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Wanda’s Picks for January 2012
January 5, 2012
Life isn’t fair: Too many kids and not enough food, fat cats bringing in all the money and government services like free hospitals and free education is not free for those who need it because, like everywhere, bureaucracy breeds corruption, whether we are in Madagascar or the United States.
Kabila, Tshisekedi, Congo and the International Criminal Court
December 7, 2011
If the International Criminal Court and ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo were committed to international justice, they would issue an arrest warrant for sitting Congolese President Joseph Kabila. But the Western powers that control the ICC have been expected to do whatever it takes to keep Kabila in power.
Police critic Fly Benzo keeps catching hell since police murder of Kenneth Harding
November 24, 2011
We get criminalized in Bayview Hunters Point on the T-Train, and the police chase people down because they don’t have a transfer. I spoke before the Board of Supervisors, and a couple of days later Kenneth Harding was shot down over a $2 transfer. African American youth in San Francisco have a 70 percent unemployment rate, so our population is rapidly decreasing. It’s going to continue to decrease when the police are criminalizing our poverty. When I tried to videotape a cop, they put me under arrest, they beat me up. I was hospitalized, and I was put in jail. They gave me $95,000 bail.
My thoughts on Occupy Oakland after the murder and one-month anniversary
November 13, 2011
On Thursday, Nov. 10, Occupy Oakland was supposed to celebrate its one-month anniversary in the renamed Oscar Grant Plaza in front of City Hall. Instead the Occupy Movement worldwide was shaken by the cold-blooded murder of a participant less than an hour before festivities were scheduled to start.
Resource sovereignty: Congo, Africa and the Global South
October 18, 2011
Congolese youth are not going to give up. They’re fighting day and night, educating their peers, their communities and mobilizing throughout the country to bring about change, whether it comes today or tomorrow. They’re clear that they have to be organized to protect their interests, and no one, no one, can protect their interests like they can.
Educating our community using community radio: Support KPFA
October 4, 2011
KPFA, 94.1 FM or kpfa.org, is a community station that needs and deserves your support. I am a broadcaster on KPFA with two weekly shows: The Morning Mix on Wednesdays from 8-9 a.m., which deals with community politics, and the Block Report every Friday from midnight to 2 a.m., where we play mostly music and do cultural interviews. Please donate during Wednesday’s Morning Mix, because your donation is your vote to keep the show on the air.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame on the night of Troy Davis’ execution
September 21, 2011
Tomorrow Kagame will appear as one of Bill Clinton’s featured speakers in a plenary session of the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual gathering of the global elite. At the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative, Clinton presented Kagame with a Global Citizenship Award.
Free African political prisoner Victoire Ingabire
August 31, 2011
We need an international movement to free Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. Her case is important to African people all over the continent and in the Diaspora and to all of us, all people. The weight on Victoire’s shoulders is that of resource war, the ongoing wars for the world’s natural resources that threaten to destroy the whole planet.
Police, media demonize Kenneth Harding’s family
August 24, 2011
You are listening to the Minister of Information JR on Hard Knock Radio. Today we are talking to Denika Chatman, mother of Kenneth Harding, who was murdered July 16 in Hunters Point over a $2 transfer for Muni. Denika, how are you?
Kenneth Harding, Raheim Brown, Oscar Grant: Can you believe the police?
July 31, 2011
On the heels of the San Francisco Police Department killing of alleged bus-fare-evader Kenneth Harding, KPFA devoted the entire morning program – the Morning Mix – on Wednesday, July 20, to police terrorism aka “excessive use of force.”
Rwanda: Colonizing Eastern Congo with U.S. support
July 30, 2011
KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones: The secession of South Sudan rekindled calls for secession around the world, including those of the Rwandan lobby for redrawing the map to make the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s North and South Kivu provinces on Congo’s eastern border with Rwanda part of Rwanda.
‘Yes Her Do’: an interview wit’ Frisco rapper Madam T
July 11, 2011
I came into contact with Madam T’s music first through Facebook, although we both live in Oakland. I was impressed with her business sense off of the mic: sound, production, lyricism, marketing and her street hardened demeanor in her music. I brought her on the Block Report Music Show – every Friday midnight-2 a.m. on KPFA 94.1FM in Northern Cali – and the callers loved her.
Newlyweds: Expanding the sound of Oakland
July 11, 2011
Oakland has been always full of talent. If you didn’t know, it was the home of the Black Panther Party, Andre Ward, Too Short, Bill Russell, Huey P. Newton, Toni Tony Tone, 2Pac, Ricky Henderson, Bruce Lee, Leonard Peltier and more. Now a new, up and coming duo known as the Newlyweds, are ready to show the world what they have to offer.
Western funded genocide: Ethiopia and the Ogaden
July 11, 2011
Ethiopian troops are in the oil rich, contested Sudanese Abyei region in accordance with a new U.N. Security Council resolution invoking sovereign nations’ “responsibility to protect” vulnerable populations from genocide and mass atrocities if their own governments aren’t protecting them. But what about Ethiopia’s own genocide in the Ogaden Basin that the West is funding?
Banned on Facebook: Voice of the Cape-South Africa, Islamic community radio
July 11, 2011
Why would Voice of the Cape, the Islamic community radio station of rural South Africa, be blocked on Facebook? The feature story that day was about the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, but there were stories all over my friends’ Facebook pages about the Gaza Flotilla that day. When Voice of the Cape was still banned two days later on July 6, I scanned the featured stories on its home page.
Rwanda is no excuse for the U.S. to intervene in Sudan
July 2, 2011
Advocates of intervention in Southern Sudan argue that the U.S. can’t be bystanders to what could become another Rwanda and must become instead “upstanders” preventing genocide. Was the U.S. a bystander to the Rwanda Genocide? Professors Peter Erlinder and Edward Herman both say no.
Wanda’s Picks for July 2011
June 29, 2011
A number of trees have fallen in the forest this past month and we want to acknowledge the huge spaces their absence brings: Geronimo ji jaga Pratt, Black Panther, decorated veteran of multiple wars …
Geronimo ji-Jaga: Tributes from Black Panther comrades and current political prisoners
June 20, 2011
On Thursday, June 2, 2011, came word that former Black Panther leader, Geronimo ji-Jaga (née Elmer G. Pratt) died in exile in Tanzania.
The thrill is gone: a report from the rallies protesting Mehserle’s release
June 13, 2011
The lyrics to B.B. King’s classic “The Thrill is Gone” was the first thing that ran through my head when I showed up at both of the rallies that were held to “protest” the release from jail of Johannes Mehserle on Sunday, June 12. The speakers seemed to be a tad bit angry but not focused enough to do anything significant that would put police murders on the national radar. JUST ADDED: Minister of Information JR leads a full hour of debate on issues swirling around the murder of Oscar Grant by Johannes Mehserle broadcast on KPFA Wednesday morning.
Oakland gang injunction is deceptive and wrong
June 8, 2011
At the heart of a gang injunction is usually an overreaching district attorney. Say No to John Russo! Pack the courtroom Friday, June 24, 2 p.m., Department 20, Rene C. Davidson Courthouse, 1225 Fallon St., Oakland.
