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James O'Brien
Dec 4, 20242 min read
Project Diary: no due process for the dead
No trial, no hearing, there is no due process for the dead.
James O'Brien
Nov 6, 20242 min read
Project Diary: a love that won't be silenced by violence
It is a story that also speaks to the love that refuses to be silenced by violence.
James O'Brien
Sep 21, 20243 min read
Project Diary: disenfranchised grief
...loving son brother mother sister aunty athlete musician classmate snappy dresser fun-loving uncle father friend or fan...
James O'Brien
Sep 16, 20242 min read
Project Diary: a memory of kindness
If she remembers anything, perhaps she remembers not being alone at that moment of despair.
James O'Brien
Sep 10, 20242 min read
Project Diary: no starker contrast to hate
This is live-preserving work, it is the work of helping traumatized, devastated people begin to be reborn...
James O'Brien
Sep 4, 20244 min read
Project Diary: a moment of love can change the world
KWP crisis responders are interrupters of hate, savers of the lives of the living; they prevent retaliation. They deliver love.
James O'Brien
Jul 30, 20241 min read
Project Diary: so did she rise, after stark loss
So did she rise, after stark loss, economic struggle, civic neglect, disillusionment, obscurity, isolation, out of darkness, out of Oakland.
James O'Brien
Jul 23, 20242 min read
Project Diary: "They want(ed) their daddy"
They don’t care who their daddy has been running around with, they don’t care if daddy don’t have a job, that he ain’t had a bath...
James O'Brien
Jul 8, 20241 min read
Project Diary: Trophies
“They said that when they went to raid their house, they would have shrines, they would have that that dreadlock, hanging on their wall."
James O'Brien
Jun 26, 20242 min read
Project Diary: at the funeral of a 16-year-old victim
Apparently the City feels it has no connection to its dead children, no responsibility for their safety, and none for their destruction.
James O'Brien
Jun 18, 20241 min read
Project Diary: "we don't even have a picture together"
Ashley rested her hand on Jennifer’s head and leaned on the casket for the first and only picture of the two of them together.
James O'Brien
Jun 17, 20241 min read
Project Diary: "I know he was on loan from God"
I’m not a foolish woman. I know he was on loan from God for a short period of time. It’s never going to be long enough.
James O'Brien
Jun 14, 20242 min read
Project Diary: they called it "going out"
To a dark deserted back country of the mind...
James O'Brien
Jun 14, 20241 min read
Project Diary: "God sent me to her, God sent me to her. Or sent her to me"
He'd seen her on the news, talking about her lost son, about what the city needed to do for its wounded and traumatized families...
obrien-jim
Jun 14, 20241 min read
Project Diary: "you're 18, it's summer, you graduated"
Even that night that K didn’t come home -- that early August night in 2000 -- when you hear his sister describe it, you realize how...
obrien-jim
Jun 14, 20241 min read
Project Diary: newsworthy
Back when Khadafy Washington was killed, at age 18, in August of 2000, the violent killing of a black man in Oakland seems often to have...
James O'Brien
Jun 13, 20241 min read
Project Diary: "you might as well come out nekked"
I think Marilyn discovered a previously-unrecognized human right to support after the violent death of a loved one...
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