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Culture of violence
December 24, 2012
General measures could move the cultural discussion and peoples’ behaviors in the right direction, whereas a focus on restricting gun ownership – except for people who fit appropriate medico-legal exclusion criteria – will probably worsen our cultural crisis, increase discrimination and police attacks, and increase the danger of greater social violence and chaos.
Prosecuting free speech
July 20, 2012
George Washington, the first president and one of the founding fathers of the United States, once argued, “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led to the slaughter.” Yet in many controversial cases, United States courts have ruled against the First Amendment guarantee to free speech.
Cynthia McKinney: The ‘N’ word, from the Champs Elysée to Avenue of the Americas
June 13, 2012
The latest Hollywood brouhaha over Gwyneth Paltrow’s decision to tweet the caption “ni**as in Paris for real” to accompany a picture of her with friends Jay-Z and Beyoncé while in Paris doesn’t compare to the new evidence of “fraud upon the court” that has emerged in a largely unnoticed civil rights case that very well should be reopened after being unfairly dismissed six years ago.
Bay View Voters Guide
June 3, 2012
It’s election time. Whether you vote by mail or go to the polls like I do on Election Day, June 5, be sure that you and your household, family and friends cast your votes. You’ll be upholding a proud tradition – Bayview Hunters Point oldtimers’ motto, VOTE 100%, once made Blacks a powerful political force in San Francisco. By voting – and by organizing, making demands and showing the way – we can regain and expand our power, stop the backsliding and get the boot off our neck. – Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff
High five to Bayview Hunters Point
May 28, 2012
Bayview Hunters Point might consider investing Lennar’s “community benefits” in a scholarship fund, a community development group, and a credit union that can pool the funds with residents’ own deposits and loan them for higher education, buying or improving a home, and founding or expanding a business to residents who have long been redlined and betrayed by banks.
The Prison
January 19, 2012
Brother Mumia is a shining light for those of us in the belly of the beast who are in a struggle against a wicked system. He has demonstrated to us that even on Death Row, one can still educate, inspire and motivate – some of the same things that he was doing at the time of his arrest.
The coup in Cote d’Ivoire
April 24, 2011
Growing evidence suggests the West, led by France, engineered a political and military coup in Cote d’Ivoire to re-colonize that country. The president of Gambia says, “Western neo-colonialist sponsored agents in Africa … are ready to walk on thousands of dead bodies to the presidency.”
Round 2: 3rd Circuit Court panel re-hears issue of Abu-Jamal’s death penalty on orders of Supreme Court
November 24, 2010
The three-decades-long murder case of Philadelphia journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal was back in court Nov. 9 with a three-judge federal appeals court panel. The three judges seemed, in their initial remarks and in their questions, to be leaning towards the defense view.
Current economic recovery is crushing Black America
October 4, 2009
As bad as the last recession has been for Blacks in America, recovery might be worse. In the absence of federal policy interventions and without an effective “trickle-up” stimulus plan, Blacks will not only have lost ground during this recession, they will also continue to lose ground during and after the recovery.
Throw the babies overboard … the Black ones first
August 10, 2009
America’s infant mortality rate is the highest of all industrial countries. It is no secret that a Black baby born in America has more than a two fold greater chance than a white baby of dying before its first birthday. No secret and actually a national disgrace that a baby born in the much-lambasted tiny poor communist island of Cuba has a better chance of having a healthy infancy than a Black baby born in America.
Black reporters roundtable on Air Force One
July 20, 2009
When seven Black journalists are invited to fly on Air Force One with the president, you know there’s been a dramatic change in the White House. Moreover, the journalists had an exclusive roundtable interview with President Obama, and he was as accommodating as the commodious surroundings.
War of words: Police invade the comments at SFBayView.com
May 29, 2009
Ever since the police murder of Lovelle Mixon, after he allegedly murdered four Oakland police officers in East Oakland on March 21, the SF Bay View newspaper website, sfbayview.com, hundreds of messages have been written in the comment sections at the end of the articles by people who are undercover cyber police and people with strong pro-police sentiments, with some coming right out and saying they are members of police departments.
Caravan for Justice puts Sacramento on notice
March 2, 2009
On Feb. 19, hundreds of people who have been attending town hall meetings in nine cities in and around the Bay Area – motivated by the BART police execution of Oscar Grant III and other critical threats to our communities – made the first of many Caravan for Justice trips to Sacramento.
Newly released NYPD data shows shocking disparity in stop-and-frisks
January 16, 2009
From 2005 to 2008, approximately 80 percent of NYPD’s total stops made were of Blacks and Latinos, who are more likely to have physical force used against them than Whites.