Living with a Criminal Record

California has a problem with its prisons: they are bursting at the seams. And a big factor in that overcrowding is the parole system. Two thirds of all parolees released in California end up back behind bars -- often for minor infractions. Because of the packed system, a three-judge panel has ordered California to release 40 thousand inmates over the next two years. The state is grappling with how to comply with that new ruling -- its parole system is already overburdened. In Alameda county, seven thousand parolees are released into the community every year, and half of those ex-cons end up in Oakland.

Integrating those people back into society is tough: parolees face challenges in finding jobs, securing places to live, and dealing with restrictions placed on their behavior. As part of our on-going Fault Lines series looking at the roots and solutions to violence in Oakland, Sandhya Dirks reports on the challenges of living with a criminal record.

Life of a Gun in Oakland

According to the police, the deadliest hours in Oakland are between 8 at night and 4 in the morning, and the most vulnerable place to be is on the street. That is especially true if you are a young black man. The Oakland Police Department reports that about 8 out of 10 of the homicide victims last year were African American males, and 112 of last year’s 125 homicides were gun-related. It’s a paradox: young men carry guns around for protection, yet those very guns are what keep the killing rate so high. For our fourth installment of the Oakland Fault Lines Project, reporter Sarah Gonzalez went out to deep East Oakland to learn more about guns in the community. She wanted to start with the beginning of a guns life on the streets: buying one.

(Photo taken by reporter Sarah Gonzalez)

The Corner

“Get it straight: there not just out here to sling and shoot drugs. That’s where it all began, to be sure, but thirty years has transformed the corner into something far more lethal and lasting than a simple marketplace. The men and women who live the corner life are redefining themselves at incredible cost, cultivating meaning in a world that has declared them irrelevant…. lives without any obvious justification are given definition through a simple, self sustaining capitalism.”

-David Simon and Edward Burns, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner City Neighborhood, pg 58.

For any of you HBO junkies out there, Simon and Burns are also the minds behind The Wire. Some of the best, smartest, and most compassionate television ever made, in my personal opinion. Oakland is very different than Baltimore, and even Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit. Unlike these Northern cities, which integrated in unprecedented numbers as an aftermath of slavery, Oakland was part of California’s promised land. Many African Americans relocated to Oakland from the Southwest, in search of jobs with the railroad and other industries. You can still hear the Southern twang mixed into the accents of many residents of East and West Oakland.

But when the Southern Pacific railway went silent, so did many industrial jobs—factories like the regional facility for Granny Goose, and for Gerber, closed their doors as they did in so many places, leaving people without employment. Following the 1970’s, Deep East Oakland became known as home to some of the most notorious streets in California. Before this it had been practically suburban, something still evidenced by the houses and street layout. This is another unique aspect of East Oakland. Despite sharing a sister status with Baltimore, Oakland has (other than possibly the San Antonio Villa Projects made famous by local kingpin Felix Mitchell) no major series of government-built housing projects. There is nothing like Harlem’s depressing bleak mini skyscrapers, or Chicago’s Cabrini Green. But with the closing factories and the mass exodus of (mostly white) middle class families, it started to become the streets we now know as epicenters of violence. As Burns and Simon put it:

“This is an existential crisis rooted not only in race—which the corner has slowly transcended—but in the unresolved disaster of the American rust-belt, in the slow, seismic shift that is shutting down the assembly lines, devaluing physical labor, and undercutting the union pay scale” (The Corner, pg. 59).

There is a message in Burns and Simon about the psychological cost of the death of the working-class American dream. It created the corner, that poverty and lack of hope created the culture of the underground economy. The introduction of crack cocaine here filled a double bill. Ready addicts whose depressed circumstances and lack of economic options made it all too easy for them to fall victim to a drug that dulled the pain. And side by side, it created a marketplace where finally, young black men had a chance to make money, by selling those drugs.

