Black people have largely been locked out of construction work in San Francisco since 1998. That’s a shame, because construction work is a solution to many of the ills in the Black community. Construction wages are high, and when Black contractors have work, they are generally eager to train Black workers regardless of their school, police or prison records.

And there’s plenty of construction work going on in San Francisco – $5 billion worth, with 38 cranes raised across the City’s skyline. The San Francisco African American Chamber of Commerce is holding a symposium on the state of Black construction-related business opportunities in San Francisco on Thursday, June 20, 6-8 p.m., at the Southeast Campus of City College, 1800 Oakdale Ave., in Bayview Hunters Point.

One of the largest construction projects currently underway in Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco’s Black heartland, is the rehabilitation of Ridgeview Terrace, a large apartment complex headquartered at 140 Cashmere at the top of Hunters Point Hill. Few local Black residents can be seen at work there.

Claude Carpenter, retired contractor, journeyman painter and community leader, and his son DeBray Carpenter, better known as Fly Benzo, also a journeyman painter and a student at City College, accompanied by comrades with the Black Riders Liberation Party, paid a visit recently to the Ridgeview construction site demanding jobs for Hunters Point residents.

The contractor for the Ridgeview makeover is KCK Builders, a white-owned company based in San Rafael that completed construction on the new Bayview Library earlier this year. KCK Builders had been the second low bidder on the library and was awarded the contract after it was taken from Hunters Point-based Liberty Builders, owned by Willie Ratcliff, who is also the publisher of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper and had planned to build the library with local Black subcontractors and workers.

Records show that Black contractors and workers are master builders who consistently bring their work in on time and under budget.

KCK Builders ran up the cost of the library by $2 million over the price bid by Liberty Builders when KCK owner Mike Hannegan was pressed to use Black subcontractors, who didn’t trust him to treat them or pay them properly and, to compensate, raised their prices. Their suspicions were later confirmed when at least some of those subcontractors were not fully paid for their work.

Ironically, the increased cost of the library construction, caused by legitimate distrust of the white contractor who had in effect taken the project away from a Black contractor, was used in a June 13 article in the San Francisco Chronicle to argue that local hire policies like the one passed unanimously by the San Francisco School Board on Tuesday, June 11, “push up construction costs.”

Records show, however, that Black contractors and workers are master builders who consistently bring their work in on time and under budget. Prior to the 1998 lockout, Blacks successfully completed millions of dollars in construction work in San Francisco, and construction wages supported hundreds of Black families. The purpose of the lockout was to eliminate Black competition.

Many of these issues are addressed in the following video, taken by Earl Black as part of an upcoming documentary, showing the Carpenters and the Black Riders leading a protest and temporary shutdown of the Ridgeview Terrace construction project to hold KCK Builders accountable.

Partial transcript

Fly Benzo (in the KCK Builders jobsite office): You guys are running construction in our community and discriminating on the hires. And they say if we want 50 percent of the jobs, there’s going to be problems.

Why aren’t our people in the bungalow? You come to a worksite in the Black community, you expect to see some Black people in the bungalow controlling the construction.

Fly Benzo (speaking to a Black assistant manager in the management office): We want to work with you, not against you. I’m one of the only people taking a stand for our youth, making sure we get a chance and an opportunity to make a living in this community, ‘cause that’s the only thing that’s going to change our circumstances and what we’re going through, like the violence.

We wouldn’t have the violence if everybody had a job paying $30 an hour. So I just want you to work with us and not against us and we also want to set up a meeting with Mr. Hollingsworth …

Claude Carpenter (talking to workers): It ain’t over yet, if we can organize our people, if we can begin to circulate dollars to our people’s pockets and recirculate them back to our Black businesses on Third Street and then open up some more Black businesses on Third Street.

In order for us to make it work, our people have to have jobs. My attitude about it is that fair exchange is no robbery. If we’re going to develop this community, we need an opportunity to upgrade the economic standards while we’re circulating the dollars – to do the building, to do the streets, to take the wires underground so it’s a nice neighborhood where you don’t see wires everywhere.

‘Cause everything they’re doing, they’re not doing for us. We don’t stand up for ourselves. If we don’t stand up for our rights, then it’s nobody’s fault but ours. We have to assume responsibility for our own selves, our own women, our own children and don’t wait on somebody else with their false promises.

Black Riders: What do we want? Jobs! When do we want ‘em? Now. How many do we want? Fifty percent!

In this video, DeBray (Fly Benzo) and Claude Carpenter continue the discussion of critical issues for the Black community in San Francisco – leadership, false leadership, unemployment and mass incarceration – on the public access TV show San Francisco Weekly News for June 13, 2013.

Contact Bay Area Black Builders via Willie Ratcliff, its vice president, at publisher@sfbayview.com or (415) 571-1722.

by Malaika H Kambon

Welcome to Marcus Book Store. Long may it live, at 1712 Fillmore St., San Francisco. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Marcus Book Store, Garvey’s namesake, at 1712 Fillmore St., San Francisco, in the Fillmore District once known as Harlem of the West, is packed with that knowledge and has purveyed it since 1960, for 53 years. Housed in the landmark Bop City building that once hosted all the jazz greats, the oldest Black book store in the country has been ordered out – evicted – this coming Tuesday, June 18.

After a standing-room-only press conference at the store on June 10, a plan of action to save Marcus Books, conceived by Archbishop Franzo King, is set for tomorrow, Sunday, June 16. Supporters will attend a church service to pray that speculators who purchased the building will sell it to a non-profit investment group at a small profit so that the bookstore can remain open.

At 10:30 a.m., Marcus Books supporters will hold a press conference at the entrance to Christopher Playground at Diamond Heights Boulevard and Duncan Street in San Francisco and then proceed to St. Nicholas Church, 5200 Diamond Heights Blvd, where the recent buyer at a bankruptcy sale, Nishan Sweis, is a subdeacon. Nishan and his wife Suhaila are also real estate investors specializing in buying distressed properties and the owners of a taxicab company, according to the Examiner.

Archbishop King, who works with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) to stop foreclosures and evictions and who pastors the internationally acclaimed St. John Coltrane Church, declared: “This Afrikan-American community has been preyed upon by what we call ‘banksters.’ … If we do nothing, we will be nothing.

Archbishop Franzo King and other supporters of Marcus Books will hold a press conference Sunday morning, June 16, at 10:30, followed by attendance at the St. Nicholas church service to pray and inspire the buyer of the Marcus Books building, a subdeacon at the church, to allow the book store and its proprietors to stay in its home of 53 years. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

“There is an assault on this community,” Rev. Arnold Townsend of the Equal Opportunity Council of San Francisco told the press June 10. “All of everything that we’ve talked about today as it relates to the Afrikan American community – urban renewal, the foreclosure crisis – it’s just a question of the transfer of wealth. When you see this building taken out of the hands of Afrikan Americans and put in the hands of some others, once again, it’s a transfer of wealth.

“And the wealth that has been taken out of Afrikan Americans’ hands, no one is speaking out against it, outside of the Afrikan American community – and that means that you’re complicit!” he said to the general public, as news cameras rolled and reporters noted his words.

Backing up his charge of complicity, he quoted Albert Einstein, who served as president of the Anti-Lynching Society, decrying the “attitude of Whites toward their fellow citizens of darker complexion. … I can avoid the feeling of complicity in it only by speaking out.” “And so,” Rev. Townsend concluded, “it is time for the city to speak out against racism as it pertains to African Americans.”

Rev. Townsend concluded, “It is time for the city to speak out against racism as it pertains to African Americans.”

Julian Davis, attorney for the Johnson family, summed up the situation at the end of the press conference: “Where we stand right now is that Westside Community Services has made an offer to repurchase the property from the Sweis family that purchased it less than two months ago after a bankruptcy court proceeding (after Marcus Books missed) a court imposed deadline. Now they have the resources available, through Westside Community Services, to be able to purchase the property and remain here and continue to operate this fantastic institution that means so much to so many people in this community.

Rev. Arnold Townsend called the forced sale of Marcus Books “an assault on this community” and “a transfer of wealth” to “see this building taken out of the hands of Afrikan Americans and put in the hands of some others.” Those “outside of the Afrikan American community” who are not “speaking out against it,” “that means that you’re complicit,” he said. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

“So we’re appealing not only to the compassion of the Sweis family but to their business sense as well. This is a solution that makes them whole and then some, and keeps Marcus Books here at its historic site.

“The Sweis family has not responded to the offer of $1.64 million. As Dr. Mary Ann Jones, the chief executive officer of Westside said, they put out a number of $3.2 million, which she found to be unconscionable and which might not be in the best faith in terms of real negotiations. They’d asked us for a number and we’ve given them a very good number that we’re hoping that they will consider more seriously.

“June 18 is a deadline for the Johnson family to vacate the property. I know that the Johnsons are working with a number of people including the mayor’s office of redevelopment to find an alternate location for the book store in the neighborhood. There are some tenants upstairs who aren’t under the stipulation to vacate – for instance, some of the Johnson family members, such as their daughter who has a lease here.

“So I think you have a situation pending on the 18th that I think the Johnsons want to make clear does not spell the end of Marcus Book Stores. It may eventually mean that Marcus Book Store is no longer here at this great location at 1712 Fillmore St., but they will always be a part of the neighborhood, and they will be in the neighborhood at another location if that’s what it comes to. We’re all hoping it doesn’t.”

“There are a number of folks who plan to reach out to the Sweis family to request their cooperation,” attorney Davis concluded.

“We’re appealing not only to the compassion of the Sweis family but to their business sense as well. This is a solution that makes them whole and then some, and keeps Marcus Books here at its historic site,” said attorney Julian Davis.

“The Sweises might end up the heroes of the story,” the Examiner quoted Marcus Books proprietor Gregory Johnson saying at the press conference. Then “everyone wins,” said his wife Karen Johnson, daughter of Marcus Books founders Drs. Raye and Julian Richardson. “It sounds good to me.”

Dr. Mary Ann Jones, CEO of Westside Community Services, is offering $1.64 million for the building, giving the Sweises, who bought it in a bankruptcy sale, a modest profit. She “came from a family of activists,” she said. “My mother lay down in front of this building the first time they tried to bulldoze it. Our ancestors are looking down upon us and asking us to do something.” – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Freedom needs knowledge

In his book, “Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism,” Ancestor Dr. John Henrik Clarke states: “Before the breaking up of the social structure of the Afrikan states such as Ghana and Songhai, and the internal strife that made the slave trade possible, many Africans, especially West Africans, lived in a society in which university life was fairly common and scholars were held in reverence.

“In that period in African history, the University of Sankore at Timbuktu was flourishing and its great chancellor, the last of the monumental scholars of West Africa, Ahmed Baba, reigned over that university. A great African scholar, he wrote 47 books, each on a separate subject. He received all of his education within Africa; in fact he did not leave the Western Sudan until he was exiled to Morocco during the invasion in 1594.

“My point is this: There existed in Africa prior to the beginning of the slave trade a cultural way of life that in many ways was equal, if not superior, to many of the cultures then existing in Europe. And the slave trade destroyed these cultures and created a dilemma that the African has not been able to extract himself from to this day” (Page 82 in print, 42 online).

“We did not consider the fact that for most of the time Afrikan people have been on the Earth, they have been free people, determining their own destiny, and they have not been slaves,” said the late Dr. Clarke.

“(F)or most of the time Afrikan people have been on the Earth, they have been free people, determining their own destiny, and they have not been slaves,” said Dr. John Henrik Clarke.

During the enslavement of Afrikan people, every attempt was made to destroy the Afrikan memory of ever having been a part of a free and intelligent people.

Marcus Books, purveyor of knowledge and freedom

But Drs. Raye and the late Julian Richardson established a dynasty that in over half a century has gone a long way toward counteracting this dangerous misconception.

At age 15, Dr. Raye Gilbert Richardson graduated from high school. Forty-five years later, in 1960, four years prior to the year known as the Year of the Ballot or the Bullet, Drs. Raye and Julian Richardson co-founded in San Francisco the first of the internationally renowned Marcus Book Stores, named for Marcus Garvey. In 1976 a second store was founded in Oakland.

“I wish I could come up with the money to buy it myself,” said Supervisor London Breed, according to the Examiner. She’s a Fillmore native who grew up in public housing and spent “countless” afternoons in the book store as a child. “But unfortunately, it’s a capitalist society, and it doesn’t work like that.” – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Archbishop King captured the classlessness of Marcus Books when he said at the June 10 press conference: “We don’t want to lose this building and we don’t want to lose this fight. And we’re not just speaking for intellectuals; we’re speaking to the thugs too. Thugs need this place. Or else they will be thugs for the rest of their lives.”

Both stores have hosted televised interviews with jazz greats, outstanding entrepreneurs, scholars, political activists and former political prisoners. Black Panther Party meetings were held at Marcus Books as were the meetings when the Black students at San Francisco State University went on strike in 1968. The San Francisco 8 were interviewed there by Lance Burton in the midst of their fight for freedom.

And on June 17, 2013, Dr. Raye Richardson will celebrate her 93rd birthday.

Drs. Raye and Julian Richardson’s daughter Blanche Richardson said, when asked about the Marcus Book Stores’ intersection with the Civil Rights Movement: “Marcus Books was a part of the Civil Rights Movement. Marcus Books provided a forum for many Civil Rights and Black Power organizations. We also hosted many authors who were writing about the political scene at the time. When the Black students at San Francisco State University went on strike, our home was put up as collateral to get them out of jail. My parents were frequent speakers at various political events. Marcus Books initiated dozens of forums and seminars on race relationships and the politics of Blackness. Our family – sometimes just our family – picketed every place there was to picket: hotels, car dealerships, retail businesses, housing developments.”

And when asked about her favorite events that have taken place, she replied: “All events are great that happen at Marcus Books because they are instructive, informative, exciting and positive. (Nutritious too, if we serve food!)”

“Marcus Books was a part of the Civil Rights Movement. … When the Black students at San Francisco State University went on strike, our home was put up as collateral to get them out of jail. My parents were frequent speakers at various political events. Marcus Books initiated dozens of forums and seminars on race relationships and the politics of Blackness. Our family – sometimes just our family – picketed every place there was to picket: hotels, car dealerships, retail businesses, housing developments,” Blanche Richardson said.

When asked how Marcus Books survives among chain bookstores and online bookstores like Amazon, her response was, “Marginally! That we survived is a testament to some very dedicated customers who appreciate the value, the warmth, the camaraderie established by Marcus Book Stores. It has to be very rewarding for a Black person to walk into a business establishment and not be subjected to preconceived notions that he or she is a thief.”

The Marcus Book Store dynasty started as Success Printing in the Fillmore District when the Richardsons, avid readers, discovered that books by, for and about Black people everywhere were difficult to purchase and harder to find. They began to publish popular works by Black authors and poets, as well as out of print literature they deemed to be essential reading. When racism and redevelopment began pushing Afrikan people out of San Francisco and gutting the once vibrant Fillmore District, they opened their second book store in Oakland in 1976.

Through redevelopment, bulldozers, racism and a retail giant, Amazon, that undercut prices for small book stores by offering the same books for cheaper prices online, Marcus Book Stores have kept their doors open by providing what their Afrikan community needed most: a progressive avenue of information about ourselves, our own bookstore, a way of being FUBU – for us, by us.

Black businesses under attack, yesterday and today

And now, in 2013, the ugly monster of racism in San Francisco is coming again to try and steal what is ours – our land and our Marcus Books, in an effort to derail our historic place and pretend that we as Afrikan people do not exist in any way but that which is warped and underdeveloped in their colonized mentalities.

But why does this keep happening to us? The insights of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Malcolm X, provide some of the answers.

El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Malcolm X

On April 12, 1964, Malcolm X delivered his famous “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech in Detroit, Michigan. He addressed brothers and sisters, moderators, religious and spiritual leaders – and friends and enemies. He stated, in fact, “We would be fooling ourselves if we had an audience this large and didn’t realize that there would be some enemies present.”

