Editor’s Note: Below are excerpts from two videos by Oakland City Council member Carroll Fife about her tours to ensure that Oakland communities are clean and safe for everyone.
BEFORE:
In her first video, Oakland City Council member Carroll Fife tours West Oakland to see if the neighborhoods have seen responses to her demand for Oakland city departments to clean up the districts. “I’m seeing several places that need lots of love,” she says in the video. “I used to teach here [at the DeFremery School] … and I’m looking at the condition of the DeFremery school, the pool and the street. My heart is breaking. Our babies come here, and if they are walking through this filth and trash [to get to summer programs], what future are we creating for them, what are we telling them about their own existence . . . I’m not OK with Black, Brown babies, with whoever is coming out to the DeFremery feeling like nobody cares . . . either we invest in our neighborhood and communities or perpetuate the feeling of despair, that no one cares. I care…No more excuses will be tolerated!”
AFTER:
The Councilwoman goes back to the DeFremery School the day after her video went live, and makes a second live video. To her amazement, the whole area had been cleared out quickly and thoroughly. “I made the call . . . and they came without any prompting other than me sharing our frustration with what our babies have to deal with . . .” says Carroll Fife. “They listened to the council member who was really just a mouthpiece for the frustration of the residents and some of the folks who utilize this pool, which is so critical to our children . . . A few years ago an Oakland youth died in a swimming accident because they didn’t have the skills to save their own lives . . . And so it is important for us to make sure the institutions in our community are actually serving our communities . . . and that our kids and the people who utilize these institutions feel good about them, and that means having it safe and clean and beautiful . . .[But] we don’t want to just gloss over that things are made unsafe and that our communities are disinvested in to begin with. . . . And that is what we’re dealing with, too, especially in neighborhoods that are primarily Black and Brown . . . and that this organization, the Beautification Council, came out and showed what they can do . . . it shows what community looks like when we care . . .”
See the “BEFORE Clean up” video below:
See the “After Clean up” video below:
