by Kenneth G. Keel

Folsom Prison, California’s second oldest prison next to San Quentin, opened in 1880.

On April 9, 2012, a memorial service for Mousy Brown was held at the Folsom State Prison Greystone Chapel. Everyone in attendance would agree that the event was a dignified tribute for a legendary man. The obituary pointed out in part: “Mousy’s formative years occurred during the period known as the Black Power Struggle and the Civil Rights Movement … Moreover, it should be noted that this brother never forgot his identity or obligation to our ethnic culture or its youth. This man’s presence will forever be felt, missed and recognized by the masses!”

During his prime, body-building was at the top of Mousy Brown’s long list of accomplishments. Before becoming California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with Franco Colombo, filmed a documentary about inmate body-building routines behind prison walls. Mousy Brown was a major part of that documentary.

During the past few years, Mousy Brown waged a tireless battle to regain his good health, to no avail. Despite knowing the nature and extent of Mousy’s medical condition, CDCR officials refused to grant him a compassionate early release to spend his final hours with his loved ones.

Rick James in 1996, the year he left prison

“Next, I am the founder of the Kumi African Nation Organization (also known as 415). … During all of the time that Rick James and I spent together conversing, I became his combination of things. I was his confidant, body-building trainer, right-hand supporter and very close friend. As far as protector goes, since I was a well-known convict throughout the California prison system, it came with the territory of Rick James and I hanging together each day of prison life.”

Rest in Peace, Mousy Brown! And our deepest condolences are expressed to his family members, friends and associates.

Send our brother some love and light: Kenneth Keel, D-12127, FSP 5-C1-38, P.O. Box 715071, Represa CA 95671-5071.

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by Dennis Haywood

San Francisco – The name Beasley has rung true in the streets of Bayview Hunters Point since before the Double Rock housing projects were built in the 1950s. Of all of the Beasleys, there was none who controlled the streets like James Beasley Jr. As told to his daughter Monet, James tells his amazing story in the soon-to-be-released autobiography and documentary entitled “Deep Rooted,” both of which are being developed into reality by Concrete Jungle Publishing.

James describes how he rose from the mean streets of Hunters Point to become possibly the largest cocaine dealer in the history of California. At his peak, $3 million drug deals were common and there were no luxuries unobtainable. He had luxury homes in different cities and was buying and developing real estate before the housing boom. James Beasley Jr. attended the Grammys with the Jacksons as a guest and he ran a criminal organization that made him a millionaire 20 times over.

By gaining that wealth in an illegal manner, James was made to suffer the consequences of unexplainable wealth, because in the end, the federal government arrested him on drug and tax charges through a joint investigation with the DEA and the Internal Revenue Service.

He was called a menace to society and in 1991 he was sentenced to 30 years under bogus cocaine laws and for tax evasion, which has given him plenty of time to reflect on his past mistakes. A man who could easily be filled with regret and anger over receiving such a long sentence for a non-violent crime, James is reaching out and thinking of ways to restore pride and dignity in Bayview Hunters Point through existing youth organizations, and he plans to start his own non-profit organization when he returns to the streets of San Francisco shortly.

Darryl Reed and James Beasley Jr. celebrate Lil D’s 20th birthday.

Through his autobiography “Deep Rooted,” James wants kids and young adults that have already been or are on the fence about getting into the illegal drug business to take a step back and look at what happened to him. He wants young African-American males from his old neighborhood to fear the results and revere the bright future that waits if they strive to be great in an effective way.

James Beasley Jr. understands the destruction he caused in the 1980s and in no way does he feel he can make up for it all, but he is certainly heading in the right direction towards redemption.

Dennis Haywood is the CEO of Concrete Jungle Publishing Co., www.concretejunglebooks.com, and can be reached at dhaywood@concretejunglebooks.com.

Video streaming by Ustream

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by Wanda Sabir

Brianna Amaya, Wanda’s granddaughter, at the Tassafaronga Farm – Photo: Wanda Sabir

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers and nurturers this month. I have been really feeling connected to the Great Mother Yemaja for the past couple of months now. One of the highlights last month was connecting with Wanda Brown, who recently rejoined the family after 27 years away. Friday, April 13, was her lucky day, affirmed just days later at her 50th birthday April 17, her first celebration as a free woman in many years. We were so happy to have our sister home. She is the first case out of San Francisco to use the Habeas Project. We hope her case will set a precedent.

When women are released, it reminds me of what it must have felt like when Jan. 1, 1863, rolled around and the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, then again Dec. 15, 1865, when the re-enslaving Black Codes were enacted. Families were still looking for separated loved ones – a mother sold away, a child sold away, a sister or brother sold away. We knew where Wanda Brown was, but it took a long time to save for her freedom. The California Habeas Project is a collaboration that enhances justice for domestic violence survivors incarcerated for crimes related to their experiences of being abused. Visit http://www.habeasproject.org/. TCHP is housed at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.

We can’t forget what happened to MOVE May 13, 1985, Mother’s Day weekend, and the incarceration of the Move 9 for all these years and the continued denial of parole. Visit http://www.onamove.com/.

Mumia Abu Jamal made 58 last month and the 40th anniversary of Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace’s stint in solitary confinement was commemorated nationally and internationally with a rally on the Louisiana Capital steps. Over 200,000 signatures were delivered to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s office. The signatures represented each day of solitary confinement for 40 years or 14,600 days. Albert has a hearing scheduled for May 29.

I showed my Critical Thinking class Vadim Jean’s “In the Land of the Free,” the story of the Angola 3 – Albert, Herman and Robert King, founders of the Black Panther Party chapter in Louisiana’s notorious Angola prison-plantation; King won his release in 2001 after 29 years in solitary. The film is narrated by Samuel Jackson. Jackson, the cover story in the March Ebony, was not asked by Kevin Brown what motivated him to participate in the film project. A man whom the writer describes as “in Hollywood but not of Hollywood,” Jackson himself, agrees. He says: “I’ve said to White Hollywood folks, ‘First thing you need to understand is, I am a nigga. I’m a nice guy, but there are certain things that go “click,” and I become that guy y’all really worry about at night. ‘Cuz that’s really who I am.’ I learned how to live in two worlds. That’s my whole life. That’s why y’all hire me. I am genuine. I bring something genuine about that type of guy who scares White people they can safely watch on-screen.”

Robert King’s “From the Bottom of the Heap, the Autobiography of Black Panther Robert Hillary King” is coming out with a second edition. One of the new chapters looks at the n-word. Perhaps Jackson should be sent a copy gratis (smile).

My students were shocked and appalled when they learned of the Angola 3 case. They could not believe in this country that such travesties exist, despite having just completed reading Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” I’d looked forward to hosting an event at the college looking at solitary confinement, what Amnesty International claims along with others as a human rights violation. I’d planned to have women I’d met at Occupy San Quentin in February, who’d experienced such confinement, speak, show Jean’s film, have psychology students address the health issues surrounding such confinement, and close with an open discussion. No one at the college was interested, despite the many students we have on campus walking around in electronic shackles. So I showed the film to one of my four classes and had them write arguments based on themes from the film.

Wanda and Robert King go bike-riding together in Austin, where Robert lives, in June 2009.

But back to Mother’s Day, for the past month, I have been wearing white – hanging with elders like Luisah Teish, an author, storyteller and priestess of the Ifá-Orisha faith from New Orleans, Louisiana. She is the founder and president of Ile Orunmila Oshun. She has an art show opening this month at The Sacred Well, 536 Grand Ave. in Oakland. For information about the reception and artist talk, call (510) 444-WELL or visit http://www.sacredwell.com/.

Film: ‘Straight Outta Hunters Point 2’

Kevin Epps screens “Straight Outta Hunters Point 2” on Sunday, May 20, 2 p.m., at the Bayview Opera House Ruth Williams Memorial Theatre, 4705 Third St. in San Francisco. “As a filmmaker and activist,” Epps says, “this is the most important screening of all, premiering the film in the neighborhood where it all started.” The screening takes place during Malcolm X’ birthday weekend, and it will be hosted by Kevin Epps himself to celebrate the spirit of community organizing and activism. For information, call (415) 724-8610 and visit www.kevepps.com.

Dance honoring Sacred Mother Yemaja

CubaCaribe expanded to the East Bay last year, and this eighth anniversary year they continued to grow with a lecture series at MoAD, master dance classes, a community party and a weekend of new work choreographed by Ramon Ramos Alayo, Alayo Dance Company. I missed the opening weekend in San Francisco at Dance Mission; however, I was able to attend weekend two at Laney College in the East Bay and see Alayo Dance Company’s premiere of “Oil and Water.” The program opened with two short works: “Grace Notes,” featuring musician Jeff Chambers on electric bass, and “Layers of Love,” a work featuring four women dancers. The first work featured three dancers, two men and one woman. The choreographer was one of the dancers, Fredrika Keefer and Victor Talledos the other two.

After Gladys “Bobi” Cespedes’ wonderful talk about the female Orishas at MoAD, she and Luisah Teish posed for me. Divine royalty in the house (smile). Teish has an art show at Sacred Well in Oakland, 596 Grand Ave., April 29 through May. Bobi will be performing at the 34th Annual Ethnic Dance Festival with Las Que Son Son, Cuba, June 16-17 at the Novellus Theatre at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

“Layers of Love” is a beautiful work, the four dancers – Lauri Anderson, Shelly Davis, Alisa Dillion-Ogden and Fredrika Keefer – paired, their gowns matching, either blue or pink with white accents. The theme is love – like a layer cake, Alayo says there are three levels: chance glance into the other’s eyes and one is gone, hooked, captured (smile); second, heart expansion, where one gives and receives love; and third, the move to create a space where the two souls, now one, manifest a sacred space where they hold each other in clarity and peace.

“Layers” is more of an emotional interaction, Joshua Bell and John Williams’ music creating a mood where the dancers carry us along – the audience willingly participating in a journey where lovers’ paths traverse and collide, the two souls never apart for long. At least that is the hope once the song ends.

‘Oil and Water’

I am a New Orleans native – I like to say my people are indigenous to Pearl River county – an area connected by a river which travels between Mississippi and Louisiana. Gladys “Bobi” Cepedes, priestess and scholar, gave an enlightening talk at the Museum of the African Diaspora just a day prior to the premiere of Alayo Dance Company’s “Oil and Water” as a part of the CubaCaribe Festival’s lecture series. Her talk, which looked at the female Orisha in the Yoruba tradition via Lucumi, focused on the lesser known female deities, such as Obba Nani, Dadda or Banyanyi, Oba Nani, Yewa, before speaking about Oshun, Oya-Yansa Iansa, Yemaya and Olokun. It was a great preparation for Alayo Dance Company’s “Oil and Water.”

Eighth Annual CubaCaribe presents Alayo Dance Company in “Oil and Water” April 27-29, referencing the oil disaster in the Gulf April 20, 2010. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

You have heard the saying, not to cast one’s pearl after swine, and when I think about this government’s investment in fossil fuels and the inevitable errors involved when we disregard the rights of other creatures to life as we disturb their natural habitats – drilling and digging in their living rooms, creatures who have just as much right to this planet and her gifts, perhaps more, than we, homo sapiens – I think about being a descendent of Pearl River county Mississippi, my birth gem pearls as well.

“Oil and Water” looks at the recent spills in the Gulf of Mexico and the lives lost along the Mississippi River in Mississippi and Louisiana, using Kyleigh Nevis’s video design that projects images and text on the canvas behind the cast. Pelicans and crabs, fish and the ocean are covered in thick gooey oil, while in the foreground on stage are dancers dressed in blue for the waters. Mama Yemaja sits above the stage suspended while her children dance below, tell stories and grieve over the destruction of the beaches and pollution of the waters and the nasty gooey intoxicating oil, which covers the water like a blanket personified as the oil dances across the stage –bodies costumed in plastic.

When the curtain rises, the blue costumes glow in the dark; it is really lovely. Then when the lights come up, there are singers and drummers stage right, and in front there is a lovely young goddess dancing, others seated nearby. Throughout the work, dancers from different sides of the stage perform, coming together in the center of the stage, skirts twirling as they spin and turn, moving to either exit.

When Mama Yemaja is lowered to the earth, the energy shifts again. She is commanding and powerful. Her fury at man is palatable, as is her gentleness to her creatures. The soloist is excellent as is the entire company, but hey she’s the star (smile). I don’t know why we are not given her name or the names of her children as soloists. Yagbe Onilu is the lead singer. In CubaCaribe, Onilu told stories and led us in a song. He was quite dramatic this weekend as well, and even though the words were in Yoruba, we got the gist of his message. “Oil and Water,” which pulls on the strong histories of Santeria, also integrates the vocabulary of modern dance and live Cuban folkloric music in a unique ritual created in collaboration between Ramon Ramos Alayo, Susana Arenas Pedroso and Alain Soto. Besides Alayo Dance Company and the chorus and musicians, Grrrl Bridge also participates.

There were so many surprises in the work, especially when Yemaja gave birth. This male-female duet was really lovely – Yemaja seated while her children rejoiced in their new life. Alayo Dance Company premieres are always classic, whether that is the first piece I saw a while back which looked at the enslavement of African people and their resistance or another work which looked at Black leadership – Malcolm X and President Obama, maybe Martin King. The first was premiered in Black Choreographers Here and Now, when the choreographer was new to the San Francisco Bay Area. Later when the work was performed in its entirety, I remember seeing Elouise Burrell standing on a platform above our heads singing – just like Yemaja in “Oil and Water,” there was no net. Alayo likes his spirits in the air. Visit www.cubacaribe.org.

Benefit for Avotcja

Friday, May 18, there is a benefit for Avotcja, musician, poet, radio host, at Ashkenaz Music and Dance Center, San Pablo at Gilman Street in Berkeley, at 8 p.m. Avotcja has MS and she is being proactive. She is still mobile; however, just case she becomes wheelchair bound, she can keep trucking literally. The fundraiser is to purchase a lift for her van. She has a wheelchair already. She throws a terrific party! Visit http://www.ashkenaz.com/2011/may12.html and http://www.avotcja.org/.

San Francisco International Art Festival

The U.S. debut of Raices Profundas Mixed Repertory, co-presented by SFIAF and Plaza CUBA, opens the SFIAF Wednesday, May 2. The festival runs through Sunday, May 6, at the Marines Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter St., San Francisco. Visit http://www.sfiaf.org/2012Festival/artists/Raices-Profundas.html.

Raíces Profundas comes to SFIAF with an incredible show that displays the talent and virtuosity of the group and its director-choreographer Juan de Dios Ramos. This is the first time this ensemble has been to the United States, and while the company is in town there will be classes at Dance Mission and other community events. The performance follows the dynamic history of Cuba’s music and dance genres, starting with the colorful Afro-Cuban traditions, including Palo Monte and the fiery Orisha dances of the Yoruba pantheon – like Elegua, Oshun, Ogun, Chango and Yemaya.

The second half of the show gives the audience a glimpse into Cuba’s popular music and dance styles, such as Chankletas, Son, Cha Cha Cha and contemporary Cuban Salsa. The two parts of the show are tied together by the group’s interpretation of the sensual and provocative movements of the Rumba cycle: Yambu, Guaguanco and Columbia.

12th Annual Malcolm X Jazzarts Festival

This year’s Malcolm X Jazzarts Festival is Saturday, May 19, Malcolm X or El Hajj Malik El Shabazz’s birthday, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at San Antonio Park in Oakland, 18th Avenue and Foothill Boulevard. Join the Bay Area community in celebrating a people’s hero, Malcolm X. Eastside Arts Alliance began what is now a community institution over a decade ago. It is an event for the entire family with live jazz mingling with hip hop, dance and spoken word stages, not to mention the visual art, great food and community partners who help pull folks into activism and service. This year the lineup includes Daria Nile Trio, Avotcja and Modupue, a tribute to Billy Bang featuring an all-star string summit with Michael White, India Cooke, Kash Killion, Tarika Lewis, Sandy Poindexter, Muziki Roberson and Eric Hunt. The Kev Choice Ensemble closes the festival. Visit www.eastsideartsalliance.org.

Dorsey Nunn of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, and Harriett of All of Us or None at a staged reading of Michael Kroll’s “Just Like a Dog.” Dorsey, founder of LSPC and a member of All of Us or None, was part of the star-studded cast of death penalty abolitionists at Requiem for the Death Penalty. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

‘To Be Young Gifted and Black, That’s Where It’s At’

“Young, gifted and Black / We must begin to tell our young / There’s a world waiting for you / This is a quest that’s just begun.” Nina Simone wrote these words after seeing the Broadway production of “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” the story of Lorraine Hansberry, author of “A Raisin in the Sun.” Performances at the Multi Ethnic Theater (MET), which first produced the play in 1994 at the Gough Street Playhouse at 1620 Gough St. near Bush in San Francisco. Previews begin Friday, May 4.

Their current production, in association with Custom Made Theatre, is presented because so much of what Ms. Hansberry said in the ‘50s and ‘60s still needs to be heard today. The official opening night is Tuesday, May 8, at 8 p.m. For information about the run, call (415) 333-6389 or email lewiscampbell@sbcglobal.net and check http://wehavemet.org.

Lorraine Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930. Her play “A Raisin in the Sun” is read by students throughout our country and around the world. She died on Jan. 12, 1965. Were she alive today she would be 82 on May 19. MET dedicates this production to her memory and to Stanley E. Williams, founding artistic director, and Quentin Easter, founding executive director, of San Francisco’s Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, which was the first theater company to occupy the Gough Street Playhouse. The light grid above the playing area was installed by the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre.

‘Bitter Melon’

“Bitter Melon” is Raissa Simpson’s site specific work performance, May 25-28 at Dewey Monument, Union Square in downtown San Francisco. Steeped in the cultural histories of San Francisco’s African American and Filipino communities, the work will take place throughout the square’s central plaza with large scale projection onto the monument itself, intermingling performers and public. The work uncovers the hidden realities or parallels in the African American and Filipino cultures. This new performance cracks open questions to the contradictions of life: national and cultural identity, natural disaster and war – the power of loss and redemption.

The free performances will be given Friday, Saturday and Sunday, May 25-27, at 8 p.m. or at sundown. Union Square Park is bordered by Geary, Powell, Post and Stockton streets in San Francisco. For more information about “Bitter Melon,” visit www.pushdance.org or www.deweylive.net.

On the fly

Not in over 30 years has a professional company performed “A Raisin in the Sun” in the Bay Area. Hailed as “one of a handful of great American plays,” this monumental performance is directed by African-American Shakespeare’s L. Peter Callender and runs May 12-27 at the African American Art and Culture Complex’s Buriel Clay Theater, 762 Fulton St., San Francisco. Call (415) 762-2071 or visit www.African-AmericanShakes.org.

AXIS Dance Company performs “Full of Words” at the SFIAF May 12 and 13 at 609 Sutter St., San Francisco, at Marine’s Memorial Theatre. Visit http://www.sfiaf.org or call (415) 399-9554. AXIS commissioned U.K. choreographer Marc Brew to create “Full of Words,” which had its world premiere at the Malonga Center in Oakland last fall. Judith Smith, AXIS’ artistic director, had been following Marc’s career since he became disabled in 1998 in a car accident while on tour with a ballet company in South Africa.

Shinelle Azoroh as Angel and Tobie Windham as Guy in Pearl Cleage's "Blues for an Alabama Sky" now playing at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre through May 12, 2012. - Photo: Steven Anthony Jones

Union Square Live 2012 presents free music, dance, theater and movies in Union Square from April through October at 12:30 and 6 p.m. on Wednesdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays; visit www.unionsquarelive.org or call (415) 477-2610.

The 2012 Yerba Buena Gardens Festival kicks off May 6, 1-2:30 p.m., with the Omar Sosa Afreecanos Quartet. Visit www.ybgfestival.org or call (415) 543-1718 for more detailed information. All events are free.

The world premiere of “Tenderloin,” commissioned by the Cutting Ball Theater, opened there April 27 and runs through May 7. Using transcripts of interviews conducted by seven San Francisco actors, “Tenderloin” takes theater out into the neighborhood and brings the neighborhood into the theater. From these living sketches, a portrait of the Tenderloin itself emerges. Visit http://cuttingball.com/season/11-12/tenderloin/.

Sweet Honey in the Rock

Sweet Honey in the Rock performs at Zellerbach Auditorium at UC Berkeley Sunday, May 6, 7 p.m. Call (510) 642-9988 or visit http://www.calperformances.org/performances/2011-12/world-stage/sweet-honey-in-the-rock.php.

‘From the Inside Out, Food as Medicine’ workshop with Sister Makinyah

Join Sister Makinyah Saturday, May 5, 12-2 p.m., for a healthy organic meal served by Sister Naderi Jomoke. She will share her secrets to longevity and good health. She’s 85 years, 10 months into her life, or 31,355 days. “From the Inside Out: Food as Medicine,” workshop and luncheon will be held at the Harriett Tubman Terrace Apartments, 2870 Adeline St. in Berkeley, across from Berkeley Bowl. The cost is $20 general and $15 for junior high students and seniors. Money orders and checks are accepted. Make them out to Educational Associates. For reservations and information, call (510) 848-0994.

