The Advocate

  Sonia Reed found her first home ever in the hills of San Leandro. After winning a lottery through a local program to support first-time homebuyers, she couldn't believe her luck in finding a place in the Bay Area's competitive housing market. As someone who was formerly homeless, she was very excited to then become a first-time homeowner.  As a peer support and recovery specialist and Narcotics Anonymous volunteer for Alameda County, she is used to helping others. In fact, after struggling against hardship most of her life, Sonia has dedicated her career to fighting for others, including serving as a member of Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless Commission and a program manager at Bonita House.  But now she's the one in need of help. Upon coming to visit her new home in the unincorporated Hillcrest Knolls neighborhood , she was immediately met with racist slurs and hate from a couple of her neighbors. Insults were hurled about her race and her body. The co...

(Some Birds Are Not Meant To Be Caged, By Ryger ) When I first started this series, my intention was to balance out the toxicity and bigotry of social media and the internet with words of wisdom. My goal was to put something positive and maybe even beautiful out there into the vast reaches of cyberspace. Now, as we begin our journey into 2022, I believe this will be my last entry in this series for a while as I refocus and reprioritize my endeavors. So, in honor of this particular ending and a simultaneous beginning, here's a quote I hope you love as much as I do. "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." — Albert Camus Here's to living in collective liberation! Take note and take care.

(Bell Hooks Unscripted, by Apanaki Temitayo) "Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power — not because they don’t see it, but because they see it and they don’t want it to exist." ― By bell hooks. Take note and take care.

( James Goldcrown’s mural #lovewall) "Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love." — Khalil Gibran, The Prophet Take note and take care.

(Golden Tears, by Annie Marie Zimmerman) "There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love." — Washington Irving