Monthly Archives: April 2011

Celebrate the arts with two fantastic events at the Bayview Opera House.

The bitter taste of the dismal elections in Haiti could not diminish the joy of the return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his family after seven years of forced exile in South Africa.

“Peace of the Puzzle” is in the tradition of actual harmony and structure that’s only derived from live instrumentation. In short, it’s real music, not just in figurative sense. This music is more relaxed and reflective about the elements of peace and humility.

Saturday, April 9, the Allen Temple Community Room was overflowing with individuals interested in the crisis on Oakland streets, especially a street many had to cross that morning upon arrival, International Boulevard with its sex trafficking of mostly Black and Brown girls.

"On April 4, when working people across this country demonstrated in solidarity with the Wisconsin state workers, the longshore workers of Local 10 in San Francisco did what they’ve always done ... the ports of San Francisco and Oakland were shut down in solidarity ... Now the employers’ group ... is trying to put an end to workers’ solidarity actions by intimidating the longshore union through a court suit." - Trent Willis. On Monday, April 25, at 11 a.m., join the mass action to support ILWU Local 10 at the PMA San Francisco headquarters at 555 Market St.

Transitioning from a prisoner number to an adult person expected to take on adult responsibilities can be overwhelming for many ex-inmates, particularly those who were incarcerated for long periods of time. Each day many of us will share space with someone who has spent a significant portion of his life in a cage. Every one of us should be concerned because these men and women are of us and will be returning to us, our communities, many to our own families.

We the people are the enemy ... “we” meaning the poor and the middle class. Black folks need no convincing, because racism and discrimination are continual indicators that their perceived enemy status is indeed real.

When Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis, he was about to join the sanitation workers in their protest for a union and more decent wages. The movement for civil rights was taking hold in the North and America didn’t like it – so off with King’s head.

Big Tobacco is the Mack Daddy of all corporate pimps. It knows when to come down hard and intimidating with its elite battery of highly paid executives, attorneys and scientists. And it equally knows when to quietly deflect attention by using – pimping – the front groups they keep on call to do their bidding.

"I was at his (President Aristide's) house, we heard a roar of shouts of joy, and then over the walls people started coming in, pouring into the courtyard of the house when they saw the car. People were accompanying the car as many as three miles from the airport to his house," relates Pierre Labossiere of the jubilant welcome that greeted the Aristides on their return to Haiti ending seven long years of exile for them and brutal repression of the people they had to leave behind. Pierre tells the story of the Haitian people and how their never-say-die spirit continues to inspire the world.

A felony conviction for a Black offender is a life sentence. It is a sentence to the underclass for life. Who is going to hire a Black man who is a felon? Felons can’t vote. They have no rights. They are locked into the underclass for life.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters and the African American members of the House Financial Services Committee were recently honored by the NNPA - the Black Press of America - for their work to strengthen the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

The Dental Pipeline was created to respond to the oral health crisis faced by low-income people across the nation. In San Francisco, the Dugoni School of Dentistry at the University of the Pacific operates Dental Pipeline.

“Had the RPF not been made militarily dominant by outside support and the two presidents not been assassinated in the RPF assault for power, the ICTR evidence suggests that the Rwandan genocide would never have occurred,” concludes Professor Erlinder.

How do you think that society should be better educated on the topic of domestic violence? By teaching our children in grade school, girls and boys, that it’s not ok to fight or hit anyone, for starters.

“Police should not be allowed to pick from the ‘poisonous tree,’” said Jeff Adachi, public defender for San Francisco. Adachi explained that the poisonous tree was a legal metaphor used to describe evidence that is obtained illegally.

A campaign of brutal beatings and withheld medical care continues in the wake of the December 2010 inmate strike in Georgia prisons. Rev. Kenneth Glasgow of The Ordinary Peoples Society is calling for a public hearings into Georgia’s troubled prisons.

As Japan is reeling from an earthquake and tsunami, it and the rest of the world are bracing for a more directly man-made calamity, a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Georgia prisoner speaks out against prison guard retaliation and brutal abuse resulting from allegations of conspiring in the Dec. 9 prison strike.

After many months of discussions with the City regarding the rescission of an award to rebuild the Bayview Library, Liberty Builders has retained San Francisco civil rights attorney DeWitt Lacy to pursue legal remedies for discriminatory breach of contract.