As far as I've experienced the problems faced in Oakland have always stemmed from the simple fact that many kids of color in East Oakland and West Oakland have nothing to do at all. There's no large community center. No "Laser Tag" or indoor game arcade. No large set of basketball courts. No field of baseball diamonds. Nothing.
Meanwhile, business owners like Ken Rawlings who was founder of Otis Spunkmier Cookies, attempted to build sports fields for East Oakland but ran up against the constant nightmare of political ego and bureaucratic entanglement that is Oakland's goverment, which controls much of East Oakland in the form of the 7,200 acre Coliseum Redevelopment Area, the largest in the State of California.
This problem has grown over a 30-year period of time and while it's reduced somewhat by Oakland's population dynamics, it' has not gone away.
Oakland's kids of color have nothing to do because they live in areas that have been underdeveloped since Oakland's manufacturing base eroded to it's almost non-existent status today from the decades leading up to 1970, and then until 1976.
Now, here's an example of the result. A whole video that not only presents cars spinning donuts in the streets, but young people -- not all of color, white too -- dancing and basically acting up. In my view, the video is not for those under 13 but it should be seen, if only to have a grasp of what's going on in East Oakland and West Oakland.
Note that the video opens with a map of California and then zooms right in on the Bay Area, and then another more detailed map of the East Bay has Oakland at its center, and the camera zooms in on the words "Oakland." That should remove any doubt of where this was filmed.
All of this is set to music, and all of it is set in Oakland.
Here's the video:
Meanwhile, business owners like Ken Rawlings who was founder of Otis Spunkmier Cookies, attempted to build sports fields for East Oakland but ran up against the constant nightmare of political ego and bureaucratic entanglement that is Oakland's goverment, which controls much of East Oakland in the form of the 7,200 acre Coliseum Redevelopment Area, the largest in the State of California.
This problem has grown over a 30-year period of time and while it's reduced somewhat by Oakland's population dynamics, it' has not gone away.
Oakland's kids of color have nothing to do because they live in areas that have been underdeveloped since Oakland's manufacturing base eroded to it's almost non-existent status today from the decades leading up to 1970, and then until 1976.
Now, here's an example of the result. A whole video that not only presents cars spinning donuts in the streets, but young people -- not all of color, white too -- dancing and basically acting up. In my view, the video is not for those under 13 but it should be seen, if only to have a grasp of what's going on in East Oakland and West Oakland.
Note that the video opens with a map of California and then zooms right in on the Bay Area, and then another more detailed map of the East Bay has Oakland at its center, and the camera zooms in on the words "Oakland." That should remove any doubt of where this was filmed.
All of this is set to music, and all of it is set in Oakland.
Here's the video:
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