on the palace and the press. >> a life in the spotlight, tonight at 8:00. tonight on kqed newsroom. we begin with i dive into the rich cultural tapestry of oakland with the host of a hello black podcast were premiering their new film, tells of the town. and missed deadline. planning agency is across the state failed to deliver critical housing plans. we discussed the consequences. and several cherished neighborhood establishments are closing their doors. why are so many landmarks disappearing there and what does it tell us about the changing face of san francisco? also immerse yourself in something beautiful as we

explore the timeless charm and elegance of a little-known literary haven. coming to you from kqed headquarters in san francisco this friday, february 3rd, 2023. hello and welcome. this is kqed newsroom and i am priya david clements. on sunday hundreds of people marched oakland to protest memphis officers who brutally beat in unarmed black man. he later died of his injuries. as many continue to express travels through 100 years in oakland's history and activism. the critters have been engaged in social activism in oakland for many years. their new dock imagery short is titled "tales of the town." >> it's a strong and real. >> it's the struggle and the optimism in the resistance. >> oakland.

>> you can emulate it but you can't duplicate it. >> this is oakland. >> joining us now are -- thank you both for being here today. you were there on the march on sunday. tell us what that was like. >> i think it's alys good to see the people rightfully enraged when the people continue to suffer at the hands of violent states. it's paramilitary wing, the police department so anytime you see the people again uprising you understand but i think what's missing is the organization for the people's energy to guide them towards real radical change unless you funnel people into the quote unquote democracy of the united states where you will get the

concessions and the reforms but no real change because what is happened since the last uprising? people continue to suffer. we still see people since -- what's really changing? what we try to do is provide people with real programming to see a real change to where we can organize for change so that when we go out we feel systemic and institutional changes. if we give the people a real understanding of the conditions that lead to this type of violence and leads to thousands of people sleeping on the street in oakland and that leads to the high unemployment rate we can start putting that revolutionary fervor into the right places and that is all that oakland is missing and that's what we try to provide. >> you say nothing's changing i

think one of the things we have seen timeand time again are the sorts of videos like the tyre nichols one that was released and i'm curious about your thoughts on that and what seeing these sorts of images does to our psyche collectively . >> advocates a portrait of the history of this country and will he understand history we can understand what's going on right now. if we look at the history of this country in the history of whiteford it white prejudice and the lynchings that took place in slavery during jim crow, those were very public displays of white supremacist violence. designed to put fear into the whole community. if you say we are against slavery and rose up they will lynch you. for everybody to see and now we are seeing fast forward to 222 and 2023 we are seeing viral

video spread over and over again. if we look at the case of michael brown in 2014. he was murdered. his body lay dead in the street for four and half hours and this was a public display for the whole world to see and what does that say to our psychological aspect? it attempts to put fear in our minds. it's a viral on the news and viral on twitter and it puts us in a state of fear and there's research that shows it's giving us ptsd -like symptoms because it's our human right to breathe, to go to the store, to buy feud, to be human. we have the right to defend ourselves but when they keep us in a state of fear and psychosis we don't defend ourselves. >> you are putting a different type of media out in the world with " tales of the town. " this is a short documentary ilm and it's really a multimedia project. you have a podcast, an art installation, the film. tell me

about this project. the history that you learned about over the last 100 years of oakland. >> we have the 12 episode podcast. 11 song album. a book and we are doing a short film and art installation in its because over time we realize you have to meet people where they are. not everybody could read or access cell phones but we still want to be able to reach them in some way and some people just don't get enjoyable so we try to meet people where they are and present this history, this knowledge that raises the consciousness in as many ways as they could possibly get it. we look at media art for another way to use any means at our disposal. for us to cover nearly hundred years of black history in oakland with our families that haven't migrated -- that had migrated from the deep south to oakland, we say they are

refugees because we came here and as you can see with our people sleeping on the streets and being forced out of neighborhoods that we lived in for half a century having to relay coat to antioch, pittsburgh, we still haven't really found a home since we left africa. so for us again you have to know where you are coming from to know where you are going and that's what tales of the town has provided for me is a deep understanding of my history which has allowed me to see myself differently in present day which will yield benefits for my future. we are trying to raise consciousness, teach history, motivate, inspire, and ultimately unite. >> you start the podcast series with a look at the black úpanth i'm curious about how you have taken their work into your own lives and into your own work that you do day today. they started with giving food to the community.

