In Oakland, the revolution is being muralized. For weeks, local artists and activists have united in a takeover of Oakland’s downtown streets to deploy vibrantly-charged murals that encourage viewers to reimagine what safety in the community should look like.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the East Bay’s hub — long known for a legacy of art and resistance — has taken center stage in the dismantling of police brutality, systemic injustice, and anti-Blackness.

In a city that already boasts over 1,000 murals, Oakland is a poetic location for these colorful acts of solidarity, which loudly declare: “WE GOT US.”

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If you’ve lived in San Francisco in recent years, you know about the honey bear. These cute, stenciled icons are smattered on building exteriors throughout the city. Sometimes, the honey bear wears a cozy beanie. Other times, it’s disguised with 3D goggles and popcorn. Recently, it’s been spotted wearing a Black Lives Matter sweatshirt and mask in response to Covid-19.

For many, the honey bears are a harmless, fun splash of pop art — a symbol of San Francisco’s quirky art scene and the city’s playful appeal. The artist behind the bears, who remains anonymous and is known simply as…

Corner Store Chronicles

When 2020 is said and done, it’ll likely become known as the year of massive uncertainty. But with so much instability (from Covid-19 to crimson skies on the West Coast), corner store culture remains familiar. LEVEL’s Corner Store Chronicles series pays homage to the power of the store that delivers the warmth and care that ACME will never replicate. Whether known as bodegas, tienditas, or another term of endearment where you’re from, our hoods would be nothing without them.

I can’t see him smiling beneath his face mask, but I know Yusuf is happy.

The enthusiastic 23-year-old Yemeni immigrant works…

I had never taught Tatiana before. Yet, after a Latinx student meeting in Oakland, the 12th grader unexpectedly embraced me, crying: “You’re the first Mexican teacher I’ve seen at this school; I just wanted to say thank you.”

Translation: I’ve never seen someone like you in a position of academic importance.

I understood Tatiana. In my years as a student in Bay Area schools from kindergarten through high school, I only had one male teacher of color amid a stampede of mostly white women. This isn’t just a Bay Area problem, of course. My nine-year teaching career has allowed me…

Friday Five

As a Mexican American from the Bay, I have mixed feelings about Black History Month. It’s not that I don’t value the month’s purpose or mission — I’m all about supporting our sister cultures and celebrating our diverse roots through awareness and knowledge of each other. It’s more about the way in which tokenization can easily occur when it’s limited to 30 days. Or, worse, when we minimize history into something that is solely trapped in the past, rather than unfolding in every moment.

In times of social media, it’s easier than ever to show performative allyship without entering into…

Here’s a truth: before the 2001 NBA Draft, Gilbert Arenas — who would eventually become a hoop superstar, but was still a college student at the time — took out a bank loan to buy a custom-initialed chain and Cadillac Escalade with 5 TVs and top-end stereo system. Dude was so confident he’d become a first-round pick that he purchased his shine in advance, planning to immediately cash in on his generous NBA salary to pay it off. Instead, he fell to the second round, as the 31st overall selection, didn’t get the payout he expected, and couldn’t afford the…

Whiteness, it seems, has a monopoly on all things.

It’s no surprise in the real world, but Whiteness is also in the distant reaches of our most imaginative galaxies. And that’s frightening.

In too many fictional worlds, the idea of being a Black space pioneer or Brown wizard is inconceivable — even when we’re able to suspend our disbelief around intergalactic travel or riding bareback on dragons.

We’ve all seen a White man with a gray beard as a sorcerer. But when’s the last time you saw an Indigenous spell caster in a U.S. fiction context? I’d have to go…