Fault Lines Voices: born and raised in East Oakland

De-Quan has lived in East Oakland his whole life, and he says violence is mostly a result of misunderstandings.  He offers his solutions:

"There's a lot of different forms of violence.  I mean, people be jealous of each other, that can lead to violence.  Violence really come from people not understanding each other, though.  I've been shot myself for not buying somebody a swisher.  I was walking into the store, little young dude, like 14, 15, asked me to buy him a swisher.  I told him I wasn't going to buy a swisher, he walked off, came back and shot me.  I mean, it's really like everybody for they self out here basically.  I don't plan on trying to get shot anymore, I'll buy everybody a swisher from now on. (laughs)

I mean, it's too many people out here with no work. If people would just get a chance, basically, I'm quite sure that would reduce all the violence. Because it basically comes from everybody being in their neighborhood with no help.  So it's like, if somebody would, the same way they ride around when kids is missing or if somebody gets shot dead, why you can't ride around like, look they hiring over here, why dont you go over there, or we trying to do this so ya'll can be out the street, they don't ever do nothing like that, so people go to do what they know what to do, that's all we left with.

I mean, if you sitting at home every day on the verge of being kicked out, you might not have no choice but to sell some weed, you know do what you can just to make it.  But people don't understand that part, all they see is the bad side.

A lot of people got talents, skills, trades, but they never get a chance because of the way they look.  You know, just like I got dreads, but I keep my hair up.  But a lot of times it don't even matter me keeping it up, I could go in for an interview, and as soon as they see the hair it's a problem.  But the hair ain't gonna be the work, the hair ain't gonna be me coming in, being on time, doing what I'm supposed to do.  But it's basically stereotypes.  If stereotypes be eliminated, even though thats hard to happen, but if stereotypes get eliminated, a whole lot more would be better though, because don't nobody really know a person until they talk to them, until they meet him."

Fault Lines Voices is a feature of our Fault Lines Project, exploring the roots and solutions to violence in Oakland.  You can hear the reports in our series, read blogs by our reports, hear other voices from the fault lines, and paritcipate in online discussions around these important issues at the Fault Lines Project page.