problemathematics

I live in a city which saw 148 people murdered this past year, 135 of them shot, as near as investigators can tell, for simply standing on a street corner. I live in a city 50% of whose youth won't graduate high school, and an equal number of whom are depressed and believe tomorrow is likely to be worse than today. It's hard not to see these problems as interelated, it's equally hard to see the interelations clearly. At the very same time, I live here in comfort and relative ease and enjoy and truly love this city. Somewhere in the conflict between these two states (these two cities) lies the problem I am going to try to address.

I've done a lot of writing about Oakland in the abstract, for lack of a better term, and in ways that manage to sidestep my place here. I feel like the challenge now is to write (or draw or sing, etc) about its contemporary situation as well as where I fit into its scheme.

(p.s. you probably won't hear from me again on this until the end of the quarter, but be assured that I'm doing every step of the project along with you)