Bay View Arts Editor Wanda Sabir can be reached at wsab1@aol.com. Visit her website at www.wandaspicks.com throughout the month for updates to Wanda’s Picks, her blog, photos and Wanda’s Picks Radio. Her shows are streamed live Wednesdays at 6-7 a.m. and Fridays at 8-10 a.m., can be heard by phone at (347) 237-4610 and are archived on the Afrikan Sistahs’ Media Network.

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Laura Linney, Gabourey Sidibe, Bernie Pollack, Eric Pleskow, Peter Weller, Angie Bolling shine at Dallas International Film Festival

by Jackie Wright

Dallas – They call it “Big D” and there is a reason for it. The Dallas International Film Festival with its “Star Awards” closing weekend is just a reminder that “they do it big in Texas.” The Dallas Film Society led by Lynn McBee, chairman of the board of directors, and Lee Papert, president and CEO, pulled out all the stops as it honored Laura Linney, Bernie Pollack, Eric Pleskow and Gabourey Sidibe with “Dallas Star Awards,” kicking off the concluding weekend. In addition, the Dallas International Film Festival (DIFF) screened more than 180 films from 27 countries during its sixth annual event, April 12-22.

James Faust and Gabourey Sidibe answer questions from the audience. – Photo: Jackie Wright

Covering the event for San Francisco-based LaHitz Media, this reporter was reminded of director and filmmaker Jacquie Taliaferro’s constant refrain about “jobs and money” generated by the film and entertainment industry and the need to cultivate commerce in communities of color as films and entertainment are created. “In addition to the entertainment value, the film industry should use its power and influence to educate and improve the state of humanity by leveraging commerce to empower more people economically,” says Taliaferro, a consultant for African Diaspora and other filmmakers interested in achieving visibility during the annual May Cannes International Film Festival.

“In Texas, the motion picture and television industry is responsible for 41,269 direct jobs and $1.5 billion in wages in Texas, including both production and distribution-related jobs. Over 7,200 of the jobs are production-related,” according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

Talking it up with a young lady working at the Angelika Theater, delighted to see all the activity generated by the DIFF, was a reminder of the impact of the film industry in providing basic employment at theaters across the nation. The DIFF gave me the occasion to talk to the future with the first time employee Shanqua L. and also learn more about Lee Roy and Tandy Mitchell of Cinemark, a company founded by Mitchell built with the philosophy of preferring people over profits that now generates billions of dollars. The Mitchells were feted at the opening ceremony April 12 at the Majestic Theatre, with the entire festival being dedicated in their honor.

“In addition to the entertainment value, the film industry should use its power and influence to educate and improve the state of humanity by leveraging commerce to empower more people economically,” says Jacquie Taliaferro, a consultant for African Diaspora and other filmmakers interested in achieving visibility during the annual May Cannes International Film Festival.

The glitz and glam of the film industry permeated the DIFF in a sense, but the theme kept coming back to the dollars to make sense of it all for me. As Dallas Film Society Artistic Director James Faust interviewed Gabourey Sidibe on Saturday, the question of workflow came up and the drought actors sometimes experience.

Jackie Wright reports from the Dallas International Film Festival Red Carpet for LaHitz Media, San Francisco.

Sidibe’s Q&A segued into her “Big C” colleague Laura Linney’s remarks before the screening of the independent film “You Can Count on Me” that stars Linney. Gordon Smith of Altair IV Productions put together a short but powerful retrospective of her outstanding work.

From blond bombshell to mousy brown brunette, from brown eyes to blue eyes, Smith did a masterful job of capturing poignant clips of Linney’s essence as an actress. His video montage included 2004 “Kinsey” with Linney (Clara Bracken McMillen), restrained and tortured, pouring her heart out to her husband Alfred (Liam Neeson) about why she did not act on her impulses to have sex outside of their marriage.

Linney should have won the Oscar for that role, no disrespect to Cate Blanchett and “Aviator.” Smith’s clip choice is still playing over and over in my mind to the point that I’ll be hitting Amazon.com for a DVD of “Kinsey” in the very near future.

After the montage, Linney talked about the heart of the industry, the creativity and the suffering that sometimes comes with filmmaking. Linney described being on a set in Upstate New York for 23 days making a film with a paltry budget of $1.2 million with nowhere to sit. “We wound up sweeping out an old chicken coop in order to have somewhere to sit after days of acting. So much for the glamor of show business,” she said.

The Dallas International Film Festival had close to 1,000 volunteers. Among them was Lisa R. Covington, who owns an events management company. Family members Damita Teemac and Adanna Teemac made it a family affair as they all volunteered for several days.

Mother-daughter volunteers Adanna and Damita Teemac – Photo: Jackie Wright

In addition to DIFF’s 25th anniversary screening of “Robocop,” in collaboration with the Oak Cliff Film Festival with Angie Bolling and Peter Weller on the Red Carpet Saturday night, there were many unique collaborations and supporters of the festival, including the Texas Black Film Festival. TBFF screened the films “Wolf” directed by Ya’Ke Smith and “LUV” by Sheldon Candis. The cast of “LUV” includes Common, Michael Rainey Jr., Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton and Michael Kenneth Williams.

“Wolf” with cast Mikala Gibson, Shelton Jolivett, Jordan Cooper, Eugene Lee and Irma Hall received the TBFF’s Best Texas Film Award. Director Smith has also received the Director’s Guild of America Student Film Award, an HBO Short Film Award and a Black Reel Award, among others.

DIFF was enjoyable, delightful, insightful and emotionally taxing, given some of the films, but the importance of the bottom line was ever present for me, thinking of LaHitz’ Taliaferro’s insistence on evaluating jobs and commerce generation. Hundreds of people came out for DIFF and some even from other states, reinforcing tourism and commerce.

One of the most interesting things said about money matters were Ed Neumeier’s comments posted by Troy Randall Smith: “These young filmmakers are great. Hollywood is spending $250 million to chase $1 billion, but the real future of film is going to come from places like Dallas.”

For a look at more details about the winners and other awards, visit the Dallas Film Society at www.DallasFilm.org. For San Francisco Bay Area art connoisseurs, the DIFF fit in between the Oakland International Film Festival held April 5-6, the San Francisco International Film Festival, now through May 3, and in advance of the Cannes International Film Festival, May 16-27, and the San Francisco Black Film Festival, June 15-17. Keep that in mind for your plans in 2013! “See you at the movies.”

Jackie Wright is the president of San Francisco-based Wright Enterprises, a public relations firm serving the corporate, non-profit and government sectors. A seasoned media and public relations professional, the former Associated Press Award-winning broadcast journalist has 20 years of experience, with a specialty in crisis communications and media training. She can be reached at jackiewright@wrightnow.biz.

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Dregs One delivers in-depth commentary on police brutality and how it is affecting communities of color

by Crystal Carter

San Francisco – Oscar Grant. Kenneth Harding. Trayvon Martin. These are just a few names of young Black men who have yet to receive justice in the criminal justice system. Dregs One addresses the issue of police brutality and the abuses of power that have been committed by police and the justice system in the Bay Area and beyond.

“We need to analyze the system and find ways to deal with crime and attack the issues that cause crime instead of attacking the people that live in areas where these crimes happen,” says Dregs One.

The community gathered around DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter at an April 18 pre-sentencing press conference and rally in Mendell Plaza, where Fly was brutalized and arrested Oct. 18, 2011, for recording the police and where Kenneth Harding had been murdered by SFPD on July 16, 2011. He is set to be sentenced on April 20 on three misdemeanors; the jury acquitted him on the felonies he’d been charged with. From left in the back row are Archbishop Franzo King of St. John Coltrane Church, Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia of POOR Magazine, Kenneth Harding’s mother Denika Chatman, Mesha Irizarry of the Idriss Stelley Foundation, Larry Felson of Revolution, DeBray "Fly Benzo" Carpenter, Fly’s attorney Severa Keith, journalist Alex Schmaus, videographer Kilo G Perry, Kenneth Harding’s uncle Marco Scott, Sharena Thomas, Fly’s cousin Kelley, writer TaLea Monet and her baby daughter; in front are activists Rebbeca R. and Kitty Lui. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Acts of police brutality are not isolated events. They are part of a larger epidemic dealing with race issues and misinformation on the part of the aggressors.

About Dregs One

Not only is he a hip hop lyricist and producer, Dregs One is a youth advocate working with inner city youth in San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area. He has recently released a mixtape titled “The Inspiration” and a debut album titled “The Wake Up Call.” You can listen to his music here.

About ‘The Wake Up Report’

Dregs One is very active in his community and has been a youth advocate for over three years. He decided to start posting a video blog addressing issues that he saw were not getting enough coverage in his hometown of San Francisco. So far, he has produced four webisodes on issues of gentrification, food justice, the cost of higher education and now police brutality.

Keep up with him at dregsone.tumblr.com, twitter.com/dregs_one, facebook.com/dregsone415 and youtube.com/dregsonegmc.

Bay Area-based journalist Crystal Carter can be reached at ccarter6@gmail.com.

Related Posts

• A life worth less than train fare
• Fly Benzo, unjustly convicted, will be sentenced Friday
• Picking up the pieces: Kenneth Harding’s mother calls on community to march for justice this Sunday
• The First Amendment right to record the police
• Dregs One debuts ‘The Wake Up Call’

by Wanda Sabir

Wanda’s niece, Wilda Aiysah Batin, about six years ago

Youth poet laureate call for submissions

The Cities of Oakland and San Francisco are each about to gain new, young and articulate representatives. For the first time ever, the Oakland Public Library and San Francisco Public Library, in partnership with Youth Speaks (the country’s leading nonprofit presenter of spoken word performance, education and youth development programs), are staging competitions that will result in two Youth Poet Laureates, one from each city. The winners will each be honored with $5,000 in scholarships and the opportunity to officially represent their communities through poetry, media, and public appearances. The search for talented young writers (age 13-18) begins Sunday, April 1 – just in time for National Poetry Month – when judges will begin accepting submissions. The deadline for all submissions is May 15. Finalists will be announced in early July, and the winners will be announced in September. Youth, parents and teachers can learn more and apply online, at www.youthspeaks.org/2012poetlaureate. Help sessions for applicants will be held in late April and early May. For more information, contact Amy Sonnie at (510) 238-7233.

Oakland International Film Festival

The Oakland International Film Festival is Friday-Sunday, April 6-8, at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Street, Oakland. Visit http://www.oiff.org/2012schedule.pdf. This year’s headliner is one of the most controversial independent films ever made, “The Spook Who Sat by the Door.” Written by Sam Greenlee, “The Spook Who Sat by the Door” tells the story of an FBI agent who uses his experience in the FBI to educate and mobilize gangs in the hood to start a revolution. When the film was released in 1973, it was removed from the theaters by the FBI. “The Spook Who Sat by the Door” closes out the festival, screening Sunday, April 8, 6:30-9 p.m. (Want to see it again? It’s posted at the end of Wanda’s Picks.) Writer Sam Greenlee will be present for the question and answer session.

Adimu Madyun’s “Hunter Listening Party” March 31 opened with a libation poured by none other than Sister Oyafunmike Ogunlano, who reminded me when asked how long it had been since she starred in “Sankofa,” featured this year at the Oakland International Film Festival, that it has been 19 years. Imagine! The classic “Sankofa,” directed by Haile Gerima, follows Mona, a contemporary model, as she is visited by spirits lingering in the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana and travels to the past, where, as a house servant named Shola she is constantly abused by her slave masters. Nunu, an African-born field hand, and the West Indian, Shango, continuously rebel against the slave system, and Shola too finally chooses to fight back. – Photo: TaSin Sabir

Come out and support your favorite filmmaker and discover some great films you’ll be talking about for years. A plethora of great films awaits you. For tickets and all the details, go to www.oiff.org.

Hear the Cry II

April is Rape Awareness Month. I remember many years ago, on a Good Friday, drizzle present, the sky gray, the day cold, hundreds of people gathered in front of Oakland City Hall, 14th Street and Frank Ogawa Plaza, to bring attention to sexually exploited and trafficked minors in Oakland. It was a good thing to do on Good Friday, a day that marks the death of something followed by rebirth. Wouldn’t it be great if the instance of sexual exploitation and trafficking of minors was significantly impacted by what we do collectively in gatherings such as Hear the Cry. At Hear the Cry I, Assemblyman Sandre Swanson shared recently passed legislation which made conviction of perpetrators swifter with stuffer sentences, and in Oakland another official spoke about the decriminalization of the children who are victims and should be protected from harm, not blamed for its occurrence. Three hundred candles will be lit for the children’s lives. The program is 5-7 p.m. For information, call (510) 482-4656 or visit www.vooakland.org.

Pearl Cleage’s ‘Blues for an Alabama Sky’

Lorraine Hansberry Theatre’s “Blues for an Alabama Sky” by Pearl Cleage, directed by Michele Shay, featuring Robert Gossett (TNT’s The Closer), opens April 7, with previews April 4-6. It’s a classic story of doomed love, set during the Harlem Renaissance, rich with history, culture, music and dreams. The run at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 450 Post St., San Francisco, is through May 12. Visit www.lhtsf.org or call (415) 474-8800.

Stopping Our Silence (SOS): Silencing the Inner Critic

This third annual healing conference and performance, hosted by Lyric Dance and Vocal Ensemble and Osun 07 Fashions, is Saturday-Sunday, April 14-15, at On Stage Studio (Kids N’Dance), 3840 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, (510) 434-6773, stoppingoursilence@gmail.com, Facebook.com/StoppingOurSilence. Saturday, April 14, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. there is a free conference, followed at 7 p.m. by a performance for mature audiences. To listen to an interview with presenters, visit http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2012/03/23/wandas-picks-radio-show.

‘Love Balm for My SpiritChild’: Bay Area mothers use theatre of witness to fight for justice for murdered children

“Love Balm for My SpiritChild: Testimonies of Healing Justice through Mothers’ Memory” is a four-part healing performance workshop series that celebrates the spirit of commemorative justice in mothers. The “Love Balm” performance features testimonies from the mothers and grandmothers of Kenneth Harding Jr., Oscar Grant III, Kerry Baxter Jr., Christopher La Vell Jones, Daniel Booker and more. The performances will take place at The Black Dot Cafe in West Oakland on April 14 and 21 at 2 p.m. Tickets are sliding scale: $7-$20 at the door. The performances are encores of the original reading at Eastside Arts Alliance in January 2012.

Floyd Pellom’s 57th Street Gallery

Dr. Terence Elliott, an accomplished pianist, composer and producer as well as an educator of humanities and music, performs at the 57th Street Gallery, 57th Street and Telegraph in Oakland, Saturday, April 28, 8:30-11 p.m., with Greg Simmons, bass; Mike Spencer, drums. The doors open at 5 p.m. Admission is $15.

Bower Hammer Skins, a Bay Area based jazz quartet featuring vocalist Raja, Herb Ruffin on keyboards, Karese Young on viola and Mike “Phat Foot” McCoy on drums, performs originals and jazz standards Sunday, April 29, 6-9 p.m.; doors open at 5 p.m. Admission is $12-$15. For information, call (510) 654-6974, email Contact@57thStreetGallery.com or visit www.57thStreetGallery.com.

Quijeremá

Quijeremá will be performing with special guest guitarist Alex de Grassi at Yoshi’s Jack London Square, Thursday, April 12, at Yoshi’s Oakland. For more information, visit http://www.quijerema.com.

‘Down the Congo Line’

Dimensions Dance Theatre presents “Down the Congo Line,” an evening of dance choreographed by LaTanya Tigner and Isaura Oliveira and directed by Dimensions Dance Theater artistic director Deborah Vaughan on Saturday, April 14, 8 p.m., at the Malonga Casquelourde Center, 1428 Alice St. at 14th Street, Oakland. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door, children under 18 $15, available through www.brownpapertickets.com or at the Malonga Center, Dimensions Dance Theater office, third floor, Monday-Friday, 4-7 p.m. For information, call (510) 465-3363 or visit www.dimensionsdance.org.

The performance at Diamano Coura’s Collage des Africains was just a smidgen, just a taste; the full production will have live music provided by MJ’s Brass Boppers, Katrina Diaspora Survivors living in the Bay, plus Kiazi Malonga, lead drummer for Fua Dia Congo with other drummers from his troupe and Abel Damasceno Moura and Vinicius Oliveira accompanied by other percussionists. Listen to an extended interview with the choreographers and DDT director at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2012/03/16/wandas-picks-radio-show.

‘John Brown’s Truth’

Poster: Doug Minkler

One Life Institute’s Spirit Sound Silence Retreat

Gather for a day of spiritual renewal, inspiration and healing surrounded by the beauty of nature. Retreats are held quarterly and meet on a Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., 9:30 arrival and registration. This next one is April 21 at Holy Redeemer Center, 8945 Golf Links Rd., Oakland. A hidden oasis at the foot of the Oakland Hills, it is three tenths of a mile west of the intersection of Highway 580 and 98th Avenue. As you enter the wooded property and drive over the creek, look for the large meeting hall on your right. Visit http://www.onelifeinstitute.org/retreats.html.

Listen to an interview with Dr. Liza who, along with the OneLife Angel Team, facilitate the retreat at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2011/10/26/wandas-picks-special-wrevliza-j-rankow-destiny-harpist. Destiny Muhammad, the “Harpist from the Hood,” also in the interview, is the musical inspiration. Tuition is based on a sliding scale $35-$100, more if you can, less if you can’t – no one turned away for lack of funds. Scholarships are available. Advance RSVP requested for planning purposes. Email OneLife at onelife@onelifeinstitute.org.

Black Panther Party at the Oakland Public Library, plus other programming

April 7, “Let Us Not Forget: History and Art by Black Panther Party Minister of Culture Emory Douglas” is at the West Oakland Branch Library, 1801 Adeline St., Oakland, (510) 238-7352, 1-4 p.m.

Also at the Oakland Public Library: April 20, E-Government Made Easy: Learn how to navigate government resources online, Main Library, 10-11:30 a.m.; April 25, Mysterious Places, an evening with best-selling mystery writers Cara Black, Rys Bowen and Owen Steinhauer, Main Library, 6-8 p.m.; April 28, Lunch Bucket Paradise, a book talk with author Fred Setterberg, Dimond Branch, 2-3:30 p.m. The link to Oakland Public Library events is http://www.eventkeeper.com/code/events.cfm?curOrg=OAKLAND http://www.oaklandlibrary.org/PR/pr032812youth_poet_loreate.pdf.

Community Forum on Solitary Confinement

“The Outer Limits of Solitary Confinement: A Public Forum to Support the California Prisoner Hunger Strike” is Friday, April 6, 6-8 p.m., at UC Hastings College of the Law, Louis B. Mayer Lounge, 198 McAllister St., San Francisco.

This free San Francisco event, organized by the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3 and co-hosted by the Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal and the Hastings chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, will mark 40 years of solitary confinement for Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3 by exploring the expansion and overuse of solitary confinement and mobilizing support for the Amnesty International petition to remove them from solitary confinement and support for the California Hunger Strikers. There’s a keynote with Angola 3’s Robert H. King, two films and additional speakers.

The International Coalition to Free the Angola 3 stands in solidarity with the courageous prisoners who recently initiated hunger strikes throughout California prisons, www.prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/. The event will examine how the torture and wrongful convictions of the Angola 3 are part of a much larger problem throughout U.S. prisons. With presentations from several speakers involved with supporting the hunger strikers, the audience will be presented with many ways in which they too can lend their support in the fight against solitary confinement and other forms of torture in California prisons.

The keynote speaker will be Robert H. King of the Angola 3, who was released in 2001 when his conviction was overturned, after 29 years of continuous solitary confinement. King says today that “being in prison, in solitary was terrible. It was a nightmare. My soul still cries from all that I witnessed and endured. It does more than cry; it mourns, continuously.”

Since his release, Robert H. King has worked tirelessly to support the other two members of the Angola 3, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, who have been in solitary confinement since April 17, 1972. This coming April 17, which marks the 40th anniversary of their solitary confinement, King will be joined by Amnesty International and other supporters at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge to present Amnesty International’s petition to Gov. Bobby Jindal demanding that Wallace and Woodfox be immediately released from solitary confinement. Read more about Amnesty International’s Angola 3 campaign, here: http://www.amnestyusa.org/angola3.

At the UC Hastings event, King will talk about the Amnesty International petition demanding transfer from solitary and the broader struggle to release Wallace and Woodfox from prison altogether. Interviewed in a recent video by Amnesty International (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kotf68mrqCI), King says about Wallace and Woodfox: “All evidence shows that they were targeted simply for being members of the Black Panther Party. There is really no evidence, forensic, physical or otherwise, linking them to the crime. When I think about the 10 years in which I’ve had time to be out here, that is 10 more years that they are there.”

