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Stop the supercop! All out to Oakland City Hall Tuesday!
January 14, 2013
Oakland’s mayor, chief of police, and city manager announced their intentions to contract with William Bratton as a consultant to the Oakland Police Department. Oakland has become the epicenter of anti-brutality campaigns, so those who want the brutality to continue are bringing in their big guns. Join the Justice for Alan Blueford Coalition and allies on Tuesday, Jan. 15, to tell the Oakland City Council that we reject Bill Bratton and his racist, fascist policies. Meet up at 5:00 for a rally with the meeting at 5:30.
Tony Pirone shouldn’t have a badge
November 23, 2012
Anthony “Tony” Pirone, the police officer who had his knee on Oscar Grant’s back while Grant was laying on the Fruitvale BART platform in Oakland as Officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed him, is seeking arbitration with BART to be reinstated to his previous position with the BART police. Many consider Pirone as one of the main instigators in the events leading to Grant’s murder.
Distorting the legacy of Richard Aoki
September 9, 2012
Far from bringing “discredit to the Panthers,” as Rosenfeld contends, the Black Panthers’ armed street patrols dramatically reduced the level of violence visited by Oakland’s white cops upon the city’s Black residents, earning the admiration of 62 percent of inner city Blacks, according to a 1969 Wall Street Journal poll. Rosenfeld’s portrayal of the Panthers, including Richard Aoki’s role in the organization, is grossly inaccurate. His analysis of the violence surrounding the party’s challenge to racial inequality and injustice is simplistic and racist.
Seven years after Katrina, a divided city
August 30, 2012
New Orleans has become a national laboratory for government reforms. But the process through which those experiments have been carried out rarely has been transparent or democratic. The results have been divisive, pitting new residents against those who grew up here, rich against poor, and white against Black.
Pow! You’re dead: Police murders enrage New Orleans
May 2, 2012
The ink was barely dry on the convictions and plea bargains of 10 members of the New Orleans Police Department in the Danziger Bridge murders and coverup, when NOPD police gunned down Justin Sipp and unarmed Wendell Allen. Hundreds marched in protest of ongoing police murders of Black youth. The African American community is beginning to fight back.
A life worth less than train fare
July 21, 2011
Another young, unarmed Black man, Kenneth Harding, has been gunned down in broad daylight. He was shot numerous times in the back as he fled, his empty hands held in the air. His crime had been a simple train fare evasion for which San Francisco police executed him in the street.
Cops entrap Justice for Oscar Grant marchers: two eyewitness accounts
November 10, 2010
I was swept up and arrested Friday night in Oakland at the end of the Justice for Oscar Grant march. As usual, most Bay Area TV stations gave a factually awful – very pro-police – spin to what happened.
China chides U.S. on rights record
March 17, 2010
The Chinese government responded March 12 to the release of a U.S. human rights report critical of China by issuing its own report criticizing the U.S. human rights record. The report covered issues relating to crime, racial discrimination and poverty and accused the U.S. of using its hegemonic power to continue “trampling” on the sovereignty of other countries while “posing as the world judge of human rights.”
Defend Minister of Information JR Monday: Rally 8am, Court 9am
December 6, 2009
The Bay Area is rallying around Minister of Information JR, facing three years in prison for covering the Oakland Rebellion that demanded justice for Oscar Grant and for his courageous coverage of police terrorism known throughout the country. Influential organizations are calling an 8 a.m. rally on Monday, Dec. 7, then to pack Courtroom 11, 1225 Fallon St., Oakland, the courthouse made famous by the many rallies the Black Panther Party held there.
Circles of sameness
September 16, 2009
So Van Jones, activist, joins the Barack Obama administration, as the green energy czar, a field he’s passionate about, to provide jobs in Black communities and conserve natural resources as part of a larger change in America’s addiction to oil. But, almost immediately, Jones comes under attack from forces in America that really don’t want change.
The ambivalent silences of the left: Lovelle Mixon, police and the politics of race and rape
April 21, 2009
Many TV channels broadcast live the entire funeral for four Oakland police officers killed March 21, news anchors calling them “heroes” and “angels.” Police funerals are intended to legitimize past and future police violence and tell the public to shut up. The spineless left complies – no mention of Oscar Grant … or Lovelle Mixon.
Kill and be killed: Police murders in Oakland
March 26, 2009
Police are virtually an occupying military force in Black urban centers. Their presence will neither eliminate the plague of rampant crime nor address the underlying disease of extreme impoverishment.
Lame-duck appointment of embattled KPFA manager
October 1, 2008
At 4 p.m. on her very last day of employment as the executive director of the Pacifica Foundation, Nicole Sawaya permanently appointed Lemlem Rijio as the general manager at KPFA-FM, a position Rijio has been occupying on an interim basis for two years. Rijio has been under fire as of late, with Berkeley police violently arresting a station programmer who had allegedly been banned in a dispute over copier usage. Seventy-four of 215 station staffers have signed a statement of no-confidence in her leadership.
Pacifica patrones reject peace, use police to sustain their power
August 30, 2008
Almost 20 years ago, we declared this KPFA building a sanctuary against violence, a new home for peace and a network that was created nearly six decade ago to promote peace and understanding among all communities. And here we have the Pacifica patrones mimicking their corporate twins, using police power to sustain their political point of view.