Oakland Post, week of September 28 - October 4, 2022

Oakland

Pro-Active vs. Reactive Approaches to Oakland’s Violence Crisis

Oakland Police Chief LeRonne L. Armstrong Oakland Police Allocate More Officers to Combat Gun Violence

By Paul Chambers

In an all-hands-on-deck meeting, Oakland Police Department (OPD) Chief LeRonne L. Armstrong chal lenged his command staff to bring a different approach to fighting crime, with the goal of an immediate impact on the safety of residents, visitors, and businesses in Oakland.

Amid the deadliest week this year with eight lives lost, Armstrong deployed addition al officers on overtime Sunday to reduce the amount of gun violence. To date, OPD has in vestigated 96 homicides, com pared to 102 lives lost by this same time last year.

Although homicides are down slightly over last year, Armstrong added eight officers permanently to the Criminal Investigation Division (CID). The increase in staffing will lead to more criminal investi gations and a higher number of solved cases, in turn keeping violent offenders from com mitting additional crimes in our city.

In the coming weeks, OPD will deploy all available re sources throughout the city in a coordinated effort to enforce crimes associated with gun violence in Oakland. OPD will also restart the traffic enforce ment unit and continue work ing with our federal and local law enforcement partners to support gun violence enforce ment.

OPD has investigated 360 assaults with a firearm this year, compared to 465 incidents this time last year, which is a 23% reduction citywide. This year, officers are also on track to re cover an astounding number of firearms. So far, OPD officers have safely taken 1,132 fire arms off city streets, compared to 1199 during all of 2021.

OPD will add up to 50 offi cers with the successful gradu ation of the 189th and 190th Basic Academies in October and February.

OPD remains focused on proven violent crime preven tion strategies such as Ceasefire to also address gun violence. The Department continues to rely on intelligence-led po licing with the department’s Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC), and the Violent Crime Operations Center (VCOC), leading focused enforcement and apprehension efforts.

Paul Chambers is the strate gic communications manager for the Oakland Police Depart ment.

Students and Staff Wounded in Oakland School Shooting

By Post Staff

Six students and staff were wounded Wednesday after noon in a shooting at the King Estates campus in the Oakland hills, leaving two with lifethreatening injuries.

All the wounded were ages 18 or older and were associated with the campus. As of press time, police were still seeking those responsible for the shoot

ing.

The King Estates campus, located on the 8200 block of Fontaine Street, includes four schools: Rudsdale Con tinuation and Newcomer high schools, BayTech Charter School, and Sojourner Truth Independent Study.

The shooting, which took place shortly before 1 p.m., occurred outside a building on the campus. Oakland Police

Department Assistant Chief Darren Allison said officers are looking for at least one shooter, although more suspects could be involved. No descriptions have been released.

The Oakland Police Depart ment contacted Rev. Phyllis Scott, President of the Pastors of Oakland and leader of the Oakland Chaplaincy Program,

City Receives $3 Million Grant to Advance Violence Prevention Among School-Age Youth

By Post Staff

The City of Oakland’s De partment of Violence Preven tion (DVP) has received a $3 million, three-year grant to support its violence interrup tion efforts.

In partnership with the Oakland Public Fund for In novation, the Gilead Founda tion awarded the grant to in vest in health equity strategy, including a focus on preven tion and intervention services to school-age youth, disrupt ing the pattern of violence.

“The Gilead Foundation is proud to support the Oakland Fund for Public Innovation and the City of Oakland’s

Chief of Violence Preven tion with the City of Oakland Guillermo Cespedes said the grant will allow “DVP to strengthen families and pro tect its members from becom ing involved in lifestyles as sociated with violence, while increasing educational out comes and lifelong learning skills.”

Although the Depart ment of Violence Prevention works to advance commu nity outreach with life coach ing, gender-based violence services, violence interrup tion, and community heal ing, this funding is focused

on

Vote ‘No’ on Props 26 & 27: Both Are Bad for California

By James. E. Vann

Propositions 26 and 27 on the November ballot appear to be related, but their differences are substantial and both are ex ceedingly harmful.

Proposition 26 would result in vast expansion of gambling methods within American In dian lands, with a new exten sion to California racetracks.

Proposition 27 would result in vast expansion of present gaming methods beyond In dian lands, with no limitations, and would add the authoriza tion of ‘online’ gambling.

In respect for Native sover eignty, voters previously sup ported the establishment of In dian gaming. However, neither of the current measures have

Opinion

James E. Vann

significant Indian support.

Proposition 26

This measure, somewhat related but unlike Proposition 27, was initiated by a small group of leaders of the largest tribes. Their motivation is their

personal enrichment, not from either demand or need. The currently authorized program of permitted gaming methods at Indigenous casino sites is constitutionally limited. Prop osition 26 would remove the present restrictions and permit unlimited gambling methods and selections at casino sites and at California racetracks. Methods would include wager ing on sports events, like horse racing, sports teams, auto rac ing, boxing, wrestling, and a host of events broadcast into casino platforms.

The institution of Indige nous casinos has been a needed boon and supplement to man dated federal and state finan

on Page 12

While columnist Richard Johnson (right) was meeting with various formerly incarcerated group leaders to develop an out reach plan in response to the rash of recent killings in Oakland, he bumped into Chicago Rapper Common who was also going door-to-door urging the residents to get registered and vote for Pamela Price, his D.A. candidate. Richard said, “We both share something in common, we want to help stop the violence and we want to increase voting as a part of helping to solve prob lems.” Photo courtesy of Richard Johnson and Jonathan “Fit ness” Jones.

By Richard Johnson

Violence in of itself is a re action to various triggers that gives it life.

In other words, it is a mani festation of situations that prove to be unmanageable in that moment. In order to stem it, we, as a community must recognize it before it becomes the act itself and provide a con duit that allows the cause to be redirected into positivity rath

er than negativity.

The level of violence to day is a culmination of causes over periods of time. Some in stances are random, however, most stem from long-standing feuds, “beefs” and generation al conflicts that lay dormant until something brings it to the surface.

on Page 12

Oakland Could Take More Innovative Steps to Help Solve Homelessness Opinion

By Janani Ramachandran

First, we must conduct a comprehensive audit of where our homelessness dollars are being spent. The recent City Auditor’s report revealed $69 million was spent on homeless ness services for 8,600 people over the past three years – yet at least half the participants are believed to have returned to homelessness. We must con duct a deep dive into the thirdparty entities receiving home lessness contracts and to what extent they use evidence-based models of homelessness reduc tion.

Second, we must establish a regional board across all neighboring East Bay towns because homelessness cer tainly crosses borders, and the financial costs of assisting our unhoused while building af fordable housing should not exclusively fall on Oakland. We must develop a plan to build on land owned by cities, CalTrans, BART, EBMUD, and other public agencies. A regional strategy must also in clude better partnership with the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, which is primar ily responsible for providing meaningful mental health and addiction services. Oakland must ensure that our residents in need are able to access the County’s supportive servic

es, regardless of language or technological barriers, and not waste funds duplicating ef forts.

Third, we must ensure that we prioritize homelessness prevention, whether tenants or homeowners, from losing their homes. The city should re-allo cate some of its homelessness dollars to provide emergency vouchers to at-risk individuals, prioritizing households with children and elders.

Finally, we must ensure that we are able to build sufficient housing, especially that which is affordable. Oakland is cur rently producing under 10% of our state Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) requirements for very low-in

Guillermo Cespedes is the head of Oakland’s Dept. of Violence Prevention.

Department of Violence Pre vention,” said Kate Wilson, executive director of Gilead Foundation.

Janani Ramachandran

Sarah Syed Brings Transit

and Racial Justice With

Service

Romare Howard Bearden: An Exceptional Talent... P2

Weber Travels State Urging Youth to Get Early Start on Voter Registration... P7

Part 2

People comfort each other in the wake of the school shooting Wednesday afternoon on the King Estates complex in East Oakland. Photo courtesy of KTVU2.

Sarah Syed Brings Transit Equity and Racial Justice with Better Bus Service

By Sarah Syed

Monique is a working moth er. She is up at 6am to make breakfast and get the kids to daycare just in time to catch a second bus to work. She de pends on AC Transit to clock in on time and to get her kids from childcare before they charge a late penalty. As an essential worker, Monique could not stop riding the bus during the pandemic, but it hasn’t been the same since. The bus comes less often and so she must be much more deliberate planning her day, ensuring that she can put food on the table and give her kids opportunities for a bet ter future. Just like Monique depends on the bus, we depend on her.

Monique’s experience is felt by tens of thousands of essen tial workers, many of whom are residents in Deep East Oakland and communities of color across the Bay Area. And some of the deadliest roads for children and people who walk and bike are in the same com munities that have the fewest grocery stores and the highest rents compared to income.

My graduate training in transportation planning and engineering at UC Berkeley taught me how to provide anal ysis of transportation options so decision makers can make informed choices. But our educational system and tradi tional planning practices have ignored the pervasive issues of

segregation, displacement, and exclusion from opportunity. The regional planning process does the same, and because of ignoring present conditions, we don’t consider how money can address those challenges.