But the underlying message is haunting. The death of working-class America does indeed, transcend race. The death of one way of life with no replacement jobs, with no opportunities or hope to fill the void, will only create more corners, and next time not primarily in black neighborhoods. Maybe then we will take notice and not stick to the safe -- and, I think, sometimes hidden -- assumption that this happened to them but not us.

And when you talk about the crack epidemic to many residents, you realize it is commonly accepted here that crack was introduced by the government. In part to subvert the revolutionary fervor that the sixties and seventies brought to a boil in black neighborhoods across the country. Look no further than the Black Panther Party. Understanding how the past brought us to where we are is essential. But it isn’t enough. Again, I quote Simon and Burns:

“How do we bridge the chasm? How do we begin to reconnect to those now lost to the corner world? As a beginning, at least, we need to shed our fixed perceptions and see it fresh, from the inside….

“We need to start over, to admit that somehow the forces of history and race, economic theory and human weakness have conspired to create a new and peculiar universe in our largest cities. Our rules and imperatives don’t work down here. We’ve got to leave behind the useless baggage of a society and culture that still maintains the luxury of reasonable judgments” (The Corner, pg 60).

Some how, at some point, the rules for surviving changed here.

I met many police officers in my work, good and loyal men. Including OPD’s Deputy Chief Kozicki, who despite his gruff demeanor shows an honesty and willingness to discuss that is hopeful. Yet in the interview and panel discussion we held, Deputy Chief Kozicki kept saying that the community must fix itself, as if this was a tacit admission that police are coming in from the outside. Police are, or at least should be, part of the community. And when a broken community needs fixing, all parts must be fixed. Fault lines are not just divides; they are also the spider cracks that exist everywhere. If we are truly to reach out to the truth of the corner there cannot be an us and them mentality. We cannot superimpose, we must instead endeavor to understand. And in this process, each one of us must take a certain amount of responsibility. The police are the community. I am the community. I cannot remove myself from the Deep East. It may be isolated and insular, but the only way to change that is to not let it be. They are our children, our neighbors, our friends, and our compatriots. And until we learn how to practice that in reality, I firmly believe that nothing can change.

Streetology

“If you completely ran out of money today, what would you do? For food? To find a job? Tell me, what would you do?”

Cesaire Kennedy, an East Oakland resident who recently became homeless, asked me that question. I’ve thought about this before actually. What I would do if I suddenly ran out of money and had no support group to fall back on. I suppose it’s kind of a morbid thought, but in any case I have come up with a couple of money-making ideas that could get me by from day to day —at least in the beginning— if I ever was in that situation. In deep East Oakland, it seems almost like everyone thinks and lives life this way: one day at a time.

Usually when you ask a child what they want to be when they grow up, their response shows some kind of long term commitment, like going to college or getting some kind of training. But here, in the deep East, so many teens and children told me they don’t really see the point in investing in their futures. The constant threat of death that lingers over them makes them seek instant gratification. Money in their pockets now, because tomorrow is uncertain. It’s heartbreaking in many ways, but so empowering in others.

You can sense the entrepreneurial spirit and rugged individualism that motivates the residents here. Even children as young as 6 and 7 possess this intense drive to make money, on their own, and relying on nothing but ingenuity. Some call this hustling. Here it’s called having “streetology.”

When three 11-year-old kids stood outside of a Valero gas station on Macarthur Blvd to fundraise, they went far beyond a typical lemonade stand. They gave well-rehearsed speeches and prepared a fairly legitimate looking donation sheet. They were asking gas station customers to donate money for their basketball uniforms. But it turns out, it was actually just a scam. A scam organized by these elementary school-aged children. I agree it’s mischievous, but when you look past that, these kids demonstrated something greater: initiative. They were poised, not at all shy, and very good public speakers. They invested time into their money-making scheme. They were clever — the image of an “11-year-old used-car salesman” came to mind.

