Source: Black News

Oakland, CA — A new documentary exploring displacement of African-Americans out of major U.S. cities will release on YouTube on October 25, 2017. YOU A NOMAD is a short film set in Oakland, California, where in the past generation almost 40 percent of the Black population has been displaced. The film uses a unique cross-section of African-American voices to unfold the systemic issues underlying the rapid gentrification Oakland is now facing.

As a Los Angeles native, filmmaker Shirah Dedman witnessed gentrification take hold in her own hometown. However, after moving to Oakland, she saw it in a whole new light. “I’ve always thought of Oakland as a black city. After seeing the effects of gentrification, I couldn’t help but ask: What happened to the Black people in Oakland? And this question is what I sought to find out,” Dedman said.

After showing YOU A NOMAD to a packed crowd at Merritt College, Dedman decided to release the film on YouTube to reach a wide audience to educate more people on the systematic depopulation of African-Americans out of cities nationwide. “If I can help people see white techies as a symptom of the overarching problem rather than as the cause, then we can start discussing real solutions.”

For more information, visit www.youanomad.com

About Shirah Dedman:

Shirah Dedman is a filmmaker, lawyer and impACTivist. From a high school dropout to becoming a licensed attorney by the age of 23, she inexplicably found herself consistently unand under-employed. It’s her own nomadic life, marked with perpetual residential and economic instability, that inspired YOU A NOMAD. Dedman was recently featured in the Equal Justice Initiative/Google film, Uprooted, documenting her family’s return to the site of her great-grandfather’s lynching. For more information, visit www.shirahdedman.com