Health of the Hood: Maxwell Park
By Ronald Owens - The neighborhood is primarily residential, with single family homes on Walnut Street. Walking west on High Street from Walnut Street, the residences are mostly apartment buildings and...
View ArticleVIDEO: Oakland homicide victims of 2011 – their names and faces
This video commemorates the 110 victims of homicide in Oakland in 2011. Darnell, Allen, Donald, Lovell, Ishmael, Alejandro, Kerry, Derek, Terrance, Raheim, Eddie, Berresford, Martin, Matthew, Brian,...
View ArticleGun violence forum held in urban oasis
By Ronald Owens In the impeccably restored assembly hall of a Craftsman style theater in Oakland’s Preservation Park, genteel people gathered to address gun violence at a forum sponsored by the Oakland...
View ArticleWhat if Bay Area Baseball Really Did “Turn Back the Clock”?
By Ronald Owens It’s a common marketing ploy among professional sports franchises to figuratively return their teams to a bygone era for a game, with an eye towards reaping enormous profits from the...
View ArticleRacially Profiling: The Whites of East Oakland, Part 1
This ongoing series explores the unusually diverse racial terrain of the eastside of Oakland, California. It asks members of East Oakland’s varied racial groups why they chose to live there, where they...
View ArticleRacially Profiling: The Blacks of East Oakland, Part 1
Mary misses her friend who recently died, a retired fireman who lived at end of block. She was kind of sweet on him, but it never went anywhere. The man never told his age, and she never understood the...
View ArticleRacially Profiling: The Blacks of East Oakland, Part 2
“I’m an evangelist and a motivational speaker. I can read people. I could see that you were a guarded person when you asked if you could talk with me.” I couldn’t disagree with her. “You’re...
View ArticleEast Oakland’s Walmart Is a Great Place to Do Your Gun Research
By Ronald Owens On a recent visit to the Walmart store in the heart of East Oakland, I discovered that the world’s largest retailer carries tons of magazines about guns. Tactical arms. Shotguns....
View ArticleVIDEO – An Oaktoberfest Poll: Obama’s Reelection Chances
President Obama believes in settling things over beer. So I went to one of Oakland's biggest beer parties to settle a question that must be big on his mind right now: four more years, or one (term) and...
View ArticleVIDEO: Raid on Occupy Oakland – One Year Later
Protesters, spectators, passers-by, and police gathered at Oakland's city hall plaza on October 25, 2012, marking the one-year anniversary of the day the police tore down Occupy Oakland's tent camp...
View ArticleReactions: Cop-on-Black vs. Black-on-Black
It seems that if you’re not killed by a cop, you’re a just a garden variety homicide victim. People don’t get too upset. You might get an impromptu curbside memorial. The local TV news might mention...
View ArticleVIDEO: Pictures of Health in Our Bay Area Communities
What’s healthy about our community? What’s not healthy about it? How can we improve it? These questions were posed to patrons of the Oakland Museum of California at the institution’s free First Sunday...
View ArticleA Tale of Four Fatalities in Two Days in One City
By Ronald Owens Four young people who were still in their teens were gunned down in the streets of Oakland on a grim Thanksgiving Day weekend last year. Two of the victims were killed on a Saturday and...
View ArticleWhite-On-White Crime Makes Lots of Noise, Even if You’ve Never Heard of It
By Ron Owens Mass murders get some people all stirred up. TV news shows become obsessed and devote all their attention to the homicides and to peoples’ reactions to them. You go to work or to the...
View ArticleTo a Cop On a Chase, a Stolen Car May Be Worth More Than Your Life
By Ronald Owens What’s more valuable, your life or a stolen vehicle? To most people, that’s probably a no-brainer. Your life, of course. Let’s rephrase the question. What’s more valuable to a police...
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