He pointed out several Christian ministers who came to be known more so for their political struggles on behalf of the Afrikan community: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Adam Clayton Powell of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church and a longtime member of Congress, Rev. Milton Galamison, who fought against Brooklyn’s segregated school system, and Rev. Henry Cleage, from Detroit, Michigan, who headed the Freedom Now Party.

Malcolm was a Muslim minister who stressed that unity between different religions could be achieved when we “keep our religion between ourselves and our God. When we come out here, we have a fight that’s common to all of us against an enemy who is common to all of us.”

And he didn’t believe in fighting in any one front, but on all fronts. In fact, he described himself as a “Black Nationalist Freedom Fighter,” whose political, social and economic philosophy was Black Nationalism.

He stated: “The political philosophy of Black Nationalism means that Black people must control the politics and the politicians of their communities. We must know what politics are supposed to produce in our communities. We must know what part politics play in our lives. And until we become politically mature, we will always be misled, led astray or deceived or maneuvered into supporting someone politically who doesn’t have the good of our community at heart.”

A child rescuer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 1, 1921 – with Whites out to kill them, Blacks could rely on no one but each other.

Echoing Malcolm’s words, from a deep well of Afrikan wisdom, the Ujamaa Network reminds us, “We must buy from ourselves in order to re-circulate Black dollars. If we want our dollars to return, we must spend them within our own community. (This) will be our year if we decide it will be. Make a commitment to yourself to do as much of your spending within our community as possible.”

But isn’t that what Marcus Book Stores do? Providing a means for the Afrikan community worldwide to buy from ourselves – including from behind the walls of the U.S. government’s 21st century slavocracy, the prison industrial complex? Isn’t that what Marcus Book Stores prove? What we could do not only in the present and in the future, but what we have done since the Afrikan origins of humanity?

And aren’t the attacks on the Afrikan community the same game with different rules? It seems so. The lynching rope just isn’t always made of hemp in the 21st century.

Malcolm stated: “The political philosophy of Black Nationalism means that Black people must control the politics and the politicians of their communities.”

It’s sometimes made of predatory lending, foreclosures, gentrification, balloon payments and court dates slanted in favor of those who would shift the Afrikan community’s wealth out of our hands into the hands of others. Malcolm was right. The Richardson-Johnson family is right. The philosophy of Marcus Book Stores is right.

And the history of Afrikan people having our land and our wealth and businesses stolen from us in spite of all that we can do is wrong.

This history becomes particularly important when one considers the reasons behind the chilling destruction of the prosperous, self-sufficient Afrikan towns of Rosewood, Florida, in January 1923 and Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 1, 1921.

A cabin burns near Rosewood, Florida, on Jan. 4, 1923.

“Black Wall Street, the name fittingly given to one of the most affluent all-Black communities in America, was bombed from the air and burned to the ground by mobs of envious Whites. In a period spanning fewer than 12 hours, a once thriving Black business district in northern Tulsa lay smoldering – a model community destroyed and a major African-American economic movement resoundingly defused.

“The night’s carnage (on Black Wall Street) left some 3,000 Afrikan Americans dead and over 600 successful (Black-owned) businesses lost. Among these were 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores and two movie theaters, plus a hospital, a bank, a post office, libraries, schools, law offices, a half dozen private airplanes and even a bus system.”

“The night’s carnage left some 3,000 Afrikan Americans dead and over 600 successful businesses lost. Among these were 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 grocery stores and two movie theaters, plus a hospital, a bank, a post office, libraries, schools, law offices, a half dozen private airplanes and even a bus system. As could have been expected, the impetus behind it all was the infamous Ku Klux Klan, working in consort with ranking city officials and many other sympathizers.”

Community leaders join effort to save Marcus Books

Now, in 2013, the Afrikan fight is against a different – but no less racist – assault upon the Black community, against its internationally famous Marcus Book Stores, most particularly the store located in the Fillmore District, one of the few remaining “Black Belt” communities in San Francisco.

The book stores are self-sufficient and provide a service to a global Afrikan community. They are being run by three generations of a well-known and well-respected Afrikan family.

Attorney Julian Davis, Rev. Arnold Townsend, Archbishop Franzo King, Gregory Johnson, Erinne Johnson, Archbishop King's goddaughter and KPOO radio host, Ed Donaldson, Karen Johnson and Rev. Dr. Amos Brown gather for a group photo after the June 10 press conference at Marcus Books. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

At the press conference June 10, the Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, San Francisco NAACP president, spoke of the importance of Afrikan people having a place in San Francisco and quoted Archimedes saying, “Give me a place to stand and I will move the world.” He stressed the importance of “putting the crisis at Marcus Books in historical perspective.”

He compared the complicity of those who would redevelop Afrikan people out of their rightful place in San Francisco to the Northern forces in the Civil War who “promoted, prolonged and profited from” the enslavement of Afrikan people.

“I stand in solidarity with my fellow speakers in asking the Sweis family to please sell the building back to us as a community, so that we can preserve it as a cultural institution,” said Ed Donaldson of the Home Defenders’ League. “When folks begin to attack our cultural institutions, they attack our very existence, and we cannot tolerate it. We have to stand up and fight.”

Framing the issue in the larger context of San Francisco, he explained: “There have been over 4,000 homes that have been foreclosed in San Francisco in the last five years, many in communities of color. There are no funds being allocated for single-family homes to be rescued. The city of San Francisco, on the heels of the passage of Proposition C, is now having a conversation around the allocation of $15 million, and the Afrikan community has not been at the table. I call upon the Mayor’s Office of Housing and the City of San Francisco to correct that.”

“When folks begin to attack our cultural institutions, they attack our very existence, and we cannot tolerate it. We have to stand up and fight,” said Ed Donaldson of the Home Defenders’ League.

The crowd hushed to hear Marcus Books proprietors Greg and Karen Johnson; even the traffic outside the door seemed to make less noise. Greg said: “We’d like to voice our appreciation for the entire group and the overwhelming support that we’ve received from every direction. This business is not based upon capitalism. It is based upon the importance of integrity and on the importance of betterment for the community at large. We’re not here to subsidize ourselves. We’re here to grow the community. We want that to be known. This is not a war. We are not at war with the Sweis family. There’s no intention. We are at peace. But we want social justice. And we won’t be denied social justice. That’s all we ask at this particular time.”

Karen was as usual very soft spoken. But her words – again as usual – carried power. She said: “Change has its own vitality and its own reality. So I think this represents change that has come, and we’re all affected and riding the wave of it and it looks really good.

Karen and her daughter, Tamiko Johnson, look hopefully to the future, counting on their own hard work and the support of the community to save Marcus Books. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

“So we’re here to nurture the Black part of all of us. I’ve been touched by this place. I’m just the little clerk in this bridge where people come in to dip from the lake of Black wisdom. I love being here, too and it’s nice to see other people who have sipped from the same well. Hopefully it’s going to grow from the sea, and there will be more of us. Thank you for your support.”

How you can help

Help save Marcus Book Store by

• attending the press conference and church service tomorrow, Sunday, June 16: Gather at Christopher Playground at Diamond Heights Boulevard and Duncan Street, San Francisco, at 10:30 a.m., then proceed to St. Nicholas Church, 5200 Diamond Heights Blvd; 
• signing the petition at Change.org; and
• joining hundreds of supporters for a meeting on Monday, June 17, 3 p.m., at Marcus Books, 1712 Fillmore St., San Francisco.

Fight back for what is ours.

A sampling of the countless cultural and community events held at Marcus Book Stores

Marcus Books – Bop City Moment, Earle Davis: Musician Earle Davis talks about his musical experiences and plays his “Funk for Monk.”

Marcus Books – SF 8 Visit Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4: Lance Burton interviews the San Francisco 8 at Marcus Book Store in San Francisco.

Marcus Books – Bob Livingstone, Healing: Kevin Washington, Ph.D., of the Africana Studies Department at San Francisco State University interviews Bob Livingstone about his book, “The Mind Body and Soul Solution: Healing Emotional Pain Through Exercise.”

Marcus Books – Ephren W. Taylor II – Part 1: Ephren W. Taylor II, CEO of City Capital Corp., is the youngest African-American CEO of any publicly traded company. He started his first business venture at age 12 and built a multi-million dollar national company by age 17. His concepts on empowering local communities with socially conscious investing and development earned him the distinguished 2002 Kansas Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Marcus Books – Dr. Brenda Wade & company – Part 2: Authors discuss Black love at Marcus Books – healing in the light of the Maafa – with interviewer Kevin Washington, Ph.D.

Malaika H Kambon is a freelance photojournalist and the 2011 winner of the Bay Area Black Journalists Association Luci S. Williams Houston Scholarship in Photojournalism. She also won the AAU state and national championship in Tae Kwon Do from 2007-2010. She can be reached at kambonrb@pacbell.net.

“Audioform Live at Marcus Books, San Francisco, ’07,” a jazz festival right outside the doors of Marcus Books

Juneteenth, a day signifying freedom, has been celebrated in San Francisco for 63 years – the largest annual gathering of Blacks in Northern California. The late Wesley Johnson, owner of Johnson’s Pharmacy in the Fillmore, at Sutter and Webster, organized the first celebration in 1950 and many that followed, inspiring a commitment by the Black community to ensure the event a permanent place on the City’s calendar.

Juneteenth commemorates the day, June 19, 1865, when news of the end of slavery finally reached Texas – over two years after the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. Meanwhile, a quarter million enslaved Africans in Texas had worked without pay for two seasons, not knowing they had been legally freed.

This year also marks the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, a strategic move to free slaves to join the Union army to help defeat the Confederacy. President Lincoln did not have a conscientious objection to enslaving Africans. His decision to emancipate them was a political move to win the Civil War.

At this year’s San Francisco Juneteenth, on June 15, 2013, Rev. Amos C. Brown, senior pastor of Third Baptist Church, will be speaking on the history of Juneteenth. We will also be reminded of some victorious and tragic moments in 1963 – 50 years ago. Those moments were:

1. March on Washington
2. Murder of Mississippi NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers by Byron De La Beckwith of the White Citizens Council
3. Letter from Birmingham Jail written by Rev. Martin Luther King
4. Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, murdering four little Black girls

The San Francisco Juneteenth Committee has revitalized itself with new members representing the City’s Black communities from Fillmore to Bayview Hunters Point. Unfortunately, few resources from City Hall or other sponsors were made available this year. But our love and respect for ourselves and our African roots and the commitment of committee chair Rev. Arnold Townsend and his daughter, coordinator Rachel Townsend, ensures the event will be a big success.

The 2013 San Francisco Juneteenth will be held Saturday, June 15, on Fillmore Street between Sutter and Turk from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The event is free! There will be a parade, vendors, guest speakers and plenty of entertainment by talented performers of blues, R&B, jazz and gospel. Health information will also be available.

To learn more, go to www.sfjuneteenth.org. The Juneteenth Committee needs your help; individual donations and business sponsors will be appreciated.

Genevieve Bayan can be reached at genevieveb71@gmail.com.

“Privatization has always been a sign of increasing poverty among minorities,” so relates Mesha Irizarry, administrative director of the Idriss Stelley Foundation. Irizarry goes on to warn that “this type of fee will be applied to other places in the city. It will lead to increased fees in other areas, such as swimming pools, or expanded to implement entirely new fees – such as at the libraries. The authorities always start with something that will provoke less outrage.” Mesha goes on to maintain that the “fees are elitist and exclusionary and will contribute to environmental classism.”

John Rizzo, president of the Board of City College, maintains: “This contract would permanently privatize the park in a way that we haven’t seen before, at taxpayers’ expense. Billboards, admissions fees and backroom-deal-style management techniques don’t belong in a publicly funded park.”

What’s this all about? Ask any San Franciscans of a certain age about Golden Gate Park, and they will wax on about the days when every museum in the park was free and they could spend a day visiting all of them. Over the years, while still receiving public subsidies, every institution has been privatized and the entry fees raised to ludicrous levels. The latest being the semi-privatized Conservatory of Flowers, which is now employed as a cash cow for the Parks Alliance, an organization funded and controlled by wealthy elites.

The last bloom in the park is the San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum. The San Francisco Botanical Garden Society has long plotted to implement fees, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lobbyists over the decades. Several years ago a $7 “nonresident” fee was imposed and, despite a weak effort to repeal it the following year, it was extended for two more years. Sophie Maxwell voted in favor of the initial one-year “trial” fees, and Malia Cohen voted for the two-year extension of what is really a new tax on working people.

The Recreation and Park Department is planning to have the board make these fees permanent as well as request ratification of a 30-year sweetheart contract with the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society, one which would effectively privatize the facility and hand off total control over these 55 acres to this “nonprofit.”

The City gave the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society a $725,000 grant in 2012 and one for $400,000 in 2011. Unless you can prove San Francisco residency, you must pay the $7, and plenty of people expatriated to the East Bay and elsewhere, who have returned to visit, have turned back at the gates. The Society’s long term plans are to have everyone pay.

Let’s be clear. These fees are not about revenue, because the revenues (after expenses) are paltry. This is about excluding people, especially people who may be undocumented or who find paying $7 to visit a public park to be an economic hardship. The Society plans to be ensconced in a walled $15 million new building set smack in the middle of prize parkland, so money is not the issue here. Control is!

The Budget and Finance Committee will hear testimony on this when they consider the full park budget on June 20, and they need to hear from you. So take a stand! Call Malia Cohen, 554-7670, London Breed, 554-7630, and other supervisors or email them at Board.of.Supervisors@sfgov.org. Tell them to separate the legislation for permanent fees and the contract from the Recreation and Parks budget and to vote to defeat both of these. Failure to act will be a disaster for Golden Gate Park.

Harry S. Pariser can be reached on Facebook.

For many years, Bayview Hunters Point in San Francisco has been regarded as the Black Mecca for Black businesses and enterprise. Back in the 1970s you could find an array of Black-owned businesses – from dry cleaners, to tax preparation services and even small full-service grocery stores selling an array of grocery items, as well as fresh produce. But over the years, as the demographics have changed, so has the vast majority of business ownership. Today in Bayview there are still Black-owned businesses around, but not nearly as many as there were in the 1970s.

Ford’s Grocery owner Kathy Ford with the SEFA Food Guardians and Tanya Leake from Network for a Healthy California - Photo: Joe Prickitt

The number one goal of business owners is to make money. Before venturing into a business, most business owners do a considerable amount of research, such as assessments to determine whether a business is needed in the community and what the financial gain might be. This is in part true for Black corner store owners Kathy Ford, succeeding her parents as owner of Ford’s Grocery, and Bob, the owner of Surf Side, better known as Bob’s in the community. Before opening their stores in Bayview 30 plus years ago, they both saw a need for places in the community for people to purchase food.

“The people up in West Point and Harbor didn’t have a store close by to get to and the buses didn’t come often, so I knew a corner store was needed and would do fine,” said Bob. With the need being immensely evident, Black business owners Kathy Ford and Bob opened their corner store businesses and sell a vast array of foods that were in demand in the community.

“When my mother and father first opened Ford’s, we sold meat, fish, breakfast food and produce,” said Kathy Ford. Ford’s Grocery is a landmark at the corner of Oakdale and Lane, just a block east of Third Street.

This reality has changed for Kathy Ford’s and Bob’s businesses over the years. During the last two decades, they’ve seen peoples’ buying patterns change – from customers coming to pick up a few steaks, a bag of beans, and a couple bunches of collard greens, to a bag of chips and a soda.

When asked what she thought contributed to the change in peoples shopping patterns, Ms. Ford said, “I don’t know, I really don’t know, but what I do know is that we need to change. We need to get back to eating collard greens and healthy food in general.” The change Kathy longed for would come in due time.

