Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Advertisement
2012 November

Monthly Archives: November 2012

Tears of sorrow and rage: Oakland PD, the Black Panthers and Alan Blueford

For decades, the Oakland Police Department has been the focus of fear. For a brief time, the Black Panther Party put a crimp into their strut. But the Black Panther Party is no more, and the repression has come surging back. The family of Alan Blueford continue to organize resistance to this campaign of repression. You can join that campaign at justice4alanblueford.org.

‘Fiscal cliff’ scare just a fake crisis

Why do imaginary phantoms terrify, while real-life horrors seem normal? Why do our elected representatives act in ways that trample the values of those who elected them? Consider the current debate in Washington. The city is in full uproar about the so-called “fiscal cliff,” the deep cuts in spending and hikes in taxes scheduled to take place at the end of the year. Don’t fall for the hype.

Homefulness, a landless people’s solution to houselessness

In 2012 POOR Magazine’s family of landless, indigenous peoples and revolutionary donors took back a small slice of Pachamama to begin the construction of the self-determined housing, education, community garden and art revolution we call HOMEFULNESS. In 2013, with your revolutionary donation to our new Indiegogo Equity Campaign, we can start the building of this global template for change!

Chavez: Every Venezuelan to have dignified home by 2019 ‘whatever it costs’

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has made a commitment that every Venezuelan family must have a dignified home by 2019 “whatever it costs.” The declaration came as Chavez made a raft of new announcements Nov. 8 regarding his government’s mass house building program, the Great Venezuelan Housing Mission (GMVV).

Sleeping on the street

Reporting and supporting as a revolutionary poverty journalist, I have done multiple stories on the increasing criminalization suffered by houseless peoples in the U.S. As a daughter raised in a houseless family, I was personally cited, arrested and eventually incarcerated for the act of being houseless and living in the car with my mama.

Justice 4 Alan Blueford – JAB – power punching the Oakland PD

“We’re going to JAB the City of Oakland Police Department in the ass until they do what they’re supposed to do.” – Jeralyn Blueford, Nov. 10, 2012, on the steps of Oakland Police Department headquarters. On Tuesday, Dec. 18, at 7 p.m., join Angela Davis and Alan’s parents for ‘Honoring Alan Blueford’ on what should be his 19th birthday: Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakland

Murdered by police for being Black and poor

From the Mission District in San Francisco, to West, North and now East Oakland, several neighborhoods in LA, young Black and Brown men, convening, talking, laughing, being young, are viewed as “dangerous,” “suspect” or criminal. Laws like the gang injunction are instituted and applied, and eventually we are completely wiped away like we were never there.

Black Media Appreciation Night was a dream come true – thank you all!

From the powerful voice of Mumia Abu-Jamal opening the event to jazz rapper Do D.A.T.'s video-illuminated revelations on life in the hood, from beloved journalist Kevin Weston's story of his escape from death's door to renowned filmmaker Kevin Epps' telling about his first job delivering the Bay View, Black Media Appreciation Night at Yoshi's Nov. 26 saw stars like Panthers Big Man and Emory Douglas, Phavia Kujichagulia, Walter Turner, Donald Lacy, Wanda Sabir, Greg Bridges, JR Valrey and Dr. Willie Ratcliff place Black media on the front lines of the struggle for justice.

Decriminalizing our lives – one family at a time

Unseen scars are what so many of our single parents in poverty are struggling with, living with, pushing through. Add the requisite criminalization of poor parents through welfare systems, child protective services, landlords and school systems and, for immigrant parents, the anti-immigrant hate and racism; it is a constant battlefield.

From skid row to your overpriced condo: Po’ folks resisting removal

It had been over 20 years since me and my mama were houseless on the streets of LA, sleeping in our car and facing police harassment for the sole act of being poor and without a roof in the U.S. The only place we could go to get a break was skid row because it was the one place the police seemed to leave us alone. Now I was back, but something was bizarrely wrong.

