Yearly Archives: 2009

In the U.S, the richest country in the world, Washington is coordinating the recovery effort. In Lebanon, a tiny poor and war-torn nation, Hezbollah, a grassroots resistance movement that Washington called “terrorist,” organizes most of the reconstruction. Hezbollah receives substantial aid in this effort from Syria and especially Iran, countries Washington also calls “terrorist.”

During the past 25 years I’ve spent a lot of time with survivors of torture, men and women enduring long term solitary confinement in California’s prisons. The single way offered to earn their way out is to tell departmental gang investigators everything they know about gang membership and activities. The prisoners call it “snitch, parole or die.”

“When arresting kids for misbehaving becomes the primary mode of discipline, some of our most vulnerable populations end up being unnecessarily criminalized at very young ages before alternatives that could lead to academic success are exhausted,” said I. India Geronimo of the ACLU Racial Justice Program and co-author of the report.

More than four years after Hurricane Katrina, I am concerned about the availability and sufficiency of affordable housing in New Orleans, where rents have risen 52 percent since the storm and 41 percent of families pay more than 50 percent of their income in rent. More than 35,000 families recently applied for 3,500 Section 8 vouchers, indicating the overwhelming demand for affordable housing.

The Afghanistan war is due for a recycling, but it may not go the way the U.S. has planned. Begun under dubious circumstances, more as a demonstration war to set the stage for the real drama of Iraq, Afghanistan has almost always been more useful as a proxy war fought by others, rather than a direct war fought by Americans.

The family of Gregory Johnson Jr. is still actively searching for answers concerning his death in the basement of Sigma Chi Fraternity House on the San Jose State University campus on Nov. 22, 2008. Pictures of a jagged scar on the back of Gregory’s scull that indicate a blunt force injury and the fact that a paramedic pronounced Gregory dead rather than taking him to the hospital are just some of the revelations Denise and Gregory Johnson Sr. are questioning.

I’m in desperate need for someone in the community to donate a reliable car to my family. I’m a single mother with three children. My 3-year-old son, Jabree, has acute lymphoblastic leukemia and I need transportation to go back and forth from the hospital. Jabree can't ride the bus because of his fragile immune system.

Scorpio Blues will be performing at Yoshi's, 510 Embarcadero West in Oakland, on Tuesday, Nov. 3. The woman who goes by the name of Scorpio Blues and I have known each other for over half our lives, and throughout that time, she has always been very intelligent, driven and never one to hold her tongue. Her artistry is definitely an extension of her persona.

Maafa 2009 was chillier than usual, but our hearts were certainly no less warmed by the ancestors’ tight embrace as supplicants made their way through the Middle Passage to the Wolosodon rhythms, the slave march through the Doors of No Return to the beach where each person held a piece of string – symbolic of a connection … a philosophical connection to the homeland, family and history.

The new short film, “Operation Small Axe,” by Prisoners of Conscience Committee Minister of Information JR Valrey, debuted in October at the Eighth Oakland International Film Festival with screenings at Merritt College, Jack London Cinema and the Uptown. The short has been shown at other venues as close as the Rock Paper Scissors Gallery in Oakland to as far away as Cape Town, South Africa.

The universal condemnation of the military coup in Honduras by Latin American governments is unprecedented. If this dictatorship is allowed to stay in power, no democratically elected government is safe. Just as President Obama promised a more respectful relationship between the U.S. and the rest of America – we are faced with another coup with U.S. military complicity.

The Oakland Housing Authority recently released a “Public Notice of Project Selection for Participation in the Project-Based Voucher Program” that may have set in motion a frenzy of greed by nonprofit housing developers wanting to maximize their profits.

Audrey Hudson stands out among Flyaway Productions’ 10 Women Campaign honorees as the only literal bridge builder, and the Bay View wanted you to meet this outstanding woman who’s blazing the trail for other women to follow her into the male-dominated field of construction work. A journeyman with Pile Drivers Local 34, Audrey first joined the union in 1999. She's won many accolades, even from her male co-workers, serving as pile driver steward for the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge Self Anchored Suspension Project. She also won a commendation from Congress.

A glimpse is a short look, a glance. How do you take a glimpse of an entire neighborhood? It would be hard to take in the whole aspect of a community in a short look. In a glimpse we sometime miss the things that matter. People take glimpses of Bayview and form their own opinion of our community. Without looking at the real Bayview, our community is written off as just another low-income community of color taken over by gang violence and drugs.

In 2006, using this poster, Bayview Hunters Point activists gathered over 33,000 signatures in 90 days on our refendum petition. But City Hall tossed it. Now that the California Supreme Court has reinstated a similar Pleasanton referendum petition, can BVHP find lawyers to take ours back to court ... and win back our community?

Duane Deterville is a dedicated organizer in the Village Bottoms Cultural District in West Oakland and is the host of their Oct. 29 open house. The SF Bay View thinks that this open house is important because the Village Bottoms is a collective of Black business owners and homeowners who are working together to protect their property and institutions and to generate business. Listen to Duane in his own words ...

The thing that most threw me off about this East Oakland native is that she loves opera. She has been singing longer in her life than she hasn’t been, and seems to be able to hit notes that makes glass break. She has recently been cast in a Black opera called “Dark River,” which tells the story of legendary Civil Rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. It opens at the Oakland Metro Opera House on Nov. 12 and runs until the 22nd.

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned a conviction obtained by San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe and published its reason – racially discriminatory jury selection – stating: “overwhelming evidence indicating that the prosecutor [Wagstaffe] ... acted with discriminatory intent when he struck M.C. [an African-American juror].”

October 22nd, National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation, is much more than just a traditional, methodical way to combat police terrorism. We are demanding no more injustice to be served to us by a just-us system. No batons swung at us. No tear gas or water hoses sprayed on us. No dogs turned on us. No guns fired at us. Just like the ‘60s era, our struggle continues in the 21st century. Our once-silenced voices and visible stances are the exchange of fire that guns us down each day.

Kev Choice is one of the the dopest young musicians I know in Oakland. And I would have to say that L-Boogie aka Lauryn Hill agrees with me, since she hired this dude to be her band leader. Kev Choice tickles the keys like Herbie, emcees like Posdonous and is a band leader like Duke Ellington. The Kev Choice Ensemble out at Yoshi’s in Oakland on Monday, Oct. 26, at 8 p.m.