In their investigative report (http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/usa-100-years-in-solitary-the-angola-3-and-their-fight-for-justice), Amnesty International similarly concluded that “no physical evidence links Woodfox and Wallace to the murder.” Even further: “Potentially favorable DNA evidence was lost. The convictions were based on questionable inmate testimony … It seems prison officials bribed the main eyewitness into giving statements against the men. Even the widow of the prison guard has expressed skepticism, saying in 2008, ‘If they did not do this – and I believe that they didn’t – they have been living a nightmare for 36 years!’”

Additional speakers will include:

• Hans Bennett, independent journalist and co-founder of Journalists for Mumia
• Terry Kupers, professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California
• Manuel La Fontaine, Northern California regional organizer for All of Us or None
• Aaron Mirmalek, Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee, Oakland
• Kiilu Nyasha, independent journalist and former member of the Black Panther Party
• Tahtanerriah Sessoms-Howell, youth organizer for All of Us Or None
• Luis “Bato” Talamantez, California Prison Focus and one of the San Quentin 6
• Azadeh Zohrabi, co-editor-in-chief of the Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal

In addition, two short films will be featured: “The Gray Box: A Multimedia Investigation” by Susan Greene, The Dart Society, and “Cruel and Unusual Punishment” by Claire Schoen, for the AFSC Stopmax Campaign.

Event notes: Hastings is on the corner of Hyde and McAllister, two blocks from the Civic Center BART station. The Hyde Street side entrance is wheelchair accessible. Refreshments will be served and signed books will be for sale. This event is free and open to the public. Donations for prisoner support will be gratefully accepted.

More SF Bay Area events with Robert H. King:

• Let Us Not Forget: Honor Fallen Comrades and Political Prisoners, Saturday, April 7, 1 p.m., West Oakland Library, 1801 Adeline St., www.itsabouttimebpp.com. For more information, call (916) 455-0908.

• Oakland International Film Festival, Sunday, April 8, 3 p.m., Oakland Museum, 1000 Oak St., at 10th Street, http://www.oiff.org/. King will be speaking in conjunction with a screening of the new British documentary about the Angola 3, entitled “In The Land of the Free…”

On the fly

The Stage Bridge Senior Theater Storytelling Concert is Sunday, April 29, 3:30 p.m., $10-$12, at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. Visit www.lapena.org. Jon Fromer with Friends and Family performs April 21, 8 p.m., also at La Peña Cultural Center. Julia Chigamba and Chinyakare Ensemble with special guest, Musekiwa Chingodza, are at Ashkenaz Music and Dance Center, 1317 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley, Saturday, April 7, 9 p.m. Visit www.ashkenaz.com. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door.

First Annual Bay Area Community College HIV/AIDS Hip Hop Showcase is April 12, 6-9 p.m., Laney College Theatre, 900 Fallon St., Oakland. For information, call (510) 689-3967 or email hiphop4hiv@gmail.com. Keith Josef Adkins’ “The Final Days of Negro-Ville,” a part of the Rough Reading Series April 16-17, to present early drafts of new plays by rising national playwrights. Come every month, on a consecutive Monday or Tuesday evening to witness a new play in the making! Visit http://playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=53. To RSVP email rsvp@playwrightsfoundation.org or call (415) 626-2176. Readings are free with a suggested $10 donation. To attend Stanford readings, email davidg1@stanford.edu.

Cal Performances: Sunday, April 1, 2012, Keith Jarrett performs at 8 p.m. in Zellerbach Auditorium at UC Berkeley. The concert celebrates the release of his newest solo piano CD “Rio,” recorded live in concert in April 2011 and considered by Jarrett to be his best solo piano recording since The Köln Concert. Thursday, April 19, 8 p.m., Seun Kuti with EGYPT 80. There will be a free preconcert talk in the lobby at 7 p.m. hosted by Chuy Varela, music director of KCSM radio. Visit http://www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/performances/2011-12/world-stage/seun-kuti-felas-egypt-80.php.

Cuttingball Theatre presents “The Tenderloin” by Annie Elias with the company directed by Annie Elias April 27-May 27. In this ethnography, the denizens of this historic yet blighted area of San Francisco get to have their say, much the same way director Paige Bierma gives voice to the same population in her short film, “A Brush with the Tenderloin,” which chronicles muralist Mona Caron’s work, a mural that incorporates a bit of history mixed with currency and future hope. Visit http://abrushwiththetenderloin.com/ and http://cache.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2011/10/05/wandas-picks-radio-show.

SFJAZZ presents Sierra Maestra on April 4, 7:30 p.m., at YBCA Forum in San Francisco; Anoushka Snakar presents “Traveller: A Raga-Flamenco Journey,” Thursday, April 19, at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco; Charles Lloyd New Quartet featuring Maria Farntouri, Sunday, April 22, 7 p.m., at the Herbst Theatre; Paco de Lucía is at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, Friday, April 27, 8 p.m. Visit www.sfjazz.org for the complete lineup.

‘The Old Settler’: a review

John Henry Redwood’s play, “The Old Settler,” at the Black Repertory Group Theatre has been extended April 5-8, Thursday-Friday, 8 p.m., Saturday, 3 and 8 p.m. to Easter Sunday, 5 p.m. Produced for Women’s History Month, this play looks at the relationships between three generations of women, ironically attached to the apron strings of one Husband Witherspoon (actor Clarence “Ray” Johnson Jr.). It is a play that looks at honor and fidelity, kinship, especially that between women that society judges past their prime, as if value could be judged by shelf life or refrigeration – neither the case in the 1940s when one kept items cold with blocks of ice. But I digress.

It’s directed by Tico “Choir Boy” Wells, one of the original cast members when the play opened at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, N.J., and the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn., in 1997. The original production was directed by Walter Dallas. Since then the play has been performed numerous times, including a television production with Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad. The play, which boasts a stellar cast in this production, looks at what happens when one migrates North, where often, as is the case with the youngest woman, Lou Bessie (Tavia Percia), there is no one waiting for you. The opposite is true for Quilly (Paula Martin), whose sister Elizabeth provides shelter for her younger sister in Harlem when their mother dies and the younger sister relocates.

I’ve seen several interpretations of “Old Settler” and until the current production at Black Rep, I didn’t know there was another way to play it. In the capable hands of the current cast with first one then another director, the newest Dr. Arletha “Angel” Lands, who also appears as Elizabeth, Lou Bessie’s rival, the play, which is about an older woman who rents a room to a young man and the two fall in love, is deepened when actor Clarence Ray Johnson Jr.’s “Husband” conveys a genuine love for Elizabeth and the decision reached about their relationship more hers than his. This not only allows Elizabeth’s character more control and a way to save face; it also leaves space for the two sisters to reclaim their severed ties.

Is the playwright hinting here that sisterhood is a stronger bond than any transitory or temporal relationship with a man, young or old? Is he also saying, in his juxtaposition of a young hot thing, Lou Bessie, and Elizabeth, who reminds Husband of his recently deceased mother, that when one changes, loses the values which build strong character, then one loses herself, which is what happens to Lou Bessie, who compromises, perhaps even leases if not sells her soul, to stay in her beloved Harlem. Husband refuses to follow her lead, even if he seems to follow her everywhere else.

People take a lot when they are lonely; they are also extremely vulnerable when they are alone as well. Elizabeth is prime for the take, yet this Husband is gentle with her and I appreciate that, especially in 2012 when the “Old Settler Factor” is real for a lot of women who are getting infected with HIV disease, losing their homes and possessions to men younger than they. And then there is Lou Bessie, who one cannot altogether fault for playing her cards right to get with the in crowd, even if that means sleeping with her child’s father, Bucket, at night, while cleaning for a white woman by day. She latches onto Husband, flattered he came North to find her. She also knows he has land and money, so why not play the country hick. But Clarence Ray Johnson Jr.’s character might be from a small town, but he certainly is not small minded or as naïve or in love as she thinks. A single mother, whose child is being raised by her mother back home, Bessie aka Charmaine seems to be careening along in a caboose without a driver.

Just because one is called an old settler, and in Elizabeth’s case “an old, old settler,” does not mean the woman is willing to “settle.” She is excited and in love, but she is not a fool. Perhaps if John Henry Redwood had pushed the envelope and let the affair work out as it might have if set in another place or time. One wonders if, when there is a span of over 10 years between partners, is it love or lust or usury or a little of both?

The set and sound design are also really wonderful. Black Repertory Group Theatre is located at 3201 Adeline St., Berkeley. For information, call (510) 652-2120. Visit http://blackrepertorygroup.com/Main_Stage.html.

‘Soldier’ (2000) by June Jordan: a book review

Last month was the 20th anniversary celebration of June Jordan’s Poetry for the People. Held at UC Berkeley, the organizational home where it resides in the African American History Department, it was a wonderful two days if one could get through the floods and torrential rain that opening Friday night. Hosted by Aya de Leon, poet, teacher and new administrator of the program, with alternating P4P alumni or current students who hosted workshops and shared poetry. The two days culminated with a performance and reading with Patricia Smith, and of course an all-star Bay Area line-up.

Since then, I have been reading June Jordan; I ordered “the Blueprint,” short for June Jordan’s “Poetry for the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint,” as well as another copy of her memoir, “Soldier.” I am going to make my way through her collections of essays and poetry, my goal to have read her entire body of work by summer’s end. I have just been feeling like poetry lately, June Jordan’s in particular, but Climbing PoeTree with Alixa and Naima at the Lyricist Lounge at La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley a couple of weeks ago was mind altering, just as the 20th anniversary of June Jordan’s P4P was.

In fact, some of the poets there were also at UC Berkeley that weekend, folks like Ariel Luckey. Perhaps I have always liked June because her name is my birth month, warm days into heat waves, short days running endurance races with one another – until the winner is crowned equinox. Her name is the beginning of personal droughts and a reminder to drink water, June is Flag Day and Father’s Day – father a nebulous entity for both of us – June is just before summer fun really begins. It is an anomaly, both a crab and a twin, air and water, masculine and feminine.

I start my journey with “Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood” by June Jordan. I remain transfixed – the life narrated here is so amazing and horrific at the same time, yet I can hardly put it down. It is an intensely quick read. When I was just half way through, I didn’t think little June would make it to 12 – a short event-filled childhood.

Her dad wanted a boy, so given a girl he was still determined to treat her like a boy. She was his helper on building projects around the house. He took her deep sea fishing at 2 a.m. in the morning – she the only girl on the boat and he beat her daily, waking her from sleep with punches. He taught her to spar and if her guard was down, he’d knock her flat on her back. This same father also took her to the symphony and to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He taught her to look people, even adults, in the eyes and to stand up straight, to throw her shoulders back and walk confidently and proudly, even if the only people she saw walk like this were white.

Jordan’s descriptions of her neighborhood in Brooklyn contrasted with that in Harlem where her family lived before her dad bought a house which brought with it childhood illnesses for June. She had a timeline, before Harlem and after – the before always a better time, a time when her mother and father seemed happier. In Brooklyn she learned the word “sacrifice” and hated its sound and rhythm. She also hated the term “first,” as in first Black child to attend the Robin Hood Summer Camp or Midwood High or the girls’ prep school, Northfield, where she was the only Black child. She says:

“There were 1,500 students standing outside that school, and I was the ‘only’ one. / I didn’t like it. / I felt small. / I felt outnumbered. / I was surrounded by ‘them.’ / And there was no ‘we.’ / There was only me. / I didn’t like it. / And because I’d been skipped two years ahead, I was like a pint-sized mascot to my class: I was 12 years old and a sophomore, and the whole thing felt wrong” (pp. 248-249).

Her mother tries arguing with her husband about his fascination with white people. One of the only times she challenged his beliefs, he slapped her so hard, June ran down the stairs to rescue her.

She writes that she never had to do anything except read and study: no cooking, cleaning, even making her bed. June’s brilliant cousin Valerie stayed with their family. Valerie could play the piano and was good in school too. She also looked just like June’s beautiful mother. Yet, despite the beatings, June seemed to have enough pleasant moments during childhood to make it happy.

I kept thinking she was going to grow up and kill her mean father, but she just takes the abuse. She asks for a gun, she starts sleeping with a knife, but the beatings continue. When she reports her father to the police, they tell her to be a “good girl.” She falls in love often – this daring, resilient, brilliant little girl who uses the pronoun “he” to describe herself – girls like June always win. However each notch on her belt is measured in light years or a pound of her flesh.

I don’t understand why her mother married this man or why she lets him continue to beat her child. Why she doesn’t leave, why she doesn’t tell someone is a mystery all the way to the end. Later in the book we meet Valerie’s mother and stepfather, Uncle Teddy, who went to law school. Uncle Teddy provides a buffer for June, but he treats her like a boy too and ridicules Valerie, his step-daughter, for being a girl.

I love the passages where Jordan speaks about listening to language a different way, her economic enterprises –she wins a poetry contest and learns that she could start a business, writing poems for her friends. I also appreciate her childhood rationale for the brutality she sees and witnesses from her father and from the police when they knock all her neighbor’s teeth out when they don’t believe he lives where he says he lives – sound familiar? I also appreciate June’s rationale and continued affection for her mother when her mother also starts knocking her down without warning.

She writes about going to the Dodgers games to see the handsome Jackie Robinson. She says her parents “acted like the Dodgers were going to save the world. They’d hired Jackie. … And Jackie could play, couldn’t he? Nothing was impossible anymore. And if Jackie hit a home run, then the shouts and pounding feet could wake the dead” (247).

Despite all this, Jordan recalled how long a bus ride it took to find a good grocery store or fruit stand. She also writes about the first Black laundromat and how exciting it was to have such a business in the neighborhood. She writes about broken promises and straight As on report cards. “Soldier” is quite the journey, and the voice, the voice is that of a little girl trying to learn her way through a mine field littered with cluster bombs, which go off too frequently. “Soldier” is the story of immigration and how one family lives with the Pan African dissonance that occurs between the two cultures, American and Caribbean, as represented by Jordan’s father and Uncle Teddy, two seemingly different, yet very similar men.

“Soldier” looks at beauty coupled with the African American color complex. June was told often she was not beautiful, so she had to use her brain, but the little boys whom June liked told her otherwise. Perhaps the most endearing aspect of “Soldier” is the author’s ability to juxtapose the good with the bad, more often than not, these attributes never the property of one single character, which made these “good character” slips all the more surprising. June’s maternal grandparents offered a continuity for June not present anywhere else. Her grandmother and grandfather modeled a patience and love for family June could wrap up and sleep next to at night, offer a seat to at the breakfast table, or hold in her pocket when she needed an ace to win yet another battle, a lone soldier on the field.

55th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival April 19-May 3

What is it about a love story that pulls one in? Is it the lovely people, the tragedy our love of weeping while guests in another person’s tragedy? Right, it can always be worse that what we let on, so we learn to let go. Artistically inclined, filmmaker Terence Nance mends his heart over a treatment and then short film, “How Would You Feel?” This film becomes the catalyst for the runaway hit at Sundance, where the director both won best film for his first feature, “The Oversimplification of Her Beauty,” he also wowed the audiences with his live musical performance. What I loved about the film which still intrigues me was its nonlinear format and the musicality of its imagery, whether it is cartoon, claymation, or black and white or color, documentary format or surrealism. At one point, when granted I was lost, I just admired its artistry and beauty. “Oversimplification” is a lovely work – filled with people who are Black and beautiful. Now, how often does one see a film like that?

Host of the March 31 “Hunter Listening Party,” Adimu Madyun said this was his prom night. We came dressed for the occasion and were certainly treated to a wonderful time, enjoyed by all, including Adimu’s wife Khalilah and her father, Allen Goodlow. – Photo: TaSin Sabir

This is not a documentary, but it is based on something that happened to the director, and the woman in the film is actually the woman in his heart at one point. But then, I could be totally wrong. “An Oversimplification” is rightly titled and as such defies description. You have to go see it for yourself. On his website, the director has other films, shorts, which he is not thinking of making into features. There is one, “Clap,” I highly recommend, given Trayvon Martin and the child who inspired the work, Aiyana Jones, a 7-year-old girl murdered and burned alive by the police in Detroit, Michigan. The work “Clap” is Pharoahe Monch’s first visual from W.A.R. (We Are Renegades). Visit http://media.mvmt.com/2011/03/14/clap-a-short-film/. The director and I had a wonderful conversation Friday, March 30, about “An Oversimplification,” “Clap” and the film he is working on presently, music and his album coming out soon. Visit http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2012/03/30/wandas-picks-radio-show.

The film, which has its California premiere at the 55th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival, April 22, 8:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive, will screen three more times in San Francisco at the Sundance Kabuki: Monday, April 30, 9 p.m., Tuesday, May 1, 12:15 p.m., and Wednesday, May 2, 4 p.m. The director will be in town for the San Francisco screenings and for the Sacramento International Film Festival, also this month. Visit http://www.sffs.org/ and http://www.sacramentofilmfestival.com/.

Check back later for other recommendations for the SFIFF.

‘Black Flight: Our Sojourn. Our Connections. Our Stories’

“Black Flight” is in the Hall of Culture, Third Floor, 762 Fulton St., San Francisco, through Sunday, June 17. I enjoyed walking through this exhibit during and after intermission at the African American Shakespeare production, “Julius Caesar.” Phenomenal production. I perused the Black Dolls exhibition first, which appealed to me in varying degrees. Uneven, the dolls which used craftsmanship appealed to me more. There were just too many Cabbage Patch dolls and others like this, which while certainly a part of a collection, left out the more obscure dolls like Little Souls, the pendant dolls in a locket I had which one could wear around her neck, the child size doll I got when I was maybe 6 or 7. I could hold her hand and walk with her, the Chatty Cathy – older and younger – which I owned as well.

I was a doll collector and I gave away my collection when I reached 18 and got married and moved away from home. Since then, I have started a new collection, so while this show, curated by Neshormeh Lindo, has its virtues, the breadth is limited especially given the huge Black doll craftswomen who host a show yearly in the fall in Oakland. There one can see Black dolls going back to the early 19th century, as well as craftwomanship featuring both abstract and classical Pan African dolls of all sizes and shapes and materials. I have purchased a few and received others as presents. Some of these dolls made from cornhusks remind me of the wooden dolls I have from Quilombos in Brazil.

Upstairs though, I was amazed by the wonderful photography and murals looking at the African presence throughout the world, in places like Vietnam and Germany. While most of the photographs were on the wall, there were several artists whose work was installed as slide shows. I really loved the one with work from the artist’s trip to Haiti. I loved the photographs from Congo, South Asia, Mexico, and my daughter, TaSin Yasmin’s photographs of her work in Madagascar. Dr. Marcus Lorenzo Penn’s photographs of Ghana are at this point iconographic given the many exhibitions they have graced since the one at the African American Center at the San Francisco Main Library many years ago, the Float Gallery in Oakland and last year’s Maafa event at the Oakland Main Library, where we had a Teen Poetry Reading and a screening of “Traces of the Trade.”

Dr. Penn’s photographs are so lovely, and when one thinks about Ghana, his imagery inevitably comes to mind. The exhibition is a beautiful statement about the beauty that is Pan Africa. I wish there were on-going conversations between the artists and the public throughout the exhibit in response to the query the curator posited: Where are we going? What is carrying us across the waters? How do we define this new expatriate experience, not to mention the cultural connections these artists from America made on their trips and the stories these photos hold. All exhibitions are FREE and open to the public Tuesday-Saturday, 12 noon-5 p.m.

All of Us or None at OMCA

At the Oakland Museum of California, see “All of Us or None: Social Justice Posters of the San Francisco Bay Area” and “The 1968 Exhibit,” both up March 31-Aug. 19. Visit www.museumca.org or call (510) 318-8453. A film series, “Final Fridays,” starts April 27, 8:30-10:30 p.m. Also on Final Fridays from 5-9 p.m. are OMCA Summer Nights, with half price admission and, from April to July, Amoeba Records DJs spinning hits from 1968.

I completely missed the press preview, but I informed Kelly, the publicist, that I might not make it – it’s too hard getting to an event on a Friday after a radio broadcast. It involves a lot of preparation and then the actual production I am literally sitting on needles until it is over, no matter how early I woke up to prepare, how well the conversation is going technically and in the studio, I enjoy the shows more once I can sit back and just listen to the podcast. So I arrive and there are these busloads of kids inside. I find out that it is a national day of dance at museums and this cast of artists is about to dance down the stairs and throughout the open galleries – hm, can I watch this and visit the exhibit?

