Crosscurrents

When Stanford student Brock Turner was sentenced to six months in prison for sexual assault, lots of people thought he deserved a longer sentence. They saw a white, college athlete let off the hook.

All week long, we've been playing this sound and asking you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it.

A new exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California is trying to address gentrification, one of the Bay Area’s biggest hot button issues, through a broad range of work from West Oakland residents—from school kids to aerosol muralists to documentary filmmakers—who share their own thoughts.

• The effort to oust Brock Turner’s judge from the bench sparks a debate about what true justice for victims should look like.
• A conversation with co-curators of an exhibit that envisions an alternative Oakland.
• The story behind this week’s Audiograph mystery sound.

Today’s local music is by Lavay Smith, who counts Dinah Washington and Bessie Smith among her influences. 

The dancer Spulu has made a name for himself both as an artist and an activist. Drawing from his Pacific Islander heritage and love of hip-hop, he communicates his passion for social justice through his choreography style. 

On a rare sunny morning on San Francisco’s Mt. Sutro, I went on a hike with Rupa Bose, webmaster of an organization called Save Sutro. Bose lives in the Forest Knolls neighborhood abutting the eucalyptus forest.

One of the first things you hear when you enter the East Bay Vivarium is lots of scratching. It's coming from inside a large cage -- its a giant lizard that’s nearly as long as I am tall. “His name is Elmo, he’s a good guy. People love him,” says Owen Maerks, one of the co-owners here at the Vivarium.

The music you’re hearing now is by the Friction Quartet. They’re noted for performing both classical compositions and arrangements of current pop music.

The Bay Area does love its big music festivals, and this weekend is one of the biggest: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. 

• The question of how to manage a not-so-old-growth forest on San Francisco’s Mt. Sutro.
• The artist and activist Spulu.
• An East Bay pet store that’s not exactly warm and fuzzy.

Maybe you’ve seen the billboards for Prop 61, with AARP and the California Nurses Association urging you to “Vote Yes for Lower Drug Prices.” Or the scary TV commercials warning you to vote no on Prop 61, arguing that drug prices will go up if it’s passed.

For prison inmates, being a parent is hard. You’re far away but you’re still here. And the visits and letters, those small points of contact, can become that much tougher for the distance. So, a group of inmates at Solano State prison are looking for help. 

“Acting while black—and queer.” That’s the subject of Rotimi Agbabiaka’s new solo show, Type/Caste.

• Why pharmaceutical companies are spending over $70 million to defeat Prop. 61.
• How a group of men are learning to be better fathers from inside prison.
• What it’s like to navigate being a black, queer immigrant who’s also an actor.

This is Audiograph — the Bay Area’s sonic signature. Each week, we’ll play you a sound recorded somewhere in the Bay Area. Your job? Listen to the sound (in the player above), figure out where it was recorded, and what  it is, then call us to let us know.

When Heather Hernandez saw that KALW was seeking questions from listeners via Hey Area, she wrote in and asked, "Who has worked at KALW the longest?" We invited Heather to the station to interview some of our longest-standing employees. Steven Short — the original KALW newsroom volunteer — helped. 

Zoë Keating's unique style of music has won her acclaim, and all the while she's remained an independent artist. KALW's Martina Castro went to talk with her at her home studio about how she experiments with the sound of her instrument.

Every morning, Michael Mackin gets on BART with two bags. There’s a satchel where he keeps all his work stuff, and a backpack where he carries Cooper and Jetta, his two adorable papillions.

Bay Area comedian Stroy Moyd was born in East Oakland, moved to Berkeley as a teen, and now performs all over the Bay, and beyond. The twenty-something has been doing stand-up since he was 16, inspired by his dad's sense of humor and way with words.

• Can BART noise damage your hearing? 
• An East Oakland comedian finds his voice at his grandma’s funeral.
• A conversation with cellist Zoë Keating.
• We dig into KALW’s history to find out which employee has been here the longest.

• A family seeks justice for the police shooting of a loved one.
• Why gun owners are feeling up in arms about Proposition 63.
• The story of an unlikely correspondence between a former San Quentin inmate and the wife of the man he was accused of killing.
• Forgiveness from behind prison walls.

Boxes of ammunition are stacked on the shelves of Coyote Point Armory, a gun store in Burlingame. Owner John Parkin has been in business here for two years. On a Friday afternoon, a steady stream of customers comes in to look at handguns under the glass counters.

Last April, Luis Góngora— a homeless man living in the Mission District—  was fatally shot by San Francisco police.  In the days following the incident, the community expressed outrage over the excessive force used against him and demanded answers from the SFPD.

In January 1969, two members of the Black Panther Party – Alprentice ‘Bunchy’ Carter and John Huggins – were shot and killed on the campus of UCLA.

In this segment from the San Quentin Prison Report, Reporter Tommy Shakur-Ross brings us the story of two inmates discovering they are linked by a murder — and how they manage forgiveness.

Football players from Mission High School in San Francisco made headlines across the country when the team, as a unit, refused to stand for the national anthem, in protest against the oppression of people of color in the U.S.

A gaggle of middle school girls are running around a soccer field in East Oakland. The scene is a blur of ponytails and mismatched cleats. Some of the girls wear a yellow chalky sunscreen in stripes across their face. It’s called thanaka, a powdered root that’s popular in Burma.