More and better bus service is a racial justice issue. Yet, it is harder to get money to pay for more buses than to get money to build expensive highways and trains. Money to run more bus service is essential for people like Monique to get to work, to doctor’s appointments and church and get her kids to school.

Residents of underserved communities are the experts in understanding what they need. They live at the intersection of a whole range of “issue silos” – unaffordable housing and rising rents, inadequate transit service, an unhealthy urban en vironment, and poor economic

prospects – and see firsthand the cumulative impacts on the lives of their families and neighbors. By building bridges to groups trusted by residents, planning agencies can engage the collective wisdom of com munity residents in the process of identifying unmet needs and metrics that correlate well with their priority concerns, so we can compare alternative in vestment approaches and mea sure progress year by year.

Civil rights laws are de signed to challenge discrimi natory decisions after they have been made and are lim ited in their ability to redress the decades of accumulated structural racism. Since most money to pay for transporta tion projects are provided by the public, projects and service should aim to resolve dispari ties in access to housing, jobs, healthcare, groceries, and quality of life destinations.

Whether it’s the refusal to learn from history or building a bureaucratic maze where no one listens to transit riders, our leaders have been quiet quit ting on transportation equity. And so, we have some choices in the coming months at the ballot box. As your next AC Transit Director, I’ll champion policy-based interventions to resolve equity gaps, advocate for equitable hiring and per sonnel practices, and work to build broad, multiracial coali tions willing to stand up for bus transit and communicate its value in ways that inspire members of the public and po tential political allies for more bus money. When we improve bus service, we make our cities better places to live and help address some of America’s

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Romare Howard Bearden: An Exceptional Talent Expressed in Paint, Collage, Illustration

By Tamara Shiloh

It was his greatgrandmother’s Cherokee stories that held young Romare Bearden’s (1911–1988) attention and caused him to dream as the north bound train to a place people called “freedom” rumbled by blowing its whistle in the dis tance. Romare would later ride that same train, watching the Black Southern world through its windows, storing the imag es in his mind. Those images would later become the scenes captured in his famous paint ing Watching the Good Trains Go By.

Charlotte, N.C., New York City and Pittsburgh became the cities of Bearden’s child hood. Each left memories and impressions on him as an artist that would come to full expres sion decades later. But it was Pittsburgh where he’d met his childhood friend Eugene Bai ley, who taught Bearden to draw. Bailey though, died in 1925, and Bearden lost his in terest in art. But not for long, as it was his passion.

Bearden began his college studies at Lincoln University, then Boston University, and graduated with a bachelor’s in mathematics from New York University. During his time there, he studied art. It was the first time he’d considered it as a career and took on the posi tion of lead cartoonist and then art editor for NYU’s monthly journal The Medley. He also attended the Art Students League in New York, the Sor bonne in Paris, and in 1935, began a two-year stint as a weekly editorial cartoonist for

the Baltimore Afro-American. He also worked for the Satur day Evening Post and Colliers magazines.

A social worker with the New York City Department of Social Services, Bearden worked on his craft during the nights and on weekends. His art was recognized during his first solo exhibition in Harlem (1940). More success followed during his 1944 solo show in Washington, DC. According to critics, Bearden’s “collages, watercolors, oils, photomon tages and prints are imbued with visual metaphors from his past in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Pittsburgh and Harlem and from a variety of historical, literary and musical sources.”

During his lifetime, his works were exhibited through out the United States and Eu rope.

Bearden is recognized as one of the most creative and original visual artists of the twentieth century. His life and art are described as being “marked by exceptional talent, encompassing a broad range of intellectual and scholarly interests, including music, per

forming arts, history, literature and world art.” His collages are praised for their visual meta phors honoring his past, Black culture, and the human experi ence.

According to the New York Times, Bearden once asserted that it was not “my aim to paint about the Negro in America in terms of propaganda … [but] the life of my people as I know it, passionately and dispassion ately as [Pieter] Breughel. My intention is to reveal through pictorial complexities the life I know.”

Bearden had strong commit ment to supporting both young and emerging artists, and therefore created the Bearden Foundation.

MulticulturalBookstore. com recommends: Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson wrote about the lives of 36 sig nificant Black artists in “A His tory of African-American Art ists: From 1792 to the Present.”

Send your church notes, stories and events to Post News Group, Email at ads@ postnewsgroup.com

During a Flex Alert, take a load off between 4PM and 9PM. Together, we can prevent outages with simple adjustments like air drying clothes.

Learn more about easing the grid to save money at PowerSaverRewards.org

The Power is Ours

“After Church.” By Romare Bearden courtesy of WikiCom mons.