you run people's programs which in part provides food as well. would you tell us a little bit about people's programs? >> i would say we come from the afterlife of the black panther party. the black panther party is the most significant organization in contemporary and past times that has shown us what it looks like to be in the center of our community and fight back against racist white supremacist violence whether it be from racist people who are not in the police force or the police force. for us we see it is the afterlife. the black panther had survival programs pending revolution and for us at people's programs we use what we called decolonization programs. we understand that this land was stolen in america. from the indigenous people. they forced us from africa and brought us here. this has colonized the land. for us according to international law we have the right to free ourselves from colonization and that's international law. for us we build what we call

decolonization programs in the have a free breakfast program and covid, right we needed healthcare so we created a few free community health programs where we have a clinic on wheels. we have doctors and nurses serve the people for free so when the state is charging you and when the state is neglecting our community we say the state is not the solution. we as a people are our own solution. not just about surviving but saying we have the right to life and the right to go on the offensive for our liberation and for our people's liberation. we can look back to our own family's history and involvement in the black at the

party and think what can we create? >> so tales of the tamil debut on february 18th and what can people expect? >> you can expect to be blown away and captivated by 100 years of oakland black history. we would telling the stories of our investors ancestors and i think people will really enjoy it. it's inspiring. it's healing. people will have a good time. >> all right, abbas muntaqim? >> i'm super excited to be able to show the film so people can see my uncles story and being able to tell the history of my family literally fleeing from the south and coming to oakland to the east bay and making that a home. i'm super excited for the community to see it and hopefully raise people's consciousness and make them proud of their history because some of our history has been let go.

negative things have happened but we have also had a lot of love and a community of love and alligator tearing beliefs. >> thank you for being here. california's housing crunch is in the spotlight this week. the state has a goal to build 440,000 new housing units in the bay area by 2030. cities and counties were supposed to submit their plans for how they will build on those houses, apartments, and condos this week but most of tem didn't turn in their homework. in the bay area 80% of agencies missed the deadline. joining us now is kqed housing reporter. thank you for being here with us. this housing plan or housing element is not new. has it been this bad in the past? >> yes and no. is housing elements have been

due since the 1960s states have will build more housing or how they will allow for more housing basically to keep up with population growth but for many years cities have either not actually built the housing or not allowed housing to that built or the second point is that basically there have never been consequences for cities that don't submit the plans or don't allow for more housing and this cycle is changing. governor newsom said cities have to build a record number of housing to basically make up for the gap between supply and demand. the other part is that is now threatening steep consequences for cities that don't submit plans. >> you went to sacramento and had an exclusive interview with governor newsom. let's listen to what rob bonta

had to say. >> everyone has to participate in the solutio. do your part and have a legitimate housing element. as you said they have both been threatened consequences if these housing plans are not admitted is that actually going to come to bear? >> they say that i will. basically this very state is threatening lawsuits and fines and threatened to take away funding for transportation and audible housing projects but there's also this really interesting thing that come into play which is called the builders remedy. it's basically this law that has existed for a really long time that has never really been used and what it states is if a city has not submitted a compliant housing plan to build housing then a developer can go to the city and say we want to

build an affordable housing unit or we want to build a housing unit and if it fits certain affordability requirements the ate can't turn it down. they can just go forth and theoretically they can start building. >> does this mean the fact that these housing plans weren't submitted kind of opened the floodgates for more housing to be built? >> yes and no. we know that projects have been submitted under the builders remedy actually southern california cities and counties are sort of the head of the bay area and their cycle and their plans submit housing were due last october and many of them missed and so developers started submitting builders remedy plans or projects rather. we saw those projects in santa monica, redondo beach, but development hasn't started yet

because some people want to litigate those plans and say well, you can actually just build housing wherever you want and other people are saying you can because the law says you can. we will see how it plays out in court and also instill really expensive and it takes a long time to build housing. those barriers haven't been broken down yet. maybe there could be more housing but we haven't seen it yet because the market and inflation and all of those different things going to play when you're looking at housing. it is complex and it becomes personal to pick her for a moment on a celebrity and are met, steph and aisha curry wrote a letter to their town asking for their home to be excluded from the housing plan and they said we hesitate to add the not in our backyard literally rhetoric but we wanted to send a note for today's meeting kindly asked that the town adopt a new housing element without

inclusion of 23 oakwood. >> this is a hard thing were even those who say yes i want to be for building get to that point were they say i don't want to hear then there's others were also passionate. >> exactly and to be completely fair it is a really personal and emotionally fraught topic of where to housing because you are really shaping your community and there are a lot of people who do want to housing built but in staff and aisha's curry case there is a multi-building that was supposed to be built adjacent to the backyard and they said that they didn't want it. these are topics in conversations and debates that are going on all over the bay area and some of the points are fair.

some people argue great you want to build more housing but will it actually be affordable? that's a real question and a real concern. >> duringthe pandemic we did see construction costs go up people really took that time and said let's bud our own housing additions >> -- became more popular and more legal that we can build accessory dwelling units. when we stand on construction costs and labor? >> back in 2008 or 2010 private development slowed down and a lot of those construction workers were laid off. now people argue that we are potentially looking at another recession to keep that workforce employed why not build affordable housing in

that time? the problem of course is that affordable housing is expensive and subsidies driven sunni government money to back those projects in the state is looking at a deficit in its budget to where it does that money come from waxy those projects materialize? the need for housing is very real. how to do it is not totally solved. >> so the city and county governments missing these deadlines will they eventually have to tremendous housing element? jurisdictions that need to file housing elements. two officially did. at san francisco and alameda. there are a number of cities that are very, very close.