From a social justice perspective, not having access to fresh, affordable produce and healthy food is unfair. Until recently, finding produce and healthy food items in Ford’s Grocery was like trying to find water in the Arizona desert. The shelves were full of processed, high fat, salty products and there was not one single piece of produce. But Ms. Ford was ready for some change at her store.

On Jan. 16 and 17 of this year, Ford’s Grocery became the second corner store owner to participate in the Healthy Retail Conversion Program and is now offering fresh affordable produce as well as healthy food products. Lee’s Market in Bayview was the first corner store to bring healthier food and fresh produce into the store in July 2012 and continues to work with the Food Guardians on store improvement.

The Southeast Food Access Food Guardians, through the Healthy Eating Active Living Zone initiative funded by Kaiser Permanente, work with small businesses to increase access to fresh produce and healthy food for the Bayview community in an attempt to level the playing field for all Bayview residents. The Food Guardians hope to work with Bob’s or other small stores in the near future, if funding allows.

Getting produce into Ford’s Grocery was done through a comprehensive three-legged approach called Retail for Community Health and Sustainability, which involves Community Promotion and Awareness, Retail Technical Assistance, and Policy-Supported Incentives and Regulations.

I Promotion and Awareness: The SEFA Food Guardians, who are Bayview Hunters Point residents, are the core of the promotion and awareness leg. The Food Guardians promote the changes of the retail project before, during and after the store redesign is set. This is done by conducting various surveys and assessments, promoting the changes at community events, writing news articles and developing district-wide healthy marketing strategies to let the community know about the healthy changes.

II Technical Assistance: Stores that participate in the healthy store redesign project are allotted a host of technical assistance support. The technical assistance is provided by Sutti and Associates, a retail redesign consultant firm with over 35 years of experience in the industry. Sutti provides expertise in developing schematics, produce maintenance, and product merchandising – not only to the participating store owners, but also to the Food Guardians, so that they can continue to provide ongoing technical assistance to the stores in the long term.

III Policy Supported Incentives and Regulation: It is hoped that these pilot healthy retail efforts result in the establishment of a citywide program that would bundle together the promotion and awareness piece with the technical assistance piece and provide incentives such as tax breaks for small businesses making the effort to carry produce and healthy food items while decreasing the sale of junk food, alcohol and tobacco.

This effort gives Black business owners and other small business owners in the Bayview a fighting chance to change their business models to accurately reflect the community’s new ways of thinking in terms of food. The Healthy Retail Conversion program gives business owners an optimistic outlook in terms of their business’ prosperity in a new market. According to Scott Schaffer, business consultant with Sutti Associates, “Produce can generate just as much money as alcohol and tobacco, if not more. It’s all about the way you run your business.”

Kenneth Hill of SEFA Food Guardians can be reached at khill@southeastsf.org or (415) 822-7500, ext. 26.

Under a failed “good faith efforts” approach to connecting San Francisco residents with good-paying construction jobs, local workers made up an average of only 20 percent of hours on city-funded public works projects.

In the two years since the landmark mandatory local hiring law adopted by policy makers in December 2010 has been in effect, however, participation by San Francisco’s community workforce has jumped to just over 33 percent of job hours on covered projects, providing a much-needed boost for local workers as construction employment continues to recover from a record low. Increased local hiring meant an additional $5-$10 million in the hands of San Francisco’s working families that in turn support local businesses and strengthen the local economy.

According to a report issued by the City’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the San Francisco Local Hiring Policy for Construction covered 945,668 hours of public works construction, with 316,628 hours performed by San Francisco residents, for an average of 33.4 percent local hiring. Community apprentices performed 60 percent of total apprentice hours, signifying joint efforts between union apprenticeship programs, San Francisco’s CityBuild Academy, community-based organizations and contractors to build a strong local pipeline of skilled workers ready to embark on a career in construction.

These numbers far exceed the policy’s requirement that at least 20 percent of job hours within each trade on projects awarded in 2011, and 25 percent of job hours on projects awarded in 2012, must be performed by San Francisco residents, particularly workers in economically disadvantaged communities. At least 50 percent of apprentice hours within each craft must be local.

The local hiring ordinance also resulted in increased race and gender diversity on covered projects, as the report demonstrates that African American, Asian or Pacific Islander, and female workers are virtually absent among the non-local workforce on covered projects over the past two years.

Construction projects continue to come in at or below engineer’s estimates, allaying concerns from a handful of local hiring skeptics who argued that guaranteeing jobs for San Franciscans on projects they fund with their tax dollars would increase construction costs.

Local hire supporters, including Mayor Ed Lee, Espanola Jackson (front left) and James Richards (far right), listen as Joshua Arce of Brightline Defense Project announces the voluntary adoption of local hiring mandates for construction of the proposed Golden State Warriors waterfront arena.

In addition, community leaders and policy makers across the country look to San Francisco as an important model for guaranteeing jobs for local communities, one with proven results through a robust implementation strategy and detailed, inclusive outcomes monitoring.

Most of the 118 projects covered by the local hire ordinance are still underway, and over 1,000 local workers have had the chance to earn a living wage with benefits and retirement on their way to a meaningful career in construction. The San Francisco ordinance supports the regional workforce as well, as over 900 residents of neighboring Alameda County have worked on covered projects. Moreover, San Mateo County residents have particularly benefited from the San Francisco Airport project labor agreement, which includes both the local hiring policy and a memorandum of understanding that San Mateo residents are considered “local” on construction at the San Mateo-based airport.

Mayor Edwin Lee, who has made successful implementation of the groundbreaking local hiring law authored by Supervisor John Avalos a priority of his administration, has established a Construction Workforce Advisory Committee made up of community, labor, contractor and government representatives tasked to work with the city administrator and OEWD this year on policy recommendations that will lead to long term policy success.

The OEWD report thanks the leadership of a host of community-based organizations, including the A. Philip Randolph Institute, Anders and Anders Foundation, Asian Neighborhood Design, Brightline Defense, Charity Cultural Services Center, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Mission Hiring Hall and Young Community Developers. Countless other organizations helped advocate for and win the local hiring policy, including Aboriginal Blackman United, Chinese Progressive Association, Coleman Advocates, Filipino Cultural Center, the Osiris Coalition, PODER, POWER, Progressive Workers Alliance and many more.

CityBuild Academy held an open house on May 10.

The report also acknowledges city officials, including City Administrator Naomi Kelly, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, Department of Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru, Municipal Transportation Agency Director Ed Reiskin, Public Utilities Commission General Manager Harlan Kelly, Recreation and Parks Department Director Phil Ginsburg, Port Director Monique Moyer and Airport Director John Martin for their support, as well as the Associated General Contractors, Construction Employers’ Association, United Contractors, and Wall and Ceiling Alliance for helping create local hiring success.

“Supporting the local economy and putting San Franciscans to work has been at the forefront of most of my major initiatives as mayor,” said Mayor Lee. “With the construction industry leading the way in the City’s economic growth and recovery, I am pleased that the Local Hiring Policy is providing employment opportunities for our residents.”

“The implementation of the Local Hiring Policy for Construction has provided economic and employment opportunities for San Francisco residents,” said Supervisor Avalos. “I look forward to continuing and expanding our partnerships to advance the program to provide good paying jobs to San Franciscans and maximize opportunities for local residents.”

“The local hiring policy continues to deliver for San Francisco’s working families and foster a unique citywide community-labor partnership that promotes a pathway to a sustainable middle class in our city,” said Brightline Executive Director Joshua Arce.

Read the City’s report on the first two years of local hiring at http://www.workforcedevelopmentsf.org/aboutus/images/stories/AboutUs/WorkforceDivision/2012-2013%20local%20hiring%20report%20_year2_low%20res2.pdf.

Oddly enough, Floyd “Money” Mayweather fought and defeated Robert Guerrero on May 4, 2013, just one day prior to the candlelight vigil and community memorial organized by JAB, the Justice 4 Alan Blueford Coalition, in loving memory of Alan Dwayne Blueford.

May 6, 2013, is the one-year anniversary of Alan’s murder by OPD Officer Miguel Masso. The candlelight march and memorial began at the park known as Sunnyside, deep in the East Oakland community. Marchers left the park, turned down 94th Avenue, turned again down Birch Street and stopped in the driveway of 9230 Birch, where Alan was murdered.

The Blueford family and the Justice 4 Alan Blueford coalition held a vigil for Alan on the one-year anniversary of his murder by Oakland police officer Miguel Masso. For more information about what happened to Alan, go to www.justice4alanblueford.org. Chalkupy art by Fresh Juice Party: www.FreshJuiceParty.org. – Video: Mollie Costello

This time last year, just after midnight on May 6, 2012, Alan Dwayne Blueford and two of his friends were awaiting a ride on 90th Avenue when they were racially profiled, terrorized, chased and assaulted by the OPD. Alan was summarily executed.

Alan had just spoken with his parents. He and his friends had all watched the same Floyd “Money” Mayweather score a victory over then WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on the previous evening.

Alan and his friends were just standing on 90th Avenue awaiting a ride from friends when Masso and his partner came oozing by, driving slowly, with their lights off, noiseless – predators in blue, on drive-by-killer silent tires.

This time last year, just after midnight on May 6, 2012, Alan Dwayne Blueford and two of his friends were awaiting a ride on 90th Avenue when they were racially profiled, terrorized, chased and assaulted by the OPD. Alan was summarily executed.

Killer cop Miguel Masso did not have his lapel camera on, in violation of OPD policy. What was he trying to hide? And was he trying to ensure that he didn’t end up on video, as killer cop Johannes Mehserle had?

Incidences such as these give credence to the fact that the use of deadly force by police against Black people is not and cannot be attributed to accident or random violence patterns the way the mainstream media would have the public believe.

According to the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement’s updated “Every 36 Hours: Report on the Extrajudicial Killings of 120 Black People”: “A human rights crisis confronts Black people in the United States. Since Jan. 1, 2012, police and a much smaller number of security guards and self-appointed vigilantes have murdered at least 120 Black women and men. These killings are definitely not accidental or random acts of violence or the work of rogue cops. As we noted in our April 6, 2012, ‘Trayvon Martin Is All of US!‘ report, the use of deadly force against Black people is standard practice in the United States and woven into the very fabric of the society.”

On the first anniversary of the police murder of Alan Blueford, a united community continues to demand the prosecution of killer cop Miguel Masso. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

For example, like Enjoli Mixon, many grassroots Haitian people have returned home from work to find the remains of family members decomposing in their living rooms, murdered by the occupying army of U.N. MINUSTAH forces and/or the Haitian National Police. Both are militarized, trained and controlled by the U.S. CIA and/or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

On the evening that Alan Dwayne Blueford was killed, InPDUM (International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement), one of several community organizations based in East Oakland, had organized a Court for Black Justice (CBJ), putting the OPD on trial.

This is not the first time this particular praxis has occurred. It has its genesis in the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, who developed the community awareness strategies of watching and intervening in police attacks against the Black community. Huey P. Newton, law book in hand, routinely addressed and prevented acts of police brutality by being informed of and able to quote state law governing police conduct.

Tribunals were held in which the Black Panther Party for Self Defense could speak to the community and the community could speak in return. One such instance was enacted in the film, “The Murder of Fred Hampton,” with a courtroom scene in which the people got to ask relevant questions and “put the pig on trial.”

At the InPDUM Court for Black Justice, surviving relatives of family members murdered by police in San Francisco, Oakland and elsewhere in the Bay Area, testified about the killing of their relatives and the aftermath of police harassment in their continued fight for justice.

Enjoli Mixon told of how her brother was slain in her house and of the subsequent police harassment she, her family and the immediate community faced. Lovelle Mixon was a young Black man who chose to fight an alleged third strike parole violation by killing four Oakland police officers and escaping rather than become interred in the U.S. prison industrial complex slavocracy for life.

Relatives came from as far away as Tracy, Calif., supporters from as far away as Haiti to demand justice for Alan Blueford now! – Photo: Malaika Kambon

MXGM addresses this aspect too, within the context of mainstream media’s actions. They point out that within the first six months of 2012, every 36 hours one Black person in the U.S. was executed: “The corporate media have given very little attention to these extrajudicial killings. We call them ‘extrajudicial’ because they happen without trial or any due process, against all international law and human rights conventions. Those few mainstream media outlets that mention the epidemic of killings have been and are unwilling to acknowledge that the killings are systemic – meaning they are embedded in institutional racism and national oppression. On the contrary, nearly all of the mainstream media join in a chorus that sings the praises of the police and read from the same script that denounces the alleged ‘thuggery’ of the deceased. Sadly, too many people believe the police version of events and the media’s ‘blame-the-victim’ narratives that justify and support these extrajudicial killings.”

According to Mixon’s family, he was shot over 87 times and his body was so improperly preserved that his skin was grey and peeling and his casket could not be closed (during the funeral service) because the resultant odor of decomposition would have been worse. This fact, coupled with the city’s refusal to release the body to the family until it began decomposing, was a form of cruel and unusual punishment, and caused more deliberate trauma. Thus, the brutalization that Lovelle Mixon underwent at the hands of the OPD – even after death – was visible at his funeral.

But according to his sister Enjoli, Lavelle died with a smile on his face.

Was it coincidence that Mixon was killed within months of the brutal murder of 22-year-old Oscar Grant III? This reporter thinks not.

Oscar Grant was tortured and then shot at point blank range on the Fruitvale station BART platform in front of thousands of witnesses who saw and video recorded the crime. The police tried to take hundreds of peoples’ cell phones, but a few escaped them.

Killer cop Johannes Mehserle was allowed to “run for the hills,” fleeing the state to Las Vegas, Nevada, after his part in the torture and lynching of Grant. He apparently thought that he should be allowed to just walk away from a crime scene by stating that it was all an accident.

Haitian drummers led by Will Bellot welcomed the incoming marchers, singing and drumming of resistance and calling on the ancestors in honor of Alan Dwayne Blueford in the finest Voudun tradition. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Mehserle received a mere slap on the wrist, an involuntary manslaughter verdict – as though there was no gun used in the case! – from a Los Angeles judge who maintained that “race wasn’t an issue”! Mehserle was given credit for time served and released after said “credit” was applied to his very flimsy sentence.

The people took to the streets continually five times in support of the family of Oscar Grant and against police violence and murder.

Then there is the case of Kenneth Wayne Harding Jr., who was shot multiple times in the neck and back by the SFPD for an alleged $2 light rail fare evasion. He was then denied medical help and forced to bleed out and die in broad daylight in full view of a horrified Bayview Hunters Point community. This wouldn’t have happened in a white community. His murder was also captured on video that was so graphic You Tube took it off line.

Denika Chatman, Harding’s mother, has spoken out and continues to speak out, educate, organize, wake up communities about her son’s murder and the aftermath of harassment her family has faced in coordinated attacks from both the Seattle and San Francisco police departments.

She is also uniting with other families who have suffered the same senseless tragedies, uniting Black and Brown communities in the understanding that these attacks are not random occurrences.

The people took to the streets continually five times in support of the family of Oscar Grant and against police violence and murder.

In the 21st century, this is one of the legacies of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, what slain leader Fred Hampton called “observation and participation,” waking people up and organizing around specific goals. This gets action.

On the evening of May 6, 2013, Oakland police officer Miguel Masso shot himself in the foot after shooting three bullets at half-second intervals at point blank range into Alan Dwayne Blueford as he lay on his back on the ground.

Masso was taken immediately to the hospital.

Alan Blueford was left to bleed out for four hours before he was then taken to the hospital and pronounced dead. The OPD did not call the Blueford family. One of Alan’s friends did.

The community respects Jeralynn Blueford’s call for a moment of silence and observation of prayers by Bishop Mario Gaines and Pastor Lowery of Urojas Community Services for the strength of our young who face danger and death, racial profiling and terrorism in the streets, while trying to survive and grow. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Cops get to “freak out” and kill, as is stated in Masso’s police report. Cops get to “think they see a weapon,” think s/he was reaching for a waistband, shirt and/or jacket pocket, or swear that “a shootout occurred forcing them to act in self-defense or to apprehend” and used deadly force, implying that criminal activity is taking place.