Essential workers are there for us, let’s fight for transit to be there for them

Sarah Syed

Oakland residents needed more community-centered coverage

That’s why the team at Cityside Journalism Initiative created The Oaklandside. Launched with support from Google, The Oaklandside grew out of a mission to inform and give voice to underserved Oakland residents.

Through deep audience engagement, The Oaklandside helped readers navigate the pandemic, proving the value of local news that’s for — not just about — its community.

Learn more about how Google supports local news g.co/supportingnews/local

Secretary of State Weber Travels State Urging Youth to Get Early Start on Voter Registration

By Solomon O. Smith California Black Media

As part of a broad civic education initiative, High School Voters Registration Week, California Secretary of State Shirley Nash Weber has been traveling across the state encouraging young peo ple to register to vote.

High School Voter Reg istration Week occurs in the last weeks of April and Sep tember and offers preregis tration, mock voting trials, guidance for teachers and ad ministrators, and other tools to help young people get an early start in voting.

Advertising, speaking tours, and videos aimed at fu ture voters are part of the ar senal Weber’s office is using to reach voters.

At the legal voting age of 18, many young voters are in their first years of college or at the end of high school. Through volunteering and education, they are encour aged to participate in the pro cess as early as possible.

Last week, Weber spoke to students at John W. North High School in Riverside County as part of her state wide voting education tour.

“California allows us to register students as early as 16, to preregister for vot ing,” said Weber. “We also allow those at 16 years old to work in the polls, so we want

to encourage voting at every level.”

On National Voting Reg istration Day, on September 20, she was at Dodger Sta dium reaching out to citi zens and encouraging them to register. The holiday was established by a non-partisan group in 2012, with the goal of increasing voter registra tion and recruiting volunteers to work at polling places. The National Association of Sec retaries of State and the Na tional Association of State Election Directors are among the organizations endorsing the holiday, according to their website.

Weber is the first Black woman to hold the position of Secretary of State in Califor nia after being appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020. She was sworn in on Jan. 29, 2021.

Her office is responsible for more than accounting for the vote, preparing for elec tions and campaign filings. She is also responsible for business filings and the his torical archives of the state.

Weber is one of three Black women in the United States who are Secretaries of State.

Tahesha Way of New Jersey

Continued on page 9

Chancellor Expands Financial Aid for Community College Students

By Aldon Thomas Stiles California Black Media

New and updated financial support for the state’s commu nity college attendees, includ ing changes to the Cal Grant and expanded aid for new and returning students, has been announced by California Com munity Colleges Chancellor Dr. Daisy Gonzales.

Gonzales told California Black Media (CBM) that she wants college hopefuls to know that these programs, which are described in the “I Can Go to College” campaign, can be ac cessed at icangotocollege.com and that the grants do not need to be paid back.

Aside from grants, the web site offers online mentorships for students.

The need for these pro grams, Gonzales said, were de veloped with students in mind as her office conducted state wide surveys.

“What has been very inten tional during this pandemic is that we went straight to the students. We’re not guessing here,” she said. “We were very intentional in doing student outreach, interviews and focus groups.”

The average tuition cost for state community college is a little under $2,000 per year while private community col leges average over $21,000 in tuition costs.

This doesn’t include books and other fees.

The Chancellor’s office as serts that there are over 200 programs available to com munity college students to help with these costs.

There are programs like the Student Success Comple tion Grant, which now offers $4,000 per semester for stu dents taking 15 or more units, and $1,298 per semester for students taking 12-14.9 units, expanded eligibility for the California College Promise Grant fee waiver, the Cal Grant Entitlement Award for students attending community colleges, and grants available to current and former foster youth.

Other programs like the Middle Class Scholarship, designated for students with a household income of over $200,000, who may not qualify for other federal grants, are ex amples of the chancellor office attempting to provide aid for students who would otherwise not have it.

Another program being of

fered to students is the Golden State Education and Training Program. It is a grant of $2,500 for anyone who lost their job during the pandemic and has entered a career training pro gram to help them get back to work.

According to Ken Brown, immediate past president of the California Community Col leges Trustee Board and vice president of the El Camino Community College District, this is the business of Califor nia’s community colleges.

“Our assumption is that not everybody who goes to college is trying to get a four-year de gree, not everybody who goes to community college is even trying to get an associate’s de gree. Many of the folks who go to college are trying to get trained up or retrained,” Brown told CBM.

Nationwide, fewer people are going to community col

To read the full story, go to postnewsgroup.com

Secretary of State Shirley Weber (left) is greeted by Jurupa Uni fied School District President Melissa Ragole (center) and Riv erside Unified School District Vice President Dr. Angelo Farooq.

Sarah Syed Brings Transit Equity and Racial Justice with Better Bus Service

deepest problems. Join Team #SarahforTransit

at https://www.sarahfortransit.

