Yearly Archives: 2013

The Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement wrote 40 supplemental demands to detail what prisoners are entitled to and need to have re-instated. In responding to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitaion’s response to our 40 supplemental demands, I would like to get into the actual details of what the CDCr is and is not saying in response to prisoners.

It happened a long time ago. Aug. 8, 1978, to be exact. Over 35 years ago. After months of trial, nine MOVE men and women (five men and four women), were convicted of third degree murder and sentenced to 30 to 100 years imprisonment. They were attacked for political reasons, prosecuted for political reasons, and sentenced the way they were for political reasons.

HO! HO! HO! The holiday season is upon us! Times are good. Folks crowding the malls, spending cash or charging their purchases; some buying on the layaway plan! Where are WE shopping? Are dollars channeled BACK to BLACK businesses on THIRD Street!??? Tough question! I travel through the corridor every day, not impressed at the options where I can spend my money.

The trial of the Dallas 6 pertains to an April 29, 2010, peaceful protest against illegal and barbaric conditions created by the prison guards in the hole at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas (SCI Dallas), including food starvation, mail destruction, beatings, medical neglect, use of a torture chair and deaths of various prisoners. The trial of the Dallas 6 will represent a moment of truth and exposure.

With negative corporate rap taking hold of youth pop culture and our young people’s minds, this Islamic inspired “Karbala Mixtape” is doing its much needed part to fill the cultural void with constructive, meaningful music that pushes one to be a better, more informed person. Imam Hashim Alauddeen helped to oversee a roster of talented artists who have contributed to this project.

I don’t know whether any of your names will be recorded in history books as the early leaders of a bold, courageous movement that not only ended solitary confinement as a form of torture, but also ended the entire system of mass incarceration in this country. But I know that the entire movement for freedom and justice in the United States is indebted to you.

Creating jobs six times faster than the overall job market, the solar industry has become a robust engine of job growth, totaling over 119,000 new jobs as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. These numbers help to solidify the argument that the investment in solar energy has considerable long-term payoffs.

I’m not sure which knife-point of ancestral trauma in the new movie “12 Years a Slave,” based on Solomon Northup’s autobiography, caused me to crumple into a paralyzed ball on the floor. I am not sure when I became unable to breathe or even see straight while watching the continuous acts of graphic genocide, racist hate, hegemony, brutality and oppression filter across the movie screen.

In the words of Lorenzo “Cat” Johnson, his situation is “intolerable.” He speaks for all innocent prisoners. It is estimated that in the United States 100,000 or more factually innocent people are in prison. Many, like Lorenzo, are on “slow death row,” serving life without parole. Action for Lorenzo Johnson’s freedom is part the fight for all the innocent in prison and a challenge to this system of injustice.

Marissa Alexander is free from jail in time to spend Thanksgiving with family she has not seen for much of the last three years. The Florida woman – who had been serving a 20-year sentence for firing what she described as a warning shot at her abusive husband – was released from jail Wednesday night at 10:30 p.m. Her bond was set at $200,009. Although no one was injured in the incident, a jury convicted Alexander of multiple counts of aggravated assault with a firearm in 2012, requiring a 20 year sentence thanks to Florida’s “10-20-Life” law.

We were labeled as a security threat group in 1995 in state prison, despite the fact that our God-Centered Culture was established in the free world in 1964 by our educator, Allah. Our God-Centered Culture also has 501(c)(3) tax exempt status like any religion under the First Amendment, but because we teach that the Black man is God and the Black woman is Earth and the white man is devil, as a collective we were deemed a threat.

Archbishop King and Rev. Mother Marina will be honored on Sunday, Dec. 15, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., at an evening of fine dining, divine music and testimony. Keynote speaker will be Rev. Christopher Muhammad. The event will be at the West Bay Community Center, 1290 Fillmore St. near Eddy in San Francisco. Tickets for the event, including dinner and music, must be purchased in advance.

Protests and raised fists have come to life to San Jose State University. For those who have not heard, three white students at San Jose State University have been charged with hate crimes – and a fourth has been suspended – after their African-American roommate was subjected to a series of racist torments that have shocked the entire community.

For Adama Mosley, a resident of the West Oakland neighborhood known as Ghost Town, having solar panels installed on her home was “a dream come true.” Energy advocates say significant challenges lie ahead if affordable renewable energy and widespread adoption of energy efficiency are to become a reality in low-income communities of color.

There’s a growing national consensus that, as Attorney General Eric Holder stated in August, “too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason.” Despite the heavy toll that mass incarceration exacts every day and in countless ways on many American communities the topic attracts remarkably little consistent coverage in the mainstream media.

For 41 years, Herman Wallace was shown no mercy by a system that has never shown any mercy to anyone it considers its historical or present enemy. Herman Wallace was made to suffer at the hands of local, state and federal governments. No matter how bad his situation got, there was not one human being within this system, or government, who sought to provide Herman Wallace any mercy.

Hasn’t CDCr created enough mentally ill prisoners through the use of solitary confinement? Hasn’t CDCr caused enough suicides through the use of solitary confinement? Hasn’t CDCr emasculated enough prisoners through its de-briefing policy? Why can’t we – normal, functioning human beings – remain as such?

The Morongo Band of Mission Indians near Palm Springs continues its tradition of giving as it provides another 11,000 turkeys statewide to help those in need. Five San Francisco groups that help provide the homeless and the less fortunate with a hot meal on Thanksgiving received 1,000 turkeys Friday donated by Morongo. The 1,000 turkeys will help feed an estimated 20,000 people in San Francisco.

Jibril Mohammed, aka J-Mo, has always been an inspirational figure in East Oakland. These days, he has taken a hiatus from making and overseeing the production of music and is dabbling in the Vegas retail garment industry with the opening of Jibril James Fashions, a Hip Hop clothes store off of the strip. Read about this business-wise trailblazer in his own words, and plan to visit Jibril James Fashions on your next trip to Vegas.

The 17-year quest for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo has taken a significant step in the right direction; however, many concerns remain. Last week the Congolese military routed the Rwanda- and Uganda-backed M23 and declared an end to its reign of terror against the Congolese people.