San Francisco Bay View

Bay View Voters Guide for March 3 Primary Election

Our best chance at a bright future is Bernie Sanders. We need the courage to vote for the best world possible, for the biggest dreams, for the biggest potential shift in government and politics.

Local News & Views February 25, 2020

News & Views

I vs. We

Local News & ViewsFebruary 29, 2020

“I feel sad for the poor culinary workers in Nevada who are being betrayed by their union leaders who are not supporting Medicare for All. Remember, M4A is not about health care; it is about health care financing. The culinary workers are not giving up anything; they are replacing what they have with something far better. They keep their doctors and nurses and hospitals, they get long term care, and they lose their co-pays and deductibles. Yes, they have fought hard for what they have, but M4A means their fighting is at an end.”

Mother of Mario Woods administers oath to San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju at packed community inauguration

Local News & ViewsFebruary 29, 2020

On Feb. 27, 2020, in front of a crowd of over 300 people at Brava Theater, San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju took his oath of office and pledged his service to the community as part of the annual Black History Month Celebration of the Public Defender’s Office.

Vote Yes on Measure C to empower every child

Local News & ViewsFebruary 28, 2020

Initiatives like Measure C help level the playing field, addressing the inequality that exists when some children have access to critical resources while others do not.

Treasure Island: ‘Everybody who put us out there should be in jail for murder and attempted murder’

Local News & ViewsFebruary 27, 2020

“I’m angry about that because I would never have moved to Treasure Island if they had told me there was radiation (there). I didn’t know what was happening to me until I got these tumors (one) on my shoulder and one on my side.”

The toxic saturation of West Oakland – Town Hall tonight, Feb. 26, 6:30-8 p.m., West Oakland Senior Center

Local News & ViewsFebruary 26, 2020

Councilwoman McElhaney urges everyone who might be affected or wants to support a solution to come to a town hall meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 6:30-8:00 p.m., at the West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St. RSVP at https://west-oakland-environmental-town-hall.eventbrite.com.

Behind Enemy Lines

Faces full of gas: Abuse of war crimes chemical weapons in Indiana prisons

Behind Enemy LinesFebruary 24, 2020

Indiana is the fifth state in which I’ve been imprisoned since 2012. Over this eight year period, I’ve been bounced from Virginia to Oregon, then Texas to Florida, back to Virginia, and now to Indiana. All in response and efforts to repress my involvement in exposing and resisting the routine abuses that pervade US prisons.

Unheard Voices calls for Alabama Corrections Commissioner Dunn to meet with prisoners

Behind Enemy LinesFebruary 16, 2020

“Months and years of retaliation (have been) endured … by countless (prisoners) who have … made sacrifices that those of us who have never been incarcerated cannot truly understand – all in order to seek accountability, to end prison slavery, and to stop the construction of new prisons that will take from us our children and grandchildren.” – Unheard Voices

National Solidarity Events to Amplify Prisoners’ Human Rights, Aug. 21 – Sept. 9, 2020

Behind Enemy LinesFebruary 14, 2020

We call on you again to organize the communities from Aug. 21 – Sept. 9, 2020. In the spirit of Attica, will you be in the fight to dismantle the prison industrial slave complex by pushing agendas that will shut down jails and prisons like Rikers Island or Attica?

The weaponization of suboxone strips: An evolving tactic in the ‘perpetual battle’ for control in America’s prisons

Behind Enemy LinesFebruary 11, 2020

“They call us walkin’ corpses, unholy living dead / They wanna lock us up, in this [American] hell” – Misfits, “London Dungeon”

The four California prisoner class representatives call for solidarity and change

Behind Enemy LinesFebruary 11, 2020

Collectively, we are an empowered, mighty force that can positively change this entire corrupt system into a system that actually benefits prisoners and thereby the public as a whole.

Culture Currents

A feast of Black-centered literary events lit up the Bay Area February 2020

February 29, 2020

There were several interesting and exciting Black History Month and Afrocentric Bay Area events, some of which I personally attended and was involved with last month.

Culture Currents

‘Black is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite,’ closing March 1

February 26, 2020

Sunday afternoon, Feb. 23, at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco was an opportunity to see what Black Joy looks like. While Africans in Oakland were celebrating what makes us a people, in San Francisco, artists, curators and scholars were discussing Kwame Brathwaite’s work in the “Black is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite” exhibit up through March 1. More than a tangible aesthetic enumerated, Brathwaite’s “Beautiful” is an opportunity to reflect on the many ways through the ages Blackness – while commodified – transgressed and transcended, even morphed into something completely incomprehensible (in that moment) like Charlie Parker’s “Koko“ or Dizzy Gillespie’s “Shaw ‘Nuff” or John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.”

Reframing Aging: San Franciscan Susie Tyner

Culture CurrentsFebruary 24, 2020

If you live in San Francisco, you’ve probably seen her smiling face on billboards, the side of buildings, the back of buses, transit stations, and lining Van Ness and other major thoroughfares. Bayview resident Susie Tyner is one of five seniors who exemplify a new generation of older adults: accepting of the inevitable aging process but making a conscious decision to live full lives.

The 30th annual Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry: It’s nothing short of amazing … this grace

Culture CurrentsFebruary 24, 2020

This poem is water It is palm wine to the ancestors Ones with heads up, lips parted Utterance stuck in throat It is fresh water with peppermint It is nommo Words into flesh Blackness Melanin A magic hue Sun kissed by time

AfroComicCon does the Black comic book convention Bay Area style

Culture CurrentsFebruary 23, 2020

One of the Bay Area’s most entertaining new Black convention offerings is AfroComicCon, which injects a healthy dose of Black culture into the family-friendly comic book convention. Comic book conventions are places where you can go to buy comic books and related gear, but they are not stuffy and academic. They are fun, all-ages enticing, and feature family fun entertainment that makes them especially attractive to teens, the young at heart, and people with young children.

Bay View Archives

Welcome to the Bay View Archives! With a $20,000 grant from The San Francisco Foundation, we can finally formalize and publicize our trove of Black journalism from 1976 to 2008.

Lennar seeks license to kill

Archives 1976-2008November 27, 2007

Despite Lennar’s claims that grading was completed in September in 2007, community air monitors continue to document elevations in asbestos levels.

Those who must be shown: an environmental justice manifesto

Archives 1976-2008November 13, 2007

George D. Porter dedicated his career to the International Longshoremen’s Workers Union Local 34. He died in the care of his loving family on the morning of Feb. 19, 1992. His immediate cause of death was dehydration. His final cause of death was pulmonary asbestosis.

Then wasn’t the time, but now is!

Archives 1976-2008September 20, 2007

“The police say to us all the time that they can’t do their jobs because we won’t talk and tell on someone. Well, we ARE telling on PG&E … so now we tell them it’s your turn. Do your job! Do it now!”

Lennar builds shoddy homes

Archives 1976-2008July 6, 2007

“We have been living the Lennar nightmare for seven years. We are original owners with perpetual water intrusion. I am trying to organize my neighbors (168 defective homes) and share information in hopes that together we can make a difference ... We are absolutely devastated. I am writing from Novato, California.” — Tamara

A failure of leadership

Archives 1976-2008October 11, 2006

After more than 15 years of “cleanup,” the Shipyard is still a toxic mess – and now Lennar is moving forward to build residential housing on the site.