A sniper who fired several shots Friday morning in East Oakland near 98th Avenue and Interstate 580 was seen spray painting crude pictures on a car and a house before he was taken into police custody.

The suspect is a 32 year old white supremacist named Jesse Enjoin. In the days leading up to the standoff, Enjaian began espousing racist rhetoric and anti-Black epithets on his now-deleted Twitter page.

He was disarmed and loaded into an ambulance shortly after 10 a.m. after being wounded by gunfire, but it was unclear where the shots came from that hit him, according to Oakland police spokeswoman Officer Johnna Watson.

There are photographs of the suspect standing on the roof of a house, firing several shots at police helicopters. And the armed shooter defiantly strolled down the street with his rifle in hand. No motive has been determined at this time.

This story has been updated.

Today, it seems that Oakland–in conjunction with the natural effects that time causes–has changed drastically.

As suspected white supremacists continue to move into the area, many of them have resorted to being part of an online community, ran by nextdoor.com. The website, which was developed in nearby San Francisco in 2010, has seen a sharp uptick in usage of the web platform. 176 neighborhoods (and 20 percent of all households in the city) in Oakland have groups registered on Nextdoor. The site, which is known as “the private social network for neighborhoods”, allows people to report “suspicious activity.”

Of course, much of the reporting on Nextdoor involves reporting innocent Black people as being suspects for merely engaging in non-criminal/pedestrian activity, such as walking down the street. Many of the area’s Black door-to-door sales reps and mailmen have been labeled as “suspects”, according to the online company.

White members of Nextdoor have used the site to call the police and file complaints about Black residents nearby, which includes being “too noisy” at public parks and bars. Mitsu Fisher, a Black father of two, isn’t allowing his kids to play outside or roam the neighborhood free without his presence. The concern stems from a February 2014 incident in which a patrol officer working for a private security company chased down and shot a young Black teenage boy. To make matters worse, the private security company that  the race soldier worked for forbids their officers from carrying firearms. As a result of shooting the Black teen, the officer was rewarded by white members of Nextdoor.com and local neighborhood groups on Yahoo, with all of them collaborating to buy him a gift.

One Black Oakland native by the name of Leland Thompson has grown so weary of the rampant racism in theses local Internet groups that he has decided to stop wearing hoodies. After regularly browsing “Glenfriends”, a Yahoo group created by the Glenview (in Oakland) neighborhood residents, he has discovered that an overwhelming amount of the “suspicious activity” reports in the group described him. “Black man, five-ten, 160 pounds, bald,” Mr. Thompson says in reference to the typical descriptions given in the “Glenfriends” Yahoo group.

For more on this story, follow this link.

B. Clark

1. Marcus Garvey School (Los Angeles)

School Type: Co-ed & Pre-K/Elementary Private School

Head of School: Dr. Anyim C. Palmer

Website: http://mgsla.org/

2. NationHouse (Washington, D.C.)

School Type: Grade School

Head of School: Kwame Agyei Akoto

Website: http://www.nationhouse.org/

3. Timbuktu Academy (Detroit)

School Type: K-8

Head of School: Cha-Rhonda Edgerson

Website: http://www.timbuktuacademy.org/

4. Sankofa Academy (Houston)

School Type: Grade School

Head of School: Toni Imani Fisher

Website: http://sisterhoodcreations.com/sankofa_academy

5. Betty Shabazz International Charter Schools/Barbara A. Sizemore/DuSable Leadership Academy (Chicago)

School Type(s): K-12

Head of School: Frank Davis

Website: http://www.bsics.org/

6. Freedom Home Academy

School Type: Private Home School (Based in Chicago)

Head of School: Marcus Kline

Website: http://www.fhaintl.org/index.php

7. Little Sun People (Brooklyn)

School Type: Preschool

Head of School: Fela Barclift

Website: http://www.littlesunpeople.com/

8. ILE OMODE SCHOOL (Oakland)

School Type: Pre K-8

Head of School: Jahi Awakoaiye

Website: http://www.ileomode.org/draft1/index.htm

9. Imhotep Institute Charter High School (Philadelphia)

School Type: High School

Website: http://imhotepcharter.org/website/

 10. Kamali Academy (New Orleans)

School Type: K-12

Head of School: Dr. Samori Camara

B. Clark

Van Jones is the co-founder of the Ella Baker Center For Human Rights in Oakland, CA. He is also a Yale-educated attorney who has authored two New York Times bestselling books, and has been heavily involved in high levels of the U.S. government.

