Opinion

We Must Reduce Gentrification in Our Classrooms

Published

7 years ago

January 12, 2019

Gentrification of Oakland leaves many of us with empty pockets and anxiety about a rent increase, but have we ever thought about gentrification affecting more than just where we live?

As families and educators, we are facing gentrification in our classrooms. Students are being referred to special education classes, missing out on class lectures, and being put in situations where they are at risk of dropping out.

There is a disconnect between our highly diverse youth and the teachers who educate them One issue many students face is the educators’ idea of “safety.”

Because frequently teachers are not from Oakland communities or similar communities, they struggle to connect with students who have been shaped by the communities in which they live.

These new white educators do not comprehend the everyday struggles and traumatic situations that the students of Oakland may face. These teachers are caught off guard by the culture shock they have been hired into, and they may adopt a narrative that their students make them feel unsafe or endangered.

Our students face every day issues that these new, naïve teachers are not prepared to address, and so they simply teach to the small portion that they feel comfortable with and deem the rest as low-performing.

These “low performing” students are taken out of class to receive some sort of punishment, referred to special education classes for behavior problems, or even expelled.

Thus, students are placed on a path that leads to the teachers’ self-fulfilling prophecy. They believe that because everyone thinks they are “bad” and, that is what they must become.

Frequently these new teachers give up and resign, beginning a new cycle of inexperienced, ill prepared teachers. Education becomes associated with institutionalized oppression and students reject the school system that treats them like outsiders in their own communities.

There is an immediate need to hire teachers devoid of the systematic biases that target our students of color.

So why is this influx of white middle class educators such a trend? It is easy to assume that there are just simply not enough teachers coming out of the Oakland community, but that assumption is entirely false.

The reality is that there are teachers who are shaped by these types of communities who are exploding with passion about teaching the youth that they see themselves in, but simply struggle to survive economically as a teacher.

After four years of racking up student debt to earn a bachelor’s degree, prospective teachers must partake in an intensive credential program that requires them to volunteer themselves for a year of free teaching and pay hundreds of dollars to pass a series of tests in order to gain their credential.

Then, when hired on as teachers, they are barely making enough money to pay their rent. Many teachers face the choice to either sacrifice financial stability, or sacrifice having a career where they can shape and educate youth in an effective way.

If we begin to support and value effective teachers, we will see a change in the community. The city of Oakland would benefit immensely by hiring teachers in their own communities as educators, but what steps must be taken to make this possible?

The students of Holy Names University propose that affordable housing for public school teachers from the Oakland community would lead to an increase in student performance, a greater teacher retention rate, strengthening of the Oakland community and an overall more productive, welcoming school environment.

Alex Mejia is an Oakland resident preparing to be a teacher and a graduate student at Holy Names University.

Alexandra Mejia

Posts by Alexandra Mejia

Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

3 days ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.