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by Dr. Willie and Mary Ratcliff
Without major financial help, this may be the last Bay View we can afford to print. Each month, the print edition costs $7,000 just for printing, distribution and mailing. Advertising income used to cover it, but no longer. Why do we do it? Why not publish only on the internet, as many influential news media do? Here’s why:
“Your publication always seems to touch my soul. You guys really have your thumbs on the pulse of our culture, of our people,” writes Jonavan Hopper ‘El from a prison in North Carolina. “Being locked up, it’s very rare to come across positivity. This system thrives off negativity, so publications like yours be a breath of fresh air for young brothers like me.
“I love history. Our people have been through so much. We’re a strong people. They drag us through the mud and do everything in their power to degrade us, but we’re resilient. Despite the hardships, reading about brothers who got out and are shining like diamonds – that’s motivation! You all keep doing what you do because the image that’s getting projected is what we all should be striving to live up to.”
Without major financial help, this may be the last Bay View we can afford to print.
Jonavan and tens of thousands more Bay View readers in prison and the hood who are able to read the Bay View ONLY IN PRINT would lose that motivation, and movements to end prison slavery and police brutality and win economic and environmental justice and more would be gravely wounded if we quit. The Bay View is the only publication in the U.S. that’s widely distributed in prison and the hood, enabling our folks to communicate and organize.
Since the Bay View went public in mid-December with our GoFundMe campaign, many good folks have contributed, but most donations have been less than $50. We’re grateful for every penny, but it doesn’t add up to the $7,000 needed every month. The Bay View’s core volunteers can’t do more; most of us live under the poverty line.
The Bay View is the only publication in the U.S. that’s widely distributed in prison and the hood, enabling our folks to communicate and organize.
Yet San Francisco is awash in big money, millionaires and billionaires – Time reports we have the fastest widening wealth gap in the country – and awash in power, too: Both California senators, Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi live here. Celebrities too, like Danny Glover and W. Kamau Bell.
But how do we reach out to potential benefactors? Are you the one who knows a way? Contact us by phone (415-671-0789) or email (editor@sfbayviewnews.wpenginepowered.com) if you can offer help or ideas. Better yet, you reach out to people you know who could help. The Bay View Development Committee needs volunteers dedicated to fundraising, too. Can you help save the Bay View?
Dr. Willie and Mary Ratcliff, publisher and editor of the Bay View, can be reached at 415-671-0789 or editor@sfbayviewnews.wpenginepowered.com. And send our brother some love and light: Jonavan Hopper ‘El, 1073324, Lumberton Correctional Institution, P.O. Box 280, Polkton NC 28135.
Love letters to the Bay View
by David Perryman, aka Christian Dave
First, I want to say to the entire Bay View family, you are a bright light in a dark place. May God shine his blessing on you all during the holidays.
This letter is a powerful narrative with the ambition to do a powerful thank you of appreciation for what you do.
The Bay View newspaper gives “the People” a voice in the darkness where our oppressors are constantly dynamiting our hopes. What you do gives us a tool so powerful we have an equalizer to throw lefts and rights or fight the good fight of faith that would make Malcolm, Martin and Sojourner Truth yell those oh so famous words to our oppressor, “And down goes Frazier!” Yeah, baby! J
The Bay View newspaper gives “the People” a voice in the darkness where our oppressors are constantly dynamiting our hopes.
So, Bay View on behalf of all prisoners everywhere I turn a flip of the top bunk into a James Brown split to say thank you, and if you keep this up, I might have to bring you home to Mama. I/we love you.
Send our brother some love and light: David Perryman, aka Christian Dave, AB1204, CSP – Sac A2-132, P.O. Box 290066, Represa, CA 95671.
Help save the Bay View newspaper!
by Bobby M. Dixon
The Bay View newspaper has been serving the Bay Area and the Black Diaspora for over 40 years. The Bay View is also a prisoner’s link to the outside world.
Right now the Bay View is in need of the People’s help! The Bay View newspaper is on the verge of losing its print edition. Established in 1976, the Bay View has been giving us years of liberation journalism, and now it’s up to us, its readers, to keep the papers rolling off the press! We the People need the Bay View.
The only way that the Bay View print edition can be saved is through your heartfelt donations, so let us all reach down into our pockets, purses, wallets, checkbooks and even into the piggy bank and donate what we can afford to give, in order to let the Bay View keep on informing us of all the vital news stories that we need to know.
The Bay View has been giving us years of liberation journalism, and now it’s up to us, its readers, to keep the papers rolling off the press! We the People need the Bay View.
Please let’s not forget that we are all in this struggle together and that the Bay View newspaper has been there with us all the way! So now it’s our time to be there in the Bay View’s time of need. Do the right thing: As a reader, you are a part of the Bay View, so give all you can afford to give. Send donations to SF Bay View, 4917 Third St., San Francisco, CA 94124-2309.
Send our brother some love and light: Bobby M. Dixon, C-41652, CHCF C-2A-150, P.O. Box 32200, Stockton CA 95213. Bobby is the longtime minister of justice for the National NABPP-PC and All Prisoners Lives Matter and a strong supporter of the Bay View.
