THE PIONEER Covering the East Bay community since 1961
California State University, East Bay
News, Art, & Culture for the East Bay
THURSDAY JUNE 9, 2016
www.thepioneeronline.com
Spring 2016 Issue 10
Oakland's homelessness continues SEE OPINION PAGE 2
By Brenda Brown and Wendy Medina
SHOULD NCAA ATHLETES BE PAID?
CONTRIBUTOR / COPY EDITOR
SEE FEATURES PAGE 8
LAKE CHABOT CELEBRATES 50 YEARS
SEE FEATURES PAGE 11
GAY PROM TAKES OVER CHABOT COLLEGE
ILLUSTRATION BY TAM DUONG JR./THE PIONEER
“The Greatest” athlete of all time dies Muhammad Ali 1942 - 2016 By Louis LaVenture EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
SEE SPORTS PAGE 12
SHARKS TRAIL PENGUINS 3 - 1 IN STANLEY CUP
#PIONEERNEWS /thepioneernewspaper @thepioneeronline @newspioneer
FROM THE WIRE
Clinton’s big win in California: Why were the polls so wrong? By Aaron Kinney EAST BAY TIMES A trio of polls showed a tight race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in California, but by early Wednesday morning it was clear Clinton, who claimed the Democratic nomination Tuesday night at a rally in New York, would roll to a resounding victory over the Vermont senator. The question, as dawn broke Wednesday, was why. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton has a lead of 12.6 percentage points over her rival in a bitterly fought nomination contest. In the liberal Bay Area, which was fertile territory for Sanders’ “political revolution,” voters in all nine counties favored Clinton, mostly by wide margins.
No matter how old you are, you know the sayings: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” or “I’m a bad man.” The most famous athlete of all time is the one who coined them all. The self-proclaimed “Greatest of All Time” boxer Muhammad Ali, passed away on Friday while being treated for respiratory complications at a Phoenix, Arizona hospital, according to a statement from the family spokesperson Bob Gunnell. Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a neurological disorder which causes tremors, in 1984 and battled
Many thousands of late-returning mail ballots must still be counted, so Clinton’s lead may shrink, but the outcome is decided. There are a few obvious factors that political experts will consider as they break down Clinton’s triumph in coming days and weeks: --To what extent did an Associated Press report Monday calling the nomination for Clinton dampen the enthusiasm of Sanders’ supporters, keeping them from the polls? --How much trouble did independent voters have trying to participate in the Democratic primary? A Los Angeles Times investigation found thousands of independents may have mistakenly registered as members of the American Independent Party, a fringe conservative party. Others may have failed to request a Democratic ballot. --And how much did Sanders’ support depend on millennials and college students who could not be relied on to get to the polls in the first place? According to an exit poll of early mail voters by Capitol Weekly, Clinton did better among older, more affluent voters, as well as women and blacks. Election data guru Paul Mitchell, who
SEE NEWS PAGE 10
against the illness for more than 32 years, up until his death. The disease eventually took his verbal and physical abilities away from him later in life, but after his passing, his iconic status was quickly appreciated. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay in 1942, he converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali in 1962, which caused a stir around the world. After he was drafted through selective service in 1967, Ali used his religious freedom to protest his involvement in the war, which was met with both criticism and praise by supporters and opponents. “My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, some poor, hungry people in the mud, for big powerful America, and shoot them for what?” Ali said in a radio interview in 1967. “They never called me nigger. They never lynched me. They didn’t put no dogs on me.” After his refusal, he was stripped of
his boxing title, convicted on draft evasion charges and sentenced to five years in prison. This began a lengthy appeal process that Ali eventually won four years later in 1971. However, it halted his career since he was not allowed to fight or leave the country during the process. While Ali wasn’t his former self in the ring, he still managed to regain his belt and fought in some of arguably the greatest fights of all time including “The Rumble in the Jungle” and “The Thrilla in Manila”. For many people, a stigma hovered over Ali that he was “Un-American” since he chose not to fight for the United States in the Vietnam War. This stigma was lifted in 1996 when the nation watched Ali carry the Olympic Torch into Atlanta and light the 1996 official Olympic Flame. Although his disease revealed itself when his arm jerked as he guided the flame to its final destination, it was that day that Ali “became
SEE FEATURES PAGE 4
Voters show up to polls
PHOTO COURTESY OF ASSOCIATED PRESS
Voters line up at a Bay Area polling site on June 7. Hillary Clinton won the California Primary for the Democrats and Donald Trump won for the Republicans.
Pulling in from the freeway onto 17th Street in Oakland, two visibly homeless men stand on opposite sides of the street, beckoning the cars with their cardboard signs and empty paper cups. An “eyesore” for the city and its residents, little has been done to solve or at the very least alleviate homelessness with the immediacy it requires. A topic which personally strikes a chord with us, it was jarring to try and talk to the people living in these makeshift encampments riddled throughout the city because it reminded us so much of our own past. We scouted areas in downtown Oakland — bridges, under freeway overpasses and on the street. While the bolstering camp areas drowning in trash were set up, everyone was inside their tents, unwilling to talk. After no luck at an encampment on Sycamore and Northgate, we eventually ended up on San Pablo and Grand avenues, an area near the Oakland Greyhound station and homeless shelter St. Vincent DePaul. The few people who we were able to speak to there promptly steered us away as well. In a report released in March for the 2015 year, the Alameda Countywide Homeless Count and Survey published that the pointin-time count “estimated number of sheltered and unsheltered people who were homeless in Alameda County on January 28, 2015 was 4,040.” However, this number could not possibly demonstrate the actual amount of homeless in the city of Oakland, putting into perspective their 406,253 population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau; much less the entirety of Alameda County. While for some, homelessness may be a rock bottom period of their lives, others have had to adapt to this “lifestyle.” We finally met a young man named Dane, with his dog Pizza, who told us he’d just saved Pizza in Texas on his way to California on a freight train. He said he was kicked out of his mom’s house when he was 15 and now at 28, he’s been homeless for 13 years. When asked about any drug or alcohol use, he responded that he doesn’t touch anything and is simply looking for work. Dane said being homeless has caused him stress, anger and depression. However, he shared some positivity as well, “All we got is time. We gotta use it to do the best we can,” and went on his way to panhandle for some dog food. While we continued to “knock on the doors” of the tents by calling out and asking if anyone was home, we briefly interacted with a young lady named Mona. She was reluctant to speak and held her head down in shame while trying to talk to her. When asked how she ended up in the encampment, she simply replied, “I didn’t have anywhere to go.” Mona did not care to speak with us any further. After seemingly no luck of trying to get answers from a first-person perspective about what the city has done to help, we took our questions to city hall. Assistant to the City Administrator, Joe DeVries, gave us a rundown of the efforts being done on the macro level — feder-
SEE NEWS PAGE 9