Monthly Archives: March 2010

Considering local challenges and harmful international interference in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the past 400 years, it takes the greatest courage to overcome fear of oppression and to act for change. The courage demonstrated by grassroots Congolese women to resist and overcome fear of their local and international oppressors is extraordinary in the history of Africa.

Harper’s Ferry ... freeing slaves … Virginia ... hanging ... white man – this is the extent of my knowledge of John Brown. I wasn’t aware that it was 150 years ago, on Oct. 14-15, 1859, that this happened, an event which many say forecast the Civil War and the emancipation of enslaved Africans. See the opera Sunday afternoon, March 14, 3 p.m., at the East Side Cultural Center.

I’ve known the man that the music world calls Balance for many years. Ever since I can remember he has been on his music grind, whether it was recording, performing or learning the game from his 9 to 5 job at Rasputin’s in Berkeley, where he is the rap buyer.

Cuba’s policies of internationalism have arguably been the most politically advanced in the world – from the direct military intervention to help in the defeat of Apartheid in southern Africa in 1988 to direct medical aid and solidarity with Haiti - before the earthquake. Since the earthquake, Western media has been suspiciously silent on the exceptional role Cuba has played in support of Haiti with more than 900 health care providers on the ground, the largest and most organized contingent on the island.

Multi-layered with healing at its center, the large cast of "Dancing with the Clown of Love," some infected, everyone affected, shared stories written over the past two years at the Women’s HIV Program at the University of California San Francisco - documented in a short film that opens the show. Hurry! The run closes this weekend.

Whether or not you approve of capital punishment is irrelevant as long as minorities are executed with alarming disparities. Whether you approve or not is of secondary concern when people like Mumia Abu Jamal, myself and many others are convicted and sentenced to die with evidence that would exonerate ‘most any white man. As such, every single progressive organization should oppose the death penalty as we now know it.

Akua Njeri (fna Deborah Johnson) is a former member of the Illinois Chapter Black Panther Party. She is a survivor of the Dec. 4, 1969, assassination of Chairman Fred Hampton and Defense Captain Mark Clark. She is the widow of Chairman Fred and the mother of Chairman Fred Jr.

Althea, I see and visualize you walking around heaven with Harriett, Martin, Malcolm, John Brown, Nat, George, Clara, Billie etc. You fed the hungry – mentally, spiritually and physically – and clothed the needy. You gave the blood of your intellect for the liberation and spiritual salvation of all the oppressed and exploited people, the masses.

In case anyone needed further evidence that President Paul Kagame’s Rwanda is the Pentagon’s proxy, 140 Rwandan police are about to undertake special training before heading to Haiti, as reported in the Rwanda New Times, because, according to Rwandan Police Chief Edmund Kayiranga, “Rwanda wants to be involved in promoting peace in other countries” and, if need be, they would send more peacekeepers to other countries.

The BMW - Black Man Working - campaign is underway. It is no longer acceptable to take money out of our community without putting some back. We will make this an uncomfortable business environment for those who do not return community benefits as we define them. The Bay Area Black Builders meet Saturday, March 13, 12 noon, at 1099 Sunnydale, SF – contractors, workers, jobseekers welcome.

People charged with drug offenses in San Francisco may have their cases dropped or convictions overturned due to alleged evidence tampering and substandard conditions in the police crime lab, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced Wednesday. Those arrested prior to 2008, however, may never be able to get a fair trial, since all drug evidence has since been destroyed.

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.

Videographer Siraj Fowler "tells the truth about the real conditions a proud and G’d-fearing people are living in," their "city turned demolition zone/cemetery." Don't miss the media-medical team's report-backs and their film ‘Haiti: Rising from the Ashes’ on Wednesday, March 17, 7 p.m., at the Richard Oakes Multicultural Center in the Cesar Chavez Student Union (upstairs on the T-Level), San Francisco State University; and Thursday, March 25, 7 p.m., at the Kaos Network, 4343 Leimert Blvd, Los Angeles.

Indigenous peoples are celebrating worldwide after claiming victory over the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Invaders were warned not to enter our lands and now they are to blame for the “worst Olympic games ever.” The invaders have not stolen our land. The land is still here – under concrete or not, it remains – and as long as we remain, we will fight to expel all invaders who destroy or seek to destroy it.

As Haitians engage in their latest war for survival, it is instructive to see how certain neighboring nations responded to this crisis, for a nation’s response unveils its motive, its fears and its hopes. Cuba sent doctors; the U.S. sent soldiers.

The founders of the U.S. did not like corporations and for the first few decades of the existence of this nation, corporations were only given limited “privileges” and not “rights.” But after the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1868 – which extended equal protection under the law to all male citizens of the U.S regardless of race – attorneys for the corporations recognized the opportunity that had been gifted to them and started to scheme for corporate personhood.

The dirt is in the details. Dirty early transfer, dirty development, dirty politics is not the answer to any of the conditions that plague Bayview Hunters Point or San Francisco as a whole. Now it is our call, our time to get involved to say no to the dirty onslaught upon BVHP and San Francisco.

Back on the front burner! The Obama White House has taken the “bull by the horns” in an effort to move the momentum of national health reform forward in the midst of stagnation, charges of political corruption and back room deal making and a shifting tide of public opinion regarding the need for massive overhaul of our nation’s health care system.

“How can I learn who I can be, when I don’t even know who I am? Ethnic Studies provides me the foundations to learn who I AM!” declared Monet Wilson, a Y-MAC leader at Balboa High School. The San Francisco School Board’s unanimous vote marks a victory for Ethnic Studies in high schools 40 years after the historic trail-blazing fight that brought Ethnic Studies to San Francisco State.

“Haiti faces enormous challenges now, and the burden of paying off foreign debt would prevent the nation from taking necessary steps to help its people at this perilous time. I introduced H.R. 4573 so that Haiti can use its limited resources to make both immediate and long-term investments in essential humanitarian relief, reconstruction and development efforts,” said Congresswoman Maxine Waters.