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postnewsgroup.comTHE POST, Sept. 28-Oct. 4, 2022, Page 8 Continued from page 2 Affordable Apartment Homes Available in Oakland 9415 International Blvd, Oakland, Ca 94603 54 studio, one, two and three bedroom affordable rental units available Rents: Studio $1,178, 1 BR $1,255, 2 BR $1,492; 3BR $1,710. 27 of these affordable units will include Section 8 Project Based Voucher (PBV) rental assistance administered by the Oakland Housing Authority (OHA). 14 of the PBV units will be set aside for referrals of homeless individuals and families from the Alameda County Coordinated Entry System (CES). PBV program participants will pay up to 30% of their Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) as their portion of rent which will be calculated by the OHA at eligibility screening All households must be income eligible and meet occupancy guidelines. Households must earn no more than the maximum income levels listed below: 50% of Area Median Income Household Size 1 Person 2 Persons 3 Persons 4 Persons 5 Persons 6 Person Max Annual Income $50,000 $57,150 $64,300 $71,400 $77, 150 $82,850 Application and lottery information can be found on the Alameda County Housing Portal at housing.acgov.org starting on 9/26/2022 Electronic and paper applications are due by 5pm on 10/10/2022 For more information please visit us at www.ActsCherryHill.com, email us at ActsCherryHill@related.com or call our information line at 510 343 9405 TTY 711 Income limits are subject to change based on changes to the Area Median Income as published by HUD, and the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee. cludes Oakland, San Leandro, and Alameda. She has a mas ter’s in transportation plan ning and engineering from UC-Berkeley.

Jazz Saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, 81

By Post Staff

Jazz saxophonist Farrell ‘Pharoah’ Sanders, a pioneer of ‘spiritual’ jazz who lived in Oak land for a time before gaining renown in New York with John Coltrane’s band in the1960s, passed away in Los Angeles on Sept. 24, 2022. He was 81.

“We are devastated to share that Pharoah Sanders has passed away,” family representatives tweeted Saturday morning. “He died peacefully surrounded by loving family and friends in Los Angeles earlier this morning. Al ways and forever the most beauti ful human being, may he rest in peace.”

Tributes like this from on You Tube by nbaccess were seen on social media.

“Pharoah was like John Col trane. So soft and tempered in the daily life and human interactions but incredibly powerful and soul ful when he blown this horn...he was a truly Spiritual Man, just as John. Ornette Coleman famously said that Pharoah is probably “the best tenor saxophonist in the world”. I don’t think we will hear such kind of artists for a long long time...RIP Pharoah. Your musik is your true essence and will nev er die!”

“My beautiful friend passed away this morning. I am so lucky to have known this man, and we are all blessed to have his art stay with us forever. Thank you, Phar oah,” said San Shepard, whose stage name is Floating Points.

A visionary amongst visionar ies. Pharaoh forever.” Thurston Moore Tweeted.

Born in Little Rock, Ark., on Oct. 13, 1940, Sanders showed early aptitude for music, play ing several instruments includ ing drums and clarinet before he settled on the tenor sax in high school.

“I was always trying to figure

out what I wanted to do as a ca reer. What I really wanted to do was play the saxophone—that was one of the instruments that I really loved,” Sanders told The New Yorker. “I would rent the school saxophone. You could rent it every day if you wanted to. It wasn’t a great horn. It was sort of beat-up and out of condition.”

Nevertheless, Sannders played in Little Rock’s Black clubs and sometimes from behind curtains at white venues in the segregated city. At 19, he moved to Oakland and attended Oakland City Col lege while collaborating with lo cal jazz greats including Dewey Redman and Sonny Simmons.

“I never owned a saxophone until I finished high school and went to Oakland, California. I had a clarinet, and so I traded that for a new silver tenor saxophone, and that got me started playing the tenor.”

John Handy encouraged his talent, advising him to move to New York, which he did in 1961.

There Sanders was often homeless, pawning his horn and sleeping on the subways before he recorded his first album in 1964. He eventually got the atten tion of John Coltrane and joined his band in 1965.

According to Sanders’ web site, “(Coltrane and Sanders) mu sic represents a near total deser tion of traditional jazz concepts, like swing and functional harmo ny, in favor of a teeming, irregu larly structured, organic mixture of sound for sound’s sake.”

“Sanders has consistently had

bands that could not only create a lyrical near-mystical Afro-East ern world,” wrote one champion, the late poet-critic Amiri Baraka, “but [also] sweat hot fire mu sic in continuing display of the so-called ‘energy music’ of the ‘60s.”

