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My husband, my hero: The story of a prisoner labeled ‘worst of the worst’
April 6, 2012
Imagine you were framed again by prison gang officers using a tattoo you got as a child and a symbol in a birthday card to “validate” you as a “prison gang associate” and label you “worst of the worst” and placed in segregation in a Security Housing Unit, or SHU, for years on end. That is what happened to my childhood best friend and husband, Robbie Riva.
Strike updates: Stop prison torture at Pelican Bay
July 12, 2011
Support for the hunger strike grows with solidarity actions across the U.S. and Canada this past weekend.
A series of noise demonstrations outside jails, detention centers and prisons occurred internationally in St. Louis, New York City, Oakland, Los Angeles, Montreal and Kitchener, Ontario.
Black population drops to 3.9% in San Francisco
February 4, 2011
Preliminary numbers from the 2010 Census put the remaining African American population for the city of San Francisco at around 3.9 percent! How did we get to this point? Why are we leaving this city in such droves? Why isn’t City Hall doing more to stop the mass exodus of African Americans from this city? Join the discussion on ‘The State of Black San Francisco’ – screening of ‘Straight Outta Hunters Point’ and panel discussions – at the Bayview Opera House, 4705 Third St., SF, Sunday, Feb. 13, 2-5 p.m., child care provided.
The Hater Party
November 14, 2010
“Unemployed workers are lazy welfare queens,” said Sharon Angle, losing Senate candidate in Nevada under the Tea Party, expressing hate for families living in poverty.
Longshoremen will shut down all Bay Area ports Saturday to win justice for Oscar Grant
October 22, 2010
Local 10 of the ILWU is calling for a labor and community rally on Saturday, Oct. 23, 12 noon, at City Hall, near 14th & Broadway in Oakland, to demand justice for Oscar Grant and the jailing of killer cops. Bay Area ports will shut down that day to stand with the Black community. Get ready for the rally Friday, Oct. 22, 6:30 p.m., with a screening of Minister of Information JR’s film ‘Operation Small Axe’ plus revolutionary art by Black Panther Minister of Culture Emory Douglas at the Black Dot Cafe, 1195 Pine St., West Oakland.
Gentrification journalism
May 11, 2010
In this manifesto that shows why JR Valrey is rightly called the Minister of Information, he exposes “gentrification journalism” as “the public relations team that is put in place to make gentrifiers feel safe,” the media’s twisting of the murders of Chauncey Bailey and Oscar Grant to demonize Blacks and the hyper-funding of “hyper-local media” as an effort to drown out community media. Everyone who wants to stop the exodus of Blacks from the Bay must read this.
California’s mean streak, from Native annihilation to Oscar and Lovelle: Ishmael Reed on history
September 7, 2009
Ishmael Reed is one of the most read writers of his generation, along with Toni Morrison and Amiri Baraka, living in America. In 1962, Reed co-founded “East Village Other,” a well known underground publication at the time, and was a member of the Umbra Writers Workshop, which helped to give rise to the Black Arts Movement. He has published nine novels, four collections of poetry, six plays, four collections of essays and a libretto. He currently lives in Oakland, and I approached him one day while he was visiting KPFA’s studios to ask him what he thought about the state of affairs between the police and Oakland’s Black community, with the backdrop of the police murder of Oscar Grant and, in a separate incident, the police murder of Lovelle Mixon, after Mixon allegedly killed four Oakland police officers.
San Francisco 8 case takes a critical turn
July 3, 2009
A few days ago, Herman Bell accepted a plea bargain from the prosecution and will be returning to New York for his parole hearing as soon as California gets him on a return flight. The news was greeted soberly and from some quarters with bemusement.
Coverage of Chauncey Bailey murder dramatizes need for Black media
April 17, 2009
Chauncey Bailey was probably the best known Black journalist in the Bay Area, yet his own Black newspaper is ignored by every agency investigating his murder. Justice for this Black journalist cannot be achieved by silencing Black journalism. By interviewing only the mainstream media, Democracy Now is implying that the Black press and the Black community have nothing significant to say about the murder of the Black editor of a Black newspaper.
Betraying the legacy of Chauncey Bailey
November 11, 2008
Everything about Chauncey Bailey’s life and work spoke of his devotion to the Black community. Yet the Chauncey Bailey Project appears to have veered far off the course that Chauncey was taking.
Jerry’s Brown-nosin’ with California’s prison guards
November 2, 2008
The prison guards’ union is built on the backs of human beings in cages. Jerry Brown is cozying up to the prison guards and fighting Proposition 5, a measure that offers drug treatment and a second chance to young people, nonviolent offenders and prisoners.