Whatever the excuse, a Black person dies.

Yet, Miguel Masso stated in his report that he “couldn’t think clearly for a minute or two,” before he shot and fatally wounded Alan Blueford.

How is this different from Johannes Mehserle thinking that he could resign from his job, run from the scene of a crime, say it was an accident, and leave the state to avoid prosecution just because he’s a white cop?

What? Masso wasn’t in the moment mentally and Mehserle wasn’t there physically so this makes the murder of innocents OK?

And when their lies are later brought to light, do police agencies admit their crimes? No. And are they prosecuted for their lies and the deaths that they have caused? No.

Mainstream media faithfully refuses to report that police are killing unarmed members of Black and Brown communities at an ever increasing and alarming rate.

The truly chilling part is that proving the police lying is no longer considered to be compelling enough evidence to reverse guilty verdicts against Afrikan people and set them free, as has been continually proven in the cases of Mumia Abu-Jamal and other political prisoners and prisoners of war.

And it is certainly not capable of reversing murderous, white supremacist intent and actions and bringing dead loved ones back to life. This is not a Road Runner cartoon on TV.

Troy Anthony Davis was murdered by the state, despite compelling evidence of too much doubt in his conviction. Alan Dwayne Blueford, Oscar Grant III, Kenneth Wade Harding Jr., Ramarley Graham, Raheim Brown, Lovelle Mixon and too many more are gone as well.

This is not a Road Runner cartoon, these were not accidents, and there is no rewind button.

But there does seem to be a replay button because these murders keep happening.

Pierre Labossiere of the Haiti Action Committee and attorney Walter Riley confer with and comfort Jeralynn Blueford, Alan’s mother – three strong leaders building support for Black and Brown youth being targeted by racist police, armed terrorists in blue with a global license to kill. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Visual acuity does not match reality. TV cops can go home after being nearly fatally shot or after brutalizing some alleged suspect. The shows’ ratings go up. Everyone is happy. There is no visually exciting police show depicting cops earning those fat calories in donuts from writing police reports all day.

But the reality is that taxi drivers take more risks and are subjected to more dangers and are in a certain sense just as prone to racial profiling, judging by how difficult it is for a Black person to get a cab in San Francisco, and/or to reliably depend upon a cab showing up in certain sections of San Francisco or in Deep East Oakland.

And as we all know, police departments tend to retaliate when any of theirs get scratched or killed – or divulge office secrets.

Note the two cases of ex-cops Frank Serpico and Christopher Dorner.

Whistleblower and ex-NYPD cop Francesco “Frank” Vincent Serpico has nothing on ex-LAPD officer Christopher Dorner for the seriousness and danger factors in what they both did; i.e. expose police corruption in their respective police departments and cities.

Frank Serpico is still alive and has joined forces with a younger NYPD cop whistleblower, Officer Adrian Schoolcraft, from the same 81st precinct in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, in New York, who is suing the NYPD for $50 million. According to a New York Daily News report, Schoolcraft is suing because “police allegedly dragged him off to a mental hospital after he accused them of fudging crime stats.”

“This is the way they do it,” Serpico told the Daily News. “They make you a psycho, and everything you do gets discounted. But I told Adrian just to tell the truth as he knows it and to be himself. When you tell the truth, they can’t do a damn thing to you.”

Frank Serpico survived an assassination attempt, testified before the Knapp Commission in 1971, retired the following year and had a movie made about him starring Al Pacino in 1973. Now he’s about to partner up in a $50 million law suit. But Frank Serpico is a white male.

Marco Scott and Denika Chatman, uncle and mother of Kenneth Harding, who was murdered by San Francisco police for lack of a $2 light rail fare, stand in unity with the Blueford family and human rights attorney Walter Riley. The family of Oscar Grant, murdered by BART police, was there as well. Both Kenny, 19, and Oscar, 22, were slain in front of crowds of people in classic acts of police terrorism. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

So his own department hunted him down with drones, killed him then burned the body parts in meltdown temperatures to make sure that nothing of him remained because Dorner wrote a manifesto naming names, dates, times and incidences of fellow LAPD officers’ racism and extensive use of excessive force, practices that continue and have escalated to this day.

But then, Christopher Dorner was a Black man. So he’s been labeled a psycho with a “malignant, narcissistic personality disorder” by the publication Business Insider: Law and Order.

So now, when what is alleged to have been the “deadliest day in the history of the Oakland police” occurs, we see a pattern. Yet another pissed off Black man – Lovelle Mixon – but most definitely not a cop, decides that enough is enough and that he will seriously “criticize the unjust with the weapon,” as assassinated Black Panther Party Field Marshall George Jackson stated in his posthumously published book, “Blood in My Eye.”

Logic presumes that PD retaliation will at some point manifest.

Whether Mixon had read George Jackson or not is not the point. The point is that he tweaked the tail of a monster when he made the adult Afrikan decision that he wasn’t going back to being enslaved and entombed in the prison industrial complex for the remainder of his life.

The monster didn’t like that. The monster fears educated, aware Afrikans, male or female. The pig doesn’t like the trial in the streets either. He doesn’t like being outgunned, even temporarily. So he criminalizes, kills and then labels all forms of rebellion as evidence of psychological and pathological derangement in the rebel or the revolutionary.

However, I am sure that Haitian human rights heroes and the grassroots masses have all of their mental faculties, and that such leaders as Fidel Castro are possessed of their mental acuity as well.

Lovelle Mixon is unfortunately now horribly, messily dead. Being that he was shot 87 times, we can presume that the OPD officers who killed him qualified as being enraged as well as “freaked out” – enraged because four of their elite were taken out by a lone Black “rabbit” with a gun and “freaked out” trying to destroy the evidence that they aren’t invincible – or superior. But Lovelle Mixon was not crazy.

Fast forward to Miguel Masso and his summary execution of Alan Dwayne Blueford. According to Justice4AlanBlueford.org, “Masso claimed in his (police) report that he freaked out, perhaps a minute before he shot Alan Blueford, and was unable to hear or think clearly.”

Jeralynn and Adam Blueford, Alan’s parents, hold a dove they released moments later to the sound of Jeralynn’s agonized scream in a symbolic call for peace with justice. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

I don’t think so.

The stop-and-frisk program decrees as a given that all Black and Brown men are dangerous, particularly at night – and, it seems, especially if they are doing nothing wrong.

And stop and frisk, as explained by New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelley, is a program designed “as a means of instilling fear in young African American and Hispanic men.” Kelly “stated that he targeted and focused on that group because he wanted to instill fear in them that every time they left their homes they could be targeted by police,” said 22-year NYPD veteran and state Sen. Eric Adams.

Johannes Mehserle and his partners racially profiled and harassed Oscar Grant and his friends. He and his partners tortured Oscar Grant physically while hurling racial epithets at all of them. Mehserle drew his Taser, holstered his Taser, drew his gun, killed Oscar Grant, then said, “It was an accident.” Except it wasn’t an accident.

Oscar Grant proved this by photographing his killer’s actions with his cell phone.

Oscar Grant was executed, as was Alan Dwayne Blueford. The difference is that Masso deliberately turned off his lapel cam, which seems to support a premeditated mindset that had something to hide.

If so, then Miguel Masso’s actions make horrible sense. Especially since OPD “consultant” William Bratton, formerly a police chief in New York and in Los Angeles, was recently hired by Oakland’s dysfunctional City Council.

Bratton is big on “aggressive” tactics, of which stop-and-frisk is but one.

Masso’s actions sound more and more like orders – orders for controlled, systemic racism, terrorism and lynching to be practiced by police exclusively against Black and Brown youth to enforce white supremacy.

Particularly in an atmosphere where police departments and city mayors collaborated bi-coastally to smash the Occupy movement, where the power of the people forced a killer cop to trial, and where a lone Afrikan is reputed to have taken out four of Oakland’s elite officers before meeting death at their hands.

It also sounds like cops are realizing that their vaunted technology has bitten them in the ass when a child with a cell phone (Oscar Grant) can photograph a killer cop even as that cop is killing him with impunity. And when the public can also photograph police lynching and have the footage go viral on Vimeo and You Tube within hours, the whole world will have seen the footage multiple times, months before any trial and hours before even the hard copy news comes out. This puts a serious dent in any of several police lies that could be spun by cops to pretend these murders didn’t happen.

Furthermore, did Masso “freak out” while he was helping to torture a defenseless prisoner in a New York City jail cell? No. Was he freaking out while he steadfastly refused said tortured prisoner medical attention? No. These incidents were documented by the New York City Police Department, so his record of brutality was established before he got to Oakland. Why then was he hired and immediately turned loose in East Oakland, where he does not live, if not to commit criminal acts of murder?

Candles with messages of power surrounded and, at nightfall, lit the colorful message chalked on the sidewalk where OPD’s Miguel Masso shot Alan Blueford and let him bleed to death. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Who did the gun belong to? No one knows, but the OPD and the press would have the public believe that Alan Blueford was a thug; thus the gun must have belonged to and been fired by him. Blame the victim, exonerate the killer cop, no incriminating video, case closed, says the OPD.

But don’t all cops have at least one “throw away” knife or gun upon their persons at all times? If so, did Masso choose that point in history to “throw away” his throw away gun? And then swear to his partner after the fact, “I swear he had a gun!”

Did Miguel Masso first consult his Officer’s Bill of Rights manual to make sure of the steps he had to take in order to allow him to kill without repercussion, before he went out that night?

Did he then go out, profile and then shoot an innocent youth? Did he plant a gun? And was all of this done before or after his highly trained, albeit lame ass shot himself in the foot?

It has become increasingly obvious that Black people are “without sanctuary” throughout the United States. “Nowhere is a Black woman or man safe from racial profiling, invasive policing, constant surveillance and overriding suspicion. All Black people – regardless of education, class, occupation, behavior or dress – are subject to the whims of the police, whose institutionalized racist policies and procedures require them to arbitrarily stop, frisk, arrest, brutalize and even execute Black people,” says the updated MXGM “Every 36 Hours“ report.

And out of the mouth of NYPD Police Commissioner Kelley comes the proof that the stop-and-frisk program is designed to plant fear in our hearts, by planting fear in the hearts of our children to stop resistance to systemic racism in order to protect the institution of white supremacy.

It has become increasingly obvious that Black people are “without sanctuary” throughout the United States.

This is what builds a slavocracy – if the oppressed become accustomed to the jackboots in their breakfast cereal. Yet I can hear the voice of Assata Shakur in filmmaker Gloria Renaldo’s “Eyes of the Rainbow” as she speaks of her grandmother admonishing her, “Don’t you get used to that place, do you hear me?” just before Assata Shakur escaped prison. And I can hear Assata’s response, as she said. “Yes, Grandmother.”

The next day, she escaped. A modern day Harriet Tubman, she hid and ran and lived to fight another day. She is now in exile.

A flock of white doves of peace released by the Bluefords filled the evening sky with their grace. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

In 2009, I found out about the funeral for Lovelle Mixon about an hour before it occurred, and just managed to get there in time. I distinctly remember that no one was allowed to approach the casket, something that is highly unusual.

Even Emmett Till’s family allowed this process – as badly as Till’s body was brutalized. This is an integral part of Afrikan funerals in this country, a process of saying final personal goodbyes. There is a profundity in the way a civilized people treats their dead.

I now know why no one but the family and the family’s personal photographer was allowed to even approach the first row of seats, much less the casket.

The Justice 4 Alan Blueford Coalition (JAB) has based itself deep within the Afrikan community that birthed it and has brought together many organizations and individuals to fight for justice for Alan and to stop continued police violence.

They’ve organized barbeques to feed the people and to increase community awareness, held multiple press conferences and rallies in downtown Oakland, gone en masse to and shut down at least one of several ineffectual City Council meetings, thoroughly analyzed and discredited the DA’s report entitled, “Investigation of the Shooting Death of Alan Blueford,” sought and received community support from churches, labor unions other community formations and the families from coast to coast who have lost loved ones to police violence; and they are continuing to build a foundation from which to gain support and unity in the fight against police violence.

The trio of Haitian drummers at the memorial, led by Will Bellot, spoke to approximately 150-200 incoming marchers about the necessity – rooted deep in Haitian Voudun culture – of speaking out against injustice. Pastor Lowery and Bishop Mario Gaines of Urojas Community Services spoke prayers to strengthen the Blueford Family, the supporters and all young Black and Brown men and women on the streets who face the obstacles and challenges of racism and staying alive. A moment of silence was observed, as lit candles were placed around a section of sidewalk that was chalked, “In Loving Memory of Alan Dwayne Blueford.”

Haitian drummers put a call out to our ancestors as the vigil procession arrives at the site of Alan’s murder by OPD officer Miguel Masso. – Video: Mollie Costello

Jeralynn Blueford spoke briefly, in praise of her son, as she and her husband Adam held the white dove they would release into the sky moments later.

The memorial for 2013 had ended. People gathered, networked, met and forged stronger ties of unity.

No one is showing any signs of giving up.

A luta continua (The struggle continues). All power to the people!

Malaika H Kambon is a freelance photojournalist and the 2011 winner of the Bay Area Black Journalists Association Luci S. Williams Houston Scholarship in Photojournalism. She also won the AAU state and national championship in Tae Kwon Do from 2007-2010. She can be reached at kambonrb@pacbell.net.

As City College waits for its accreditation status to be decided this coming June 15, budget cuts continue to limit course sections, reduce available part-time instructors and eliminate student services.

With larger classes and fewer class sections, instructors don’t have enough time to work with every student, said psychology professor Robert M. Clark, who teaches 50 psychology students, including both adults and high school students at City College’s Southeast campus.

City College instructor and one of the founders of the African American Scholastic Program Bruce Collins (right) talks with one of his students, Malcolm Joseph, at the City College campus on Evans Avenue in Hunters Point. Collins has been teaching at City College since 1986. – Photo: Jackson Ly

“It’s harder to give effective teaching,” he said. “Instead of jumping ship, they [instructors] take pay cuts.”

Clark is also one of the founders of the African American Scholastic Program (AASP) that began in 1992. The retention program was the first of its kind at City College, and it targeted African American males at Balboa High School.

From 1989 to 2009, California’s average high school graduation rate for African males is 47 percent, according to California Postsecondary Education Data.

In hopes of increasing that percentage, AASP concurrently enrolls high school students in City College. In Clark’s psychology classes, enrolled high school students earn five high school units, along with three extra college units.

For 16 years in a row, AASP took high school students to Black colleges in Atlanta to expose them to schools outside of California.

Though lack of funding has stopped these college field trips, Clark and AASP’s GED instructor Bruce Collins continue the program by teaching college level and GED classes at the Southeast and Evans campuses.

Collin’s GED preparation course at the Evans campus has seven high school students and eight City College students enrolled. Students are studying at different levels: from adult basic education to pre-GED and advanced GED students.

Collins used to lecture his students but stopped when he noticed his students were drifting and frustrated. Students felt intimidated and left behind as they tried to keep up with students who were more advanced.

Collins strayed from traditional teaching by making the students work as a team; he grouped the high school students together and City College students together.

As the students from each group answered each other’s questions, Collins had more class time for one-on-one instruction.

However, when his students were too silent and afraid to ask questions, Collins said to his students: “Never be afraid to make a mistake in this class because I’ll never call your mother. Admit what you don’t know and start the process of learning.”

Adult GED student Michael Jenkins took Collins’ advice when he enrolled in the class. Jenkins was committed to reading, but he had no intention of earning his GED certificate.

Jenkins wanted to learn how to read so he could pass his motorcycle test and ride his motorcycle with his friends.

Collins told Jenkins to get two DMV motorcycle books, one for the each of them. Jenkins came to class every night from Monday through Thursday, doing reading assignments, working on Hooked on Phonics and practicing motorcycle tests.

Since Jenkins couldn’t read, he lacked a basic foundation of vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation and critical thinking skills needed to pass the Class M license test.

Collins gave Jenkins the “word attack,” which meant Jenkins had to highlight words from the practice tests that he couldn’t pronounce, and then learn how to pronounce, spell and use them correctly. When Jenkins missed a question regarding the rules for riding with a group of motorcyclists, Collins made him reread, find, research and analyze the DMV motorcycle manual.

As Jenkins practiced each day, he was unconsciously developing his academic, critical thinking and problem-solving skills, Collins said. He came closer and closer to taking the real test.

“His confidence was building because he was working hard to pass the motorcycle test and not realizing he was improving reading,” Collins said.

During class one day, Collins recalled Jenkins taking a piece of paper out of his pocket and saying, “‘Mr. Collins, I passed the motorcycle test 100 percent!’”

Jenkins was so confident in his abilities that he took and passed the Class C license exam, too.

“It’s a thrill just to see something like that,” Collins said.

Students like Jenkins inspire Collins to teach the GED preparation classes. Education is about learning academic skills and applying them to life, he said.

Though Jenkins did not study specifically for the GED, he acquired the basic life skills that are likely to open doors for him in terms of career choices or academic advancement.

Depending on what the Accrediting Commission decides, City College might not offer programs and classes in the fall 2013 for the 1,200 Southeast campus students, who like Jenkins depend on City College for basic education.

Jackson Ly is a reporter for The Guardsman, the acclaimed newspaper produced by students at City College of San Francisco. He can be reached at jly@theguardsman.com.

Picture AT&T Park, home of the World Series champion San Francisco Giants. Picture about as breathtaking a baseball stadium as exists in the United States with McCovey Cove and the San Francisco Bay framing the outfield like a Norman Rockwell postcard as conceived by Leroy Neiman. Picture seats packed with people clad in their iconic orange and black reveling in the once hard-luck team that now defines the city and stands atop the game. What we don’t picture when we conjure images of this or any ballpark are the people actually doing the work to keep it all running.

As idyllic as the aesthetics of the park remain, those prepping the food and cleaning the toilets make $11,000 a year in a city where, due to yet another round of tech-bubble gentrification, they cannot afford to live. Concession workers at the park earn their $11,000 in a city where a one bedroom apartment runs $3,000 a month and people are spending near that much to live in laundry rooms and unventilated basements.

These same workers, who commute as much as two hours each way to get to the park, have now gone three years without a pay increase. This despite the fact that the value of the team according to Forbes has increased 40 percent, ticket prices have spiked and the cost of beer has climbed to $10.25 a cup. This also despite the fact that, as packed sellouts become the norm, the stress and toil of the job has never been greater. Now, the 800 concession workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 2, have voted 97 percent to strike.

Team management, which subcontracted food services to a South Carolina outfit called Centerplate, claims no responsibility for the labor troubles even though they receive 55 percent of every dollar spent by the Giants fans. I spoke with Billie Feliciano who has been working at the park for over three decades. She said to me: “This is the first time in 35 years we’ve had to go to these extremes. Centerplate says talk to the Giants. The Giants say talk to Centerplate. If we stepped back for five minutes they’d figure it out after they started to lose all that money. All we are saying is we want a fair share.”

Getting their “fair share” from Giants owner, 80-year-old multi-billionaire Charles Johnson, will not be easy. A child of Wall Street wealth whose fortune has grown exponentially with the expansion of the financial markets, he now heads the mutual fund Franklin Templeton started by his father. As he said to the San Francisco Chronicle, quoting the company’s namesake Ben Franklin, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” (It would be far more fitting, if he quoted the Ben Franklin who said of money, “The more one has, the more one wants.”)

Team management, which subcontracted food services to a South Carolina outfit called Centerplate, claims no responsibility for the labor troubles even though they receive 55 percent of every dollar spent by the Giants fans.

 
In a startling bit of symmetry, Johnson lives in the city’s Carolands Chateau, a 100 room, 65,000 square foot palace originally built a century ago for the daughter of railroad magnate George Pullman. That would be George Pullman, namesake of the bloody 1894 Pullman Railway Strike where the United States Army intervened to crush the nascent industrial workers organization known as the American Railway Union. Then, destroying the mere idea of an industrial union like the ARU was seen as a high priority.

Today we are seeing service industry workers starting to organize, walk out and be heard and a 21st century Pullman is looking to halt the mere idea that the expansion of service unions will happen on his watch. This is why the struggle at AT&T Park is bigger than 800 concession workers and why everyone has a stake in offering solidarity and support.

Now, the 800 concession workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 2, have voted 97 percent to strike.

 
As legendary Bay Area KPFA Hardknock Radio host Davey D said, “There is a lot of talk about having a citywide fast food union in San Francisco. So if you can topple the union at AT&T Park, then you can topple that idea. And if you can topple (service) unions there, you can topple them anywhere and can stop that tide around the country.”

The workers are ready. Ms. Feliciano said to me: “We come there rain or shine. Are we striking? Not yet. But these workers are ready to strike.” The community, the Major League Players Association, and the players on the Giants from Buster Posey to Tim Lincecum to Sergio Romo should support them as well.

As for the negotiations, they display all the arrogance of both Centerplate and Charles Johnson. During one session, while management scolded the union for thinking they were worth more than $11,000 a year, hedge fund honcho Mike Wilkins, a partner at $400 million Kingsford Capital Management, was on the field running the bases with 100 of his buddies, at a one day rental cost of $500,000. This was described to the website Buzzfeed as an exercise in “grown up boys’ fantasy time.” Will San Francisco ever again be anything but a playground for the overgrown millionaire children of the tech sector? That’s the question. We’ll find out the answer in the weeks to come.

Go to thegiantzero.org for updates on the struggle.

Dave Zirin is the author of several books, including “The John Carlos Story“ (Haymarket), and writes a weekly column for The Nation magazine, where this column first appeared. Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.

News flash: Centerplate sues Local 2, prepares for strike

 
In a press release issued Tuesday evening, May 21, Giants spokesman Sam Singer writes: “The concessionaire at AT&T Park today filed a dynamic lawsuit against Local 2 Unite Here union for violations of national labor laws …

“Centerplate said Local 2 is attempting to illegally force the San Francisco Giants into signing a ‘successor addendum’ that would bind the baseball team and any future concessionaire at AT&T Park to the same terms Local 2 negotiates with Centerplate. This action is illegal under the federal labor laws, Centerplate officials said.

“Normally, the legal charges Centerplate made today are filed with the National Labor Relations Board, but Centerplate said immediate action is necessary by the legal system to protect the Giants, Centerplate and nonprofits from Local 2’s illegal activities, which could harm all the parties. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco and seeks damages and declaratory relief.”

Claiming “Centerplate’s employees are already the highest paid workers in the concession industry,” Singer concludes that in the event of a strike, operations “will not be disrupted as the company has contingency plans in place.”

On the joyous occasion of his 26th birthday, at a party surrounded by his family and friends, Malcolm Shabazz kisses his beloved mother, Qubilah Shabazz, on Oct. 9, 2010, a month before his Hajj to Mecca. – Photo: Minister of Information JR Valrey

The spiritual warmth could be felt flowing all through the hall in the stately Islamic Center in downtown Oakland, as over 300 people mourned, paid last respects, celebrated his life and gained inspiration during the service held Friday morning, May 17, in loving memory of Hajj Malcolm Latif El Shabazz.

The faces of grief and mourning were also the faces of strength, courage and commitment.

“Young Malcolm,” as he was often recognized, in remembrance of his grandfather, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X), was a jewel in the making, just coming into his own when he was assassinated this past week under circumstances that fairly reek of COINTELPRO manipulation.

But this service celebrated his life, even as it mourned his passing.

Mourners entered the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California here. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

A beautiful plaque and candle greet visitors at the entrance to the Islamic Center. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

An obituary read to the audience spoke of Hajj Malcolm’s travels in the states and in the world, where he spoke out against global injustice, Black on Black violence and the prison industrial complex. He advocated for political prisoners and visited Mumia Abu-Jamal and Sekou Odinga. He learned from all whom he encountered, most particularly human rights activist Yuri Kochiyama, whom he adored. One of her relatives was present in the audience.

It also bespoke his travels to Qatar, France, Holland, Canada and the United Arab Emirates, stating that “the two most enjoyable highlights of his overseas experiences were his Hajj (spiritual pilgrimage) to Mecca in 2010, where he met the late scholar Shaykh Amri in Medina, and his studies of Islam from ulama (scholars) in Damascus, Syria, at the Hawza Ilmiya Zainabiyah (Islamic Seminary.) It was also here that he made a spiritual connection during a ziyarat (visitation) to the tomb Hazrat Zainab, the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad (AS).”

A mourner is overcome as she stands beside the casket. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

In a beautiful video, his speeches flowed. Even those who may not have known him (myself included) could see and hear that he was gifted in his ability to hold the attention of a crowd, that he was extremely popular with young people, and that even as he reached people of all ages and from all walks of life, it was evident from his conversation that he was a scholar.

Mourners of the many faiths and nationalities Malcolm had touched paid their respects. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Aside from being a consummate teacher and activist, he was also a father and a son, with uncompromising love for his daughter, Saudi Shabazz, and for his mother and comrade, Qubilah Shabazz. He was also soon to be the author of two books, one of which was a memoir.

And so, from all walks of life, religions and creeds, from Oakland, frequently his home base in recent years, and far beyond, people came to express their love. They listened intently to the Quranic recitation of the Al Fatiha, the Ahadith reading, opening remarks, statements of condolences in the form of a video presentation of the life of Hajj Malcolm Shabazz, told with loving memory, to remarks by professors from UC Berkeley, clergy, family and friends, the eulogy and final dua and prayers.

TaLea Monet Carpenter with her daughter Nailah pays her respects to Malcolm and his family. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

There was a table of fresh fruit, from which people could partake, as well as water.

Buttons were being made and sold outside the service to defray the cost of carrying Hajj Malcolm Latif El Shabazz to his final rest beside his grandparents in New York.

At the conclusion of the service, those who wished formed a line in order to say their personal farewells in prayer or by touching his casket.

Hajj Malcolm Shabazz’ family included the pre-deceased El Hajj Malik El Shabazz and Dr. Betty Shabazz. He is survived by his mother, Qubilah-Bahiyah Shabazz, his daughter, Saudi Shabazz, and his aunts, cousins and paternal and maternal great aunts and uncles.

Hajj Malcolm Latif El Shabazz has made a profound and an indelible mark upon the world. In the finest traditions of the Shabazz family; by his life he will continue to inspire.

The photographs, taken after the ceremony with the permission of the Imam, reflect the love of Malcolm’s global community for him, and his love for his community.

Malaika H Kambon is a freelance photojournalist and the 2011 winner of the Bay Area Black Journalists Association Luci S. Williams Houston Scholarship in Photojournalism. She can be reached at kambonrb@pacbell.net.

Tribute to Malcolm

by Yahaya Ezemoo Ndu and Gerald A. Perreira, African Revolutionary Movement

Africans all over the world mourn the death of Al Hajj Malcolm Al Shabazz, grandson of the great African revolutionary, Al Hajj Malik Al Shabazz (Malcolm X). ARM is in no doubt that this young African freedom fighter, who was using his legacy to inspire a whole new generation, was targeted for assassination.

Veteran campaign manager and John Burton staffer Ronald Colthirst, Amir Hassan of the UC Berkeley African American Studies Department and Bay View publisher Dr. Willie Ratcliff were among those grieving the loss of young Malcolm. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

The Empire is in deep crisis and knows that the final blow will come from the mounting internal resistance to its reign of terror. Young Malcolm’s assassination comes at a time when the Empire’s state terrorist apparatus is intensifying its harassment of militant African organizations and leaders and has recently placed Assata Shakur at the top of its most wanted terrorist list.

We send our deepest sympathy to the Shabazz family. As revolutionaries, we know only too well the toll that our struggle takes on our families and the sacrifices they must make. The Shabazz family has made the ultimate sacrifice too many times, and it is with deep appreciation and respect that people all over the world are praying for and with them at this time.

The corporate media’s shameless attempts to discredit this young warrior has fallen largely on deaf ears, since it is clear to all that these agencies of mass deception are simply in the service of Empire. There is hardly an African family in the Diaspora whose young sons have not had issues with “the law.” As many African scholars have noted, it is in fact “the law” that has issues with our youth who are targeted globally.

Hajj Malcolm Latif El Shabazz is depicted in the loving embrace of his grandfather, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

May Allah welcome him as a martyr, who died like his grandfather, in the service of his people.

African Revolutionary Movement Chairman Yahaya Ezemoo Ndu and International Secretary Gerald A. Perreira can be reached at mojadi94@gmail.com.

Read the words of Malcolm Shabazz

So that you may come to know him for yourself, following are a few of the stories posted at SFBayView.com by and about Hajj Malcolm El Shabazz:

Notes from Tripoli, Libya, Africa

Live from Saudi Arabia: an interview with El Hajj Malcolm Shabazz

Mumia, the media and more: Davey D, MOI JR and Malcolm Shabazz on Hard Knock Radio

Malcolm Shabazz on the three chapters missing from ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’

The legacy of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz lives! an interview wit’ his grandson Malcolm Shabazz In this extremely revealing interview, Malcolm addresses such difficult topics as the fire that killed his grandmother, his time in prison and who killed his grandfather.

by JR Valrey

First I want to offer condolences to everyone who knew and loved Hajj Malcolm Shabazz. When I got the word Thursday that Hajj Malcolm Shabazz had been assassinated in Mexico City, like many, I did not want to believe it. As somebody who traveled with him extensively over the two-year period of ‘10-’12, it was hard to imagine that he was beat to death in Mexico City, including reports that said that he was thrown from a window.

Yuri Kochiyama, a renowned leader in the Asian and other communities of color in the Bay Area, had been a strong supporter of Malcolm X in Harlem. She submitted a letter from his grandson, Malcolm Shabazz, to the Bay View for publication in the mid-2000s. That letter, written from prison, sparked a correspondence between Malcolm and JR Valrey, leading eventually to this meeting of the three of them in November of 2010.

But as I was taught by my Panther mentors, “No investigation, no right to speak.” That is the reason why this article took so long for me to release. The white power system (the government) assassinated the father of Hajj Malik El Shabazz for being a Garveyite. The Little/Shabazz family have been targets of Cointelpro for over four generations, which is why I cannot accept a story like the one being told about what happened. We know the U.S. government wants to eradicate the bloodline.

What I do know about this assassination is that the enemy’s media has been working overtime to malign Malcolm as a drunk or hoe-chaser who got into a “bar fight” over the last few days. That depiction is far from anything I knew about Malcolm.

What I know about the man is that he had a passion for helping young people understand and hopefully avoid the pitfalls that the U.S. government has set up for our community. He used his troubled life as a platform to let people, in general, know that he is not just preaching – he spent years locked up and, like his grandfather, he used the time to politically and spiritually educate himself for his next stage in life, that of an ever evolving freedom fighter.

Malcolm was a very charismatic speaker, who had no problem holding a crowd’s attention. He was comfortable speaking to diverse audiences. He could speak in a Masjid to Muslims from other nations in Houston, then turn around and spend 20-30 minutes talking to young people walking down the street in East Oakland. That was another skill he seems to have inherited from his grandfather.

People have asked, “With you and Malcolm having been close, why did you not rush to say something in the media?” The answer is that when I first heard of Malcolm’s assassination, I was shocked and saddened. At no time did I have the urge to run to jot down my feelings on Facebook or to write an article or do a radio interview. Malcolm was a comrade and Brotha to me. I have feelings just like everybody else; just because I am a journalist does not mean that things don’t affect me.

While emotions are running high and people are asking for answers, there are a small number of opportunists who are playing off of the raw emotions in the situation for their own malicious intent. I have heard that someone said I was in Mexico and that I am responsible for Malcolm’s assassination. I was not in Mexico nor did I know that Malcolm was in southern Cali with intentions to go to Mexico. I was in Oakland. I am disgusted that somebody from another state, who knows nothing about what’s going on, could accuse me of something with no investigation into the real facts of the case. I did not have any prior knowledge of or responsibility in his assassination.

Somebody said that I introduced Miguel and Rumec to Malcolm. Malcolm and I met Miguel and the crew at the same time, at Malcolm’s first speaking event in Oakland, at the Black Dot Cafe, in July of 2010. Miguel talked in depth to Malcolm about building a Masjid. This can be verified by Malcolm’s Imam, Hashim Alauddeen, located in the Bay Area. I am not Muslim. I was not involved in those conversations.

Another accusation was that I was selling Malcolm’s books and DVDs. I haven’t sold any of Malcolm’s stuff. The Bay View newspaper put up an old ad, on their website, for an unpublished, unfinished book that was never used. The intent of the sfbayview posting is clearly stated in a response that the newspaper just released on their website sfbayview.com. It was to show that Malcolm was working on something constructive in contrast to the mainstream media just tying him to his prison time. This can also be cleared up by Imam Hashim Alauddeen, the Imam over the Janazah, who was working with Malcolm on his literary projects.

Somebody asked, “Why would Fred Hampton Jr. slander you?” The only thing I could say is that we organized together and went around the country and world as comrades for over seven years. After we parted ways, he started slandering me and my family, calling my grandfather and myself a government agent. My grandfather retired from the military as a special forces pilot in the U.S. army before I was born.

If you know the history, the Bay Area was populated by Blacks from the South who were seeking to work in the wartime industries in West Oakland, Hunters Point and Richmond. It’s hard to find families on the West Coast who did not play a part in World War II and the Vietnam War. That is who first employed Blacks in mass to the West Coast.

I have never worked for the U.S. government in my life. I can’t speak for anybody’s intentions but my own. I don’t know why Fred does the things that he does. I challenge you to judge me by my work record and not some rumor that somebody started to try and become the center of attention. Hit me on my Facebook page about questions that you may have and I will respond – FB: Jayshortbutfunky.

Oakland had three acting police chiefs in five days last week, and on Thursday, the police department’s controversial consultant, William Bratton, released his six-page report which criticized OPD’s top brass.

Oakland’s then Police Chief Howard Jordan and consultant William Bratton speak at a press conference March 6. – Photo: Avila Gonzalez, San Francisco Chronicle

On Friday former Deputy Chief Sean Whent became interim chief, and Toribio returned to captain’s rank. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan then announced that Oakland would spend $30,000 on a headhunter’s nationwide search for a permanent chief.

Three new deputy chiefs who share Interim Chief Whent’s experience in investigating OPD internal affairs were also named, leaving only one of the previous week’s top five commanders in place.

The Oakland Tribune reported that unnamed inside sources told them Jordan “raced for the door” because Thomas Frazier, the court appointed federal compliance officer brought in to clean up the department, planned to seek his ouster.

On Thursday, in between Jordan’s announcement and Whent’s appointment, the OPD officially released a report by its consultant, William Bratton, titled “Oakland Crime Reduction Project, Bratton Group Findings and Recommendations,” which said that the OPD must more rigorously apply his Compstat policing model to make it work and criticized top brass for not doing so.

No one seems to have reported that William Bratton, rather than federal compliance officer William Frazier, was behind this week’s sudden shakeup in the OPD chain of command. However, back on Jan. 22, the day that the Oakland City Council met and voted to contract with Bratton as an OPD consultant, Berkeley law professor Frank Zimring, who authored a book praising Bratton’s work in New York City, told KPFA Upfront Host Brian Edwards-Tiekert that Bratton would not be effective unless he was effectively in charge:

“The reason that you have an outsider coming in is that you have too many different perspectives. You’ve got a mayor, you’ve got a police chief, you are soon going to have a director of compliance with a long, ineffective consent decree. And everybody’s got to be on the same page.

“So the good news about a consultant would be if everybody wants to work with him. Then, it seems to me, Bratton’s credibility could be a real down payment towards changes in Oakland. If, on the other hand, it’s just going to be one more player with another set of perspectives, that’s the last thing Oakland needs.”

No Oakland officials have suggested that William Bratton, who is a former chief of both the New York City and Los Angeles police departments, might be recruited by Oakland’s headhunter, though popular Oakland blogger Zennie Abraham joked, on April Fool’s Day this year, that Bratton already has the top job.

Abraham was prescient at least regarding Interim Chief Howard Jordan’s imminent departure.

In 2009, Businessweek reported that Bratton had become chairman of Altegrity Risk International, a new division of Altegrity, a billion dollar company owned by the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners.

Altegrity Risk International was created to bid on highly lucrative State Department contracts to help train police forces in 14 “post-conflict” nations, including East Timor, Haiti and Afghanistan. Bratton described this turn in his career as “like the Peace Corps but better paying.”

Bratton went on to become the CEO of Kroll Associates, a similar business, which has since been acquired by Altegrity. He later stepped down as Kroll’s CEO but remained as its senior advisor. He also serves as vice chair of the Advisory Council of the Homeland Security Department.

Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Star News and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News and her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at ann@afrobeatradio.com. If you want to see Ann Garrison’s independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website at anngarrison.com.

by Joshua Arce

Local hiring and contracting advocates attending one of many San Francisco School Board meetings – this one on Feb. 12, 2013 – are renowned filmmaker Kevin Epps (“Straight Outta Hunters Point 1 and 2”) and Mike Brown of Inner City Youth holding a sign that calls for “Jobs for Black contractors and youth.” – Photo: Ken Johnson

That is when School Board Commissioners Norman Yee and Sandra Lee Fewer began what may turn out to be a historic effort to reform the district’s local hiring and contracting policies. Last week, school officials introduced a draft policy based on San Francisco’s successful local hiring ordinance and local business enterprise policy that comes close to delivering on many months of hard work by the School Board and a dynamic coalition of leaders and organizations. A final vote is expected in June.

Last fall, Yee and Fewer began a series of conversations with community advocates, organized labor representatives, local contractors and San Francisco city officials to explore the potential for a new policy modeled on the landmark San Francisco Local Hire Ordinance crafted by Supervisor John Avalos and successfully implemented by Mayor Ed Lee. Yee and Fewer worked with civil rights non-profits Chinese for Affirmative Action and Brightline Defense Project, who jointly published the groundbreaking 2010 “Failure of Good Faith” local hiring report, to develop a resolution intended to deliver on this community input, entitled “Creating an Equitable Pathway to Community Contracting and Hiring.”

Last week, school officials introduced a draft policy based on San Francisco’s successful local hiring ordinance and local business enterprise policy that comes close to delivering on many months of hard work by the School Board and a dynamic coalition of leaders and organizations.

Little did Commissioner Fewer know that, as Commissioner Norman Yee became San Francisco Supervisor Norman Yee in the November 2012 election, she would inherit a torch of leadership that she has carried like an Olympic marathon runner, building support among her School Board colleagues and an increasingly broad cross-section of the public along the way.

Robert Woods of ABU and the Black Human Rights Leadership Council testifies passionately at the Jan. 29, 2013, School Board meeting as beloved community advocate Cati Okorie, who knows the tragic consequences of locking Black youth out of the economy, waits her turn. – Video frame: SFGovTV

Student and parent organizers Coleman Advocates for Youth and Children polled their members and found access to good-paying construction jobs on school district construction is a priority for public school families. Community contractors organized by Liberty Builders as the Rising Sun coalition engaged the school district to call for direct access to build schools in the City’s southeast sector. Building trade unions such as the Laborers, Carpenters and Operating Engineers stood in support of community partnerships they have developed over the past several years working to implement the City’s local hiring law. Contractors organized among members of the Latino Democratic Club pushed for transparency in reporting how school construction contracts are awarded.

Discussions at School Board hearings over the past several months have often been intense. In January, a young man told of his struggles to support his family as the economy continues to rebound and expressed grief in losing his 20-year-old son to violence. Meetings between the Rising Sun coalition and school officials became heated and spilled over into very public exchanges. School personnel insisted on “carve-outs” for small projects for which they argued local hiring and contracting requirements need not apply. The district’s chief counsel even fumbled on the legality of local hiring, stonewalling School Board members for months until finally admitting to the San Francisco Chronicle in February that he was mistaken and agreeing that mandatory local hiring is a legally sound option for School Board consideration.

San Francisco School Board Commissioner Sandra Fewer has been carrying the local hiring and contracting torch lit by Norman Yee.

During this span Commissioner Fewer was joined by many of her colleagues in expressing support for reform. The newest member of the School Board, Commissioner Matt Haney, came aboard as a co-sponsor of the “Creating Equitable Pathways” resolution, stating his desire for a solution that works for all local hiring and contracting stakeholders, accompanied by increased coordination with the City and County of San Francisco’s policies.

San Francisco School Board Commissioner Sandra Fewer has been carrying the local hiring and contracting torch lit by Norman Yee, now a member of the Board of Supervisors. Successful implementation of a strong policy that really puts excluded communities to work on school construction will make her forever a hero to disadvantaged San Franciscans.

Perhaps the most unsung hero during deliberations that have at last produced a draft policy for public review and community comment, however, is School Superintendent Richard Carranza. The son of a sheet metal worker who has committed himself to both college and career options for district students, Superintendent Carranza has stood firm in guiding his staff through a fact-driven and analysis-intensive process of crafting new district policies.

“We have come a long way toward a local contracting and local hire policy,” said Liberty Builders’ Dr. Willie Ratcliff, who previously reached impasse with the superintendent during discussions with the Rising Sun coalition. “I congratulate Superintendent Carranza for his stand against even some of his staff who wanted no change at all. And I want to thank the School Board commissioners for listening to our demands to stop the discriminatory lockout of people of color and other residents of San Francisco from jobs and contracts being given to others who pay no taxes in San Francisco.”

“I have been doing this work for decades and have rarely seen public officials turn things around as quickly as the superintendent and School Board commissioners have done,” said Dr. Espanola Jackson, the iconic Bayview Hunters Point activist and co-chair of the Black Human Rights Leadership Council of San Francisco, who recently celebrated her 80th birthday.

“We have come a long way toward a local contracting and local hire policy,” said Liberty Builders’ Dr. Willie Ratcliff, who previously reached impasse with the superintendent during discussions with the Rising Sun coalition.

The “Creating Equitable Pathways” resolution was unanimously passed by the School Board in March, complete with an amendment to replicate to the fullest extent possible the provisions of the San Francisco Local Hiring Policy. An April 9 letter calling for School District adoption of the San Francisco Local Hire Ordinance signed by 15 community-based organizations that supported Supervisor Avalos’ successful 2010 effort to require local jobs for local communities preceded the April 23 unveiling of a long-awaited draft local hiring and local contracting policy for school district construction.

Dr. Willie Ratcliff of Liberty Builders and Rising Sun Developers – he is also the publisher of the Bay View – testifies on Jan. 29, as an unemployed construction worker known as Focuz stands behind him holding a sign that reads, “Black contractors for Black jobs.” – Video frame: SFGovTV

There are also serious flaws with the draft policy. It continues to suffer from a $2 million “carve out” that exempts small projects where local workers and contractors can benefit the most – community advocates have called for the new policy and project labor agreement to apply to all projects big and small.

“The $2 million carved out by school personnel cuts the heart out of the program,” declares Dr. Ratcliff. “No local hiring and no local contracting for smaller contracts says to us that they’re for big contractors only, and you are not invited to apply. We need to start meeting again on this ‘$2 million set aside for the big boys’ and to create an equitable pathway for all local hiring and contracting stakeholders. As the owner of Liberty Builders general contractor and the general partner in Rising Sun Developers LP, I am requesting that we continue to meet and make this the best law in the country with support of all stakeholders. ‘San Francisco knows how,’ they say; so let’s do what is good for all.”

The draft also falls short in targeting opportunities for past and future public school graduates who are most hungry for these good-paying jobs that they and their families fund with their tax dollars. The sanctions proposed for local hiring non-compliance are vague and weak to the point of likely being ineffective.

ABU, a major player in the creation of San Francisco’s local hiring ordinance, shut down demolition work on the old Willie Brown Academy Aug. 21, 2012, when their appeals to the school district for local hiring were ignored. The Bayview Hunters Point community is counting on building the new middle school slated to replace it. – Photo: ABU

The long journey to an equitable pathway for community workers and contractors at San Francisco Unified has seen great progress over the past year; and the same policy makers, community members, labor leaders and community contractors that brought us this far appear poised to carry a torch now held by many across the line between longstanding hope and a truly historic reality.

Joshua Arce, executive director of the civil right non-profit Brightline Defense Project, can be reached at josh@brightlinedefense.org. Brightline is a non-profit civil rights advocacy organization dedicated to protecting and empowering communities. Brightline’s efforts have included campaigns to shut down dirty fossil fuel power plants in Southeast San Francisco, promote local renewable energy, and develop local hiring policies and community workforce agreements to increase blue-collar and green-collar employment opportunities for residents of economically disadvantaged neighborhoods and environmental justice communities. Learn more at www.brightlinedefense.org.

U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe spoke at a National Postal Forum in San Francisco on March 18, prompting picketing by rank and file postal employees and their supporters. Protestors opposed Donahoe’s support for post office closures and layoffs of USPS (U.S. Postal Service) workers.

Post office employees and their supporters picketed U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe when he spoke at a National Postal Forum in San Francisco on March 18. They oppose his collaboration with the post office closures and layoffs that are part of a scheme to privatize the U.S. Postal Service

Protestor Anna Villalobos of Oakland told me that Donahoe is “like a puppet. He has to do what the Board of Governors says.” Villalobos noted that the USPS Board of Governors are all pro-privatization. Donahoe, she said, “came up the ranks but he’s under-qualified and way over his head. He has aged drastically in the past few years. Physically he looks horrible.”

Advocates for continuing six-day postal service, as opposed to cutbacks on Saturday service, argue that the alleged fiscal crisis facing the postal service is a bogus invention of corporate interests salivating over the prospect of privatization-related profiteering, according to “Corporatizing the Post Office” by Russell Mokhiber. As the excellent site, www.savethepostoffice.com, reported recently on just one of those businesses, “Pitney Bowes stands to make millions if not billions off of the privatization of the mail processing system.”

An article by Jack A. Smith describes a 2006 postal “reform” law which requires pre-funding of 75 years’ worth of future USPS retiree health benefits. No other federal agency or private enterprise is forced to pre-fund similar benefits. This economic requirement is exacerbated by the stipulation that the Postal Service meet this goal in 10 years.

Speaking before local news cameras at the March 18 demonstration, San Francisco Labor Council Executive Director Tim Paulson noted that in a time of massive unemployment, “to propose layoffs is unconscionable … We need jobs.” Paulson argued that what Donahoe “is proposing is the exact opposite” of what workers need.

As a protestor held a sign to mostly supportive passing cars reading, “Mr. Donahoe, follow the Pope’s example and step down,” Chuck Locke of the American Postal Workers Union said, “We stand for workers, we stand for family,” and criticized Donahoe for supporting cutbacks while speaking at a seminar which cost around $500,000.

Veteran left-wing activist Richard Becker stressed the need to prioritize job programs in a time of mass unemployment. Becker pointed out that alleged USPS budget shortfalls pale in comparison to money spent on the Iraq war, which cost $3 trillion. Becker argued that the rollbacks to postal service and selling of post offices were “for the benefit of the superrich. That’s what privatization is about.”

Protestors opposed Donahoe’s support for post office closures and layoffs of USPS (U.S. Postal Service) workers.

Activist Margot Smith took the microphone and said, “The post office is not bankrupt. They’re being starved so they can be privatized. It doesn’t make financial sense.” She noted that rural post offices under threat of closure are “the only way people have contact with the outside world in some of our remote areas.”

Indeed, broadband internet does not reach 50 percent of rural residents and 35 percent of all Americans.

Perhaps the final word on the allegedly dire financial challenges facing the USPS comes from ace agitator Jim Hightower, who in his newsletter commented on the cries about “unprofitability”: “So what? When has the Pentagon ever made a profit? Neither has the FBI, Centers for Disease Control, FDA, State Department, FEMA, Park Service etc. Producing a profit is not the purpose of government – its purpose is service.”

The Postal Service is the largest employer in the U.S. after Walmart and has the country’s largest unionized workforce. The USPS is also one of the leading employers of minorities and women. As of 2010, minorities comprised 39 percent and women comprised 40 percent of the workforce. African-Americans made up 21 percent of the USPS workforce, with 8 percent Latino and 8 percent Asian-American/Pacific Islander.

Dave Welsh, retired letter carrier and member of the San Francisco Labor Council, says the now-legendary 1970 wildcat postal strike “showed the power of the working class to shut something down.” About the challenge today, he adds: “If postal workers and their customers unite, we can change all kinds of things. People think the rollbacks are inevitable. They’re not inevitable. If we unite, we can stop them.”

One attendee I chatted with was recently retired postal worker Joe McHale, who has been following legislation regarding the Postal Service for years. He told me that at the policy-making level, reducing service to five days has been “in the mix for two or three years” but that postal workers didn’t expect it to come up so quickly. McHale said, “The U.S. Postmaster’s legal staff seems to think they can do whatever they want,” and described the Saturday closing campaign as very “top down.”

“It’s as if they said, ‘We don’t care if we’re exactly right; we’re going to do what we want. Now you do what you have to do.” McHale said the National Day of Action was a rank and file “answer in the PR arena.”

National Association of Letter Carriers California State President John Beaumont told me that any progressive legislation in support of postal workers was inevitably blocked by privatization fans in Congress, especially House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Beaumont answered charges that competition from internet commerce would inevitably drive the USPS out of business by pointing out that e-commerce had actually helped the post office by providing more such orders, with parcel deliveries up 20 percent since last year. He said that though in the short term closing Saturday service could save around $2 billion, in the long run this cut would inevitably cost the USPS big bucks through lost service.

The Postal Service is the largest employer in the U.S. after Walmart and has the country’s largest unionized workforce. The USPS is also one of the leading employers of minorities and women.

Also milling around the upbeat crowd was retired letter carrier and full-time activist Dave Welsh. I spoke with Welsh on a bench alongside several still-working letter carriers. Welsh began by singing the praises of the CPWU, a rank and file outfit that does direct action and solidarity work outside the legislative arena and whose website states, “They say cut back. We say strike back.”

Welsh noted, “With a lot of the private pension plans, a company goes out of business and suddenly there’s no pension for the worker. Now they want to do the same thing with the public sector.” Welsh said, “I think we can build a strong movement once we unite public and private sector workers and our communities.”

Welsh argued that the now-legendary 1970 wildcat postal strike “showed the power of the working class to shut something down.” He described the current situation as involving a “tremendous power we have untapped … If postal workers and their customers unite, we can change all kinds of things. People think the rollbacks are inevitable. They’re not inevitable. If we unite, we can stop them.”

Stay in touch with legislative and grassroots solidarity campaigns on behalf of postal workers at www.savethepostoffice.com and www.cpwunited.com/.

San Francisco writer Ben Terrall can be reached at bterrall@gmail.com.

On April 18, Rumec was economically and morally destabilized with the deportation of Comrade Miguel Suarez to his native Mexico. With a successful construction business growing, assuming the leadership of the new labor movement and establishing a non-profit organization, Miguel Suarez was expelled from this country just moments before being exonerated of minor charges at traffic court in Santa Clara County.

Juan Ruiz and Miguel Suarez stand on either side of Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of Malcolm X.

Upon his arrival in the U.S. at the age of 18 about 12 years ago, Miguel had ambitions of becoming an independent business owner. From a labor element of the construction industry, Comrade Miguel grew to become a business owner who employed friends, family members and local community individuals. His alternative form of doing business allowed for his growth to acquire resources that were once unclaimed by his community. His acquisition of the historical building Cine Mexico, a community theater, is a symbol of his constant growth as a successful business owner.

Rumec was economically and morally destabilized with the deportation of Comrade Miguel Suarez to his native Mexico.

Maintaining a business was not the ultimate goal for Comrade Miguel. His observation of the necessity of organizing and educating our labor force was the purpose he felt obligated to fulfill. Miguel took leadership of the new labor movement – assigning people various duties, organizing the community and orienting everyone to the oppressive circumstances we face. His representation of our people was driven from a sense of duty and obligation to a fair and just cause. Leading and educating our people was Miguel’s daily task.

The Olmec “heads,” huge stone sculptures created earlier than 900 B.C. depicting kings with African features, demonstrate the presence of Africans in Central America long before Columbus “discovered” America. This one is in Veracruz, Mexico. The mixture of Black and Brown blood began long before Spanish conquistadores brought enslaved Africans to Mexico.

Miguel took leadership of the new labor movement – assigning people various duties, organizing the community and orienting everyone to the oppressive circumstances we face.

With an insatiable appetite to educate and assist our people, Comrade Miguel was in the process of establishing a non-profit organization. By providing architectural forums in Spanish and English, informing workers of current construction codes and educating construction laborers on their rights in the industry, Comrade Miguel was providing a service to our community. This very same service, which our government is not providing for the people, is the basis of the non-profit in the construction industry. His idea was to prepare our people and arm them with knowledge to fight the ignorance and poverty that floods our streets.

Yanga, a towering figure in Mexican history, is said to have been a member of the royal family of Gabon when he was stolen and carried to Mexico. After leading a rebellion, freeing himself and other Africans, he and his followers established a maroon colony near Veracruz around 1570. Many battles with Spanish troops ensued; finally Yanga’s terms were accepted in 1618, giving his people the right to their land and independence. This monument stands in Yanga in Veracruz, the first free town in the Americas.

Miguel Suarez was a threat to the system imposed on us. His vision went so far as changing the criminal mindset of people to a revolutionary business oriented way of thinking. This plan would ultimately fight the system that focuses on enslaving the mind of our men and women.

The absence of Miguel Suarez in the movement has been felt by all his comrades.

As a respected businessman, leader of a movement and father, Miguel Suarez will be missed in the community. The struggle will continue with his plan carried out by myself, Juan Ruiz, and comrades in the company. Now working with him internationally, Rumec will continue to carry on his legacy and educate our community on forming independent businesses. At the same time, we will fight ceaselessly to return Comrade Miguel Suarez to the community and family who need him.

Juan Ruiz of Rumec can be reached at rumec_buss@hotmail.com or (408) 380-9650.

Dominated by Blacks at the player level, sports is a $500 billion a year industry. Aside from players’ salaries during their brief careers, however, what is the Black community’s share?

“We must leverage our athletic success for economic development in our community,” says Magic Johnson. Everett L. Glenn, president of the National Sports Authority, a division of ESP Education & Leadership Institute, is applying that principle to construction of the 49ers’ new stadium under construction in Santa Clara.

As of April 18, 2013, when this photo was taken, the first year of construction of the new 49ers’ stadium in Santa Clara has involved no Black or other contractors of color, even though the 49ers’ players roster is nearly 70 percent Black. – Photo: Gary Reyes, Bay Area News Group

As a result, communities of color have been precluded from the enormous financial benefit of participating in this project and the pride associated with contributing to building an edifice for a home team that has much love and support in the communities they represent.

“We are challenging the lack of minority participation on the $1.2 billion new Santa Clara stadium,” says Glenn, who points out that “the 49ers’ roster is nearly 70 percent Black.”

“The challenge is supported by civil rights and economic development organizations representing over 15 million members of the minority community, including the National Urban League, National Action Network, National Association of Minority Contractors, National Hispanic Contractors Association and the U.S. Black Chamber.

“The initial response to our inquiry about minority participation on the project by Robert Rayborn of Turner Construction, co-project director, was that minority participation was ‘not on our radar.’ When pressed by media outlets following the story, Turner and city officials claimed that under Proposition 209, an anti-affirmative-action law passed by California voters in 1996, they were required to be ‘color blind’ when they selected the firms that won roughly 60 public subcontracts, ranging from plumbing to electrical work to steel fabrication, worth more than $700 million,” Glenn explained. The new stadium is partially funded by tax dollars.

Communities of color have been precluded from the enormous financial benefit of participating in this project and the pride associated with contributing to building an edifice for a home team that has much love and support in the communities they represent.

“Dave Hatheway, a consultant representing the city on the project, said project officials were worried about running afoul of Proposition 209’s ‘color blind’ policy by reaching out to minority-owned contractors separately, creating a quota for them or even tracking the race of the owners that won contracts. These same officials claim that Proposition 209 makes illegal any outreach to minority groups, which it doesn’t.

“Moreover, we have written documentation that the parties affirmatively reached out to majority contractors but did not reach out to minority contractors even though they have fully developed databases of minority contractors based on working with minority contractors on projects funded by federal dollars that include minority participation goals,” Glenn declared.

Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Executive Director Kimberly Thomas Rapp tells NBC News why they and 20 mostly Black national and local organizations are challenging the exclusion of contractors of color from construction of the Santa Clara 49ers’ stadium. – Video frame: NBC News

“Compare that to the effort made by the developers of the Giants-Jets stadium in New Jersey, financed with private dollars, which included a robust effort to involve all contactors and resulted in significant minority contractor participation.”

Organizations “representing over 12 million individuals including many fans of the San Francisco 49ers and the NFL write to call your attention to the virtual exclusion of minority-owned businesses from contracting opportunities for the new Santa Clara Stadium and to demand that remedial measures be undertaken immediately to rectify this situation,” wrote the Lawyers Committee on April 19 to the Santa Clara Stadium Authority Governing Board.

Practices “approved by the Stadium Authority and carried out by Turner-Devcon joint venture design builder have led to abysmally low minority business participation … Such exclusion is not only bad public policy; it also exposes the Authority to legal liability under California’s anti-discrimination laws.”

“In fact, the under-signed have analyzed all of the approved subcontractor bid lists and are not aware of a single minority-owned firm on the list. This is astounding, particularly in light of the tremendous availability of minority-owned businesses in Northern California.”

“Under California’s anti-discrimination laws,” the Lawyers Committee wrote, citing Government Code Section 111135, “a recipient of state funding may not engage in practices that have a disparate impact on minority groups.”

“The Stadium Authority’s contracting practices also violate Article 1, Section 1, of the California Constitution, passed by the California electorate as Proposition 209. The provision prohibits public agencies in the state from granting ‘preferential treatment’ on the basis of race or ethnicity,” the Lawyers Committee told the Stadium Authority.

So, contrary to county officials’ and the contractors’ claims that efforts to include minority contractors would violate Prop 209, their exclusion of Black contractors and other contractors of color by giving preference to white contractors is itself a violation of that same constitutional mandate.

Everett L. Glenn brings a level of expertise and sophistication not generally found on the athlete side of the table. A former athlete, he holds a degree in psychology from Oberlin College and a law degree from Case-Western Reserve University School of Law.

The letter, signed by 20 local and national organizations, calls for the Stadium Authority to comply with the laws voluntarily so to avoid a court battle, insisting that “the Authority must immediately take all available steps to open up its contracting process, including making a specific commitment to involve minority-owned businesses in the remaining work on the stadium project and in future contracting opportunities under the Authority’s purview.”

The 49ers’ long residence at Candlestick Stadium in San Francisco’s Black heartland, Bayview Hunters Point, generated few economic opportunities for that poorest of all San Francisco neighborhoods. Will the team’s move to Santa Clara end exclusion and improve the economic prospects for the communities that produce the football stars whose talent and sacrifice earn billions for an almost totally non-Black industry?

To learn more, contact Everett L. Glenn, president of the National Sports Authority, a division of ESP Education & Leadership Institute, at eglenn@thensa.org and visit nationalsportsauthority.org. Bay View editor Mary Ratcliff can be reached at editor@sfbayview.com or (415) 671-0789.

View more videos at: http://nbcbayarea.com.

I am a 28-year-old Black man from Troy, Alabama, locked down at Holman Maximum Security Prison in Atmore, Alabama. While in segregation (lock up), a brotha gave me a stack of Bay View newspapers. I was not much of a reader – especially not Black liberation material – but now I am.

Kenneth Harding, shot by San Francisco police, tries to raise himself up out of a pool of his own blood, as cops keep their guns trained on him and the crowd and provide no emergency medical assistance, letting him bleed to death. – Video frame: TheOneNonly457

I’m also a rapper and while I previously wrote songs only about ballin’ and other trivial garbage, I now see that there must be a place for some REAL shit too.

I’m still angry, and while there’s not much I can do at the moment I decided to write a song that I plan on recording in the next couple of months. The following is Part One of a two-part song along with commentary: The artist is Most Hated, the song, “Crooked, Part One,” and the label CNB.

Hook: Crooked laws, crooked cops – they all need 2 be stopped. It’s a shame, a shame how they getting away wit’ murder, wit’ no blame. Crooked law, crooked cops – they all need 2 be stopped. It’s a shame, a shame how they killin’ our kids like they was high risk.

Verse 1: Police aim their weapons at bystanders so Kenneth couldn’t receive no help. If da shoe was on da other foot, they would want help, but instead they rather watch a Black child bleed 2 death.

White man commit a krime, he gets a praying hand, but a Black man commit a krime, he gets a LIFE sentence when he hit da stand.

Denika Chatman, I know it’s hard on you when Kenneth left. He took a part of you. Late nite cries ‘n memories make you feel like there is no tomorrow, but if I could bring him back I would give him life 2 borrow. Denika, we love you from da heart. Black people stickin’ together: Dat’s where it gotta start. Police killin’ our kids, we ain’t cool wit’ dat; it’s time 2 stand up and say we ain’t havin’ dat.

Every third Sunday – this one on April 21 – Denika Chatman sets out a banquet called Community Feed on Kenny’s Korner on Oakdale at Third Street in Bayview Hunters Point, the place where her 19-year-old son, Kenneth Harding, bled to death after he was shot by SFPD. On April 21, the crew included Kathy in front and, around the table from left, Mi’Neika Chatman, three men from JAB, the Justice 4 Alan Blueford coalition, Albert Tekpatl, Al Osorio, Denika Chatman, Marco Scott, Charles DuBois, Tracey Bell-Borden. Denika says, “Al is from Decolonize Oakland, Charles and Albert are from Labor Black and Brown, and myself, Marco and Tracey are from the Kenneth Harding Jr. Foundation.” Food contributions and volunteers are always welcome. Contact Denika on Facebook, and donate at WePay.com.

Hook: Crooked laws, crooked cops they all need 2 be stopped. It’s a shame, a shame how they getting’ away wit’ murder, wit’ no blame. Crooked laws, crooked cops – they all need 2 be stopped. It’s a shame, a shame.

Verse 2: James Earl Rivera is no longer breathin’. Gregory, Eric ‘n John (cops) is da reason. Y’all took a young innocent child’s life. You need 2 be swept off da streets ‘n sentenced 2 LIFE.

White man commit a krime, he see another day. But a Black man commit a krime, they put us far away. White people no better than Black people. We all bleed ‘n breathe. We all equal.

What’s goin’ on in da Bayview: crooked laws, crooked cops. Yeah, they racists from my point of view. It’s like I had a stroke when I felt da pain of da Smiths, ma. I’m so mad right now I plead the Fifth. Every time James cross my mind I cry a tear.

The crew that gathered, prepared and served the food for the March Community Feed include George Russell, Denika Chatman, Mi’neika Chatman, Tracey Bell-Borden, Emani Bey, Guillermo Herrera, Al Osorio and Marco Scott.