The “Hunter Listening Party” March 31 celebrated the launch of WolfhawkJaguar, Adimu Madyun’s latest project. We were in the Oakland Hills at Linda J’s Bed, Breakfast and Beyond listening to songs that lifted the ancestors, celebrated our collective victories and brought attention to the need for a healing – those gathered the healers. The project is going to drop next month. – Photo: TaSin Sabir

Anyway I visited “All of Us or None,” guest curated by James Comisar, first. For those who were there and perhaps recall the posters, this will be a nostalgic stroll through memory lane. True to the new Oakland Museum mission, there are iPod kiosks where patrons can log access posters and add lore to the narrative, especially where they first saw it and who painted it – like an OM Wikilinks. Visit www.the1968exhibit.org.

In the center of the gallery, there is a workshop space where printmakers will set up shop and demonstrate printmaking techniques and give away the posters. I recognized many posters and artists by name. Many of the images were humorous. I recall a similar exhibit years ago at SFMOMA on music.

When one arrives at the end of a press preview, she misses all the special talks by luminaries like Comisar and the curator from the Minnesota History Center where “1968” originated. The exhibition will be traveling the country through 2014. The open gallery is where one can trace the events monthly before entering the exhibit which, though labeled, is rather difficult at times to decide – what month is this? Where am I? The medical helicopter has recorded narratives of four soldiers who speak about the war while actual footage cycles on a screen behind the gurney. When one looks up and sees the span of the helicopter wings, one thinks of the TV show MASH, which I didn’t know was actually filmed in California.

Not far away there is a TV room where one can sit on pillows (I think) and watch old shows like Bewitched, the film, “The Planet of the Apes” and other shows like The Brady Bunch. TV Guides paper the installation, which looks like the inside of Dick Clark’s American Bandstand studio. The Republican National Convention is there, and I remember Chairman Bobbie Seale’s being chained in the trial known as the Chicago 8. His run for president is also shown in the exhibit, as is Black Panther Party memorabilia circa 1968.

What I really like in “1968” is the section where the helicopter sits; near the door there is a shot of Arlington Cemetery, where graves dot a landscape, an actual grave marker there in the installation. What is remarkable is the way the light and camera imagery interact to give one a variety of views, from personal to national – the cost of war in lives. This exhibit certainly does not celebrate conflict, given the variety of voices present in an exhibition where two national heroes were killed, RFK and Dr. Martin King. The train that took his body from New York to D.C. shows in photographs the sorrow this nation felt over the death of this man.

Now contrast this installation, which has photographs taken from the train in a slide projection – with the pew where one can sit and watch Martin King give his last speech, and then see the place where he was killed, the funeral procession and his young family. There is even a copy of the Obsequies dated April 9, 1968, 10:30 a.m. Ebenezer Baptist Church, 2 p.m. the campus of Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia, on display. Strong imagery.

Both exhibitions make one think about the past in a new way, and it is great that so many public programs are planned to give the community an opportunity to express their views as they engage one another in a discourse that places the issues addressed in the political posters and in the 1968 political discourse in another context. What have we learned from the past, if anything, that could eliminate the need to retrace the trek of discontent, disillusion and defeat? 1968 was an election year. There is a voter machine that one can use to elect the candidate of one’s choice.

I also like the simulation of the Apollo space capsule, the news coverage yet another multimedia aspect of this thoughtful and well-constructed exhibition from January: “The Living Room War”; February: “We’re Losing The War,” Lounge – TV and Movies; March: “The Generation Gap”; April: “I Have Been to the Mountaintop”; May: “I Am Somebody”; June: “The Death of Hope” Lounge – Music; July: “Love It or Leave It”; August: “Welcome to Chicago”; September: “Sisterhood is Powerful” Lounge – Style; October: “Power to the People.” A key object here is the torch from the 1968 Olympics and an American Indian Movement jean jacket. November: “The Votes Are In” – key objects: voting booth, Nixon buttons. Although Kennedy is winning in Oakland (OM 2012), he loses nationally. December: “In the Beginning.” We come full circle as we enter a room decorated the same as that in the January section. What does this mean? We’ve traveled 12 months, 365 days and it is as if we never left home. Scary thought.

In California there are a number of notable moments, among them Jan. 6: The first adult human-to-human heart transplant operation in the United States is performed at Stanford University Medical Center. Johnny Cash backed by June Carter, Carl Perkins and the Tennessee Three, performs his famous concert at Folsom prison Jan. 13. Feb. 12, Eldridge Cleaver published “Soul on Ice.” The film “Easy Rider” goes into production, completed by summer. March 5 is the date of a walkout by Mexican American students at two Los Angeles high schools, which set in motion a massive protest movement for Chicano studies and bilingual education. Luis Rodriguez, award-winning author of “Always Running: La Vida Loca,” “Gang Days in L.A.” and the recent, “It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction,” is one of the leaders of this movement.

Significant dates in California during March and April 1968 are

· March 10, Cesar Chavez ends a 25-day fast in Delano, California, in protest of the violence against striking migrant farm workers.

· April 6, two days after Martin King is assassinated, Bobby Hutton is killed in a police shootout at de Fremery Park, West Oakland.

· April 10, at the annual Oscar ceremony in L.A., the drama, “In the Heat of the Night,” is named Best Picture of 1967. It starred Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger and Warren Oates and was directed by Norman Jewison.

‘Rebel Home Dance’: a review

Congratulations to Sheena Johnson, artistic director of “Rebel Home Dance,” for her fantastic show, “Land/Home,” which featured new work and a reprise of older work with artistic collaborators Chris Evans and David Boyce in “Freedom Study #2,” which featured Chris in a solo projected scene dancing in tree landscape, before joining Sheena on stage in a sound sculpture peopled with human and instrumental voices answering the question: When have you felt the most free?

This lovely work, which was a part of the Black Choreographers Here and Now a couple of years ago, felt new in the intimate and cozy Temescal Art Center in Oakland. “Yellow House Project: Beauty,” the choreographer’s tribute to the memory of her great uncle Billy and the home in Erie, Pennsylvania, which was destroyed – a metaphor for Uncle Billy’s life, destroyed by Sheena’s great grandmother, Ida Sue Brown, due to misguided Christian beliefs that her son’s queer sensibilities were somehow wrong. Sheena asks in this work performed by the amazing dancer and choreographer, Atasiea (aka Kenneth L. Fergusin): “As a queer person, what can I learn of love, loving and being loved by discovering and re-imagining my Uncle Billy?” Atasiea was one of the choreographers honored at Destiny’s “Toy Story,” closing weekend at Laney College last month. “Toy Story” was pretty phenomenal! I sat in the balcony, so when the dancers went aerial, it was as if they were flying just outside my window. Kudos to the writers!

Did I mention in the “Yellow House” piece that I was lucky enough to sit behind Chris Evans as she played the cello? Nice! “Land/Home,” the work we were looking forward to, was set in a wasteland, large pebbles on the floor along with broken rock – the surface the size of a man’s foot. Performers and choreographers: Sheena, Byb Chanel Biben, m.a. brooks, Jochelle Elise Perena and Jasmine Vassar. The installation artist was Ernest Jolly and the music, Aretha Franklin, John Legend and Ben Harper. I hope this work will get another performance – the questions posed about land and home in a disappearing landscape – if one’s home is sinking into the ocean or the air is polluted along with the soil so one has no way to sustain oneself, what happens? The dancers work together and then solo – each embodying a different question: What is the Promised Land, if one is displaced? Is lost permanent? Where is one’s homeland? In a conversation on my radio show, Sheena and I agreed that one’s home is inside one’s heart. I have a little pin shaped like a house with a heart welded to it. As a person in the Diaspora, rooted in the nebulae – home, the concept, is both tangible and intangible, but my heart is real.

There is text and laughter in Sheena Johnson’s work “Land/Home.” She asks: “How do we create a home that holds all the beauty and complexity of being people displaced from our homelands? How have our bodily encounters with and impositions upon land informed how we seek, crave and create home for ourselves?” Don’t miss The Yellow House Project, June 26-27, 7:30 p.m. at THEOFFCENTER in San Francisco. Visit www.sheenajohnsonrebelhome.blogspot.com and listen to the pre-show interview at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2012/03/23/wandas-picks-radio-show.

Bay View Arts Editor Wanda Sabir can be reached at wsab1@aol.com. Visit her website at www.wandaspicks.com throughout the month for updates to Wanda’s Picks, her blog, photos and Wanda’s Picks Radio. Her shows are streamed live Wednesdays at 6-7 a.m. and Fridays at 8-10 a.m., can be heard by phone at (347) 237-4610 and are archived on the Afrikan Sistahs’ Media Network.

Related Posts

• Wanda’s Picks for May 2012
• Wanda’s Picks for March 2012
• Wanda’s Picks for February 2012
• Wanda’s Picks for May 2011
• Wanda’s Picks for October 2011

Filmmaker points his camera at police-occupied, war-torn Black ghettos

by Chanell Parson

After seeing Sieh Samura’s new documentary, “Block Reportin’ 101,” about San Francisco Bay View newspaper’s longtime reporter, The People’s Minister of Information JR Valrey, I wanted to interview him. In his own right, Sieh Samura has already shot and put together an international film in his father’s homeland, the war-torn Sierra Leone; now he is pointing his cameras at the police-occupied, war-torn Black ghettos of the USA, with a documentary that speaks almost as much about cases of police terrorism in Black neighborhoods nationwide as it does about the radio show it is named after.

You hear the names of Oscar Grant and Sean Bell, but “Block Reportin’ 101” also makes you aware of of Askia Sabur in Philly, Deandre Brunston in Compton and many others; some are power-slammed out of wheelchairs, a teenage girl is face-planted into the floor of a juvenile facility, police dogs are allowed to eat off people’s arms, while others are hog-tied while incarcerated and punched in the face by America’s boys in blue, and these are just a few of the acts of police terrorism talked about and caught on tape.

Sieh Samura’s “Block Reportin’ 101” will be featured at the 10th Annual Oakland International Film Festival, on Saturday, April 7, at 3 p.m. at the Oakland Museum, 1000 Oak St. Come through to see this budding filmmaker in action. Following the screening of the film, meet and join the Q and A with Sieh, MOI JR and M1 of dead prez, who is featured in the film.

Chanell Parson: Can you tell us a little bit about your history as a filmmaker? How did you get started?

Sieh Samura: Well, I always wanted to be a media maker. I grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s when directors like Spielberg, Spike Lee, George Lucas, the Coens and Mario Van Peebles were really being celebrated. Independent film became extremely popular in the ‘90s and we were introduced to the new filmmaking styles of people like the Hughes Brothers, Tarantino and even Robert Townsend. I was in awe of their work and always wanted to find my role in the same field while being independent of corporate control.

Chanell Parson: Can you talk about your first documentary that was shot in Sierra Leone?

Sieh Samura: “Sweet Salone” was my first feature length documentary and it was primarily filmed in the West African country of Sierra Leone, where my father was born. The people of Sierra Leone were recovering from a long and brutal civil war that was forced on them by the world market for diamonds.

Filmmaker Sieh Samura, better known as C-ya

I’m very proud of “Sweet Salone”; that film turned out to have a positive effect on their copyright laws and policy. Something that all of the artists were lobbying for. It’s a beautiful country with warm people.

Chanell Parson: What is “Block Reportin’ 101” about and why did you pick the Minister of Info JR and his radio show as a subject?

Sieh Samura: “Block Reportin’ 101” is a feature length documentary about JR Valrey and his show called the Block Report. JR speaks directly to the audience and explains his role as a journalist and some of the things that motivate him. He brings up and we explore the Bay Area as a cultural hotspot when it comes to popular American culture like music and dance and the legacy of revolutionary politics and Black liberation that is rooted in the area.

Minister of Information JR hosts two weekly shows on KPFA 94.1 FM and kpfa.org: The Morning Mix every Wednesday, 8-9 a.m., and The Block Report every Friday night-Saturday morning, midnight-2 a.m.

Chanell Parson: What is most intriguing about MOI JR’s journalism to you?

Sieh Samura: I think that it is rare to find people repeatedly sticking their neck out for the benefit of the least powerful in our society or the oppressed. We should support and engage with people who stand up for us. If I find myself the target of government or corporate powers where can I really turn to in this society? How would I go about getting my story out and combatting their endless media resources? The place to start is with someone like JR and the Block Report.

It is rare to find people repeatedly sticking their neck out for the benefit of the least powerful in our society or the oppressed. We should support and engage with someone like JR and the Block Report who stands up for us.

Chanell Parson: What do you want the viewers of “Block Reportin’ 101” to walk away with after seeing this film?

Sieh Samura: I hope that viewers will not only be more aware of JR, who he is and what he does, but I also hope for people to become more informed about our society and how it works, so that they will be less likely to fall victim to one or more of the numerous traps that are constantly set for us by the capitalist power structure. This is something that I think JR is very good at articulating.

MOI JR celebrates another great Block Report Radio show with the crew and that night's guests. Listen in on Friday nights-Saturday mornings from midnight to 2 a.m. for the latest and best music, revealing interviews and free wheeling discussion of hot topics with listeners calling in. Lots of ticket giveaways too.

Chanell Parson: How did it feel being selected to be a part of the Oakland International Film Fest? Have you applied to other film festivals?

Sieh Samura: It is validating to be a selection at OIFF and stand next to all of their other impressive selections, past and present. This film is probably most relevant to Bay Area audiences, so I am excited to be able to share it with them and am humbled by the welcome.

Chanell Parson: What is the importance of independent community media?

Sieh Samura: Media that represents communities needs to be independent of corporate or government control or they will inevitably be used as instruments of control. People who live and work in communities do not have the resources that big mainstream media have to saturate the public with their messages. Independent community media allows everyone to have a voice.

Chanell Parson: When is “Block Reportin’ 101” screening at the Oakland International Film Fest? How could people keep updated on future film screenings?

Sieh Samura: “Block Reportin’ 101” will be screened on the opening eve of the festival on Saturday, April 7, at 3 p.m. There is an official website to watch trailers and clips and get info on screenings and updates at www.blockreportin.com. JR and myself and M1 of dead prez, who appears in the film, will all be there at the OIFF premier, so I urge people to come down, watch the film and talk with us. Thanks.

Bay Area-based writer Chanell Parson can be reached at chanellparson88@gmail.com.

JR Valrey gives it to you straight in ‘Block Reportin’ 101’

by Kristina Rose

Denika Chatman, mother of Kenneth Harding, who was murdered by San Francisco police July 16, 2011, and her 4-year-old daughter have been supported in their grief and their quest for justice by Minister of Information JR.

The screening was held at Check Other Outfitters in Midtown and from the moment the film began, the room was quiet – the audience attentive and engaged. The film is phenomenally orchestrated with firsthand accounts of those impacted by excessive and unnecessary police “force.” The powerful imagery of real time raw footage examining the savage cruelty of police brutality brings reality to the documentary.

The powerful imagery of real time raw footage examining the savage cruelty of police brutality brings reality to the documentary.

The film does not desensitize or debilitate the social issue at hand, which in turn brings empowerment and enlightenment to its viewers. In this documentary JR Valrey gives it to you straight without the smoke screens and disclaimers, painting a vivid picture of police terrorism in America.

In organizing through the media and on the streets against police terrorism, Minister of Information JR is carrying on the tradition of the Oakland-born Black Panther Party.

In this documentary JR Valrey gives it to you straight without the smoke screens and disclaimers, painting a vivid picture of police terrorism in America.

After the well accepted presentation of “Block Reportin’ 101,” JR disclosed that this was the first official viewing of the film and no other city had been privy to view it yet. The audience was pleased and honored to have been in attendance for such a monumental moment. The floor was open to a Q and A discussion forum which overflowed with lengthy questions and accolades for the film.

JR Valrey brings a voice and a platform to the citizens of Oakland who have grown despondent and outraged due to police injustice. Valrey is destined to make a major impact on a national level in his political movement to fight police brutality.

Reminiscent of Tupac in his heyday, Valrey speaks expressively, exercising his freedom of speech and bringing prominence to real Black issues that we face on a day-to-day basis. When he speaks, people listen. He has the ability to hold your undivided attention as he educates the masses on a cause that he is well informed and passionate about. JR Valrey is currently on a city-to-city tour promoting his film, “Block Reportin’ 101,” and his book as well. We wish him much success.

Houston-based writer Kristina Rose can be reached at harleychevelle@gmail.com.

Related Posts

• Ten days in LA
• Wanda’s Picks for February 2011
• Standing on the side of the Black Panthers, not the police
• When sentencing Mehserle, judge said race is irrelevant to Oscar Grant case
• An epidemic of brutality: Oakland filmmaker feels police wrath

by Jacquie Taliaferro

Pan African Film Festival

Jacquie Taliaferro

Speaking of CB, big ups for his Grammy win and also Larry Batiste, our Bay Area’s own, for producing the music for the pre-Grammy show!

Back to PAFF, which is back in the same spot at Crenshaw and MLK Jr. Drive, the old Magic Johnson Theaters, after a short hiatus in Culver City. It is unfortunate that there are not more theaters able to host the super films at PAFF and the other film festivals, so that more filmmakers can escape the festival circuit and actually make money.

LaHitz Media at Pan African Film Festival

“Toussaint Louverture” was the big winner with three awards. Directed by Philippe Niang and starring Jimmy Jean-Louis (NBC’s “Heroes”), “Toussaint Louverture” is the long awaited two-part epic film of the life of Haitian revolutionary, who led the first successful slave revolt in world history by defeating the imperialist armies of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Other highlights of PAFF include “Dark Girls” by Bill Duke and D. Channsin, which features interviews with Viola Davis and many others, and “The Story of Lover Rock,” a U.K. documentary directed by Menelik Shabazz. “Lover’s Rock,” often dubbed “romantic reggae,” is a uniquely Black British sound that developed in the late ‘70s and ‘80s against a backdrop of riots, racial tension and sound systems.

Other world premieres were “Woman Thou Art Loosed: On the 7th Day,” directed by Neema Barnette and starring Blair Underwood, Sharon Leal, Nicole Beharie and Pam Grier, and “We the Party,” directed by Mario Van Peebles and starring Snoop Dogg, YG, Michael Jai White, Sally Richardson-Whitfield, Melvin Van Peebles and a group of newcomers. These films are hot!

Pam Grier will be in San Francisco at the Castro Theatre on St. Paddy’s Day, March 17, thanks to Peaches Christ Productions and the San Francisco Black Film Festival.

Academy Awards – Diaspora and Images

The Academy Awards is one of the most talked-about, celebrated, controversial, most watched, written about and generally fussed over events in America. It is up there with the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA All-Star Week (it was on the same day the West won) and the World Cup – wait, not the World Cup. The rest of the world is World Cup crazy but not the U.S.

Most of the world does not care about the Academy Awards, especially outside of English speaking countries. How many know Tan Wei won Best Actress for “Crossing Hennessy” at the Chinese Film Media Awards or that the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) presented David Yates the 2011 John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing. And by the way in 2007 Denzel Washington was honored with the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award in Film Excellence. BAFTA has given tribute to their counterparts “across the pond” for at least 25 years.

FESPACO (Festival Pan-Africain du Cinema et de la Television de Ouagadougou) in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, West Africa, hosts one of the largest film and arts festival in the world every two years. How many people know about this festival let alone who won what?

The Academy Awards has marketed itself very well. That gold statue is coveted and can become real gold – cash – if taken advantage of upon winning. Every other year, if not every year, the “Black issues” come up. Are we being recognized – and for what and how many of us?

This is by far one of the most dysfunctional relationships that exists.

Sidney Poitier, the first “Negro” to receive an Oscar for Best Actor graciously accepted his award:

1964 Academy Awards – Sidney Poiter’s acceptance speech

He has since received a Life Time Achievement Award from the Academy in 2008.

In a Hollywood Reporter article, Spike Lee is quoted: “In 1989, ‘Do the Right Thing’ was not even nominated [for best picture],” said Lee, with some mock outrage. “What film won best picture in 1989? ‘Driving Miss Mother F-ing Daisy!’ That’s why [Oscars] don’t matter,” said Lee. “Because 20 years later, who’s watching ‘Driving Miss Daisy?’”

In the Spike Lee-directed film “Malcolm X,” Denzel Washington’s masterful near reincarnation of Malcolm X in 1992 received a Best Actor Oscar nomination, yet he won the top award in 2008 for a less noble role in “Training Day.” He masterfully played the part of the acceptable stereotypical Academy Awards voting gallery expectation of a Black man. He and Halle Berry both broke a barrier that year with her getting the Best Actress Oscar for “Monster’s Ball” as a downtrodden Black woman, yet again an acceptable stereotypical Academy Awards voting gallery expectation of a Black woman.

Gorgeous Halle and brilliant Denzel were beautifully and symbolically packaged as bookends of the underlying story of the Academy’s gritted teeth defiance of Black artistic excellence.

OK, OK. Let’s not forget Octavia Spencer did win the 2012 Best Supporting Actress for her role as a defiant maid in “The Help.” I am sure Hattie McDaniel is smiling from heaven. Also, Sean P. Diddy Combs won a Best Documentary Oscar for “Undefeated,” about a North Memphis high school team of underprivileged football players.

Actress Mary Pickford, co-founder of United Artist (UA), Louis B. Mayer, head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), director Cecil B. DeMille and producer Irving Thalberg started the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927 with two aims: to mediate labor disputes and improve the movie industry’s image. Today those aims would translate into ameliorating hiring practices and improving the industry’s diversity in images.

Black actors have won 13 Academy Awards over the years, won in fact by 12 people; Washington has won two. But that’s out of a possible 332 given out since 1929, an infinitesimal 4 percent.

Denzel Washington said of the Academy, “If the country is 12 percent Black, make the Academy 12 percent Black. If the nation is 15 percent Hispanic, make the Academy 15 percent Hispanic, Why not?”

“I don’t see any reason why the Academy should represent the entire American population. That’s what the People’s Choice Awards are for,” said Frank Pierson, a former Academy president.

Time to let it go. Any good relationship counselor would say, “Go and lead a happy life and start by being free of what ‘they’ think.” Simply said. However, if you are in the film industry in America, Oscars present an artistic golden ring, a “bling bling” you can’t “ch-ching” ignore as artist or audience.

The NAACP Image Awards

The 43rd NAACP Image Awards was held just prior to the Academy Awards. For many it is the award show of award shows.

LaHitz Media behind the scenes at the NAACP Image Awards

Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier at the 2012 NAACP Image Awards. Click the image to see Belafonte interviewed by Jacquie Taliaferro “back in the day” about collaboration with Poitier and more.

Chairman’s Award winner was Cathy Hughes, the founder and the chairperson of Radio One, Inc., the largest Black owned and operated broadcast company in the nation. Now a publicly owned company, Radio One makes Hughes the first and only Black women to chair a publicly held corporation.

Jacquie Taliaferro speaks with Robert Townsend at the 2012 NAACP Image Awards. Click the image for behind the scenes interviews with Robert Townsend and Roland Martin and special appearances by Lenny Kravitz, Vanessa Williams, Mike Epps, Taraji P. Henson and more.

Vanguard Award winner George Lucas was on hand to receive his award.

Many of the top TV shows were nominated with their stars in attendance: “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” “The Closer,” “Treme,” “Thurgood,” “Luther,” “The Big C,” “Glee,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne,” “Men of a Certain Age,” “NCIS: Los Angeles,” “Private Practice,” “CSI: NY, Modern Family,” “Desperate Housewives,” “The Game,” “Love That Girl,” “Southland,” “Person of Interest” and the list goes on …

I love LA at least for 10 days or so and covering Awards Month is about the best “10 days or so” LA can produce for this native San Franciscan.

Back in the day, Jacquie Taliaferro interviews Harry Belafonte in Jamaica, with introductory clip of Sheryl Lee Ralph. They talk about “Carmen Jones” and “Buck and the Preacher Man,” a collaboration with Sidney Poitier.

Shout-outs

Pam Grier will be in San Francisco at the Castro Theatre on St. Paddy’s Day, March 17, thanks to Peaches Christ Productions and the San Francisco Black Film Festival.

Robert Gossett of “The Closer” will star in Pearl Cleage’s “Blues for an Alabama Sky,” directed by Michelle Shay at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre.

David Roach presents the Oakland International Film Festival April 6-8.

Kali Ray will appear at the San Francisco Black Film Festival, June 15-17.

Jacquie Taliaferro, filmmaker and director of LaHitz Media, can be reached at lahitznews@yahoo.com or (415) 821-1111. NAACP Image Awards and PAFF footage was shot by Alexander Taliaferro and edited by Karwanna Dyson, Big Mouth Productions, karwanna1@gmail.com.

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by DeBray Carpenter, aka Fly Benzo

These two Xochipala-style figurines at the Metropolitan Museum of Art date from the 13th-10th century B.C. Some historians believe this culture was a predecessor to the Olmecs.

According to Michel N. Laham, M.D., and Richard J. Karam, J.D., in their informative essay, “Did the Pheonicians Discover America?” evidence shows that there were actually two trips made to the Americas long before Colombia. The first of the two trips was taken circa 600 B.C. by the Egyptian Pharoah Necho with the aid of the seafaring Phoenicians. The second trip took place circa 450 B.C. by the Carthaginians. These voyages have for some reason been excluded for the traditional history books.

This, however, comes as no surprise considering the fact that much of the overwhelmingly convincing evidence that ties Native American civilization to Africa is suppressed. Genetic trees were recently produced which prove that the entire human population descends from an African female that the media named “Eve,” and geneticists subsequently found the same for the male they named “Adam.” Since the introduction of the “Adam and Eve” genetic trees, they have also been used to determine, in the first exodus, the routes the early Africans took out of Africa.

The Costa Chica region, near the Gulf of Mexico, is the area in Mexico with the highest population of Mexicans with African roots. This is primarily due to the fact that Veracruz, a city in the area, served as a slave port throughout the early colonial period.

However, there is sufficient evidence to prove that the African presence preceded the colonization of America by the Europeans. Some evidence introduced by Ivan Van Sertima in “Van Sertima’s Address to the Smithsonian,” the first chapter in “African Presence in Early America,” to support this claim would include ancient monuments such as the Olmec heads (statues with African features), pyramids with kings buried inside as they were in Egypt and dark figurines made to look exactly like some of the mummies in early Egypt (with arms crossed over chest, fingers spread and ribs outlined) as well as a sculpture of an Olmec woman from Xochipala in pre-Christain Mexico, approximately 3,000 years old with African headdress and ear pendants.

The Gulf of Mexico, the end-point of the currents that flow from Africa to the Americas, was the coastline upon which Olmec civilization, considered to be the “mother-culture” of America, thrived. Van Sertima reports that in 1964, the International Congress of Americanists argued, “There cannot now be any doubt but that there were visitors from the Old World to the New before 1492.”

To support this claim, in 1858 an enormous stone head was discovered and described as having “Africoid” features. Upon further examination, this head was discovered to have seven braids, signifying African headdress.

This portrayal of an Olmec king, showing his African hairstyle, is from the Tres Zapotes archeological site in Veracruz, a largely Black city on the Gulf of Mexico.

Discrimination in Latin America is also widespread and prevalent. John Logan, in his educational research paper, “How Race Counts for Hispanic Americans,” places Hispanic people in three categories: Hispanic Hispanics, Black Hispanics and White Hispanics. He reports that Black Africans are significantly more subject to discrimination, especially in major Latin American cities. He also stated that they live in more densely populated neighborhoods with similar conditions to non-Hispanic Blacks.

According to John Mitchell’s Los Angeles Times article, “Mexico’s Black History Is Often Ignored,” Mexicans are a “mixed race.” “But it’s the mixture of indigenous and European heritage that most Mexicans embrace; the African legacy is overlooked,” he adds. This only further solidifies the theory of discrimination and the myth of Black inferiority in Latin America.

Black inferiority is a notion so prevalent in America that mulattoes – people of mixed Black and white descent – are looked down upon and in Dr. David Pilgrim’s Ferris State University article, “The Tragic Mulatto Myth,” there are many examples of mulattoes, specifically females, portrayed in the media as unhappy and anxious to have a white lover, which would ultimately lead to their downfall. There are also other instances where a mulatto woman who could pass for white would have her secret exposed and commit suicide, other women were painted as seductresses and mulatto men were portrayed by the media as rapists who had both the “greed and ambition” of the white man combined with the “savagery and barbarism” of the Black man. Once again, the myth is Black inferiority is enforced and the Black condition exacerbated by the media.

With such vile conceptions of Africans, the question arises, if African history and Africa’s contributions to society and the world were celebrated, would discrimination and mass incarceration of Blacks be so prevalent? The obvious answer is yes; however, a lot of work still needs to be done in order to correct the wrongs inflicted upon Africans in America and beyond and a lot of effort will be needed to rewrite an accurate representation of the history of mankind.

Chicago advertising legend Tom Burrell, in his book, “Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority,” argues that the subliminal promotion of White superiority and Black inferiority has been the biggest and most successful marketing campaign in history. Burrell, leading into the first chapter of the book, quotes W.E.B. Du Bois’ statement:

“But in propaganda against the Negro since emancipation in this land, we face one of the most stupendous efforts the world ever saw to discredit human beings, an effort involving universities, history, science, social life and religion.”

With Black inferiority being so widespread and prevalent in the Americas, it comes as no surprise that people would want to disconnect themselves from their African lineage and would rather their history be considered “home-grown” or indigenous. Burrell is quoted in the Dawn Turner Trice’s Chicago Tribune article, “Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority,” stating, “We have to understand that images, symbols and words can be so powerful and ubiquitous that they affect behavior without us knowing it.” This just goes to show the subconscious effect of propaganda on our society and the way people are perceived and prejudged.

Burrell also writes in his book of the low expectations African Americans, due to propaganda, have of themselves and other African Americans and how even the images of successful Black figures can serve to support these thought patterns. He writes that successful Black figures being put in the spotlight are seen as “exceptions to the rule” and further accentuate the myth of a post-racial society by creating the illusion that anyone can succeed. Burrell calls this the “paradox of progress.” The common misconception of a post-racial society combined with propagandized images of African-Americans serve to subconsciously preserve the myth of Black inferiority and to preserve the subconscious aspect of discrimination and inequality in today’s society.

Wilma A. Dunaway, in her scholarly book, “The African-American Family in Slavery and Emancipation,” argues that there has been a preposterous notion that slavery was a “paternal institution” that “civilized and Christianized” Africans and that they were somehow better off than many free Northern workers due in part to the fact that they were “cared for” by their masters in their non-working hours and old age.

However, much of the research surrounding the institution of slavery in the United States has been conducted by the examination of journals and diaries kept by slave owners and therefore is extremely biased to make the slave owners seem humane and the slaves to seem inferior in order to justify the ridiculous institution of slavery and to downplay the impact that it had and continues to have on people of African descent as well as the shaping of Western society.

DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter has been the target of incessant police harassment and brutality since he began leading protests against the police murder of Kenneth Harding on July 16, 2011. He was recently convicted by a jury that included no Blacks of three misdemeanors – resisting arrest, obstructing a police officer and assault on a police officer – stemming from a brutal assault on him by police in a public plaza in front of a crowd of witnesses. The trial, which lasted several weeks, made schoolwork difficult, but he is maintaining his straight-A grade average. Here he is working on an assignment in the Rosenberg Library at City College. – Photo: Sara Bloomberg, The Guardsman

Bayview Hunters Point community advocate and straight-A City College student DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter can be reached on Facebook, at Fly Benzo’s Blog, where this story first appeared, or via flybenzo@gmail.com.

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by People’s Minister of Information JR

Lela Nicole

M.O.I. JR: Can you tell us a little bit about your project, Oaktowne?

Lela: Oaktowne is a television show based on three neighborhood friends, Derrica, Cheyanne and Monet, who live in Oakland, California. The show is centered around their lives and the trials and tribulations they endure while living in the Bay Area.

M.O.I. JR: How did you come up with the concept?

Lela: Oakland is my hometown and there are so many flavors to the city. I was sick and tired of the media just capturing one part of Oakland and I wanted to bring awareness that Oakland is not just a city full of crime.

Oakland has a lot of great history and there are still many people in our community doing things to better the city. So what better way to bring awareness to my hometown than by creating a show based on some of the facets of the Town and how they continue to impact my life.

M.O.I. JR: How long did it take for you to cast, produce and shoot Oaktowne?

Lela: Eight months from casting to the finished product.

M.O.I. JR: Was this your first major project and what was the process like?

Lela: Yes, it was the first project that me and my business partner, Mishalene Bloom, produced for our production company HomeGirlVision. We also hired the cinematography crew Preme Photography to film our entire project. It was definitely a learning experience.

M.O.I. JR: You were recently picked to be in the 2012 Oakland International Film Festival. How did it feel to have your work acknowledged on that level?

Lela: It’s a very humbling experience to have our first film showcased in my hometown.

M.O.I. JR: When will Oaktowne be screened at the OIFF?

Lela: April 7, 2012, at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum.

M.O.I. JR: What are some of your aspirations as a producer and writer?

Lela: To produce, create and write projects that will stir up and provoke thought and that will ultimately entertain.

M.O.I. JR: What do you hope to do in the film world in the next five years?

Lela: My goal in the next five years is to continue the Oaktowne Movement and to have our first season picked up by a major distribution production company and to continue to create and write new projects.

M.O.I. JR: Why did you become a filmmaker?

Lela: From a young child I always loved to read and write. I also have a passion for telling stories, and it’s proven to be one of my greatest qualities. So what better way than to express my God given gift than through filmmaking.

M.O.I. JR: Was it hard for you to put your dream of making a television show into reality?

Lela: It was process. I was always conscious of my passion to create Oaktowne, but I had to enter the season where I had the time to develop the finished product.

M.O.I. JR: How can people keep up with you?

Lela: Visit our website, www.homegirlvision.com, and you can also follow Oaktowne and myself on Twitter @OakTowne_TV and @iamlelanicole.

The People’s Minister of Information JR is associate editor of the Bay View, author of “Block Reportin’” and filmmaker of “Operation Small Axe,” both available, along with many more interviews, at www.blockreportradio.com. He also hosts two weekly shows on KPFA 94.1 FM and kpfa.org: The Morning Mix every Wednesday, 8-9 a.m., and The Block Report every Friday night-Saturday morning, midnight-2 a.m. He can be reached at blockreportradio@gmail.com.

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by Wanda Sabir

Her story: Occupy San Quentin

When the beautiful sister smiled shyly at me as I, as unobtrusively as possible, took her photo while she waited to speak at Occupy San Quentin, I wasn’t prepared for what she shared, that is, her experience in solitary confinement which still affects her today, years since her release. Kelly shared how she was uncomfortable in large assemblies with strangers. What it must have taken for her to get to the prison that afternoon, the walk from the road where heavily armed police and prison guards stood or sat in patrol cars and on motorcycles blocking all highway entrances! Yes, it was literally overkill, with a helicopter keeping us under scrutiny as the prison grounds beyond the gate where at the eastern entrance, green clad guards filmed us from the rooftops where they stood or sat silently for the entire rally.

At Occupy San Quentin Feb. 20, Jabari Shaw holds a poster of George Jackson labeled “Human.” CDCR, on the contrary, labels George Jackson superhuman, his very name enough to persuade then-Gov. Schwarzenegger to execute – murder – Tookie Williams for dedicating one of his books to George and enough, when found in a prisoner’s cell, to send that prisoner to solitary for decades. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

When the rally ended, San Rafael police followed us to the Richmond Bridge. I don’t know if it was Jabari Shaw’s orange CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) jumpsuit that kept them wondering – Is he an escapee, one of ours? – or if it was the sheer magnitude of fearlessness represented by women like this former prisoner who would not let her traumatic experience silence her.

When the rally ended, San Rafael police followed us to the Richmond Bridge. I don’t know if it was Jabari Shaw’s orange CDCR jumpsuit that kept them wondering – Is he an escapee, one of ours? – or if it was the sheer magnitude of fearlessness represented by women like this former prisoner who would not let her traumatic experience silence her.

Similarly Deirdre Wilson and a young sister, Tati Session, who spoke from the perspective of the incarcerated youth, who, if not silenced, often self-censor, make irrevocable deals with the devil in khaki or green, maybe grey or tan, because they do not know their legal rights. A few men and women broke down on stage – I can’t imagine what they suffered physically or emotionally or spiritually. Deirdre lost her children while she was locked up. She mentioned how the young woman next to her could be her daughter. Deirdre also mentioned how if she hadn’t had a family who had the money to hire an attorney, she might still be behind bars.

There was a brother who got so full looking at the guards on the other side of the gate watching that he looked like he was going to leap the gate and hurt someone as he recalled the violations of his person over and over again. It was lovely to see how members of All of Us or None dropped everything to embrace him when he left the stage. Manuel La Fontaine reached him first. Soon he was laughing the chains off and smiling at his victory. Ali of Occupy Oakland’s presence that day on the other side of the gate meant he’d won, as his enemy, a literal stone’s throw away, stood silently observing a free man.

The fact that co-hosts Dorsey Nunn and Linda Evans, both former prisoners, were also standing free meant justice, even in her crippled state, has had once again, the last word. But the conversation isn’t over, not at all, because as we lifted our voices in mic-checks, we were not sure if the men could hear us out there. However, with each victory we know that truth wins even when falsehood gets the better commercial slot at half-time.

Kelly bravely shared her personal experience with the terror and torture of solitary confinement, which still affects her today. Much of California’s prison overcrowding is due to the cruel Three Strikes law that locks people up for life for stealing a piece of pizza. It is long past time to amend – or better yet scrap – that terrible law. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

The presence of members of the San Quentin Six – Willie Sundiata Tate, Luis Talamantez and David Johnson – outside San Quentin gates that breezy, yet warm afternoon, Presidents Day 2012, awakened sleeping giants – the many men whose lives were vindicated by this Occupy San Quentin action. Sundi spoke about Hugo L.A. Pinell (Yogi) who has been in solitary confinement for 40 years, the last 12-plus in Pelican Bay’s SHU, and the need to release him. Sixty-six years old, Pinell has not had a disciplinary write up in over 30 years. He is incarcerated for his presence that fateful day at the Marin Courthouse when Jonathan Jackson, George Jackson’s kid brother, decided to make justice take off her blindfold and look at the travesty at her feet.

Sundi spoke about Hugo L.A. Pinell (Yogi) who has been in solitary confinement for 40 years, the last 12-plus in Pelican Bay’s SHU, and the need to release him. Sixty-six years old, Pinell has not had a disciplinary write up in over 30 years. He is incarcerated for his presence that fateful day at the Marin Courthouse when Jonathan Jackson, George Jackson’s kid brother, decided to make justice take off her blindfold and look at the travesty at her feet.

Here they were again, waking Justice from her slumber. Girl gets tired easily, it seems.

I was happy so many youth realized the importance of this moment. Don Juan and I spoke about it on the bus ride home when I showed him the cool photo I shot of the three men before they went on the stage – there they were chillin’ with the folks, on stage with Melvin Dickerson, Commemorator publisher, holding a poster of George Jackson, the caption: “Human.” Enough said, right? Civil rights don’t buy much now, if ever. The rights to have, Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer said, echoed by John Hope Franklin and Michelle Alexander more recently in her treatise, “The New Jim Crow,” are human rights, which trump all the others even those implicit in the term democracy, an ideal this nation still hasn’t reached.

Former prisoners Linda Evans and Dorsey Nunn, now with All of Us or None and Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, emceed Occupy San Quentin. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

Joyce Gordon Gallery

“SheRose: A Tribute to Michelle Obama,” curated by Eric Murphy, will be on exhibit at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th St., Oakland, March 2-April 17. Special programs are scheduled for March 2 and 18, April 5, 7 and 14. Call (510) 465-8928.

A belated happy birthday to Mrs. Samella Lewis, Ph.D., born Feb. 24, 1924, a wonderful artist and art preservationist, whom I met at CAAM in Los Angeles when I was there last November. She was one of the featured artists who happened to be giving a talk the day I arrived. Talk about perfect timing. She started galleries to show Black art and published the first African American art journal out of her own resources. In fact, at Claremont College’s Scripps College, there is an endowment in her name to help Black women artists in their pursuits. Dr. Lewis was the first tenured Black faculty in 1970. I didn’t realize that her grandson, Freedom, and my younger daughter TaSin founded the Black Artists and Designers (BAAD) at the California College of Arts and Crafts. Joyce Gordon Gallery has named a gallery “From the Collection of Samella Lewis.” She has an exhibit opening in LA February that continues at the Louis Stern Fine Art Gallery in West Hollywood through April 21.

‘Revolution: A Conversation Between Grace Lee Boggs and Angela Davis’ opens Women of Color Conference

For the first time in history, iconic activists Grace Lee Boggs, now 96, and Angela Davis will share the stage for a conversation entitled “On Revolution: A Conversation Between Grace Lee Boggs and Angela Davis” on Friday, March 2, 4-6 p.m., in the Pauley Ballroom, University of California, Berkeley. The event will open with filmmaker Grace Lee screening a portion of “American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs,” a documentary in progress. In this historic event, Ms. Boggs and Ms. Davis will discuss their motivation for continuing their work and activism, presenting their ideas of social justice, healing and moving activism beyond the academy. Admission is free and open to the general public.

The 27th Annual Empowering Women of Color Conference: A Holistic Approach: Justice, Access, and Healing

The annual Empowering Women of Color Conference is Saturday, March 3, 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., at UC Berkeley’s MLK Jr. Student Union. Admission is free for UC Berkeley students, $15 for non-UCB students and elders, $20 for the general public. Scholarships are available. For more information, visit ewocc.berkeley.edu. To register, go to https://ewocc.wordpress.com/registration/.

Jabari Shaw, Timbuktu Akaamka and Don Juan roused the crowd at Occupy San Quentin. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

‘Toy Town: The Land of Lost Identities’

“Toy Town” is a Wizard of Oz-like journey into the mind of a teenage girl struggling with family pressures and the world’s woes. We follow her into a wild, magical land of lost dolls and action figures, all trapped in a mega superstore. If they can reclaim what they have lost, they and our heroine can find their way home. If not, all of them will be lost forever.

The production features the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company, a multicultural group of teens who, with professional artists, create dynamic productions that combine hip hop, modern and aerial dance, theater, song and rap. The company has performed locally and nationally since 1993 for up to 25,000 audience members annually. This show will also feature guest appearances from the Destiny Junior Company. Saturday afternoon, there will be a silent auction in the theater lobby featuring exciting offerings from local restaurants, theaters, stores, artisans and family destinations. All proceeds benefit Destiny programs.

Sundiata Tate, Bato Talamantez and David Johnson of the San Quentin 6 shared their wisdom with the people. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

Shows are Friday, March 2, 7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 3, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m,. and Sunday, March 4, 5 p.m., at the Laney College Theatre, 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Tickets are $13-$30 sliding scale for adults, $6 for youth 18 and under, and are available through Brown Paper Tickets at (800) 838-3006 or www.destinyarts.org. For information, call (510) 597-1619, ext. 100, or email tickets@destinyarts.org.

‘The Art of Living Black’ Open Studios

I was over at Mills College Feb. 26 for Open Studios. I saw great art from Karen Oyekanmi’s Josephine Baker dolls and hand painted mirrors to Sara Marie Prada’s lovely greeting cards – look out Hallmark! Ajuan Mance’s latest on-line sketchbook project: “1001 Black Men,” 1001 drawings in 1001 days, inspired by Black men everywhere. Visit 8-Rock.com. Ajuan will be a guest on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show, Friday, March 2, 9:30 a.m.

Lorraine Bonner was one of the artists at Mills. I loved her ceramic sculpture with a little tiny person peeking from within the backbone of the host. She is so deep. I purchased a really nice cloth doll pin from Zanaib Nia Green. The pin, which is knit by the artist, looks like an orisha. Atiba Sylvia Thomas, one of my favorite artists – her plaques are so lovely – showed me a new series, really cool. No, I can’t recall the name. What I love most about her mixed media work, besides the prices, are the names. I took a photo of her standing next to a piece with his mouth open in a grimace – “Oh the pain” I think is the name – and it refers to the artist’s pain before hip or knee surgery. She is better now. Atiba and Kelvin Curry, Lorraine Bonner, Gwendolyn Reed, who has wonderful African American Heritage stamps and other stationary, watermelon lady Karin Turner will all be at The Art House at 6101 Foothill Blvd., Oakland, both Saturday and Sunday, March 3-4, 11 to 5. It was nice seeing Michael Johnson’s photographs and Shawn Weeden’s colorful cheery abstract work. Julee Richardson’s ceramic sculpture was really fine as well. Really intense – I wondered who the models are. Another artist, Desire Johnson, a poet as well as a visual artist, looked like she’d levitate – surrounded by fairy wings and flowers. The artist was dressed in white.

Generations of activists meeting and bonding was a feature of Occupy San Quentin. Here it’s Melvin Dickson of The Commemorator and Chris. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

‘Blue/Orange’ at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre

This psychological thriller, at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre through March 18, is an excellent treatment of the dissonance between Black men and white men. There is this conversation going on in their heads which is so noisy, it is difficult, almost impossible, for white men, at least those on stage – physicians nonetheless – to separate themselves or unplug themselves from the program that makes life taste sweet when it is hard and bitter. It is as world actor Carl Lumbly’s “Christopher” knows all too well; perhaps this is why he sees blue oranges.

Set in England post everything racial, Christopher is about to be released from the mental hospital when we meet him. It has been 28 days and Dr. Bruce Flaherty (Dan Clegg) cannot find a reason to keep Christopher, even though he wants to, while the consultant, the elder, more experienced doctor, Robert Smith (Julian Lopez-Morillas) tells Dr. F that if he keeps Christopher too long he will become institutionalized and not be able to function outside the institution. Directed by Edris Cooper Anifowoshe, Joe Penhall’s smart play is in your head funny and startling with all the surprises a tight cast, marvelous set design, great lighting and original score bring to theatre.

“Blue/Orange” is based on a true story of the killing by a hospital in England of a Black patient and the subsequent internal investigative report that pointed to institutional racism as the culprit in the handling of this man. Though trainings in racial sensitivity were hosted and probably made mandatory in the true story, “Blue/Orange” ends with nothing resolved. If we look at the recent unrest in Britain, then nothing remains resolved there.

Elder Freeman, Jabari Shaw and Don Juan, shown here waiting at Oscar Grant Plaza for the bus to San Quentin, brought to Occupy San Quentin their deep commitment to the struggle for justice. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

On the fly

The San Francisco World Percussion Arts Festival presents “Rhythm and Roots,” featuring Duniya Dance and Drum Company tabla virtuoso, Jim Santi Owen Award-winning dulcimer artist and percussionist Joe Venegoni, master shakuhachi artist Philip Gelb and Wontanara on Friday and Saturday, March 16-17, 8 p.m., Sunday, March 18, 6 p.m., at Dance Mission Theater, 24th Street at Mission Street in San Francisco. Tickets are $22 in advance or $25 at the door, available at www.brownpapertickets.com. Visit www.maikazedaiko.com.

SFJAZZ has some great concerts this month under the heading of Soulful Singers, an array of popular artists like Lizz Wright, Meklit Hedaro, James Blood Elmer, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Chrisette Michele, Ceu. When I last saw Michele, she was opening for James Brown at a concert in San Francisco. She was a power singer with great stage presence – truly a child of soul, funk and all that is in between. Visit www.sfjazz.org.

The San Francisco Asian American Film Festival also opens this month, March 8-18. Visit http://caamedia.org/festival/.

Disney on Ice presents “Toy Story 3,” making its Oakland debut this week at Oracle Arena, 7000 Coliseum Way, Feb. 29-March 4. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000 or online at ticketmaster.com. Visit www.YouTube.com/DisneyOnIce. There are three shows on the weekends, Tracy Taylor told me. He is African American and an assistant wardrobe person for the last 16 years. We had a great conversation last week when the show was opening in San Jose. It airs Wednesday, Feb. 29.

Prisons would be empty without cops, and there’d be no racial disparity in prison without cops targeting Black and Brown youth. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

Cal Performances presents Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra on March 4, An Evening with Garrison Keillor March 7, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre March 13-18, and Zakir Hussain and Masters of Percussion March 24.

Check back periodically for updates, and don’t forget Wanda’s Picks Radio Show at www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks Wednesdays 6-7 a.m. and Friday mornings 8-10 a.m. PT. The shows are available via iTunes after the broadcasts as a podcast. You can also call the listener line: (347) 237-4610.

‘Question Bridge’ at Oakland Museum of California

Imagine Black men, multigenerational Black men, which includes Black boys, asking questions, listening, getting personal – opening themselves to vulnerability, shedding the façade, the hard edges and sharp points that often present barriers to intimacy, the kind of intimacy Black men need to traverse a space or terrain too often littered with warning signs, DO NOT TOUCH, LOOK, TRUST … certainly never BEFRIEND another man who looks like you.

Imagine suspending that judgment for an afternoon, and in the presence of an audience who might not understand the dilemma one faces daily when one is packaged like you are packaged, TRUST the process and build a bridge between oneself and the unknown Black man across the aisle, room, stage from oneself. This is what happened Feb. 11 at the Oakland Museum. Some of us were on a roll; we’d attended another program just days earlier here, the ITVS screening of the film, “The Interrupters,” a film debuting Feb. 14 on Frontline World, which looks at men and women who interrupt the violence on the streets of Chicago.

Black men as commodities are an inescapable and often scary phenomenon that the late artist Sekou Sundiata wrote about often. The innovative video installation, “Question Bridge,” features dialogue between 150 Black men recruited from 11 American cities and towns, many on that stage Saturday afternoon.

The project includes multiple video screens placed in two arcs in the Museum’s Gallery of California Art that will play videos of Black men responding to questions edited in a way so that it appears as if the men were having a conversation. Those who were at the OM that Saturday afternoon were able to see the dialectic process in action: “Question Bridge,” a unique project composed of taped interviews with Black men from across the nation. These men have an opportunity to ask questions, to answer questions they might have been mulling over for lifetimes. These interviews are a part of a multimedia exhibit in the Art History Gallery through July 8.

What a beautiful shoreline the ugly old San Quentin prison dominates. The Coast Guard helicopter buzzed the sky during Occupy San Quentin. Did anyone see any Coast Guard patrol boats? – Photo: Wanda Sabir

As I am not a Black man, I could not ask questions or participate in the conversation during or once the floor was opened for interaction. It felt beautiful sitting back listening and observing the interaction on stage and in the room as Black men were given the space and the time – albeit too short – to “work things out uninterrupted, uncensored and unapologetically.”

“Question Bridge” is directed by celebrated African-American artists Chris Johnson and Hank Willis Thomas, in collaboration with Bayeté Ross Smith and Kamal Sinclair.

Friday, March 2, 8:30-9:30 a.m., on Wanda’s Picks Radio, we will be joined by Mr. Johnson, Mr. Smith and maybe Mr. Willis Thomas. For the past four years the four collaborators have traveled throughout the United States to towns and cities including Oakland, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Birmingham, Atlanta, New Orleans and Philadelphia creating 1,500 video exchanges in which the subjects serve as both interviewers and subjects – posing and answering each other’s questions that are woven together to simulate a stream-of-consciousness dialogue through which important themes and issues emerge.

Among subjects focused on are family, love, interracial relationships, community, education, violence and the past, present and future of Black men in American society. Represented are men from different geographic, economic, generational, educational and social strata of American society. The “Question Bridge” videos are a part of a larger project that also includes a user generated website, QuestionBridge.com, and a curriculum currently being offered to high schools and universities throughout the United States.

17th Anniversary Bay Area Cultural Festival: Diamano Coura West African Dance Company presents ‘Collage des Cultures Africaines’!

“Collage 2012 African Cultural Festival” on March 8-11 sets the stage to present an unprecedented roster of world class artists, master instructors, and dance and drum pioneers vital to cultivating the Bay Area’s cultural landscape. Located at the historic Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, Diamano Coura boasts a 17-year presenting season with this year’s theme: “Knowledge Transporters.” “Our culture is strong and alive and it’s what binds the community,” says Artistic Director Naomi Gedo Diouf.

“Knowledge Transporters” celebrates teachers and cultural workers, honoring their works as cultural ambassadors. This year strives to highlight the community’s elders as invaluable resources planting seeds of wisdom feeding generations of communities nationwide. Attendees from over 10 major U.S. cities representing nine African and Diasporan countries make up the flourishing legacies of “Collage 2012.”

Occupy San Quentin was a great school for the next generation of prison abolition activists. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

‘La Mujer en la Historia / The Woman in History’ at La Peña Cultural Center

This month La Peña celebrates women from around the world in performance, film, visual art and music. Saturday, March 10, is their International Women’s Month Celebration, “Mujer, te han crecido las ideas / Woman, your ideas are on the rise: Women’s Revolution in Latin American Song and Poetry.” It features singers Mama Koatl and Maria Loreto and poet Nina Serrano. Three outstanding Bay Area voices join forces to commemorate International Women’s Month and pay tribute to the woman of the world, guardian and creator of human hope. La Peña is proud to present this rare opportunity to enjoy a collaboration that fused together the styles, voices and work of creative and independent local women artists. The time is 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $14 in advance, $16 at the door. La Peña Cultural Center is located at 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, (510) 849-2568, www.lapena.org.

Other La Peña picks

Sunday, March 18: Gail Dobson Latin Jazz Band presents “Generations of Music,” 7:30 p.m.: Latin jazz band with student guest artists. Tickets are $10 general admission, $5 for children 12 years and under.

Friday, March 23: In honor of Womyn’s Herstory Month, La Pena’s 2nd Gen presents “Where Water is Born / El Ojo del Agua,” a night of ceremony, poetry and song, featuring Luisa Leija, Claudia Cuentas, Celena Delphi, Lisa Evans, Mariposa, Laura Victoria Salazar and Antique. The show, at 8 p.m., is $5-$20 sliding scale, with an after party in the La Peña Lounge.

Saturday, March 31: Global Women Intact presents “Clitoris Celebration” with exquisite music from Africa. It’s a special fundraising event in celebration of Women’s Month. Global Women Intact is an organization that nurtures arts of the African diaspora and uses performance and presentations – including dance, music, theater, comedy and education – to raise awareness of the beauty and complexity of African cultures and their impact on health and well-being. In particular, GWI is devoted to raising awareness about female genital cutting (FGC) and provides alternative, arts-based and culturally appropriate rites of initiation that honor the intact and healthy bodies of girls and women. Visit www.siaamma.com. The time is 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 on the day of the event. La Peña Cultural Center is located at 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, (510) 849-2568, www.lapena.org.

Bay Area Traditional Arts Roundtable Series 2012: Skill Building Workshops

Saturday, March 3, 1-3 p.m., Frances Philips, program director of the Arts and the Creative Work Fund at the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, presents “Basic Grant Writing Skills for Folk and Traditional Artists and Organizations.” Frances, a creative writer and poet, also teaches grant writing at San Francisco State University as a faculty member of the Technical and Professional Writing Program. The workshop takes place at Oakland Museum of California, California Room, First Level, 1000 Oak St., Oakland, (510) 318-8400. Suggested donation is $20, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

On Saturday, March 31, 1-4 p.m., the “Work Sample Laboratory” is back by popular demand! One of the most important components of any grant proposal is the work sample. What do you need to consider when portraying your artistic expression for a grant submission? Is an audio sample the best choice for a musician, or should you be seen as well as heard on a DVD? How do you best portray material arts? What if your art form is participatory? Bring in your own work samples for gentle critique and viewing; and view and experience examples of successful and not so successful work samples. A panel of experienced arts and cultural grants reviewers will share their good practices and tips with you. The location is BAVC (Bay Area Video Coalition), 2727 Mariposa St., San Francisco, (415) 861-3282. Suggested donation is $20, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. For questions or to RSVP to either session, contact Lily Kharrazi at (415) 346-5200.

Bay View Arts Editor Wanda Sabir can be reached at wsab1@aol.com. Visit her website at www.wandaspicks.com throughout the month for updates to Wanda’s Picks, her blog, photos and Wanda’s Picks Radio. Her shows are streamed live Wednesdays at 6-7 a.m. and Fridays at 8-10 a.m., can be heard by phone at (347) 237-4610 and are archived on the Afrikan Sistahs’ Media Network.

Related Posts

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• Wanda’s Picks for May 2012
• Wanda’s Picks for February 2012
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• Wanda’s picks for March 2011

Radio Africa & Kitchen Chef Eskender Aseged

There will be an opening night party at the restaurant on March 7 at 5 p.m. with food, drinks and live music. Reservations are required and can be made by email, radioafricak@yahoo.com, or phone, (415) 420-2486.

The restaurant has the backing of the City of San Francisco, which granted Aseged the restaurant space in the heart of the Bayview District and provided some of the start-up funds. Aseged raised additional funds through a successful kickstarter campaign.

Aseged has already established roots in the Bayview community. In 2010, he help found the Bayview Community Garden, located across the street from the restaurant. Radio Africa & Kitchen, at Third Street and Oakdale, will use the vegetables grown in the garden in its seasonal dishes.

“I am thrilled to be strengthening my ties to the vibrant Bayview District,” said Aseged. “I think my East African cuisine will appeal to both locals and visitors, and I hope the restaurant becomes a community gathering spot where neighbors gather to share a dish and conversation.”

The name Radio Africa & Kitchen comes from Aseged’s experience of growing up in Ethiopia with very few outlets for popular music and sports. Only one household per neighborhood might have a radio, and kids would gather and listen to soccer matches and music, sharing laughter, conversation and snacks.

Although this is his first independently-owned restaurant, Aseged is no stranger to the San Francisco culinary scene. After arriving in San Francisco from Ethiopia in the late 1980s, he spent the next 20 years working in the Bay Area with such luminary chefs as Jeremiah Tower, Joyce Goldstein, Nancy Oaks, Daniel Peterson and Daniel Humm. During this time, inspired by these great chefs, he began experimenting with different food preparations of his own.

In the fall of 2004, Aseged started his first “pop up” restaurant right in his own home, serving meals to small groups of friends. These pop ups expanded to a variety of Bay Area cafés over the course of the next seven years.

Aseged describes his cuisine as “Red Sea meets Mediterranean.” Sample dishes at Radio Africa & Kitchen will include white corn soup with prawn escabeche and epazote; roasted leg of lamb with summer vegetable ratatouille, couscous and chermoula; green lentils with mint raita; eggplant lasagna with Israeli couscous and Idiazibal cheese; and mushroom wot with berbere and artichoke-tomato confit salsa.

The restaurant will also be open for lunch starting April 3. Radio Africa & Kitchen is at 4800 Third St., San Francisco. For reservations and more information, call (415) 420-2486.

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Guest Amoeblogger JR Valrey on the air at KPFA Berkeley – Photo: Ali Thanawalla

by JR Valrey

Black History Month was born out of Black History Week, which was created by Carter G. Woodson, author of “The Miseducation of the Negro,” in the early half of the 20th century. Since then, many people celebrate it by learning about the great pyramids of Egypt or by memorizing Malcolm’s “The Ballot or the Bullet,” which is cool, but I want to modernize and diversify the list a little bit. These are some books, movies and albums that I would add to the list of the “Black Experience Study Guide,” because they had a profound effect on how I look at the world in a spiritual, social, political and cultural sense.

This list is my humble contribution to uplifting people’s consciousness about what is happening to Black people internationally, as well as how we feel about life after having our backs against the wall for centuries, with few exceptions. As the late legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane would say, “Here are a few of my favorite things.”

1) ‘The New Jim Crow’ by Michelle Alexander

“The New Jim Crow” is one of the best books that I’ve ever read in my life. It gives a chronological history of how the U.S. has become the biggest mass incarcerating nation in the world, way beyond Russia and even apartheid South Africa.

This book talks about the role that political architects like Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and more played in bringing us to the scenario, where 2 million people are currently behind bars. Michelle Alexander also makes the poignant point that there are more Black people in this country tied to the criminal justice system today than there were in 1850, a decade before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. “The New Jim Crow” is an essential read for anybody doing serious study on the on-going war being waged against Black people in the U.S. by the government.

Bay View editor’s note: A revised edition of “The New Jim Crow” has just been released in paperback; therefore, it is now available to prisoners in states like California that do not allow hardback books. It can be ordered from the publisher, The New Press, 38 Greene St., Fourth Floor, New York, NY 10013, for $19.95 (though it’s a little cheaper on Amazon).

2) ‘The First Minute of a New Day’ by The Midnight Band

Gil Scott Heron and Brian Jackson of The Midnight Band were two of the most influential musicians of their era, musically and lyrically. Many have heard of some of their contemporaries like Curtis Mayfield and The Last Poets, but somehow this band seems to get lost in the sauce when it comes to official recognition.

This album is like a time capsule, detailing spiritually the wants and desires of African people that have been oppressed in the Americas for centuries. Songs like “Winter in America,” “Ain’t No Such Thing As Superman” and “Pardon Our Analysis” are timeless masterpieces … not only scathing critiques of the system that has its boot on our necks, but empowering messages for oppressed people to keep their heads up, fist in the air and eyes peeled on the path to self-determination. Songs like “The Offering,” “Must Be Something” and “Alluswe” are revolutionary prayers, extensions of the spirituals enslaved Africans were singing on plantations in the South to organize and politically educate themselves.

The late Gil Scott Heron was one of the most passionate writers of any genre, in my opinion, ever produced in the United States. Brian Jackson is the perfect musical compliment. This dynamic duo has been sampled in rap music by 2Pac, The Coup, Freeway, Common and Kanye, just to name a few.

3) ‘Kongo: 50 Years of Independence of Congo’

This is a documentary that employs animation to tell the history of the mineral rich, under-developed, war-torn African country known today as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Everyone who listens to the international media from the United States, Europe or the Arab world has heard the stereotypes of African governments being backwards and corrupt and squandering resources, but very few have heard of the European powers who manufactured these situations, helping to put these puppets in power for the benefit of European economies.

An image from “Kongo: 50 Years of Independence of Congo”

“Kongo: 50 Years of Independence of Congo” also paints a bold portrait of the late great first Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, who strived to fight off secessionists who wanted to split the most mineral rich areas from the country for the benefit of a few and the Western powers. It was my first time hearing the names of Congolese anti-colonialist like Simon Kimbangu, who was a liberation theologist and died a political prisoner because of that fact, and Paul Panda, who was a Black man of Congolese descent from Belgium, who spoke up and organized for African independence on an international level.

This film discusses the life of the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who was in power for decades, and who was in part responsible for the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. It also talks about the rise, with the assistance of the Rwandan government, of Laurent Kabila, who was later assassinated, and his “son,” the current front man “running” the Congo, Joseph Kabila.

In most electronic devices, there is a mineral called coltan, and 80 percent of the world’s supply of this essential mineral is in the Congo. So for all of us who use laptops, iPhones, iPads and PS3’s, it is our responsibility to know the human costs and environmental costs of these products and to do what we can to eliminate the carnage. The Congolese people deserve to have their sovereignty and right to self-determination respected, and if people want to make and buy things that require minerals from the Congo, then they should pay the Congolese who are the caretakers of that land a fair price.

To properly respect other cultures, we need to educate ourselves, and learn something about them. This documentary is a great start to educating oneself on Congolese political history.

4) ‘The Wiz’

“The Wiz” is a brilliantly crafted cinematic masterpiece that was shot in New York City with an all-star cast featuring Michael Jackson, Richard Pryor, Lena Horne, Nipsey Russel, Diana Ross and more. Although it is an adaptation of the widely known “Wizard of Oz,” it is the Black version that is spiced up with beautifully written and performed music, as well as soulful choreography.

The climax of the film is when Dorothy, played by Diana Ross, and her crew of misfits make it into the Emerald City, aka Oz. There Richard Pryor, who plays the Wiz, scares the hell out of the motley crew using big speakers hoisted on the top of tall buildings and a huge metal face that breathes fire and gives people the impression that the Wiz is indestructible. At one point the Wiz yells through his microphone that the color is red and all of the people follow the trend, even making up songs and dances to celebrate the color. A few minutes later, the Wiz changes the trendy color to green and the people follow suit, making up a new song and dance. This reflects the brainwashing power of the corporate media.

Shot during the political and cultural dishevel of the ‘70s, this tale of mass media manipulation of the human race is even more important today, looking at the fact that more people know of Jay Z and Beyonce’s new baby than know about the war in the Congo, which has already claimed 6 million African lives. Most people in the U.S. could name more sports figures than politicians who make decisions every day that dictate the quality of our very lives. This is a testament to the power of the media.

5) ‘The 7 Day Theory’ by Tupac Shakur aka Makavelli

This was the last album that Tupac Shakur worked on and oversaw before he was assassinated with the help of various police agencies in Las Vegas in September of 1996. Different from “All Eyez on Me,” “The 7 Day Theory” was, in my opinion, one of his most contemplative albums right alongside the classic “Me Against the World.” These were the two albums where we got to see the genius come out of Pac without any obstacles or filters.

Tupac recorded “All Eyes on Me” after he was shot, set up and convicted on trumped up rape charges. The rage and party nature that makes up “All Eyes on Me” reflects a young Black spokesman for his generation that was still maturing, and he was trying to psychologically bounce back from being almost killed and unjustly accused, imprisoned and crucified in the media.

“The 7 Day Theory” is the album he started after he was able to shed those feelings, expel those demons and revolve back to what it is he set out to do. Pac was very verbose about his political leanings, on songs like “Blasphemy,” “Whiteman’s World” and “Hold Ya Head.” He lyrically sprayed venom on “Bomb First” and “Hail Mary,” where he starts out with “I’m not a killer but don’t push me/ revenge is like the sweetest joy next to gettin’ pussy/ picture paragraphs unloaded/ wise words being quoted/peeped a weakness in the rap game and sowed it/ bow down. “

A lot of people had a problem with Pac calling out other rappers on this album. But isn’t that the roots of rap? When KRS 1 and MC Shan battled, it was Hip Hop; when Common attacked Ice Cube, it was Hip Hop; but when Pac spoke up in his rhymes, people couldn’t take it. They thought that he went too far. His words, his writing and his passion were so in tune with each other that people thought that it was dangerous. Isn’t that the sign of a great writer, poet, rapper and musician?

His commentary on other musicians was only a secondary reason why I appreciated this album. The No. 1 reason is that Pac, his emotions and the things that would happen to him in the world gave the planet a bird’s eye view to the worldly intellect, the gentleness of spirit, the confidence and the arrogant, rough attitude of young Black men that is created once we realize that in every country, in every kind of society, it is us against the world: White on top and Black on the bottom. Rich on top and poor on the bottom.

This album elegantly weaved all of these feelings into a cohesive product that the oppressed all over the world and those who identify with them related to, because they knew that Pac meant everything he said, with everything in his being. I aspire as a writer to be able to connect my brain, heart and pen like Pac did on this album.

6) ‘Block Reportin’’ by JR Valrey

This is the book of interviews that I wrote. I think that “Block Reportin’” is an essential read because I interviewed people who made major contributions nationally or were involved in major earthshaking events: controversial people, talented musicians who stand for a cause, legendary political figures who speak on behalf of Black people from all walks of life and more.

Interviews range from the late poet and jazz and blues man Gil Scott Heron to the fire spitting lyricist M-1, half of one of rap’s dopest revolutionary groups, dead prez, to courageous peace activist Cynthia McKinney, who talks about her experience being kidnapped and made a political prisoner in Israel, to Hajj Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of the international human rights leader Malcolm X (Hajj Malik El Shabazz) to CIA financier Freeway Rick Ross, the real dude, not the rapper, to Black Panther political prisoner and the prolific writer Mumia Abu Jamal plus more.

I don’t believe in polite journalism, though I do believe in truthful journalism, so I ask questions that may seem invasive at times, but it is in the spirit of true political education. In the book, I don’t speak the “Queen’s English.” I speak the dialect of masses, the people in the streets who live around us. The reason I do this is to communicate information, not to pass some kind of English exam.

Unlike most school textbooks that talk about the people who are no longer breathing, “Block Reportin’” deals with the people who are still breathing, kicking, fighting and speaking out. This is important because their stories are not over. In some cases you can join their movement and help to affect the outcome, like in the case of political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal or in the case of the war in the Congo that is still on, having claimed over 6 million lives and caused catastrophic environmental damage.

The chapters in “Block Reportin’” are only a few pages long, and there are more than 30 personalities for the reader to analyze who talk about subjects as eclectic and abstract as Malcolm X’s connection to jazz music, which I talked about with Umar Bin Hasan of the Last Poets, and as concrete as the curriculum of the Black Panther Party’s Liberation School, which was headed by Ericka Huggins, who shared her knowledge with me in a KPFA recording studio.

“Block Reportin’” is my attempt at hooking real living history and history makers up with people who live within these neighborhood and cell blocks, because ultimately I believe that our history and the history of resistance in this country in all its forms should be documented and distributed by us. If we fail to do so, our enemies will bury it and change it.

7) ‘Dark Alliance’ by Gary Webb

Sometimes it is said in the Black community that the truth is only the truth when it comes out of the mouth of a white man. So to that extent, I had to include this book on my list of top seven choices of books, movies and music that I would recommend for Black History Month.

“Dark Alliance,” written by San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb – who was later murdered – details the U.S. government plans that were executed in the ‘80s to sell cocaine in Black neighborhoods in the Bay and in LA. The mission was to fund counter-revolutions, off the books and out of the gaze of U.S. taxpayers, in El Salvador and in Nicaragua. This book exposes explosive information linking the elite in the highest echelons of the United States government to international drug trafficking.

This is another book that exposes the true nature of the government that we currently live under. Many of the people – excuse me, criminals – named in this book are still alive and still impacting influential circles in the government, military and intelligence agencies of this county. So even after you’ve read the last page, the story is on-going and still unfolding. We’ve had shortages on water in California recently, but never on cocaine, which is grown in South America.

“Dark Alliance” is a classic piece of journalism that I believe should be a mandatory read for every high school and college student in this country.

For more on guest Amoeblogger JR Valrey, visit the blockreportradio website.

The People’s Minister of Information JR is associate editor of the Bay View, author of “Block Reportin’“ and filmmaker of “Operation Small Axe,” both available, along with many more interviews, at www.blockreportradio.com. He also hosts two weekly shows on KPFA 94.1 FM and kpfa.org: The Morning Mix every Wednesday, 8-9 a.m., and The Block Report every Friday night-Saturday morning, midnight-2 a.m. He can be reached at blockreportradio@gmail.com. This story first appeared on Amoeblog, the online forum of Amoeba Music Inc.

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by Carlos Zialcita

Johnny Otis and Carlos Zialcita

He invited me to sit in on a number. I remember it well. It was one of my favorites, “My Babe,” a tune that was a big hit for famed blues harmonica player and singer Little Walter. I guess Johnny figured I must have known it. He was right – and I immediately felt comfortable sitting in with this “larger than life” rhythm and blues legend.

We hit it off immediately, and he also got along great with my wife Myrna – immediately recognizing her African roots – and engaged both of us in lively conversation and the trademark Johnny Otis humor and banter. I was thrilled that my initial meeting with Johnny went so well. He invited us to come back. Myrna and I would return as often as we could, usually bringing some of Myrna’s cooking. If fact, Johnny would often say, “Don’t you come back without some of that adobo….”

One day, Myrna and I returned to the café and brought Afro-Filipina blues and soul diva Sugar Pie DeSanto and her brother Domingo Balinton. It was quite a reunion for Johnny and Sugar Pie, who had not seen each other in years. I was immediately struck by the fact that he called her “Palaya” – a nickname that Sugar sometimes called herself along with close friends and family members. Sugar Pie’s real name is Umpeylia Balinton.

I was aware of the history between these two giants of rhythm and blues and was in awe as I watched them interact. Johnny discovered Sugar Pie at a talent show in San Francisco in the early 1950s. Sugar Pie recently shared with me that it was in 1954 that Johnny gave her the nickname “Sugar Pie.”

My friendship with Johnny grew quickly as we found many things in common that we enjoyed, in addition to music. I had always been a fan of Johnny, his music and his politics. I used to perform “Willie and the Hand Jive” with a band I had a in the mid-‘80s called the California Cadillacs. I had also performed with Big Mama Thornton several times, along with Charles Brown, Lowell Fulson, Percy Mayfield and several other artists Johnny had worked with.

Johnny would often invite me to his house after the show for lunch. There he would share with me his record and book collections and sometimes take me into the studio where he painted and showed me his artwork. It was Johnny who introduced me to Dr. Fred Cordova’s book, “Forgotten Asian Americans,” about the history of Filipino Americans in the United States. He told me, “This is a story that has to be told.”

He showed me his menagerie of different birds as well as the Koi fish he had in a pond. I was very intrigued by the life-size sculptures on his property of three voluptuous naked women. There were paintings in the house also, against the wall in the living room, where he also had a grand piano. Phyllis, Johnny’s lovely wife, who is Afro-Filipina, also became a very good friend to Myrna and me.

My visits to the café and to the Otis residence nurtured my friendships with different members of his band, which included his son Nicky Otis, a drummer, and grandson, Lucky Otis, who played bass. Johnny’s band would eventually accompany me on my CD “Train Through Oakland,” with Johnny playing piano, vibes and even drums (on one cut).

That came about when I asked Johnny simply – would he produce a CD of me. He graciously offered his band, his recording studio, an engineer and his own musical contributions of several songs. In addition, I became a house guest during the many weekends we spent recording, mixing and mastering the CD. It was definitely more than I could have ever imagined.

Johnny Otis and son (Nicky, Shuggie?) on the air back in the day

“Train Through Oakland” and the experiences surrounding the making of it, will always remain one of the most memorable milestones of my life. It will stay with me forever.

It was also around this time that Johnny decided to teach a class on the history of Black Music in America. He joined forced with Larry Douglas, one of the trumpet players in his band and a college professor, to create a concept for the class and propose it to the Peralta Community College system. The class was Music 15-B: Jazz, Blues and Popular Music in American Culture, a 3-unit college class transferable to the UC system. It also fulfilled lower division requirements for Ethnic Studies, Humanities, History and other Liberal Arts departments.

The class was an instant hit. I remember Johnny calling me one day to ask if I would like to work with him in the class as its coordinator. He knew I worked with computers and multimedia. He wanted me to help him with curriculum development, preparation of handouts, the showing of films, and the scheduling of speakers and live bands.

His concept for the class was revolutionary and drew large enrollments. It holds the record for the most popular class ever in the history of the Peralta Community College system. This intense collaboration between Johnny and me brought us closer together, as I would often consult with him on all the different aspects of his class. He lent me his books, gave me numbers of different speakers and entertainers to contact. I essentially became his “right hand man” as he would often refer to me.

I even did the payroll – telling his wife Phyllis who to make checks out to and disbursing those checks every Monday night. The class was incredibly popular, with the help of Johnny’s radio show and word of mouth amongst the students and the community San Francisco Bay Area music and Johnny Otis fans.

At the end of every semester, Johnny would host a “Red Beans and Rice Night” with my wife Myrna preparing the meal that would feed approximately 150 people. This became a ritual twice a year for over 10 years. To no one’s surprise, Johnny loved Myrna’s cooking and even put her recipe for Chicken Adobo in his “Rock and Roll Cookbook.”

Gradually, Johnny’s health deteriorated. This inevitably meant the end of the class as we knew it. I tried running the class without Johnny’s presence, bringing in Lucky Otis, his grandson. Peralta Community College District decided to “franchise” the class and offer it at each campus. At one point I was assisting the professors at both Berkeley City College and College of Alameda, going from one campus to the other on Monday nights.

The funding for the class was also reduced dramatically, making it impossible to book the live entertainment and speakers like we previously had done. This became for me – the “end of an era.” It was like the end of Rock and Roll and early Rhythm and Blues itself – it’s time had come and gone.

Eventually, Johnny and Phyllis decided to sell their property in Sebastopol and move to Southern California where their two daughters and son Shuggie live. This is where Johnny would spend his remaining years, close to his family and out of the public eye. He had essentially “retired” and made the choice to no longer pursue all the different activities he was known for.

On Dec. 28, 2012, Johnny reached the age of 90. He died at 12:05 a.m. on Jan. 17, 2012. He had lived a full life as head of his family, as a musician, producer, mentor, talent scout, owner of a record label, radio personality, politician, civil and human rights activist, poet, writer, painter, sculptor, cartoonist, chef, church minister, educator and organic farmer. It was a life of the inspirational and consummate “Renaissance Man” – a life for the ages. There will never be another one like him. Mabuhay ka Johnny Otis!

©2012 Carlos Zialcita

This story first appeared in POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE with this note from co-editor Tiny, aka Lisa Gray-Garcia: “Mama Dee and me met Johnny Otis and Carlos Zialcita in the beautiful History of Black Music class they taught through Laney College in Oakland. Each week Johnny and Carlos would “bring” the sounds, rhythm and rockin’ love of Little Richard, Etta James, Smokey and the Miracles and so many more throughout herstory. My mama, a jazz singer and R&B dancer who never sang in public, traumatized by racist hate in foster homes and orphanages she lived in in Amerikkka, felt like she was finally home each week in the presence of cool-guy hair-having Carlos and beat-smooth-talking Johnny.”

Boyd Matson, NBC News, Burbank, notes: “Johnny Otis, one of the pioneers of rhythm and blues, said he always wanted to be Black. And for most people who heard his music, they thought he was. He discovered and worked with some of the early great R&B vocalists who would lay the foundation for rock and roll. Otis produced Big Mama Thornton’s original recording of “Hound Dog,” which Elvis Presley would later re-record to help launch his career. I did this profile piece on Otis for the Today Show back in 1983.”

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During a visit to the offices of the historic Black newspaper the Los Angeles Sentinel, Malcolm Shabazz paused to contemplate a portrait of his grandfather, Malcolm X. – Photo: LA Sentinel

It is not in the memory of man that this beleaguered, unfortunate but nonetheless proud community has found a braver, more gallant young champion than this Afro-American who lies before us, unconquered still. I say the word again, as he would want me to: Afro-American. Afro-American Malcolm, who was a master, was most meticulous in his use of words. Nobody knew better than he the power words have over the minds of men. Malcolm had stopped being a “Negro” years ago. It had become too small, too puny, too weak a word for him. Malcolm was bigger than that. Malcolm had become an Afro-American and he wanted so desperately that we, that all his people, would become Afro-Americans, too.

Martin Luther King sent his loving condolences to Betty Shabazz by telegram the day before Malcolm's funeral. Click to enlarge.

They will say that he is of hate, a fanatic, a racist who can only bring evil to the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say to them: Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him, or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did, you would know him. And if you knew him, you would know why we must honor him:

Our own Black shining prince – Photo: Herman Hiller, World Telegram

Ossie Davis, who himself passed on in 2005, was a great actor, director, poet, playwright, writer and activist and a close friend of both Malcolm X – El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz – and Martin Luther King. He emceed the 1963 March on Washington, where Dr. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, and he delivered this unforgettable eulogy for Malcolm X. He re-read part of the eulogy at the end of Spike Lee’s 1992 film, “Malcolm X.”

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by Paradise Free Jahlove

Black Oscars: Oscar Grant (above) and Oscar Micheaux

And February is not my favorite month because Feb. 1 is International Kiswahili Language Day – and Swahili is our potential international Pan Afrikan unifying language and multibillion dollar economy. And Feb. 2 is Ground Hog’s Day (the name of one of my favorite movies of all time) and on the 14th is Valentine’s Day and also during this month is President’s Day. And the NBA All Star game is played, as is the Super Bowl, and Mardi Gras begins and the Academy Awards are held in Hollywoood and my Black Oscars awards are held during the same day to celebrate Black elegance, eloquence, art, activism and excellence and honor and pay tribute to the Black Oscars, from Oscar Micheaux to Oscar Grant!

No, all these glorious reason aren’t the only reasons why February is my favorite month of the year or the main one. The main reason I love February is because it’s Black History Month … or, as I often call it: Afromantic History Month. The month we roll out the red, black and green carpet and choose to fall in love with ourselves all over again. And better yet, “Rise in love.” It’s our 28-day Honey Moon.

February is the month where we march hand in hand back down memory lane and see how far we as a people have come and how far we need to go … after learning from our mistakes of the past so we won’t repeat them again in the future. It’s the month we go out of our way to excavate some of the inexhaustible supply of Black Gold, splendiferocity, moxy, mojo, juju and great works of our people and great heroes of glorious pastimes so we can march forward into our much deserved promised lands and luminous tomorrows of resplendence.

Invariably every year around this time you’ll hear a brother or sister crack or whine about how “they” gave us the shortest month of the year to celebrate Black History. When in actuality Black historian, author and scholar Carter G. Woodson created Negro History Week in 1926 to honor the time frame in which the emancipation president Abraham Lincoln and his freedom fighting friend and foe Frederick Douglass were born. And later, in 1976, “we” would take it upon ourselves to expand that week into Black History Month.

Black folks in Ohio and other parts up north, though, have started to celebrate Black History Month in June around Juneteenth and Father’s Day in much warmer weather because February up there is the coldest month of the year.

However, here is an astonishing gem, caveat and Black History Month scoop: It is my contention, intuition and belief that Abe Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B DuBois returned to the world stage approximately 100 years later as JFK, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm and Frederick both came up hard and were stern countenanced, reddish brown-skinned, fiery orators. Booker T. and Martin both preferred to work through the system for our rights. W.E.B. and Elijah were both bald on top, wrote books for Black folks and were concerned about our social status and economic growth in America. And both Kennedy and Lincoln were significant in the lives of Black folks, both had Johnsons as vice presidents who became president because both Kennedy and Lincoln were assassinated – Lincoln in a theater by a man who hid in a warehouse and Kennedy was shot from a warehouse by a man who hid in a theater.

But whether you believe any of that or not, how afromantic would it be if we took that almost $100 billion we will spend in February and spent it on ourselves and make Black history by making Black Americans $100 billion richer!? Now wouldn’t that be afromantic! Buy Black Wednesday!

Paradise is president of the International Black Writers & Artists Local 5 in Oakland and was recently honored by the City of Oakland with “Paradise Day,” on Oct. 6! He may be reached at oaklandworldsfair@yahoo.com. Paradise also facilitates the Buy Black Wednesdays Facebook page and group, hosts the Black Wednesday Show every Wednesday at 6 p.m. on www.harambeeradio.com and blogs at www.blackwednesdays.blogspot.com.

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by Marpessa Kupendua

Chaka Khan and her “little sister,” Whitney Houston, perform together in happier times. – Photo: CBS

Chaka Khan appeared on CNN’s Piers Morgan broadcast on Feb. 13, two days after the death of her “little sister,” Whitney Houston. This was a privileged and rare moment, as she spoke vividly, yet calmly, with the soul that we know her for, despite Piers’ acting out his shtick of “hard-hitting” rudeness. Tales of Chaka’s past no-shows and hazy performances are legendary and she, obviously pained and weary, frankly discussed being a recovering addict. She also anecdotally talked about “getting high” with Whitney and Bobby, although the humor they shared was the primary focus of her remarks and not the drugs. In fact, Chaka spoke on her dismay that Whitney hadn’t been better sheltered from temptations and shared her own coping mechanism of avoiding parties, drugs and alcohol by arriving at celebrity-laden events just prior to their commencement so that she wouldn’t fall victim to her own demons.

