What is real public safety—and who gets left out of the conversation?

In Episode 3 of Town Politics, hosts Pecolia Manigo and Chaney Turner of Oakland Rising Action dive headfirst into one of the most charged and misunderstood topics shaping our communities today: public safety.

Joining them is longtime East Oakland resident Alvina Wong 黃曉茵, the Base Building Director at the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN). With over a decade of on the ground organizing experience, Alvina brings clarity, honesty, and vision to a conversation often clouded by fear and misinformation.

Together, they pull back the curtain on the narratives we’re sold—and the truths we rarely hear.Safety for whom? Implemented by whom? Defined by whom?And when you imagine your ideal neighborhood—what does safety feel like? Does our current system reflect that?

This episode challenges everything we think we know.Come ready to question. Come ready to imagine. Come ready to expand your definition of what safety could be, and what it should be.

About Our Guest:

Alvina Wong, Base Building Director of APEN - Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN). In her role, she supports strategy and capacity development for the local organizing projects in Oakland, Richmond and South Bay/Harbor Gateway Region of Los Angeles. Alvina builds member-led fights against pollution and displacement of low-income and working-class Asian immigrants and refugees while building their leadership within the environmental justice movement. They lead the teams in intergenerational organizing with somatic tools towards community governance and power at the neighborhood, city, and regional levels, and have led campaigns to stop evictions of SRO tenants and win major community benefits. Alvina began organizing in the Chinese immigrant community as an Eva Lowe Fellow at Chinese Progressive Association, San Francisco before starting as APEN Oakland’s community organizer in 2012. Prior to this, she spent eight years in youth development around education access and youth incarceration issues. Alvina loves baking, the Pacific Ocean and reading graphic novels.

What is the “doomloop narrative”? What actually keeps us safe? Who is Sam Singer? Who is behind the narrative that Oakland is going in the “wrong direction” due to progressive policies?

For our second episode of Town Politics, "What We're Up Against - The Conservative Plot," our hosts Pecolia Manigo and Chaney Turner of Oakland Rising Action speak with Jeremy Mack, Executive Director of the Phoenix Project, an organization shedding light on right wing money in politics by “combining research and analysis with advocacy to build power and cohesion in progressive campaigns to win a just and radically redistributive society.”

Tune in to this month’s episode to learn about the dark money in Oakland politics and the corporate funding of right wing politics in the Bay Area leading to the overcriminalization, redevelopment and gentrification of historically Black and brown communities with longtime roots in the Town.

What is the “doomloop narrative”? What actually keeps us safe? Who is Sam Singer? Who is behind the narrative that Oakland is going in the "wrong direction" due to progressive policies?

For our second episode of Town Politics, our hosts Pecolia Manigo and Chaney Turner of Oakland Rising Action speak with Jeremy Mack, Executive Director of the Phoenix Project, an organization shedding light on right wing money in politics by “combining research and analysis with advocacy to build power and cohesion in progressive campaigns to win a just and radically redistributive society.”

Tune in to this month’s episode to learn about the dark money in Oakland politics, the corporate funding of right wing politics in the Bay Area leading to the overcriminalization, redevelopment and gentrification of historically Black and brown communities with longtime roots in the Town.

Guest Speakers: 

• Jeremy Mack, Executive Director of the Phoenix Project –  a dedicated advocate for transformative public policy, specializing in Restorative Justice and ethical urban development. Jeremy’s work spans policy research, community organizing and impactful academic work on the Better Neighborhoods, Same Neighbors Initiative in East Oakland.

  
  

What do we do? Stand up, fight back! For our first episode of Town Politics, our hosts Pecolia Manigo and Chaney Turner of Oakland Rising Action speak with longtime Oakland and Bay Area community members on what it means to be progressive in Oakland. Tune in to hear about the history of Oakland residents fighting back against the bullies, billionaires and their racist agendas.

Guest speakers: 

• Jennifer Esteen is a registered nurse, a mom, and has run for state assembly and county supervisor, representing East Oakland and the Oakland hills.

• Allyssa Victory is a lifelong Oaklander now residing in East Oakland. She is a mother, educator, organizer, and civil rights attorney. She ran for Oakland Mayor in 2022.

• Kitty Epstein is an educator and radio show host for KPFA called Education Today. Epstein has published multiple books on Oakland and the state of education.

For more, follow us on Instagram: @oaklandrisingaction

What comes to mind when you think of the history of Oakland politics? Is it the Black Panthers, the Riders, the gentrification of West and East Oakland? Oakland Rising Action is releasing a five-part podcast series on Oakland politics, from the 90s to today, called Town Politics.