It seems so many residents possess this same drive and resourcefulness when it comes to working. Of course the work ethic is different though. There are very few businesses here, but many of the young residents said they don’t even want to work a formal job. And there are many different reasons why. For one, you can make a day’s worth of money by standing on a street corner for just a few hours, selling drugs. And the drug market in Oakland is very unique. It isn’t this highly organized operation. Most dealers are pretty much on their own, with the exception of the occasional “lookout.” The drug trade is another example of the incredibly individualistic mindset of the streets.

Other deep East residents told me they choose not to work formal jobs because employers make them feel like they aren’t good enough — because of the way they dress and speak. They say they feel like they are forced to compromise their personalities and behavior too much.

“You just want to be yourself no matter what,” resident Daniel Smith told me. “And [employers] really, they want you to act like white people. You know act like prim and proper and speak well and be very polite and you know talk about golf with the customer please, which somebody has told me. And it’s like, no, that’s not me. I want to talk about cars or something.”

Personally, this doesn’t really make sense. It seems like we all have to compromise, in the workplace and in life. Even a street worker has to negotiate and act a certain way to make a sale. But I do understand how having your character constantly judged and criticized by an employer could make you want to leave and not go back. And even in those times when I don’t understand, I know that I don’t need to. I haven’t been faced with the same disadvantages as many of the residents here. We don’t need to understand that mentality. We just need to understand that this mentality was something we somehow helped create.

Fault Lines Voices: Akeila "Yung16" Tolson

16-year-old Akeila Tolson is one of the Youth UpRising contributors to this series. She is a thoughtful and creative young poet and rapper, who learned to love music from her older brother. She tells us about her experience looking up to him as she grew up in East Oakland, and how he inspired her to take charge of her future.

Oakland's Vibrant Street Economy

(Photo taken by reporter Sarah Gonzalez at Youth Alive in Oakland)

For the third installment of our series, reporter Sarah Gonzalez explores the unique entrepreneurial spirit that is still alive and well in Oakland, despite the almost 16% unemployment rate there. The street economy is all about hustling, and Gonzalez finds that even though many hustles are innocent and "legitimate," the conditions of the street economy make it easy to slide into the criminal and violent hustling game.

Five Years of Measure Y Part 2: Street Outreach

For part 2 of Sandhya Dirks' report on Oakland's Measure Y, now five years since it was passed, Sandhya took a closer look at another integral part of the violence prevention initiative: street outreach teams.  The teams are made up of ex-gang members and ex-convicts that are using their street cred to stop the violence where it starts.  They go out at night, and will reach out to "loved ones," basically anyone that they think could use their help, which means they refer them to Measure Y service providers.

These outreach teams were tapped to join a new initiative that is called the Oakland Gang Reduction Intervention and Prevention Program, or O-GRIPP.  The program is modeled after Ceasefire, a very hands-on, and focused approach to dealing with violence already tried in cities like Boston and Chicago.  Ceasefire gets mixed reviews, and in Oakland's case, some wonder why a new initiative is being partly funded by Measure Y, without voter approval.

Listen in on Sandhya's piece, and let us know YOUR thoughts.  How do you feel about a program like O-GRIPP?  What would you propose as a possible approach?  Comment here at this blog, or by calling in at (415) 264-7106.  You can also email us at news@kalw.org.

The one where we go out at night...

The one where we go out at night—and learn we shouldn’t go out at night.

So we’ve acquired some guides through this project—guides who are giving us access passes to areas of Oakland I wouldn’t, maybe even couldn’t, normally set forth in. On this particular night we go out to meet our guide, let’s call him Dusty. Dusty is going to introduce us to residents of the neighborhood—friends of his, neighbors, people he knows from his thirty-eight years in this neighborhood. We get into Sarah’s car- and head in deep past International. In front of a house, a car idles while a women leans into the passenger window having a private conversation. In the meantime, guys are hanging out on the stoop and the sidewalk. Night is falling, and the dark makes things feel both more connected and more tinged with danger.