Exploring spiritual jazz -which Coltrane had begun to do before his death in 1967 -- Sand ers would go on to play with, Al ice Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra. It was Sun Ra who supposedly suggested Sand ers change his given name from ‘Farrell’ to ‘Pharoah.’

In 1969, Sanders recorded the album “Karma,” featuring “The Creator Has a Master Plan.”

It was his most renowned work, but Sanders was comfort able moving in and out of genres. He earned a Grammy for his1987 album with the pianist McCoy Tyner called “Blues for Col trane.”

A decade earlier, he recorded with singer Phyllis Hyman in what could be called the pop 1977 album “Love Will Find a Way.”

Sanders would go on to lead and collaborate with jazz musi cians here and abroad, record and tour through the 1990s.

A composition by British electronic music producer Float ing Points prompted Sanders to seek out a collaboration in the 2010s. The album, “Promises,” was recorded with the London Symphony orchestra in 2019 and released in 2021 to positive reviews.

It was his first album in 10 years and his last.

Services for Sanders have not yet been announced.

Sources for this story include The Guardian, YouTube, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, People magazine, National Pub lic Radio, Facebook and Pharo ah Sanders’ website.

Comcast RISE Seeks Applicants from Small Businesses Owned by Women, People of Color for $10,000 Grant

By Adriana Arvizo

Women, regardless of their race and ethnicity, and Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and Asian American small busi ness owners in Oakland will have the opportunity to apply for a $10,000 grant from the Comcast RISE Investment Fund, which will issue grants totaling $1 million.

Eligible businesses can ap ply online at www.Comcas tRISE.com from October 3 through October 16, 2022, for one of the 100 $10,000 grants.

To be eligible for the grant, businesses must:

• Have established business operations for three or more years

• Have one to 25 employees

• Be based within Oakland, California city limits

The Investment Fund is coming to Oakland for the second year in a row and is an extension of Comcast RISE (Representation, Investment, Strength, and Empowerment), the multi-year, multi-faceted initiative launched in 2020 to provide small businesses owned by people of color the opportunity to apply for mar keting and technology services from Comcast Business and Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable.

If a business is not eligible for the Comcast RISE Invest ment Fund, applications are also open for marketing and technology services. In fact, 160 businesses in Oakland have already been selected as Comcast RISE recipients.

“The advertising campaign and technology services have allowed me to reach and ser vice new audiences,” said Oak land resident Judi Townsend,

owner of Mannequin Madness. She has benefited from the program three times, with the production and placement of a TV commercial, a technology makeover and a $10,000 grant. “The application process was easy, and I encourage my fel low eligible business owners to apply for the grant or the other benefits.”

“When we launched Com cast RISE, we knew a pro found need existed in many of the communities we serve,” said John Gauder, regional se nior vice president of Comcast California. “We have now seen firsthand how the program’s marketing and technology re sources benefit small business owners who continue to work hard and rise above 2020’s im pact.

“Today, with Oakland re ceiving additional funding as a Comcast RISE Investment Fund grant city, we are ex cited to see how this infusion of funding will continue to propel businesses to thrive,” Gauder said. “We know the impacts will be fruitful and far reaching, especially with this

year’s program expansion for women-owned businesses.”

To help drive outreach and awareness about Comcast RISE and provide additional support, training and mentor ship, Comcast has also award ed $50,000 to six chambers of commerce in the Oakland area. The organizations are:

• The Oakland AfricanAmerican Chamber of Com merce Foundation

• The Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Foun dation

• The Chinatown Chamber of Commerce

• The Latino Chamber of Commerce

• The Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce

• The Unity Council

Comcast RISE is part of a larger $100 million Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initia tive that Comcast launched last summer. In June 2020, Comcast NBCUniversal an nounced the development of a comprehensive, multi-year plan to allocate $75 million in cash and $25 million in me dia over the next three years to fight injustice and inequal ity against any race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orien tation or ability.

Grant recipients will also receive a complimentary 12-month membership to the coaching program from Ure eka, an online platform for en trepreneurs, to help them build skills, gain more customers and become financially stable.

More information and the applications to apply for ei ther the grant program or the marketing and technology services are available at www.

ComcastRISE.com.

Pharoah Sanders. Facebook photo.

Judi Townsend, owner of Man nequin Madness and Tamika Miller, owner of Cuticles Nails Spa. Both businesses are lo cated in Oakland and have received multiple awards from the Comcast RISE program.

Training Youth on How 2 End Hostilities

hear my story on how I wound up in the Youth Authority (CYA) and did 5 years in fed eral prison for a bank robbery charge.”

