Community

As the decade draws to a close, we canvassed North Oakland this week to find what people thought were the most important events of the last 10 years.

Many girls in multicultural, multiracial Oakland have grown up in the last several decades watching Disney heroines who don’t look like them. It’s not just that these characters are mermaids, fairies and princesses. It’s also that they are, with a handful of exceptions, white.

UC Berkeley unleashed 18 reporters on North Oakland back in late August. Here are some of the stories they found in the last four months.

In 2008, Alameda County law enforcement responded to almost 7,000 domestic disturbance calls. The Alameda County Family Justice Center helps many of these people navigate legal and social services available to them represent them in court.

The Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir performed its annual Christmas concert on December 23 at the 12th Street City Center.

Fifty lucky Oakland children on International Boulevard received some early presents yesterday morning from an Oakland police officer dressed as Father Christmas. Instead of eight tiny reindeer leading the way, this Chris Cringle rode an OPD Harley-Davidson.

This fall, Temescal martial arts studio Pacific Ring Sports hosted “Showdown in Oakland,” an amateur boxing tournament. This audioslide introduces two local fighters, C.J. and Shanti, working hard to try to dominate their bouts.

During the past two months, three Oakland North reporters have interviewed five teens at Castlemont High School on MacArthur Boulevard in East Oakland. This neighborhood is at center of some of the city’s worst violence, and it’s a violence that does not spare young people. During the last three years, one in every two homicide victims in Oakland has been between the ages of 12 and 24. Even amid this tragedy, the five teens that met with Oakland North have,…