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Oakland Scenes: Snapshots of a Community
 For this News Break, we take up the subject of youth violence, described in an unexpected way. Teen spoken word poet, Ise Lyfe, rewrote Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet story, situating the narrative in his hometown of Oakland, California, at a time when the homicide rate in that city was on the rise. Youth Radio intercuts Ise Lyfe’s powerful poem with street corner conversations among teens and parents living in the community.
Many Youth Radio students were personally affected by the violence in Oakland, as well as by problematic mainstream media coverage of their own community. Producers convened a meeting to encourage teen reporters to take on the topic of the homicide rate and its effects on young people. Initially, many of them did not want to touch the story; they resented the media flocking to the city to cover the story in ways that they felt sensationalized violence and criminalized communities of color (e.g., by publishing daily body counts like sports scores). By discussing how to frame the events in Oakland in counter-stereotypical ways, the young people devised a plan to focus on the effects of the violence on young people and families trying to carry on their lives in a place that felt increasingly unsafe, even as Oakland remained a town they loved and considered home. Ise Lyfe’s poem was a powerful contribution around which the reporters built their story:
Ise Lyfe:
I'm here today to tell a story. A twisted story of ghetto glory. Now, I know
you heard of Romeo and Juliet, but I bet, you ain't heard of Rome and Net
Net. See, this story is a bit different. A bit more explicit. So sad,
almost all bad, they young, beautiful and don't even know... Society tell him
to be a thug, tell her to be a... They, victims of a system placed on us
years ago.
One of the young producers on the story, Gerald Ward II, explains what he loved about the use of Ise Lyfe’s poem in this story: “We were talking about violence and we were talking about stories of Oakland but also there is another story of Oakland, other things that are going on. There are other issues that need to be addressed. So it kind of deepens the range of issues that are taking place in Oakland. It deepens the range of issues that are taking place not only in Oakland, but with young people in general.”
"Oakland Scenes: Snapshots of a Community," lends itself to English, Geography, Civics, and Modern U.S. History classes, as well as any context where students are exploring media literacy, violence prevention, and social justice.
Click here to find the full script and audio for this story.
Teach Youth Radio
For this month's feature, you will be able to view these strategies and resources:
1. How teachers can align this Youth Radio story to National Standards in the classroom.
2. Suggestions for lesson plans that link the story's content to your classroom's themes and subject areas.
3. Suggestions for lesson plans that explore media literacy, using the story to re-read mainstream media.
4. Bios of the Youth Radio reporters who produced the story.
5. A list of resources and further research related to the story's themes.
6. Links to Youth Radio’s media production techniques as guides and inspiration for your students’ creative media-making projects.
1. NATIONAL STANDARDS: Standards Alignment
Subject: LANGUAGE ARTS
NL-ENG.K-12.1 READING FOR PERSPECTIVE
NL-ENG.K-12.2 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE
NL-ENG.K-12.3 EVALUATION STRATEGIES
NL-ENG.K-12.6 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE
NL-ENG.K-12.9 MULTICULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
Subject: GEOGRAPHY
NSS-G.K-12.2 PLACES AND REGIONS
NSS-G.K-12.4 HUMAN SYSTEMS
NSS-G.K-12.6 THE USES OF GEOGRAPHY
Subject: HISTORY
NSS-USH.9-12.10 ERA 10: CONTEMPORARY UNITED STATES (1968 TO THE PRESENT
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2. NEWS YOU CAN USE: Story content in your classroom, Suggestions for lesson plans
Language Arts:
Shakespeare:
It’s not always easy to make Shakespeare relevant to the lives of young people in U.S. classrooms today. This story places Romeo and Juliet in the modern day context of urban America. One way to bring Oakland Scenes into your classroom would be to use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast Shakespeare’s canonical version with Ise Lyfe’s retelling. What are the similarities and differences, in terms of the perspectives from which the story is told, the details of the characters’ lives, the setting, the central tensions and human dramas portrayed?
Intertextuality: Something that stands out about this story is its use of multiple texts, including a spoken word poem, casual conversation, and a formal interview. In this sense, the story lends itself to teaching students how to read, interpret, and critique a wide range of spoken and written genres and apply their knowledge of literal and figurative language conventions as they relate to the production of powerful narratives. One way to explore intertextuality with your students is to have them pair off and create a poem to go along with a news report based on a current event. Students can weave together the poetry and the report in much the same way that Youth Radio producers did in “Oakland Scenes.”
Cycles: Ise Lyfe’s poem captures the concept of cyclical patterns of behavior. In this sense, it can be read as a kind of socio-cultural analysis of how inequalities are produced and reproduced. What are the various sources the story identifies that contribute to patterns of violence? Are there sources not highlighted here, which your students feel are important? Students can use this story as a model for tracing patterns in their own lives that have recurred in their families or communities for two to three generations. They can explore patterns that they do and do not want to repeat.
