Sorry this is so late, I completely forgot after the stress of midterms was over.


I am not quite sure if this particularly can be tied into the idea of “contado,” but I figured I would start on what I am hoping to do for my final project, and try to tie it into the idea of “contado”.
I would like to focus on the Hunter’s Point /Bayview and Visitacion Valley neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are a whole aspect and side of San Francisco that has been completely ignored this whole class, and are in general, not thought about when thinking of San Francisco. The neighborhoods are primarily African-American and are next to each other, located on the southeast side of San Francisco, with high crime, drugs and homicide. Basically, it is a ghetto of the city of San Francisco.
So perhaps in referring back to the contado idea, as comedian Dave Chappelle said in his stand-up show at the Filmore, San Francisco has put all of it’s African-American residents separate. Dave Chappelle says that African-Americans are all in Oakland, as there is a larger African-American population there, but there is also is a population of blacks in San Francisco, but who are kept serparate and hidden by the city. Whether or not Dave Chappelle knew about Hunter’s Point, in his performance he stayed true to the stereotypes of San Francisco so that the viewer be able to follow if they were not from San Francisco, and that stereotype is that there are no African-Americans, or little African-Americans in San Francisco, and the San Francisco is a peaceful, liberal, gay, hippie city. The reality is just like every other major city in America, it too has ghetto neighborhoods where poverty, killing and crime exists. The fact that San Francisco, just like it ships its dead to Colma, ships it’s African-Americans to the East Bay makes Oakland a racial contado. San Francisco only has 7% of its population black, while Oakland has 35%.
The Hunter’s Point/Bayview neighborhood is mainly African-American, and as the population as a whole has seemingly been forgotten in San Francisco, so has the neighborhood. However, what I am hoping to focus my project on, is research currently going on in San Francisco on the occurrence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder first discovered in war veterans, that is now being recognized in inner city youth growing up in extremely violent environments. Dr. Victor Carrion of Stanford University has been working with kids in nearby neighborhood Visitacion Valley Middle School working on the treatment of PTSD for kids. It is however, contradictory that San Francisco would avoid an African-American population, yet receive running stories in the main Bay Area newspaper the San Francsico Chronicle, as well as receive research for inner-city crime and youth.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/qws/ff/arc?term=ptsd+carrion&Submit=S&q=ptsd+carrion&sa=Search&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Search

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/qws/ff/arc?term=ptsd+kids&Submit=S&q=ptsd+kids&sa=Search&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Search