Sarah and I walk up, and instantly everyone is paying attention. A little hyper guy who says his name is Leon starts in at us. He’s got a pint of Hennessey in one hand, and he is smoking a joint with the other. Standing next to him is a tall gentle giant that everyone calls Slim. His dark, wise face is kind—like a monk or a Buddha. He is the person we gravitate towards, even as Leon does most of the talking.

First comes the flirting. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. Flirting has subtlety to it, Leon isn’t trying to be subtle; he is trying to rattle us.

“Ooh you are fine… fine... you ever been with a black man...? But was he from the street? Cause I’m from the street. The street, you hear me?” He says he likes me cause I’m white. Really.

Okay, that’s preliminaries. We try to brush off the heavy come-ons, which don’t seem to even be geared towards getting anywhere except proving something. Leon, he’s a fire-wire, a short man, and the term Napoleon complex, yeah, that is floating somewhere in the back of my mind.

Dusty tells us to say what we are doing. We’ve memorized the standard introduction by now… a project about violence in Oakland. Reporters. But Leon’s hide raises up.

First thing he says… “Yeah sure I will give you a story, but what you gonna give me. Yeah, if we HAVE SEX, I’ll talk.” And yes, I am paraphrasing. Also cleaning it up. But it wasn’t suggested, it was said outright. “You know reporters got to do all sorts of crazy things to get a story.”

Again we try to laugh it off. To make light. To not take it too seriously. But Leon is angered, and he’s trying to get a reaction out of us.

“What you want to talk to me, you want to RECORD me. You gotta come to my level, you can’t just come out here, you got to drink with us, smoke with us…”

That is fair, in its way—we are outsiders and as much as Leon is trying to get to us with his sexual suggestions, he is trying to make us feel outside.

We try to tell Leon more about the project and he gets rowdy. We say we want to hear his stories, and ask him some questions… all of a sudden his eyes get dead serious and his voice gets loud and terrifying.

“What the F*&%. I ain’t gonna tell you S*%@.” He stares at us directly. On the last word he looks crazy, unhinged. Then he breaks into maniacal laughter. Lunging right towards us.

We jump. The man is trying to scare us. And it works. I stay a little too cool, taking not flinching to a level that might be dangerous. But I am determined not to show weakness.

He is enjoying the fact that he’s made two young women break a sweat. But there is a threat to him, an implicit threat that he is trying to put off. He’s set to scare us because we have come to stare. It’s almost that simple. Listening is not always initially an act of love—its can be an act of intrusion. And we have to walk that subtle, snaky line.

It’s time to leave. The temperature has turned and night has cast its close-knit dark over the streets of the Deep East. We can’t forget that it is dangerous here. But we are Dusty’s ride, and he’s lingering with his friends, not afraid.

We’ve recorded nothing of this night—which is bad, because this is a moment a reporter looks to as telling. But which is actually good when Leon looks at us with crazy eyes and says, “Are you recording right now, ARE YOU?” We aren’t. Right before we leave, Sarah and I hear a gun shot go off. It’s loud, like its right next door. Sarah stays cool as a cucumber, and we look at each other, a tacit acknowledgment that, yeah a gun just got shot. Because no one else even bats a lash.

We get back in the car, and drive off. We are rattled. Not just because they were trying to scare us. Not because they did scare us. Or maybe a little bit of both.

Dusty laughs it off. He says that no one will threaten us when he is near, he says Leon was just playing a role. I believe him. Still, fired up on drink and smoke Leon was trying to get a reaction from us. Maybe he got the exact reaction he wanted. But it goes to the point—we influence the situation. We can be part of people fitting into the roles they think they are supposed to play. Like they are putting on a show, putting up a front. And it has to do with race and fear and gender too. It’s confusing. It’s difficult. We are trying to break down stereotypes, and here is a man who is purposefully trying to enforce them. And for us, in that moment, no matter what, it was terrifying.

