Monthly Archives: April 2012

On April 8, The Black Star News published “Invisible Children, Makers of Kony 2012, Spied for Ugandan Regime – Wikileaks.” Milton Allimadi, Black Star News publisher, says that his website has become inaccessible due to a “distributed denial-of-service attack” (DDoS attack).

Supervisor John Avalos’ resolution calling for a suspension of foreclosure activities in the City and County of San Francisco passed in an 11-0 vote at the Board of Supervisors. It signals the City’s resolve to protect homeowners from unfair and unlawful actions until state and federal protections are in place.

Imagine you were framed again by prison gang officers using a tattoo you got as a child and a symbol in a birthday card to “validate” you as a “prison gang associate” and label you “worst of the worst” and placed in segregation in a Security Housing Unit, or SHU, for years on end. That is what happened to my childhood best friend and husband, Robbie Riva.

Professor Michelle Alexander’s new book “The New Jim Crow” is a monumental, well researched piece of work that presents documented facts in down to earth English about the mass incarceration of Black people within the United States’ national concentration camp system. At one point in “The New Jim Crow,” Professor Alexander presents evidence that more Black people are enslaved behind bars today than were enslaved on the plantations in 1850, before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.

In 2006, African Americans were arrested in San Francisco for drug offenses at five times the rate of African Americans statewide and at 16 times the rate of other races in the City. Testify at the hearing, marking the 40th anniversary of the War on Drugs, Thursday, April 12, 5:30 p.m., in Room 250, SF City Hall.

The Oakland International Film Festival is Friday-Sunday, April 6-8, at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Street, Oakland. Visit http://www.oiff.org/2012schedule.pdf. This year’s headliner is one of the most controversial independent films ever made, “The Spook Who Sat by the Door.” Watch it again here.