RIP Kenneth Harding, James Earl Rivera, Derrick Gaines, Oscar Grant, Alan Blueford, Jason Smith, Kendrec McDade, Christian Gomez and all the brothas and sistas who have lost their precious lives to this rotten system and their minions. You are not forgotten.

Send our brother some love and light: Ronald Thomas, 235080, M-24, 3700 Holman, Atmore, AL 36503. Ronald ends his cover letter with this note: “Thanks for showing me all the beautiful Black people in your paper. It really makes me feel good.”

Many if not all the people who count on the Kenneth Harding Foundation’s Community Feed can often be found in the plaza at the T-train stop where Kenny was shot, and they witnessed his murder. Denika says: “They say they are the forgotten and that no one cared about them until we came out. I love this community!”

This cop, Star No. 2444, was trying to intimidate folks from the community into leaving without the food that Denika Chatman and her crew give away in honor of the memory of her son, Kenneth Harding and all victims of law enforcement. Denika says, “He was trying to drive our community members away, and we were not going to let it happen.”

Perhaps you’ve heard or read the name Raheim Brown Jr. He’s the 20-year-old Black man who was beaten then shot and killed by Oakland School Police Department Sgt. Bhatt.

In the Oscar Grant Memorial March and Rally on the third anniversary of Oscar’s murder on New Year’s Day 2009 by BART police, supporters of Raheim Brown and all victims of law enforcement demanded justice. – Photo: Bradley Stuart, Indybay

The officers reported that they first approached the vehicle, which was not parked at the school or on campus, because the hazard lights were flashing. Brown and his friend didn’t need help. As a justification for questioning them, the officers claimed they smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle after approaching it. Other reports have claimed the officers thought the car was stolen. The officers also reported Brown threatened to stab Barhin with a screwdriver that he had in the car.

As Brown and his companion sat, buckled-up, in the car, the officers began beating them both.

What exactly happened next, no one is certain because the requests for the full reports of the shooting by Lori Davis, mother of Raheim Brown, and her attorney, John Burris, have yet to be fulfilled by the Oakland Unified School District.

What is known is that Bellusa, who was outside the car on the passenger side where Brown was sitting, ordered a first round of shots. The shots were fired by Bhatt, who was outside the car on the driver side near the female driver. Bhatt fired at Brown across the driver multiple times, but Brown remained living at this time. Bhatt’s gun jammed. He cleared it, then a second round of shots was fired, killing Brown.

Davis filed a wrongful death suit against OUSD, which operates and employs the district police officers who shot and killed Brown.

Breaking ‘Code Blue’

This case is highly suspicious for many reasons: 1) A complete report containing all the details has yet to be made available to the public, Ms. Davis or her attorney; 2) there was definite mismanagement on the part of OUSD Superintendent Tony Smith directly following the shooting, as well as by OSPD Chief Williams; 3) an Oakland School Police Department officer is calling foul against his own department.

Raheim Brown

Bellusa filed a federal complaint against the OSPD claiming retaliation for his refusal to lie about the second round of shots that killed Brown. In his complaint, Bellusa claims that the second round of shots weren’t necessary because Brown was no longer a threat, after being shot with the first round.

According to Davis, who cited testimony by former Sgt. Bellusa of OSPD, Superintendent Tony Smith was accompanied by some Oakland School Board members at the crime scene – directly following the shooting.

“Based on Bellusa’s testimony in his deposition,” said Davis, “Tony Smith came down there and tried to get him to do witness tampering. He tried to get their (Bhatt and Bellusa’s) stories together.”

Bellusa, who is now on paid administrative leave is accusing the OSPD of a pattern of corruption.

For the Davis wrongful-death case, the Bellusa complaint and the federal investigation underway bring light to the issue of a cover-up by the OSPD.

“You don’t get one officer to lie for the other one,” said Davis.

Problems with guns

Incidents like the Raheim Brown killing highlight a huge debate going on in America right now about the necessity of armed district staff in schools. This comes after the terrible December 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children, six teachers, the shooter and his mother were shot and killed.

For people of color, the issue may be more of a concern regarding security officers being armed when working at schools with large numbers of students of color. Communities of color are extremely reluctant to put guns in the hands of those who terrorize Black children and youth the most: the police. To whites, police officers are there to protect civilians.

Raheim Brown’s mother, Lori Davis, was one of the parents of young Black men killed by police who spoke out in passionate protest at a press conference held two days after San Francisco police murdered Kenneth Harding on the spot, at Third and Oakdale, where Kenny died on July 16, 2011, a few months after Raheim’s death. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

The rate of officer involved shootings seems to be increasing.

In an update, posted July 16, 2012, to a report by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement that was originally released April 6, 2012, MXGM wrote:

“Invasive policing is only one aspect of the U.S. states’ comprehensive containment strategies to exploit Black people and to smother resistance … The U.S. state maintains and reinforces these economic injustices with the militarized occupation of Black communities by the police and a web of racist legislation like the ‘war on drugs,’ discriminatory policies like ‘three strikes’ and ‘mandatory minimum’ sentencing. The result is a social system that mandates the prison warehousing of millions of Black people and extrajudicial killings where the killers act with impunity and more often than not are rewarded and promoted for murder.”

These views are backed by data tracking police killings, or “extrajudicial killings,” over many months. The latest data collected by MXGM shows that a Black person in the U.S. is killed every 28 hours by law enforcement.

The nearby Oakland Police Department is so plagued that it has been appointed a court monitor, former Baltimore commissioner Thomas Frazier, by U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson to oversee mandated changes to the department.

What post-racial America?

What does this mean? It means that as the Black community and its organizers and leaders have justly claimed and proven, a post-racial society DOES NOT exist in America.

Barhin Bhatt, the Oakland School Police officer who killed Raheim Brown, keeps protesters out of Fremont High School on March 4, 2011, three months after the murder. In August of the same year, the appointment of Bhatt as chief of the Oakland School Police sparked outrage that led to his removal about two weeks later. Forty angry speakers testified to the Oakland School Board, including civil rights attorney Anne Butterfield Weills, who said that to “appoint the shooter of Raheim Brown Jr. to be the acting chief of OUSD ... what a role model for our young people, particularly for our Black and Brown young males and women who are in our schools.” – Photo: KALW

What real justification can there be for officers – who were hired to secure a school dance on a school campus – to venture from their assigned duty posts and beat, shoot and kill innocent youth? Furthermore, what justification does Tony Smith have for not releasing the details of the incident as reported by his staff?

When Smith started as superintendent he was quoted in an Oakland North article as saying, “For me, you have to examine the effects of institutional racism, institutional classism, institutional bias, language bias and say, ‘At this point, the system that we have – even if we do it really, really well – isn’t going to close and transform that gap.’”

Apparently that was only talk and didn’t extend to his school police department. Not only has Smith championed school closures, he hasn’t brought in valuable resources such as librarians, music programs etc. In the same interview he said:

“I’m incredibly committed to thinking about new kinds of relationships with local communities. We have to become beacons and be able to infuse into those neighborhoods expectations and ways of being. That takes partnership and leadership and expectations and being honest about how hard it is.”

It is safe to say that the beacon light is out when it comes to Tony Smith and the Oakland Unified School District. His failure to demonstrate unwavering, transparent leadership has continued to damage Oakland schools and district departments – as evidenced with the OSPD.

Smith has only been in Oakland four years and he conveniently is moving to Chicago, just as a wrongful death suit surfaces and a federal investigation is taking place, with him as lead culprit.

In his letter to the Oakland School Board, he cited family illness as the reason for the move. That very well may be true.

What is also true is that, on Smith’s watch in Oakland, we have lost another young Black life.

Laura Savage is a graduating senior in journalism at San Francisco State University and is interning with the SF Bay View this semester. She can be reached at lsavage26@gmail.com.

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On an April Wednesday evening in the teen section of the Bayview branch of the San Francisco Public Library a group of about 25 people, mostly African Americans, sat listening attentively to a San Francisco Unified School District human resources recruiter.

Sheila Jones, second from right in blue, and other attendees wait for the BWOPA and SFUSD meeting to begin in the Bayview Public Library. – Photo: Laura Savage

“We are building initiatives to do outreach in the community so we can develop pipelines from within the community and from within our universities – to be able to build networks that assist applicants as they’re entering or considering working in education,” said Chacon, manager of Diversity and Credential Initiatives for the San Francisco Unified School District Department of Human Resources.

The informational meeting was offered by Black Women Organized for Political Action as a connection to the SFUSD. Carol Belle-Thomas Moss, media specialist and instructor at City College of San Francisco and president of BWOPA’s San Francisco chapter, was instrumental in having the meeting.

BWOPA’s website, says its mission, “is to activate, motivate, promote, support and educate African American women about the political process, encourage involvement, and to affirm our commitment to, and solving of, those problems affecting the African American community.”

Belle-Thomas Moss was interested in how to attract more Black and Brown people into teaching for SFUSD.

“I think all students need to see [cultural diversity and cultural competence],” says Belle-Thomas Moss. “We can’t say we’re doing a good job if Asian students only see Asian teachers or Black students never see a Black teacher in the classroom or as principal.

“There are a lot of things that we take for granted. Forty years after the Civil Rights generation is when they started integrating and [is when] we were qualified to teach in these schools, but if you have this mass exodus [of teachers of color] and you don’t replace that, then you’re back 40 years and you can literally turn back the clock on all the progress that was made.”

As a 30-year teaching veteran, Belle-Thomas Moss sees the necessity of recruitment. Many long-term teachers of color are beginning to retire in large numbers.

“We would like to replace ourselves with folks that look like us,” says Belle-Thomas Moss.

Black Women Organized for Political Action hosted the meeting, with Amy Chacon of SFUSD, to recruit substitute teachers. – Photo: Laura Savage

“We need more teachers of color. We especially need African American male teachers. It’s just so difficult to get that gender interested in teaching. It’s just so sad that teachers are not considered worthwhile. The pay is just ridiculous for what they do. I mean, they’re teaching our children and they’re with them a third of their day for a majority of the year.”

“We recognize that applicants and candidates have higher barriers to entry, for various reasons,” said Chacon. “We want to identify what those are and work to build up support networks. For instance, when we think about the Bayview, there are a lot of members of the community in the Bayview who would be interested in getting involved in our classrooms and we want to be able to provide those networks of support, outreach and contacts.”

Although women fill most teaching positions nationwide, the meeting did attract African American men of all ages interested in substitute teaching for SFUSD.

“At this point I’m open to grade level, but probably would go for the younger grade levels because I have grandchildren [that age],” said Calvin Bizzle, 63, retired training coordinator for the U.S. Postal Service.

Chacon’s purpose for being at the meeting was to put a face on the SFUSD human resources department for potential applicants so that they know they can get support.

“The presentation that I’m giving tonight is specifically geared toward certificated positions within SFUSD,” said Chacon.

Most of the hard-to-staff schools are within the Bayview, Mission and Excelsior neighborhoods, which also have a high population of students of color.

SFUSD’s mission states: “The mission of the San Francisco Unified School District is to provide each student with an equal opportunity to succeed by promoting intellectual growth, creativity, self-discipline, cultural and linguistic sensitivity, democratic responsibility, economic competence, and physical and mental health so that each student can achieve his or her maximum potential.”

According to Chacon, SFUSD is “absolutely dedicated to this. We are looking for educators that are committed to this mission statement. If this is something that resonates with [them], then San Francisco is definitely a good place for [them to teach].”

Most of the hard-to-staff schools are within the Bayview, Mission and Excelsior neighborhoods, which also have a high population of students of color.

Among the 54,000 students in SFUSD, 44 different languages are spoken and 88 percent of the students in the district are students of color.

Javieree PruittHill, 26, native San Franciscan and program manager for Kid’s Turn, a local “nonprofit organization providing a comprehensive and proven program for children and family members who are affected by familial separation,” attended the meeting.

“Being a product of the San Francisco Unified School District, I understand its detriments and I understand its potential,” says PruittHill. “In order to cultivate [SFUSD’s] potential and in order to cultivate the young people in our community and in San Francisco, we need to have premier educators and people who take interest in the education of the youngsters here.”

PruittHill desires to give back even more to his community, by working with high schoolers in SFUSD – an age group that usually intimidates new teachers – especially in predominantly minority communities.

“I’m old enough where I have wisdom and a little bit more experience, but I’m not too old where I can’t relate and I won’t understand. So I know what they’re going through.”

Sheila Jones, a Chicago transplant who previously worked as a Head Start paraeducator, has been unemployed for three years due to traveling with her husband, who is a minister. The couple has been in San Francisco for the past year and a half. She realized she needed certification to work as a paraeducator in California and attended the meeting to see how to get started.

“I would love to do [Head Start] because I love the little children, but I’ll be looking for the elementary also, and middle school.”

During the meeting, Chacon shared that early childhood educators were in high demand and badly needed for SFUSD. Nearly half of the meeting’s attendees were interested in substituting in early childhood education, either as teachers or paraeducators.

Jones feels that she most definitely will follow through and apply for a substitute position and plans to share the information with her husband, who has a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s of divinity.

According to Chacon, what’s needed most is a desire by applicants in the community to teach. She says that SFUSD is a great place to start a career in education for many reasons. SFUSD offers mentors for new teachers and special stipends for teachers who work in hard-to-staff school positions. Teachers receive paid training during the summer and school year and have access to support staff.

Chacon shared that early childhood educators were in high demand and badly needed for SFUSD. Nearly half of the meeting’s attendees were interested in substituting in early childhood education, either as teachers or paraeducators.

April is an early hiring period for SFUSD. Chacon stressed that the district is seeking substitute teachers. To qualify as a potential substitute, applicants should have a bachelor’s degree and must pass the CBEST – California Basic Educational Skills Test.

For more information about SFUSD’s hiring process, contact Amy Chacon at (415) 241-6101 or chacona@sfusd.edu, or visit www.sfusd.edu.

Information about taking the CBEST can be found at www.cbest.nesinc.com.

To join Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA), visit www.bwopa.org.

Laura Savage is a graduating senior in journalism at San Francisco State University and is interning with the SF Bay View this semester. She can be reached at lsavage26@gmail.com.

Redwood City – In commemoration of Earth Day, community members from around San Mateo County gathered outside of the new jail site and the County Center wearing hazardous materials suits and gas masks to illustrate the toxic nature of the new jail. Carrying a giant banner that read “Jails are Socially and Environmentally Toxic,” they spoke about the ways a new jail will harm communities and the environment as well as draining the county’s budget of desperately needed resources. The new jail project will cost $160 million to build and $30 million each year to operate, and the county has not yet secured the needed construction funds.

CURB rallies outside the Hall of Justice in Redwood City where the Board of Supervisors meets to persuade them to cancel plans for a new jail on toxic land and use their resources for more safe, humane and effective alternatives to incarceration.

“What is clear is that we are taking people who could be living safely in their communities – great majority poor people and people of color – and putting them into a situation that is proven to exacerbate mental and medical health problems, break up families, cause financial distress and isolation, and guarantee a future of discrimination in finding jobs and housing. That is entirely unsustainable.”

The site of the proposed new San Mateo County jail was so permeated by volatile compounds that the Department of Toxic Substances Control declared the land too hazardous for residential use, causing the county to engage in a massive and costly cleanup of the site, but a Human Health Risk Assessment of the site has still not been conducted.

“As a resident of this county for 24 years, I am disgusted that the Board of Supervisors is continuing to move forward with this toxic jail project,” says Natalie Fowler, resident of Redwood City. “To this day there hasn’t been an opportunity for meaningful public input on whether this jail should be built, so today we’re giving it anyway: San Mateo doesn’t want, doesn’t need, and can’t afford a new jail.”

Emily Harris, statewide coordinator of Californians United for a Responsible Budget, can be reached at emily@curbprisonspending.org.