I couldn’t shake the sense that the role he was trying to play was the role he thought we cast him in. Like he was trying to live up to what he thought we expected.

But at least, after tonight we feel closer to Dusty, who in his way is testing us too. Seeing what we can handle—showing us just how deep the layers can go.

Dusty tells us that in the period after we got in the car and he stayed out there, Leon calmed down. He tells us that “he was just playing a role of that belligerent dude that you run across in the street, that want to act like he’s hard, and scare you.”

And Dusty thinks this is an important lesson for us to learn. Because even though Leon is harmless, “here we call him Napoleon Bonaparte,” Dusty tells us with a laugh, the role he was playing is a familiar one in this neighborhood. “It was relevant, like I said, sometimes we gonna go places and you might run into that cat, that’s really like that.”

There is this whole thing about having to act hard here. A deep pride that comes from being tough, of the street, and even more a pride to being crazy, sometimes. Of course most people we meet are actually, once you break it down and spend enough time, truly sweethearts. Dusty for one. But it is important to remember that we are outsiders, and that as such we are viewed with a certain amount of suspicion. One thing I learn here, in the simple act that no one wants to give us their name, and that many refuse to talk, is that trust is a rare commodity in the Deep East. It’s something you have to earn. Dusty’s earned his through a long history here. He was in the game once, and he still has the street cred that he won the hard way, with time in prison and murders to his name. But now he is known as the hood Unc—the hood Uncle. And to us, he is a guide.

The thing about difference I am learning is that the more you challenge it, the more you have to face its multi-layered frequencies.

 

Five Years of Measure Y Part 1: Community Policing

Yesterday, we aired Sandhya Dirks' first part in the second installment of our series. 

In this two-part story, she takes a look at the violence prevention initiative, Measure Y, approved by Oakland voters five years ago.  Her first part looks at the community policing element of Measure Y through a profile of Problem Solving Officer Clay Burch as he patrols his beat in East Oakland.

Difference is the Watchword

Difference is the watchword

Right outside of Mills college, where the 580 meets Macarthur as it winds its way out of the lovely Laurel District and into East Oakland, there is a word painted on the walls beneath the overpass in gigantic white letters. The word: Difference. I think about those giant letters a lot these days.

I don’t consider myself a white girl—I was raised by an Indian mother and think of myself as fundamentally Desi. But all of my feelings of multi cultural ethnic identity get thrown out the window in deep east Oakland. Here, I don’t really know what else to call myself-- I am a white girl, no matter how much Indian blood might roil in my veins at that description. I am aware that I am the only light face for miles. It really is remarkable how segregated parts of Oakland are. (Other parts of Oakland are incredibly mixed, so it’s not just about race, but this part of East Oakland is primarily African American, and increasingly Latino, so it IS also about race).

My partner Sarah—with her gorgeous deep, dark skin bearing her Mexican heritage, only increases my feeling of being the thing that doesn’t fit. Still both of us are clearly outsiders and difference is the watchword.

I note this because as someone once (briefly) trained in the academy as an anthropologist, I was taught that ethnography was about being an observer. We talked theoretically about the way in the observers presence can change everyone’s behavior. But there was a fundamental drive to attempt objective observation. Part of this was made possible through deep immersion. A kind of making the self invisible through time. Okay, all very academic. But… A lot of the reporting we are doing is about asking questions and maybe in a perfect world we could be flies on the wall. Yet here, we can’t.

And in a perfect world places like the deep East wouldn’t exist as segregated, economically disinvested locales where violence is too often the norm.

In this, very real world, we are young, reasonably attractive women, and we change the reactions. We cause reactions. But this doesn’t mean that what we learn from these interactions isn’t telling, or true. But there is, especially at first, a Schrödinger's cat effect happening when we try to engage people. Reporting is not a one-way street. And just because Deep East Oakland is not a place where you live, or work, or even visit, its creation is not apart from us. It is much more a part of us. It didn’t just spring up from a vasty nothingness.