Chaka also discussed the macabre Clive Davis pre-Grammy party, where gussied-up celebrities red-carpeted and guzzled champagne after only learning of Whitney’s death a few short hours before, her corpse a few floors above them and Whitney’s devastated daughter fighting to get in to see her at the full-fledged police scene, in one of the most bizarre and unseemly displays of narcissism and arrogance ever recorded. “I thought that was complete insanity,” Chaka Khan told Morgan. “I don’t know what could motivate a person to have a party in a building where the person whose life he had influenced so enormously, and whose life had been affected by her … I don’t understand how that party went on.” Even after Piers’ defense of Davis and the insensitive “mourners” – who partied long into the night – Chaka stood firm and continued, “A more honest tribute, in my opinion, would have been, maybe, call everybody together, say a prayer, let’s eat dinner and go home.”

Chaka also discussed the macabre Clive Davis pre-Grammy party, where gussied-up celebrities red-carpeted and guzzled champagne after only learning of Whitney’s death a few short hours before, her corpse a few floors above them and Whitney’s devastated daughter fighting to get in to see her at the full-fledged police scene.

The next day, Feb. 14, The Grio’s tawdry and sensationalist headline burst forth onto Facebook – and is still being quoted as fact to this day: “Chaka Khan’s favorite memory of Whitney Houston: ‘Getting high together’,” complete with a garish photo as the cherry on top. Like a tattling child, The Grio demonized Chaka by purposely inflaming her remarks for a heightened reaction of righteous indignation. The pay-off? Hundreds of Facebook comments where at least 90 percent of respondents were livid, sickened, name-calling and even threatening to boycott Chaka.

Others in the Black internet press also created false intrigue instead of standing with and even applauding Chaka for not towing the corporate line and embracing the boldness with which she outed the callousness of the industry and her peers. This is what we get from having “our own” spaces fronted by white mainstream media on the web: neo-Black press in “post-racial” America.

“I think we all, as artists, because we’re highly sensitive people, and this machine around us, this so-called ‘music industry,’ is such a demonic thing, it sacrifices people’s lives and their essences at the drop of a dime … I had a manager once say to me, ‘ You know you’re worth more money dead than alive.’” – Chaka Khan

As we condemn celebrities for their excesses and an industry rife with corruption, exploitation and drug dealing of every sort, can’t we handle the truth when they tell it? The deletion of 31 categories of mostly ethnic music from the Grammys is impetus enough to put Hollyweird on full blast instead of piling on in condemnation of one among them who dares to speak out.

Others in the Black internet press created false intrigue instead of standing with and even applauding Chaka for not towing the corporate line and embracing the boldness with which she outed the callousness of the industry and her peers. This is what we get from having “our own” spaces fronted by white mainstream media on the web.

Media Take-Out.Com, touting itself as “The Most Visited Urban Website in the World” and whose founder has no problem admitting that “we get 90 percent of our stories from insiders looking to spill the beans, like hairstylists, bodyguards or bitter ex-girlfriends” headlined: “Chaka Khan REFUSED to Perform a WHITNEY TRIBUTE at the Grammys!!!” even though her widely circulated tweet stated: “As I grieve the loss of my friend and ‘little sister,’ I don’t feel it appropriate to perform at this time. Continue to pray for the family.” She also told Piers Morgan that she was not willing to perform “I’m Every Woman,” because she “felt it was ridiculous and very inappropriate.” Is this the dirty mattress on which The Grio wants to lie?

The Grio should reflect upon our great Black divas such as Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Esther Phillips, Phyllis Hyman and carefully consider on what side of history their published offerings to the international community will fall when students and researchers read reports of the tumult surrounding the death of Whitney Houston in years to come. Mimicking the lowest common denominator and caring not the cost to the spirit of a grieving woman telling her very personal story is certainly not anything remotely resembling a true griot (keeper of history).

As the Black internet press regurgitates what the tabloid press puts out to lure in readers, they are just as scurrilous as any rag on the supermarket shelves. Not a mind-blowing revelation, to be sure, but during momentous times like these it would behoove all of our writers to take out the trash more often.

Recommended reading

1. “Whitney Houston: 1963-2012,” Dream Hampton. “Modern stars are simultaneously coddled and mocked for their addiction. Our collective voyeurism, schadenfreude and hypocritical rush to judgment would suggest that our own families are junkie free … Addicts need strong, supportive, sober friends who circle them and then rejoin that circle when the addict relapses.”

2. “Didn’t We Almost Have it All?” Terry Howcott. “Not only did her voice lift us up out of our shoes, but she reflected our collective talents and our complex struggles, our sober focus and our cunning and baffling addictions.”

3. “We Don’t Really Know Their Lives,” Thandisizwe Chimurenga. Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Marjorie Hendricks, Phyllis Hyman and others of our “beautiful, fierce, regal and gifted Black women whose (voices have been) stilled far too early.”

Marpessa Kupendua is a political and human rights activist, writer and the editor of Dread Times. She can be reached at nattyreb@gmail.com.

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Official selection of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival premieres on PBS Monday, Feb. 13, at 10 p.m. PT on KQED Channel 9

by Wanda Sabir

A cynical new form of slavery was resurrected from the ashes of the Civil War and re-imposed on hundreds of thousands of African-Americans until the dawn of World War II. Armies of “free” Black men labored without compensation, were repeatedly bought and sold, and were forced through beatings and physical torture to do the bidding of white masters for decades after the official abolition of American slavery. As it poured millions of dollars into Southern government treasuries, the new slavery also became a key instrument in the terrorization of African Americans seeking full participation in the U.S. political system. This youngster is being punished in a forced labor camp in Georgia around 1932. – Photo: John Spivak

It was a system in which men, often guilty of no crime at all, were arrested, compelled to work without pay, repeatedly bought and sold, and coerced to do the bidding of masters. Tolerated by both the North and South, forced labor lasted well into the 20th century.

For most Americans, this is entirely new history. “Slavery by Another Name” gives voice to the largely forgotten victims and perpetrators of forced labor and features their descendants living today.

Prisoners in Mississippi in the 1880s were forced to return to picking cotton, they work they’d performed when enslaved. – Photo courtesy “Slavery by Another Name”

Sam Pollard is an accomplished feature film and television video editor and documentary producer and director whose work spans almost 30 years. His first assignment as a documentary producer came in 1989 for Henry Hampton’s Blackside production “Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads.” He received an Emmy for one of his episodes in this series.

Between 1990 and 2000, Pollard edited a number of Spike Lee’s films: “Mo’ Better Blues,” “Jungle Fever,” “Girl 6,” “Clockers” and “Bamboozled.” Pollard and Lee also co-produced some documentary productions for the small and big screens: One, “Four Little Girls,” a feature-length documentary about the 1963 Birmingham church bombings, was nominated for an Academy Award. Pollard recently won his sixth Emmy for Best Editing on the HBO documentary “By the People: The Election of Barack Obama.”

To hear an interview with “Slavery by Another Name” author Douglas A. Blackmon, visit http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2008/12/26/wandas-picks. An interview with Blackmon by Bill Moyers when the book came out in 2008 is transcribed at “‘Slavery by Another Name’: the re-enslavement of Blacks from the Civil War to World War II.”

Channels and airdates

• KQED Channel 9: Monday, Feb. 13, 10 p.m., and Tuesday, Feb. 14, 4 a.m.
• KQED World: Wednesday, Feb. 15, 7 a.m., and Wednesday, Feb. 15, 10 a.m.

Bay View Arts Editor Wanda Sabir can be reached at wsab1@aol.com. Visit her website at www.wandaspicks.com throughout the month for updates to Wanda’s Picks, her blog, photos and Wanda’s Picks Radio. Her shows are streamed live Wednesdays at 6-7 a.m. and Fridays at 8-10 a.m., can be heard by phone at (347) 237-4610 and are archived on the Afrikan Sistahs’ Media Network.

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by Davey D

Bobbi Kristina Brown and her mom, Whitney Houston, sing a duet on Good Morning America in 2009. According to TMZ, Bobbi Kristina, 18, was rushed to the hospital today from the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where her mother had been found dead in her bath, but later released. She got into a shouting match with police when they refused to let her see her mother’s body. Whitney's cousin, Dionne Warwick, was also turned away.

There are already tributes on various radio stations, as we can tune in and hear Whitney Houston music hours. Many deejays are digging into their grates working on Whitney Houston mixes.

There’s no denying the artistic talents Whitney possessed. If we had to take a poll and ask who has/had the best voice in music, Ms. Houston would no doubt be in the top 10. Songs like “I Will Always Love You” and “Greatest Love of All” best personify her greatness. She was a giant among giants who will surely be missed.

With that being said, as great as her singing has been, as inspiring and as jaw dropping as her songs have been, as engaging as she’s been on screen and in concert, we will have to do a lot more than a mixtape or Grammy tribute to honor Whitney Houston. We will have to do lot more than induct her into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or grant her a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

Whitney and Bobbi Kristina arrive at Clive Davis' Pre-Grammy Gala at the Beverly Hilton exactly one year ago, on Feb. 12, 2011. – Photo: AP

At the time of this writing, I along with most of us have no idea as to what ended Whitney’s life so suddenly at age 48.

Sadly as people came out of their initial shock, speculation of drug abuse was on many people’s minds and tongues. CNN’s Don Lemon said during his breaking news broadcast yesterday that we have to talk about Whitney’s addictions because it was such a big part of her. Correction, Don: Addictions have been a big part of American society. I’m gonna come back to that in a minute.

During various broadcasts about Whitney’s passing, we heard discussions about her losing her voice and making a comeback. A comeback from what? Her demons. Eventually all conversations about Whitney came back to that infamous interview with 20/20’s Diane Sawyer, where she talked about drugs and how crack is wack.

Whitney Houston at the United Negro College Fund’s 46th Annual Awards in 1990 – Photo: Ron Galella Collection

We were addicted to the reality show with her and former husband Bobby Brown. We were addicted to the gossip around her. Is she still dating Bobby? Is she dating singer Ray J? Was she drunk or high at the last party? How many times did we wake up and turn on some urban radio station to hear a host getting their clown on about Whitney Houston. Now many of those hosts wanna lead the way to doing tributes for someone they routinely insulted.

She became the poster child for drug abuse and addiction in an industry that is chock full of people dead and alive who have all succumbed at one time or another to some sort of addiction. Over my 25-plus years in this music industry, I’ve seen a whole lot of ugly truths we like to keep hidden behind the glitz and glam.

Anyone in the music and entertainment industry can tell you stories of executives and shot callers who routinely do lines of coke, pop pills, do speed, take ecstasy or drink themselves under the table while “moguling.” Those abusive habits are far too often shared with the “talent,” the artists. In a business where egos are massive and insecurities shallow, taking a “lil something something” to get amped up or “get you open” is all too commonplace. People don’t wanna talk about it, but it’s true.

If we look at the pantheon of great Black artists hooked on drugs of one type or another, the list is long: Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Dorothy Dandridge, Dinah Washington, Richard Pryor, Ole Dirty Bastard, Sly Stone, David Ruffin, George Clinton, Frankie Lymon, DJ Screw, James Brown even the King of Pop Michael Jackson, and that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Keep in mind these are just Black artists. If I start adding names outside our community like Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, River Phoenix, Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison, to name a few, the list gets substantially longer.

Bobbi Kristina with her parents, Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston

During the pioneering days of Hip Hop, which is the generation many of us are a part of, many of those early pioneers who paved the way had serious bouts with an array of drugs – cocaine, angel dust, freebase, sherm, alcohol etc. If you really look at the history, you see by the mid ‘80s many pioneering figures disappeared for a time. Many had to deal with those demons. Some returned to the fold; many didn’t. Many are still struggling 30 years later.

By the time the crack era hit in the early ‘80s all the way up to the ‘90s, if folks weren’t hooked on taking it, they were hooked on selling it. A lot of that is outlined in the VH1 Documentary, “Planet Rock: The Story of Hip Hop and the Crack Generation.”

Our collective pride and addiction to looking good and being cool in the face of danger has not allowed us to even talk about this in any sort of honest way. It’s not a pretty picture. But we lost another star way before her time and she was a part of that legacy – whether it was directly related to her cause of death or not.

Addictions are prevalent. They’re all around us and underscore the hypocrisy of America. We got folks clowning Whitney for substance abuse problems while they sip syrup, shoot up, snort cocaine, eat fast foods, do meth or literally sell their souls and their mama’s soul for 15 minutes of fame.

Whitney Houston at the Kelly Price & Friends Unplugged: For the Love of R&B Grammy Party in Hollywood on Feb. 9, 2012, two days before her death – Photo: FilmMagic

We’re addicted to wanting to know more about the drama behind Whitney’s death more than we are the state of her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, who just lost her mother. How many of us took a moment to say a prayer or reflect on what she might be going through?

Hell, many of us are addicted to our iphones, ipads and other gadgets that we feel we must have at all costs even as they make us go into debt to own them or give us brain tumors to use them.

Someone said Whitney represented a generation of people. Yep, she sure did. She repped the good, the bad and the very ugly and painful. She was not alone in her addictions. We all share them. Some minor, some major.

In honoring Ms. Houston, will we talk about that or remain addicted to painting rosy pictures and acting like we aren’t touched by the scourge of addictions that’s systemic in our society? And if you don’t think our addictions are systemic, I suggest we take a long hard look at the so-called war on drugs and the current carnage taking place South of the border in Mexico and Columbia.

In honoring Ms. Houston, will we talk about that or remain addicted to painting rosy pictures and acting like we aren’t touched by the scourge of addictions that’s systemic in our society?

Who do you think is the economic incentive for all the drugs being shipped into this country from those places? It’s us. Who do you think was behind funding secret wars a la Iran-Contra through the sale of cocaine? Us again.

Heck, if we really wanna get deep, let’s talk about what our troops are dealing with on the battlefield and how they cope after three or four tours and what many wind up doing to deal with life on their return. No, we don’t wanna talk about those addictions. We wanna act like there’s no such thing.

In 2012 if the best we can do is a mixtape and a few tribute songs, then we missed the mark

If we wanna really honor Whitney, how about helping put an end to the demons that plagued her and so many others? If we wanna honor Whitney, how about us having a honest, impactful and earnest discussion about addictions and mental health so we can spare future generations this pain.

If we wanna honor Whitney, how about us having a honest, impactful and earnest discussion about addictions and mental health so we can spare future generations this pain.

Something to ponder. RIP, Whitney Houston

Listen to Davey D on Hard Knock Radio Monday-Friday at 4 p.m. and his Morning Mix show every Tuesday at 8 a.m. on KPFA 94.1 FM or kpfa.org. He can be reached at mrdaveyd@aol.com. Visit his website, daveyd.com, and his blog, Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner, where this story first appeared.

Live performance in Chile in 1994

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by Jean Damu

Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff congratulates the seven legendary Tuskegee Airmen – LeRoy Gillead, James Goodwin, Clyde Grimes, Richard Harder, Harold Hoskins, James Warren and Les Williams – honored by San Francisco Supervisor Malia Cohen and the entire Board of Supervisors Jan. 24. – Photo: Lance Burton

However – and with all due respect – for those of us who wrote their high school book reports after reading the Classic Comics version or watched the Disney Channel version and, perhaps even more worrisome, for those of us who may be Tyler Perry fans, then “Red Tails” is surely a must see.

For those, however, who took the time to read a book or take seriously African Americans’ participation and contributions to everyday life probably will want to take a pass. “Red Tails” is decidedly not another “Glory,” the 1989 Morgan Freeman film that was relatively accurate in its telling the story of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, the first all-Black infantry unit of the Civil War.

“Red Tails,” so named because the Tuskegee Airmen painted the tails of their planes red, is a cartoonish caricature of great fighting men who contributed much to the world’s titanic struggle against fascism that was WWII. But who, according to Lucas and film writers John Ridley (“Under Cover Brother” and Fox News contributor) and Aaron McGruder (“Boondocks”), had no personal relationships with family or Black women – not one Black woman appears in the film – and who were hopelessly criminal in their refusal to follow orders and complete a mission as assigned.

To be fair, all the exploits attributed to the Black pilots in “Red Tails” are absolutely true. Black pilots were originally assigned to strafing duty, the most dangerous of all air assignments, with outdated planes. They did blow up an ammunition train. They did destroy a German airfield, and one airman was among the first allied pilots to shoot down an ME (Messerschmitt) 262 fighter jet.

But for purposes of calming and soothing the qualms of Lucas’s financial backers and film industry banks who feared a film with a nearly all-Black cast would bomb – figuratively speaking of course – at the box office, all these exploits are depicted as being carried out by one lone rogue pilot, a pilot so undisciplined and uncontrollable that in real life he would have been subjected to court martial and likely expelled from the service.

Actually in real life the 332nd all-Black fighter group was assigned to clear the sea-lanes and provide air cover for the Allies’ invasion of Sicily. In the film, key members of the 332nd abandon their mission to provide air cover and criminally wander off to bomb a German airfield. Progressive military leaders don’t like to stifle self-initiative, but David Oyelowo’s role as Joe Little, rogue fighter pilot, was beyond anything reasonable or credible. Those kinds of stunts are far more suited to Saturday morning television, at which McGruder is quite successful.

Far in excess of the cartoon caricatures that are the Tuskegee Airmen in “Red Tails” are the embarrassing, emasculated 332nd squadron leading characters assigned to Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding Jr.

Gooding is particularly annoying as an eternally pacific, pipe-smoking mentor to his young protégé pilots. But what he comes across as is nothing more than a pretentious MacArthur wannabe, never personally putting himself in harm’s way and never taking the damn pipe out of his mouth. Meanwhile Howard’s character, Col. A.J. Bullard – a nice tip of the pilot’s cap to Eugene Bullard, a Black pilot who flew for the Lafayette Esquadrille during WWI – is a thinly disguised representation of the Tuskegee Airmens’ primary leader, Lt. Col. (later Gen.) Benjamin O. Davis. In “Red Tails,” both Howard and Gooding are little more than administrative pencil pushers far removed from any form of combat and would more appropriately have been costumed in aprons and granny hats rather than flight jackets.

In reality, Davis and other senior flight squadron officers all had their own planes and fully participated in combat missions. This was true not just in the Black units but all the white units as well. During WWII the Army Air Corps was an OJT air force. For everyone it was an on the job training because military air science was a new field and few knew very much about it.

Importantly Davis’ plane was named “By Request,” because after the Red Tails became known for providing particularly close protection for bombing raids and bomber groups’ losses diminished, they were requested specifically by the white bomber groups for protection.

As a matter of course, the actors can’t be blamed for the miserable script that was handed them. We have to assume they did the best they could.

Curiously, the “Red Tails” episode that raised the biggest question centered on the pilot shot down, captured by the Germans and taken to prison camp. What followed on screen was apparently cut and pasted from the 2002 Bruce Willis vehicle, “Hart’s War,” which featured Terrence Howard as the downed Tuskegee man.

A far more revealing episode could have been provided about the two Red Tail pilots who actually were shot down over Yugoslavia, rescued by an armed patrol of the Yugoslav Communist Party and repatriated to the Allies on the Italian border. But those kinds of political points are not attractive to film writers and producers sucking up to the banks.

But Ridley and Lucas somewhat redeem themselves.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Ridley relates that in the run-up to actually writing the Red Tails story, Lucas provided him with a van full of newspaper and magazine articles and military combat and personnel records that took months to research and review.

Unfortunately, very little of Ridley’s research found its way into McGruder’s clumsy script.

However, where Ridley’s research paid off remarkably well was in the making of the “Red Tails” companion piece, “Double Victory: the Documentary.”

Here the real and nearly complete story of the Tuskegee Airmen’s struggle against fascism overseas and racism at home is honestly and inspiringly told. It ranks among the very best, if not the best documentary ever made telling the role of Black military men in WWII.

Black women’s role as spiritual and material sustainers of the Black pilots as wives and girlfriends is fully revealed. We learn that when the first class of Tuskegee Airmen graduated, Lena Horn attended the dance that followed and danced with every graduating cadet. We get misty eyed when one former Red Tail, now in his mid-80s, tells us that after the first graduation dance, he walked his girlfriend home and asked, “Will you fly with me for the rest of our lives?” Yes, she said.

“Double Victory: the Documentary” is absolutely everything “Red Tails” is not. It’s the only redeeming aspect of the main feature. This is the film everyone absolutely should see.

Jean Damu is the former western regional representative for N’COBRA, National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, and a former member of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, taught Black Studies at the University of New Mexico, has traveled and written extensively in Cuba and Africa and currently serves as a member of the Steering Committee of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. Email him at jdamu2@yahoo.com.

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