![]() ![]() “We lost my homegirl to a heroin overdose,” adds a quiet girl in the corner. “So, like, were you there when that happened?” someone butts in. ![]() “Yeah, my brother was killed by a bullet to the head and I lost my cousin too,” David says. Parr starts the meeting with a dark version of show-and-tell: Each teen in turn describes someone they’ve lost. They look like, well, teenagers there’s little to their clean, bright faces to indicate that these fifteen- and sixteen-year olds are frequently locked in violent combat over Fruitvale’s grimy streets and few dusty parks that a few of these girls harbor nightmare memories of being pinned and raped by members of the rival gang. About a dozen kids are sitting on plastic desk chairs and a nubby old couch, girls in denim miniskirts and sandals, boys hiding behind dark glasses. Inside, very young black kids are finger painting with a patient woman in a turban in a windowless room beyond, community organizers Josh Parr and Favianna Rodriquez are leading a meeting of a handful of Norteños who have come saying they want to stop the violence. Fliers stapled to a dark alcove along the side mark the entrance. The kids on the corner deal heroin, crack, sometimes cocaine.Ī block down the street is the Black Dot, a community arts collaborative hidden inside a squat, unassuming building. Souped-up cars roar past, ignoring stop signs, and Norteños flash their red hats and belts, throwing up their signs: fingers twisted to form an “N.” It’s the first week of March, and the night still falls early in the dark, the flick of lighters creates eerie shadows. The streets that make up the residential neighborhoods behind International are broad and flat, lined with low-slung apartments and crumbling Victorians. Oakland’s Norteño gang kicks it on “Quince,” their name for a corner of East 15th Street just a block away from the fast-food joints and discount markets of International Boulevard. ![]() But this is the story of a few who thought they could. In neighborhoods like Oakland’s Fruitvale district, where the pressure of omnipresent drugs and violence are a seductive lure away from crowded schools and dead-end jobs, it’s a lot easier for teenagers to talk about getting out of gang life than to actually do it. What’s strange about this scenario is that in the eight months in between the two killings, David tried to do something to make a difference, to get out of gang-banging, to stop the violence. It’s been less than a year since David Muscadine’s brother was shot to death by a rival gang member - and now seventeen-year-old David’s in jail, accused of slitting the throat of a kid wearing the wrong colors. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |