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The mass incarceration of the Black community: an interview with Michelle Alexander, author of ‘The New Jim Crow’
April 4, 2012
Professor Michelle Alexander’s new book “The New Jim Crow” is a monumental, well researched piece of work that presents documented facts in down to earth English about the mass incarceration of Black people within the United States’ national concentration camp system. At one point in “The New Jim Crow,” Professor Alexander presents evidence that more Black people are enslaved behind bars today than were enslaved on the plantations in 1850, before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
Massive budget cuts may result in billionaire buying Berkeley’s public housing
December 13, 2011
With tens of thousands of protesters from the Occupy movement hitting the streets in Oakland, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and cities all across the nation demonstrating against the brutal on-going budget cuts and social inequality leaving families in the cold and hungry, massive budget cuts continue to devastate public housing and the nation’s social programs.
Cameron’s riot response: Kick them while they’re down
September 9, 2011
In response to the four days of fiery rebellion, the U.K. is proposing punitive measures that only add to the pre-existing problems – the closed doors to economic flourishing and decent education – in poor communities that fueled the social unrest in the first place.
Disrespected youth erupt again
August 16, 2011
The riots that started last Saturday night were completely unexpected, but they could have still been anticipated by everyone from the community to police. The fact that a man, Mark Duggan, was shot by police was always going to be a provocative issue, but this was amplified by the fact it took place in Tottenham – a place that has a fairly murky history with the police and authority in general – and the fact that the man was Black.
From North Africa to North Oakland, poverty scholars speak on the revolution
February 19, 2011
What can po’ folks learn from the revolutions in North Africa? Lessons in revolutions not dictated by non-profit industrial complex agendas and philanthro-pimps but revolutions guided by angry mamaz, hungry babies, houseless elders, jobless fathers, profiled and criminalized migrants and gang injunctioned youth of color.
Bay Area Black Builders call on Black churches to build Black
January 23, 2011
On Saturday, Jan. 30, at 10 a.m., the Bay Area Black Builders plan to picket the Lord’s house. Beth Eden Church, a great church in the Black community, indicates that it has contracted with a White contractor apparently chosen by the lender, to build an addition.
Myron Standing Bear gets housing justice – almost
January 7, 2011
“We don’t work with Indians,” SFHA had told Myron. He began his story with this, the first in a series of discriminatory statements made to him by SFHA. The injustice began in August of 2009, when the family was informed of that their Section 8 voucher had been approved; they’d been on the list for 11 years.
Eight homeless youth die in New Orleans fire: What does it say about US?
December 30, 2010
Eight young people, who the Fire Department said were “trying to stay warm,” perished in a raging fire during the night of Dec. 28 in New Orleans. Will we look into our abandoned buildings and look into the eyes of our abandoned daughters and sons and sisters and brothers? Will our nation address unemployment, high housing costs and low wages? Or will the fires continue and the lives end?
Black Friday 2010 ‘Housing Harvest’ occupation
December 6, 2010
On Black Friday 2010, at 16th and Mission in San Francisco, Creative Housing Liberation held a “Housing Harvest” rally with songs and speeches followed by a tour of four vacant neighborhood properties. Creative Housing Liberation would like to invite “all kinds of folks, including families,” to be involved in future housing occupations and demonstrations.
Five years later: Katrina Pain Index 2010 New Orleans
August 6, 2010
It will be five years since Katrina on Aug. 29. The impact of Katrina is quite painful for regular people in the area. This article looks at what has happened since Katrina not from the perspective of the higher ups looking down from their offices but from the street level view of the people.
Congresswoman Waters’ bill to revitalize public housing advances
August 4, 2010
“This bill preserves public housing, strengthens neighborhoods and creates jobs,” said Congresswoman Waters. “The legislation would reverse decades of neglect of America’s public housing units.”
Save public housing: Oppose PETRA
June 9, 2010
The Obama administration is pushing hard to privatize our nation’s 1.2 million public housing units, which would put public housing residents at risk of displacement and homelessness.
Vacant homes for homeless families
May 17, 2010
The housing bust and faulty government policies have immersed the United States in a full blown economic and housing crisis. The cruel irony of this crisis, and what makes it so profoundly immoral, is that the commodity at its root – housing – is not at all in scarcity.
NOLA vs. the po-po
March 10, 2010
The veil of authority and legitimacy shielding most urban police forces against popular suspicion and distrust simply doesn’t exist in New Orleans. Hardly anyone likes or trusts the po-po. The actual point of this piece is to reflect a little on the war currently raging between the people of New Orleans and the NOPD.
Berkeley public housing tenants demand resignations
January 23, 2010
Public housing and Section 8 tenants appeared at the Jan. 19 Berkeley City Council meeting to protest and speak out against alleged illegal activities of the Berkeley Housing Authority (BHA) and its policies to privatize and sell their 75 public housing units to an unnamed nonprofit housing developer.
Berkeley’s public housing residents oppose privatization
January 4, 2010
The plan to sell off Berkeley’s 75 public housing units is harmful to Berkeley’s poor, elderly and disabled population that fail to qualify for the Section 8 program or meet the minimum income requirements to reside in so-called affordable housing units owned and operated by local nonprofit housing developers.
Organizing lessons from Allen Parkway Village
September 17, 2009
When Lenwood E. Johnson, the son of Texas sharecroppers, moved into Houston’s Allen Parkway Village project housing, the Freedmen’s Town section of the city had yet to be designated historic and the village had yet to be saved. By the end of the 1990s, the village was preserved and Johnson had proved to be something of an unlikely hero here in Houston’s 4th Ward, historically one of the poorest sections of the city – but always ripe for redevelopment because of its proximity to the downtown.
Gentrification, the new form of segregation
July 9, 2009
From San Francisco’s Fillmore, Hayes Valley and Western Addition, Black people and other members of the community of the poor were removed. The removal was a new form of segregation and discrimination. The government unit that led the charge was the Redevelopment Agency. The sociological name for this removal was and is gentrification.
Stimulus funded jobs: We demand our fair share!
May 5, 2009
The San Francisco Housing Authority is spending $5 million to create hundreds of jobs where many of us live. But Blacks will be excluded unless Black contractors can borrow from a loan fund so they can hire Black workers. Pack the Housing Commission meeting Thursday, May 14, 4 p.m., at 440 Turk St. to demand our fair share.
New Orleanians gear up for long overdue rebuilding
January 7, 2009
Neighborhood planning and oversight on needed infrastructure and services will keep the focus on regional needs and local job creation and work related income for workers, with job-oriented training and backup services like child care and transitional housing.