Neighborhoods like this one were made by history. A great part of the disinvestment of East Oakland occurred when the Macarthur Freeway, our great 580, was built. It effectively destroyed the commercial strip that is now Macarthur Blvd. There are still stores here, but in the Deep East, these are few and far between. Then came the crack epidemic, and government’s top down response to that manifestation of desperation and poverty—the war on drugs, which in many ways was a political policy that criminalized an entire neighborhood and its residents. These are things I try to not forget, communities are made, by outside forces as well as interior ones. We helped create this world. So I am not just an outsider visiting a foreign space. I am visiting a place that I helped to create by the very fact of being an American.

For me there is also this question: Should I not be going into a primarily African American neighborhood to try to document and tell stories? Do I have the right? This is big. I have to wonder this. Again and again.

It’s a question every journalist asks at some point, when you are engaged in the act of telling someone else’s story. But as I noted before, while these are other peoples stories, they are by dint of a common humanity, our stories too. The may be spatially isolated here, but they are so for a reason, and we can’t peel ourselves away from that.

I have come to believe as long as one doesn’t gloss over difference, as long as one is honest and aware of the underlying issues of race at play, it is not a wrong act to work here. For one, we get to know people personally. The creation of relationships, the engagement in conversation is the only way to truly reach across the fault-lines. And spending time with people who live here allows us to begin to understand first hand the issues people live with.

There was one time we went with our friend Tay Peezy to MacDonalds. He drove. Sarah and I got into the backseat and Peezy reminded us to put on our seat belts, “you’re driving with us now, that means you driving while black, so you better buckle up…” It was a joke. But it wasn’t. So we put on our seat belts. 

Voices from the Fault Lines: Community Leader Jakada Imani

For our Fault Lines Project, we want to share "voices" with you that represent the various perspectives on the issue of solutions to violence in Oakland.

Jakada Imani is the executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, an organization that sponsors job training programs for Oakland's youth, and began by decrying police brutality. Imani is featured in many of the pieces that comprise the Fault Lines series. He was born and raised in East Oakland, and shares how he witnessed crack cocaine and the war on drugs transform his Oakland, something that motivated him to become an activist in his community.

Voices From the Fault Lines: Oakland Deputy Chief of Police David Kozicki

 

 (A "word cloud" representing our interview with Deputy Chief of Police David Kozicki...the larger the words, the more frequently they were said during the interview)

For our Fault Lines Project, we want to share "voices" with you that represent the various perspectives on the issue of solutions to violence in Oakland. Deputy Chief of Police David A. Kozicki is featured in all six parts of the series, and also participates in a panel discussion hosted by Crosscurrents with community leaders to discuss ways to bridge the divide.

Deputy Chief Kozicki grew up in Oakland, and has been a police officer for almost 30 years, and thinks the main way to get past the violence is to forge connections within the community and work together.

Series Kick-Off on KALW's Crosscurrents: Oakland Police and The Community

Today at 5pm is the launch of our six-part series on KALW's Crosscurrents, kicking off with Sandhya Dirks' report about the cultural "fault line" between the Oakland Police and many Oakland residents.

The two-part piece delves into the perspective and stories of young men in East Oakland, many of whom feel deep mistrust, even hatred, toward the police.

We follow the piece with a panel discussion between Oakland police and community leaders to get their thoughts on our report, but most importantly, to foster dialogue that can lead to solutions to this issue.  The panel included Deputy Chief of Police David Kozicki, Oakland Police Officer Fred Shavies, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights Jakada Imani, and Youth Block Ambassador for the Urban Peace Movement BJ Phillips.

What do YOU think is the best way to move beyond the antagonism that exists between young people and Oakland police?

Where would you take the dialogue from here?

Share your thoughts and ideas with us at (415) 264-7106, or by email at news@kalw.org.