Minister King X also known as Pyeface, said he was inspired by Richard Johnson’s call to the community to have former gang leaders and for merly incarcerated persons to spread the word through our networks with the message that these shootings and vio lence activities will unwitting ly play into the hands of those who want to incarcerate them as the only solution.

He told the Post, “We need to be smart about how to re solve our various problems by not using guns.”

He told Richard Johnson and Jonathan Jones from the African American Sports and Entertainment Group that he wants the youth, gang mem bers and the Chaplains “to

“I served over 20 plus years in prison. I was a foot soldier in the beginning upholding what I perceived as my principals and morals when I thought cleaning up my own mess was something honorable. Then it backfired on me when I was charged for possession of a prison made weapon and was sent to solitary confinement and I was subjected to a prison validation based upon false confidential information for a few more years.”

Despite his rude awaken ing, he said he joined as the youngest Black to help orga nize the California Prisoners’ Hunger Strikes while there were also elder prisoners held in solitary confinement for decades based upon their teachings of settling their own Quarrels amongst each other

and other oppressed groups.

“And, while I was in Peli can Bay, I petitioned to estab lish an anti-hostility campaign to promote the Agreement to End All Hostilities (AEH) inside and outside of Califor nia Prisons…I then, through K.A.G.E. Universal, begin to work inside the prison with other elders to organize an agreement to end all hostili ties,” Minister King X said.

“That’s why we need to use all forms of street credibility

that we have to seek an end to these hostilities and work with the Post, the Chaplains, AAS EG and the many formerly Incarcerated groups to get the community involved with us to help end these hostilities.”

Six Wounded in Oakland School Shooting

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to respond to help provide counseling and family support as parents arrived to pick up their children. Pastor Scott said she would be calling for City leaders, community-based groups, youth and the formerly incarcerated messengers “to

come together in a spirit of unity to provide answers and to respond to the needs of those participating in violence.”

City council members Treva Reid and Loren Taylor both at tended to provide statements of support to the families of the children.

City Receives $3 Million Grant to Advance Violence Prevention

Continued from page 1 on the family systems model, targeted specifically at Oak land Unified School District (OUSD) schools for schoolsite violence intervention and prevention teams.

Students who are routinely

exposed to violence at home or in the community often experience toxic stress that leads to cognitive impair ment, hyperactivity, and at tention deficits that make it challenging to succeed in the classroom.

Exposure to violence also contributes to lower school attendance and a higher like lihood of suspension, which further promotes disengage ment from school.

Using a public health approach, the DVP will

strengthen family, school, and community contexts for OUSD school students living in neighborhoods with high rates of violence, to reduce their exposure to violence and increase their chances of suc ceeding academically.

Vote ‘No’ on Props 26 & 27: Both Are Bad for California

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cial assistance that is peren nially insufficient. The result of tribal-sponsored gaming — currently earning hundreds

of millions annually — has brought tremendous uplift in the political, economic, health, and social life of Indian tribes and peoples. Casino profits are

Oaklander Wins National Youth Education Award

shared with non-casino tribes and these efforts, though lag ging, are continuing and con stantly improving.

While Indian casinos are thriving and producing admi rable widespread improve ments, tribal leaders of some of the largest casinos initiated Proposition 26 with the goal of slyly piggy-backing on the possible success of Proposi tion 27, solely due to greed, not need for new, unlimited rev enue. VOTE ‘NO.’

Proposition 27 Proposition 27 was qualified for the ballot by deceptive pro paganda. Paid signature col lectors told signers that “this new measure will raise money to end homelessness in Cali fornia.” Proposition 27 was not initiated, nor promoted by California Indian tribes, but by out-of-state corporations that sought to take advantage of the universal desire of California voters to end homelessness to gether with the compassion of state voters to lift up the plight of California’s Native peoples from the violent repression of the past.

The Indian Gaming Regula tory Act of 1988 correctly ac knowledged the sovereignty of Indigenous people and the right of tribes to operate gambling

casinos on tribal land. This Act has successfully improved the quality of life for Indian tribes and produces millions in reve nues that is shared among both casino and non-casino tribes, which bureaucratic federal and state government financial as sistance could never replicate.

Proposition 27 would astro nomically expand to unlimited types of gambling well beyond being confined to casinos on In dian land to online phenomena available to everyone, includ ing minors with a cell phone, or varieties of digital devices.

