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Columns & Editorials
Who gets a Head Start?
When Sheena Biggers first walked into a Berkeley Head Start, she was a 19-year-old mom, looking for a safe place for her young daughter to land while Biggers worked a part-time job. She sometimes lingered during morning...
Renters left out of the housing-solution conversation
It’s easy to be convinced that the YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) movement has the interests of rent-burdened Californians at heart while the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) movement doesn’t. In the politicized dichotomy, it’s further implied...
New bill proposes people-powered politics
Zahra Ahmed is an activist, a scholar and a mother in Alameda who sometimes imagines herself running for public office. But there’s one thing that always gets in her way.
“I do NOT want to ask anyone for...
Oakland politics embroiled in tokenism controversy
One of the most essential services that alternative weeklies like the East Bay Express provide is the ability for reflection and analysis in hindsight. This is certainly the case for Oakland staffer Leigh Hanson and a note...
Nobuko Miyamoto embodies joyful resistance
As a woman whose earliest childhood memories include being incarcerated at a Japanese internment camp with her parents and grandparents, 85-year-old Nobuko Miyamoto has a lifetime of experience with “gaman,” or endurance. She finds it painful to...
Oakland journalist reports threats after sharing public records
Kevin Jones and I have hosted the Doomloop Dispatch podcast for nearly a year now. Last week, we reached our 50th episode, with an interview with journalist Eric K. Arnold. Our episodes generally focus on being counter-narratives...
Campuses confront free speech crackdown amidst DEI backlash
I once argued in a position paper in journalism school that perhaps hate speech ought not to be protected by the First Amendment. My professor pushed back, saying it was a slippery slope. If the rights of...
