Politics
In May, Rob “Reason” Silver, a part-time record producer from Oakland, and Jason Samel, the owner of a small insurance brokerage in New York, announced their nearly identical but independently conceived plans to bring a new element into the national Occupy protest—marketability. Both had come to the conclusion that there was potential within the anti-capitalistic, determinedly decentralized protest to sell a product that could help raise funds and draw in new supporters. In May, both men launched Occupy benefit albums.
This raw video was taken Tuesday night by Oakland North reporter Sam Rolens, inside the Oakland City Hall council chambers, as protesters disrupted a scheduled meeting in order to demand action and more information on the shooting death in May of a young man killed by an Oakland police officer. The noisy protest broke out at 6:00 pm Tuesday evening, as family members of the young man, an 18-year-old Skyline High school student named Alan Blueford, were joined by many…
Nearly 200 angry protesters shut down Tuesday night’s Oakland City Council meeting, citing outrage at the Oakland Police Department’s handling of the officer-involved shooting death of Alan Blueford, a Skyline High School senior who was gunned down in East Oakland on May 6. Blueford’s father, Adam, said his son, who was 18, was approached by Oakland police officer Miguel Masso around 12:20 a.m. that night in May. The family asserts that Masso drove up in a police car with headlights…
With less than 60 days before Americans vote for President, Oakland North reporters Theresa Adams and Aaron Mendelson asked small business owners on Broadway to deliver a message to the presidential candidates. Click on the video above to hear business owners at Downtown coffee shops, clothing stores, cannabis dispensaires and news stands deliver a message to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Owners reactions ranged from supportive to critical of the President, but business owners were eager to make their voices heard.
As Imam Zaid Shakir walked into Oakland’s Lighthouse Mosque for Friday prayers, several of his congregation leapt to their feet and embraced him, eager to hear his take on a YouTube video, and the violent reaction to it, that have strained relations between many in the Muslim world and the United States.
Community members, law enforcement officials and politicians alike reached across church aisles Thursday night to hold hands, literally, and pledge commitment to ending gun violence in Oakland.
On Wednesday night, “Stand Up for Our Children: A Community Forum” at the Oakland School for the Arts in downtown Oakland brought together educators, administrators and local political figures to discuss two propositions on the November ballot that could generate new funds for public schools by raising taxes for Californians. The forum also included a “break-away” session that allowed attendees to voice their concerns in more in-depth fashion.
In their first meeting of the 2012-13 school year, Oakland Unified School District board members decided Wednesday evening to postpone one of the highly anticipated items on the agenda: a discussion about the district’s response to a federal inquiry into the disciplining of African American male students.
Last week Dana Harvey, the executive director of Mandela Marketplace, a West Oakland-based nonprofit that helps residents create businesses that sell produce grown by local farmers, received a White House award for her efforts to make healthy foods accessible in Oakland.