Oh yeah, and he also cares about Melanoid youth.

In fact, Jones cares so much about Melanoid youth who are disenfranchised, that he has created a vehicle of empowerment for them. #YesWeCode is an initiative that targets “low opportunity” youth (namely Melanoid youth) and provides them with the necessary resources and tools to become world-class computer programmers. In an age where our youth lag far behind youth outside of Black Society, Mr. Jones has taken on the task of giving our youth the opportunity to compete–and in many cases outperform–their non-Black counterparts in the tech fields.

Watch Jones discuss the mission of #YesWeCode in the video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvI9wnCaHjY

As stated in the video above, the goal of the organization is to get 100,000 low-opportunity youth to be trained to become coders. The impressive fact about this movement is that the majority of the youth benefiting from this will be Melanoid youths who would have otherwise saw doors slammed shut in their faces by similar initiatives in the dominant society.

Van Jones’s contribution to the empowerment of our youth is highly commendable, and necessary at this point in time. To date, there is a lack of initiatives such as #YesWeCode that will change–and broaden–the concept of success among Melanoid youths. As the world becomes increasingly tech-dependent, our next generation of young Black professionals will be better prepared for the demands of the world around them.

To enroll young Melanoid prospects into #YesWeCode, follow the link below.

http://www.yeswecode.org/search

B. Clark

In the late 1990’s, a popular mainstream media publication featured a very distasteful report that showed a collection of players (with the majority of the players being Black) in the NBA at that time who were being bombarded with paternity suits at the time. Of course, this particular article only helped reinforce negative stereotypes and imply that Melanoid men are incapable of being stand-up fathers to their children.Over a decade and-a-half later, a similar white media attack has loomed over the Melanoid men of the NBA who assume dual roles as athletes and responsible fathers.

Brian Windhorst, an ESPN reporter who’s also known for his extensive coverage of NBA superstar LeBron James, was on hand in Oakland, Calif  last night to interview recently-crowned NBA MVP Stephen Curry for a postgame press conference. Mr. Curry’s small daughter, Riley, was in attendance with him as he answered the standard monotonous barrage of questions required by every player to answer after games. Check out Stephen Curry’s daughter, Riley at the press conference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLCMIBrSYZc

Riley, being the small child that she is, became slightly playful and restless during the interview, and apparently, her innocent gestures during the press conference offended Windhorst, who took to Twitter by proclaiming his distaste for Curry’s daughter’s presence at the press conference table. He further elaborated upon his frustration by stating that all children should be banned from press conferences. Windhorst wasn’t alone in voicing his displeasure. The following Tweets show that his ESPN colleague, Ramona Shelbourne, felt the same way.

@joybenedict @WindhorstESPN Brian is right. It's unprofessional … But they are soooo damn cute no one has the guts to say anything

— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) May 20, 2015

In this article, several Twitter users sided with Brian Windhorst, providing nitpicking commentary on how the players bringing their children to press conferences should be banned. Curry, who honored his father (former NBA player Dell) during his MVP award acceptance speech, did what many of us do not get an opportunity to witness often: A young Black professional athlete paying homage to his father, who played an active and supportive role in the athlete’s upbringing.

The NBA, which is apporximately 80 percent Black, and its players who are fathers who are easy targets as it pertains to this silly demand form Brian Windhorst. The majority of the children who sit with their fathers during press conferences are relatively quiet, and Riley Curry was an innocent exception. The objective of this story is that many of these white media figures take issue with these young Black men openly showing love and support for their children, which goes against their white supremacist written narratives about Black dysfunctional fatherhood. Not only does this apply to Black NBA players, but Black fathers in general.

by B. Clark