Monthly Archives: June 2010

Everybody out for the MASS PROTEST FOR JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT all day Monday, June 14, starting at 7 a.m. outside the LA Courthouse at 210 W. Temple at Broadway. Demand murder conviction of Johannes Mehserle, the first ever Cali cop to stand trial for an on-duty murder. Keep the courtroom packed throughout the trial. This is our chance to stop the militarized police occupation of Black and Brown communities. We are ALL Oscar Grant!

San Francisco District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell's legislation that will help Black contractors win contracts and hire workers and on-the-job trainees was unanimously approved. That's another step toward Blacks building the new Bayview Library! If you want a job, come to the meeting of the Bay Area Black Builders on Saturday, June 12, 12 noon, upstairs at 1099 Sunnydale. Sign up so if Liberty Builders does win the contract, you'll have a good chance to go to work ... and make history.

A good MC is a song writer, a poet, a storyteller etc. So when we take the talent and passion of our craft and apply it to other forms of creative writing, we shine. The more you can master the language and break words up and down, the more ammunition and intelligence you have. The more intelligence you have, the more power. Look at what happened to Malcolm after reading the dictionary.

Everybody out for the MASS PROTEST FOR JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT all day Monday, June 14, starting at 7 a.m. outside the LA Courthouse at 210 W. Temple at Broadway. Demand murder conviction of Johannes Mehserle, the first ever Cali cop to stand trial for an on-duty murder. Keep the courtroom packed throughout the trial. This is our chance to stop the militarized police occupation of Black and Brown communities. We are ALL Oscar Grant!

“Who would have thought that Oscar himself may help convict his very own killer,” wrote a commenter. In the court hearing today regarding a motion to exclude Oscar Grant’s fiancé Sophina Mesa from testifying about Grant’s fear of tasers, it was discussed that Oscar Grant took a photo with his sister’s mobile phone of Johannes Mehserle pointing a taser at him.

Phyllis Jackson thought “it was a chilling day” for Los Angeles. “Jury selection here banishes all Black people like the recent Equal Justice Initiative report found that Southern courts do, while allowing the jury to be stacked with people who have friends, family and businesses involved with law enforcement,” she said. Everybody out for the Mass Protest for Justice for Oscar Grant Monday, June 14, 8 a.m., at the LA courthouse.

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.

The fundraiser at the College of Alameda on May 18 was a great success, thanks to Maria Labossiere, Colette Eloi, Carolyn Brandy, Michelle Jacques and the ASCOA representative. The Social Welfare Club raised $170 for Jean Ristil’s organization in Cite Soliel.

PeopleSkool is a six-week seminar of Poor Magazine, an indigenous, community-based, revolutionary news organization. A group of eager students of all races and ages meet twice a week and share from one another. We learn about migration, about disability, about poverty. Summer Session begins June 15. Register now!

Mertilla Jones, 46, and her grandaughter, Aiyana Jones, 7, were asleep on a couch in their lower flat’s front room at about 12:30 a.m. when police tossed an incendiary stun grenade through the window directly above the couch. Aiyana was severely burned and then shot in the head and neck by an unidentified police officer standing on the porch.

The mainstream media and the educational system indoctrinate us with the propaganda that this society is based on equality and the rule of law. Yet we pay the most and get the least, and trying to exercise our so-called rights becomes a monumental task. We need real housing, not overpriced rented bunk beds and lockers in a crowded facility.

My comrade Erika Walker is a phenomenal organizer I met while we were both organizing on the Justice for Oscar Grant Campaign. I had no idea she was a semi-pro soccer player. Soccer, otherwise known as football around the world, is the most popular sport on the planet with rich and poor countries alike competing in the upcoming World Cup.

Fox News reached new extremes of irresponsibility today by reporting that Professor Peter Erlinder is in Kigali, Rwanda, to defend “the alleged perpetrators of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.” Peter Erlinder is in Rwanda to defend opposition presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. He was arrested within days after arriving.

Citizens United abolished all limits on what corporations may spend to support the candidates of their choosing. The problem is, the "precedent" cited by the court is not precedent at all.

Black and Brown communities are terrorized by police on a daily basis on a physical and emotional level. We are all too familiar with the physical terrorism: bodies being slammed on pavement with knees penetrating necks, batons beating against skulls mimicking a life-size piñata that spills blood instead of candy and, last but not least, the iconic image of a body riddled by a volley of bullets.

It’s not too often you see Black leaders willing to take a stand these days. This footage has the internet buzzing as Minister Christopher called the redevelopment and planning commissioners and members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors “paid prostitutes” and “political whores.” “This city is rotten to the core!" he shouts.

Floribert Chebeya Bahizire, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s leading human rights defender, was found murdered on Wednesday, June 2. On the evening of June 1, Chebeya was en route to a meeting with John Numbi, inspector general of the Congolese National Police, in response to a summons. The next day his body was found in his car.

The Right to Return Weekend challenges the forced removal of all public housing residents following Hurricane Katrina and the discriminatory policies of the government to permanently displace low-income Black communities from the “new” New Orleans.

Foreclosures are soaring. Some housing experts say 4 million foreclosures are possible in 2010. To fight back, organizations across the U.S. are engaging in “housing liberation” and “housing defense” to exercise their human rights to housing. Here are a few examples.

“We are living in the mud. We are wet and we are hungry. Those in charge have left us without hope. If they have a plan, we do not know it. We are asking about the future. And we want our voices to be heard.” Each Saturday a thousand or more Haitian earthquake survivors meet in the auditorium of the Aristide Foundation for Democracy to talk about the future of their country.