series of profiles on everyday people living in the city.
Oakland North is continuing with our feature. Every Tuesday, Oakland Animal Services will spotlight an “Animal of the Week” that’s up for adoption at their facility. This week it’s Flapjack and Joey.
Festival director David Roche’s long term goal for the future is to make Oakland a safer city. By attracting a larger audience he hopes to also promote more volunteerism in Oakland. “There are a lot of neglected areas in Oakland that need support,” Roche says, “and the films create more awareness of that. Arts can play a huge part in changing the image of a city.”
In it’s tenth consecutive year, the 2012 Oakland International Film Festival starts today and runs through Sunday with an exciting line-up of films, many of them created in Oakland. Two new local filmmakers, one who directed a 6-minute comedy and another who produced a documentary on a legendary Oakland piano bar, will be premiering their films on Saturday as part of the festival.
Rebecca Kaplan was once a rabbinical student, and the Oakland City Councilmember still knows her scripture well. On Wednesday afternoon, Kaplan quoted the books of Isaiah, Leviticus and Exodus while speaking during a teach-in about the city’s bond debt with Goldman Sachs at Allen Temple Baptist Church in East Oakland.
For Gutierrez, weekdays start the same. At work by 4 am, Gutierrez punches in and heads to his locker. He reaches for his uniform: black slacks, a navy blue hat, a bright yellow reflective vest, and a light blue collared shirt with a badge on the sleeves that says he’s an employee of the state of California. He grabs a coin bag, a currency bag, and his black AM/FM radio, which he uses to listen to Journey, Motown or the news. By 4:30 am, he’s at work in one of the seventeen yellow boxed tollbooths on the cement island overlooking the San Francisco Bay.