Geography:
Definition of Urban: After playing “Oakland Scenes,” have students map the landscape where they envision the story taking place. Include elements like schools, liquor and grocery stores, places of worship, public parks, public housing projects, police stations, and places for young people to hang out. What does the term “urban” mean? Have students define urban and then compare their definition to the dictionary definition. The class can discuss how students think their definition derived and diverged from the one found in the dictionary. Additional terms might include: Gentrification, White Flight, Rural, Suburban, and War on Poverty.
Economics:
Violent Dollars: This piece can be a good springboard for a discussion on how economic activity or inactivity can contribute to violence in neighborhoods. Students can prepare graphs and charts that depict the statistics in their own communities regarding employment levels, access to health care, affordable housing, financial resources, and other factors promoting economic sustainability.
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3. CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY: Putting This Story in Context
Compare and Contrast: Students can do research to find articles that report on the teen “superpredator” theory, attributed to the prominent political scientist, John DiIulio. This theory put forth the view that violent, out-of-control teens threaten social stability in the United States, and that the danger they pose to the social order will only escalate if harsh measures (e.g., juvenile crime crack-downs, three-strikes laws) are implemented. Have students do research on some of the policy effects of the superpredator theory, within their own communities and/or across the United States. Compare and contrast the coverage of Oakland Scenes to the opinions of DiIulio.
Biographies: Find out who John DiIulio, Bill Bennett, and Mike Males are. What are their stances on teen crime? What positions have they held in government and universities? If Rome and Net Net held a meeting with DiIulio, Bennett, and Males, how would each character address the teen “superpredator” theory?
Questioning Labels: In “Oakland Scenes,” Gerald Ward II describes his own childhood attending public school in Oakland. He says he wanted to be a stockbroker, would bring a briefcase to school everyday, and wasn’t trying to be a “thug” at all. What do you think Gerald means by “thug?” How is that term used among students at your school, or in your community? Is there a difference between the way young people use the term, and adults use the term? In your world, who is most likely to be labeled a “thug?” Who isn’t? What do you think explains why certain people are more likely to get pinned with that label than others?
Part II: Students can create a second part to Oakland Scenes. This piece can focus on personal experiences with violence within their city. Conduct interviews with your community members to find out their perceptions and experiences of violence and crime in their neighborhoods.
Hope for the Future: Students can create news stories that depict the decline in violent crimes among teenagers and strategies they use to prevent, avoid, and de-escalate violence in their own lives.
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4. MEET THE COMMENTATOR
When “Oakland Scenes” was produced, Gerald Ward II was the Broadcast Training Director at Youth Radio, and a cinema student at San Francisco State University. His work has been featured on various National Public Radio programs and in the San Francisco Chronicle, and he has been a regular host on Youth Radio’s music show on KPFA in Berkeley. Gerald was born and raised in East Oakland.
Also at the time of production, Ise Lyfe was a 19-year-old poet and activist in Oakland, California. He performs and teaches throughout the Bay Area and with a spoken word poetry program in San Francisco called Youth Speaks. Ise founded a community organization called POWER Movement. His new album is called, spreadtheWORD.
While working on “Oakland Scenes,” Bianca Yarborough was a 17-year-old senior at Oakland Technical High School in Oakland, California. Her work has been featured on National Public Radio, KQED-FM and in the San Francisco Chronicle, and she received KRON 4’s “Beating the Odds” scholarship. Bianca now attends college and hopes to become a music and film producer.
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5. RESOURCES AND RESEARCH
• "Stop Crime Where it Starts" (New York Times 31Jul96)
• "Superscapegoating" (FAIR Jan98)
• "Losing a Generation: Probing the Myths and Reality of Youth and Violence" (Social Justice Journal, Vol. 24, No. 4, 1997)
• "Superpredators and Teen Welfare Queens" (The Corner House Briefing 34, Dec04)
• Youth Speaks: A Leading Spoken Word Program in San Francisco, CA
• An interview with Gerald Ward II, co-producer on “Oakland Scenes,” about the making of this audio documentary (TCIAF 2003)
Off-Line Resources:
• Crime and Inequality Edited by John Hagan and Ruth D. Peterson, ed. Stanford University Press, 1995.
• Framing Youth: Ten Myths About the Next Generation By Mike Males Monroe, MI Common Courage Press, 1998.
• Kids & Guns: How Politicians, Experts, and the Press Fabricate Fear of Youth By Mike Males Monroe, MI Common Courage Press, March 2001
• The Scapegoat Generation: America’s War on Adolescents By Mike Males Monroe, MI Common Courage Press, 1996
• "Reducing and Preventing Youth Violence: An Analysis of Causes and an Assessment of Successful Programs" By Pedro Noguera in 1995 Wellness Lectures. Oakland, CA: University of California Office of the President.
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6. MEDIA PRODUCTION FOR LEARNING: Making Audio Narratives
Click here to link to Youth Radio's guidelines for conducting interviews, writing commentaries, and producing features.
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