From foreclosure to homelessness

The story of the violent crime of foreclosure and its roots in capitalist greed has been covered, albeit rarely, in mainstream and independent media. But the never heard voices are those of the thousands of families and disabled elders – majority people of color, like Ms. Galves – who have been literally thrown into the streets post-foreclosure and are now homeless.

Parents to Supervisor Wiener: Our families are an appropriate use of transit funds

Dozens of parents and youth advocates testified before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Government Audits and Oversight Committee supporting Municipal Transportation Agency Director Ed Reiskin’s proposal to apply recently awarded regional funds to implement the free Muni for youth pilot program. The MTA board will vote on this proposal Dec. 4.

Terry Collins and Willie Ratcliff, the OGs of KPOO and the Bay View, discuss...

Terry Collins, co-founder of KPOO 89.5FM, and Willie Ratcliff, publisher of the San Francisco Bay View, blessed the airwaves last Tuesday afternoon with a warm and revealing discussion of life and resistance and the upcoming Black Media Appreciation Night, honoring the champions of independent Black media. Black Media Appreciation Night is this Monday, Nov. 26, 8 p.m., at Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakland. For tickets and more information, go to http://www.yoshis.com/oakland/jazzclub/artist/show/3104.

Update from Calipatria ASU: It’s a big difference here

Things have been very mellow and tranquil here at Calipatria ASU. There hasn’t been any tension or bullsh-t with the staff or anything. Everybody got their TVs and cable installed recently and things have actually progressed. It will never be complete until the validation process is fixed and isolation has ended but there have been some real positive changes.

M23 tragedy manufactured by Rwanda and Uganda

Joseph Kabila was in Kampala Nov. 20 meeting with Rwanda’s Gen. Paul Kagame and Uganda’s Gen. Yoweri Museveni as the Congo city of Goma fell. Why would Kabila be in Uganda when the UN in a report by a group of experts found that M23, the army that seized Goma, was created, trained, financed and is sustained and commanded by Rwandan and Ugandan officers?

The Bay View has been my strength

After 12 years I have finally made it to a halfway house. Through my entire struggle behind the walls, your paper has played a major part in my political and cultural awareness. I could not have done it without you. My mission is to become a success story by giving recidivism a black eye and preventing these younger brothers from contributing to genocide as I once did when I was young and unpoliticized.

‘Information Age’: an interview wit’ M1 of the revolutionary rap group dead prez

The rap group dead prez have by far some of the most radical politics of any artists in American music today. We caught up with M1 to talk music and politics for a minute, right before they come out here this Saturday, Nov. 24, and rap songs from their new album “Information Age” as a part of the Rebel Soul Fest, which is going down at Yoshi’s in San Francisco.

Tony Pirone shouldn’t have a badge

Anthony “Tony” Pirone, the police officer who had his knee on Oscar Grant's back while Grant was laying on the Fruitvale BART platform in Oakland as Officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed him, is seeking arbitration with BART to be reinstated to his previous position with the BART police. Many consider Pirone as one of the main instigators in the events leading to Grant’s murder.

‘My People Are Rising’: an interview wit’ Black Panther and author Aaron Dixon

Aaron Dixon was the first leader within the Black Panther Party to bring it out of California to Seattle, Washington. He recently authored a book, “My People Are Rising,” which is the memoir of a Black Panther Party captain and a community organizer who also had two blood brothers within the Black Panther Party. Check out Aaron Dixon in his own words ...

Black media, Black liberation: an interview with People’s Minister of Information JR Valrey

The fiery writing of JR Valrey began appearing in the Bay View a dozen years ago. JR made our original vision for the Bay View reality: to inspire Black youth to build a powerful Black community. As the Bay View’s associate editor and one of KPFA’s most popular programmers with his provocative Block Report Radio shows, JR and the youth who grew up on his empowering words and pictures are growing in influence, making a difference every day – and they’re just getting started.