Arguments for the measure blatantly lie in many ways:

• That revenue from online gaming will uplift poorer, noncasino Indian tribes. Impartial analysis shows that at least 90% of revenue from the expansion will go into the pockets of the out-of-state carpetbaggers who wrote the measure specifically for their selfish enrichment;

• That revenue from the measure will end homeless ness. Besides there being little revenue to allocate, voters need only to recall that the “selling point” years ago for approv ing the California State Lottery was the promise that lottery revenue “would forever end

To read the full story, go to postnewsgroup.com

While the shooting was oc curring in East Oakland at the Sojourner Truth School site Pyeface said the Oakland Uni fied School District had given his organization a contract to teach the AEH curriculum

within the fourth module of our after-school program. He also said the Comcast Rise program decided to help pro mote their AEH agenda via a 90-day campaign on all their social media platforms.

Innovative Steps to Help Solve Homelessness

Continued from page 1 come housing; in contrast, we have met our goals for marketrate housing.

There’s little doubt as to why – it’s expensive. Each unit of permanent housing may cost up to $500,000 to build. The elimination of redevelop ment agencies under Governor Jerry Brown was a severe blow to Oakland’s ability to build af fordable housing, and we must compensate for that by ensur ing developers pay their fair share.

This involves drafting an inclusionary zoning ordinance (moving away from the current tiered “in-lieu fee” system) to ensure that developers either include a percentage of afford able units in new buildings, or pay an impact fee, up front and at the start of construction, that directly funds other affordable housing projects.

But the private sector should

not shoulder this burden alone – we must be more proactive in applying for competitive state and federal funds. This will require our city to stream line internal processes to help nonprofit or private developers secure local funding (which is generally the first step in apply ing for state and federal grants) with predictable deadlines.

Underlying all of these pri orities, our policymakers must shift their perspective and recognize that those who are housing-insecure or unhoused are not a monolith. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but my stated priorities will hope fully begin to move us forward in the right direction.

Janani Ramachandran is a public interest attorney and former Oakland Public Eth ics Commissioner running for Oakland City Council District 4. For more informationJa naniForOakland.com

Pro-Active vs. Reactive

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As members of the Former ly Incarcerated Giving Back (FIGB), we do understand and recognize some of these root causes and what is truly needed to address them with resolve in mind.

These challenges aren’t new! However, in order to con front them, the approach has to be innovative and indicative of the problem.

We know that violence crosses all boundaries, races and cultures. Our plan is based on what we did in prison that proved to be quite successful at most times. Presently, we are in conference with several influential individuals who are highly respected both inside and outside of prison walls. They also see the destructive nature of mindless violence and are seeking to stop it.

With the understanding that there is no magic wand to wave and that some street formations won’t be receptive to our peace plan, we have started a dia logue to cease hostilities as we did inside of prison.

This approach has a proven

history of being effective and we believe our approach can work because prison is a mi crocosm of society.

Time is of essence because lives are being destroyed each day. Meaningless talk needs to stop, and real action must begin. Since FIGB members aren’t politicians, we see things through different lens.

We desire immediate action via dialogue rather than prom ises. Quite naturally, there will be some CORE demands on both sides.

As previously mentioned, the Oakland Post News Group and AASEG has signed on to assist in this endeavor. This is a war on violence and must be seen as such. We need others to pledge to engage in this war on violence with us.

The Post staff called Pamela Price about Common’s appear ance. She said “I was pleasantly surprised and deeply honored that Common would show up in the fight for justice in Alam eda County. We need the voters to show up on Nov. 8 to finish this race!”

Jessica Ramos, Secretary Miguel Cardona, and Mayor’s Edu cation Director David Silver

This week, #OaklandUndivided was invited to Washington to participate in the National Digital Equity Summit, to learn and share strategies for closing the digital divide for good. While there, Oakland native and former OUSD Student Director Jes sica Ramos received the Hispanic Heritage Foundation’s Nation al Youth Award for Education and met Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona!

Rapper Common joined with some groups in North and west Oakland who were responding to Richard Johnson’s call last week for groups to seek a truce to stop the violence. Common, known for his positive lyrics, also said that leaders must provide solutions and hope for our youth and communities as he pledged to be supportive of Johnson’s call for a community-wide gathering to “save our youth by stopping the violence with unity around jobs, housing and family respect.” Minister King X Pyeface from California Prison Focus/ K.A.G.E. Universal is shown above talking with Artivist Common regarding Richard Johnson’s initiative published in the Oakland Post, com mon and Minister King X Pyeface talked about how we all could establish a parallel society and create Peace on the streets.

Elmo Hamin Dill community and Youth Outreach C.Y.O. formerly incarcerated Giving Back / Minister King X Pyeface California Prison Focus - K.A.G.E. Universal / Formerly incarcerated Giving Back / Richard Johnson founder of Formerly incarcerated Giving Member of Ashker vs . Gov class action. Photos courtesy of Minister King X Pyeface and Jonathan “Fitness” Jones.

Part 2

By an exclusive interview with Minister King X with the Post Staff and Richard Johnson