>> i think the state sees we are getting close the state is saying we need to start building housing and they will be consequences for cities that don't file these claims. >> thank you for being here and for explaining all of this. >> thanks for having me. in the late 1960s and early 1970s gay men began moving to san francisco and claims the castro neighborhood for their own. they became beloved establishments. political leaders and a civil rights movement also drew in not soil shaping california with values of tolerance and equality for all. in recent years the neighborhood has seen changes. the population is aging and several of those landmark establishments are closed down.

after a long-standing debate due to new management the city's historic reservation committee decided this week that the castro theaters balcony seats should receive historic landmark designation. joining us now to talk about the historic castro district neighborhood and what lies ahead is bay area reporter john verratti knee. >> there's been a passionate debate over renovations that are happening there. this week given the decision that was made. what is this all about? >> what's happening is the longtime owners of the theater gave up management to another planet entertainment which beers me know puts on the outside lands festival on they want to make a number of changes to the interior of the theater that would allow it to serve as a live music venue as well as show movies and a number of community groups are upset about this.

they feel like this is the last kind of classic 1920s era moviehouse and san francisco and they have put together a coalition that is fighting these changes and basically whether or not the interior is landmark and how much of it is landmarked would dictate how many changes another planet can make. that's extensively about the seats but in many ways the kind of emotions and environment of the neighborhood being that is also about kind of who wield power in the neighborhood and what are the future of the institution? it seems like the castro is changing. tell me about the demographics they are flexing >> there's a debate going on among the community and there is one school that says if we want to maintain our institutions need to be inclusive and include straight

people and how can we ask for inclusion if we are not willing to give it ourselves and there's another school of thought that says well, we don't want our spaces to lose their distinctiveness, their flavor, what makes them lgbtq+ spaces and so this is happening everywhere and it's happening under an environment post-covid where a lot of places are closing and people ú and less and its effect in all of society and the lgbtq+ community in this particular way. >> the population is also agi. many within several decades ago and are finding new places to go. >> yes, i think that one thing and please jones has brought this up with me is that other neighborhood, people die am a pastor hopping onto their children or other family members

, but marriage rights for lgbtq+ are pretty recent and so often times if someone owns property and dies it goes to a straight family member who doesn't necessarily care about the neighborhood asmuch as someone who is gay my care. >> do you think there is also a change in society -- we are seeing that now in society have much more except of gay people than we did when the castro was first being formed, right? that is a completely different world. here in san francisco and across the nation then we had back then. is that impacting who chooses to move to the castro? >> think that it is. i think there's also kind of more barriers to entry. everyone knows just how hard it is to move to san francisco in particular. i think though that kind of the question is, societal changes

are going to happen, but the úquestion is i think a lot of what it means to lgbtq+ came about in the castro. a lot of these institutions like the rainbow flag, the sisters of perpetual indulgence, the ades memorial quilt, all these thgs came out of the castro and that distinctive melting pot of people physically there in the same space intentionally building a community together so the question is what happened to evywhere if that kind of melting pot and creative space doesn't exist? in the same way? and i also pulled pose this question for social services and political power. the concentration of the votes in one area means you can elect someone but only a few percent of the population is lgbtq+ generally so that's not going to have that much of a voice

dispersed. i think those are kind of the questions to look for for answers to that we don't necessarily know the implications yet. >> all right, bay area reporter and assistant news editor john -- thank you for being here. the book club of california celebrate the history of the written word. foded in san francisco in 1912 its lectures and libraries showcase fine printing and the design. let's step now into the world of books for this week's look at something beautiful.

[ music ] what a lovely place to spend a few hours on a rainy weekend like this one. if you're interested in joining rainy book club you can go to bccbooks.org. that's the end of our show. you can find us on twitter or watch our shows on youtube and the pbs app.

you can reach me on twitter and facebook at @priyadclemens. have a great weekend. we will see you here next week.

john: tonight on pbs news weekend, we look ahead to president biden's state of the union address, midway through his term, as he faces a split congress for the first time. then, with more and more drinking water warnings popping up across the country, how do we tackle the nation's water infrastructure problem? and ahead of tonight's grammy awards, the changing ways we listen to music and what it means for artists and fans alike. >> while major artists like beyonce are utilizing those streaming services, the real place where streaming platforms are changing the game for artists i think is at the level of emerging artists.