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2014 November

Monthly Archives: November 2014

There is power in unity!

For many months here in Texas, Comrade Rashid, our minister of defense, and I have struggled hard to shed light on the heinous acts of barbaric violence perpetrated by Texas Department of Criminal Justice employees against prisoners of every race, nation and creed. If it was not for Dr. Willie and Sister Mary Ratcliff, publisher and editor of the San Francisco Bay View, revolutionary voices might never be heard by the public at large.

YCAT-C hires District 10 residents for flagging services at new CMPC

Yolanda’s Construction Administration & Traffic Control (YCAT-C) was awarded a contract to provide construction flagging services at the new California Pacific Medical Center (CMPC) hospital construction site at Van Ness and Geary. YCAT-C will employ 30 local citizens, primarily from San Francisco’s District 10, over the next four to five years.

Twenty years of hell in shacks

Twenty years of local democracy in South Africa has been very cruel for Abahlali baseMjondolo and for millions of other poor people. It has been 20 years of hell in shacks. It has been 20 years of living like pigs in the mud. It has been 20 years of living with rats, floods, fire and rotting rubbish. For those of us who have stood up for our humanity, our reward has been lies, assault, torture, wrongful arrest, the destruction of our homes and even assassination.

St. John Coltrane Church to celebrate 50th anniversary of ‘A Love Supreme’ Dec. 8...

This December will mark the 50th anniversary of the recording “A Love Supreme,” the John Coltrane album which many consider to be his seminal work. In celebration of this momentous occasion and its call for global peace, the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church will celebrate A Love Supreme Mass on Monday, Dec. 8, at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. The mass is the high point of a global festival from Dec. 5 to the 9th.

CDCR’s new con game to undermine our class action suit

In order to successfully advance in each step of CDCR’s newly enacted Step Down Program (SDP), prisoners are expected to fill out and complete a series of thought policing or brainwashing workbooks. One such workbook is entitled “The Con Game” and purports to elucidate for the prisoner via “self-directed journaling” the ways in which he either consciously or unconsciously is a con artist and criminal.

Donald Lacy’s historic interview: Gary Webb tells how the government flooded Black hoods with...

The Bay View thanks Donald Lacy for making the recording of this incomparable historic interview available for publication in print for the first time. Don’t miss “Superheroes,” inspired by Gary Webb and “Dark Alliance,” which Lacy calls “the most important play written in the last 25 years.” It runs Nov. 21-Dec. 21 at the Cutting Ball Theater, 277 Taylor St., San Francisco.

Kujichagulia Seitu’s ‘Go Tell It!’ plays in Berkeley Dec. 6-7

The best African centered holiday play in the nation, “Go Tell It!,” the story of the freedom fighter Harriet Tubman told through spirituals, will be showing at the Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley, on Saturday, Dec. 6, at 7 p.m. and on Sunday, Dec. 7, at 3 p.m. Instead of celebrating capitalism during the holidays, “Go Tell It!” is a way that we can remember our ancestors, how far we have come as a people, as well as the leaders, the tactics and the situations that got us here. “Go Tell It!” makes you want to learn more about your ancestors’ history, no matter who you are.

Beyond #BoycottBlackFriday, Invest in Justice #InvestInJustUs

The call to action here is to, while outraged, spend some time and energy focusing on what we have, who stands for us, who needs our help. So YES to #BoycottBlackFriday and yes to #InvestInJustUs. Let’s acknowledge and support our justice-seeking institutions who labor to defend us 365 days a year.

Thanksgiving and Ferguson: Mixed generation Black immigrant family’s holiday meal

As thanksgiving approaches, many of us are receiving messages that reflect on what we should be thankful for. Coming on the heels of the grand jury decision on Michael Brown, it is obvious some of us may not be feeling particularly blessed and thankful, living in a system that threatens our boys – our lives. Like all families across this nation that mix generations of American kids with immigrant parents and grandparents, the story is mixed and at times complicated.

SF Public Defender calls refusal to indict Ferguson killer cop legal, ethical racial bias

Wilson’s description of Brown as a “demon” with superhuman strength and unremitting rage and his description of the neighborhood as “hostile” illustrate implicit racial bias that taints use-of-force decisions. These biases surely contribute to the fact that African Americans are 21 times more likely to be shot by police than whites in the U.S., but the statement’s racial implications remained unexamined.

Who torched Michael Brown Sr.’s church the day after his baptism?

The pastor said he doubted the same people who were raging on the other end of West Florissant had burned his church. Instead, he said, he suspected white supremacists who wanted to punish him for his support of the Brown family, who had just been baptized there.

Justice delayed and denied for eight years, Asa Sullivan’s family appeals federal court decision...

On Tuesday, June 6, 2006, around 8 p.m., an SFPD officer fatally shot Brother Asa as he crouched in an attic’s two-and-a-half-foot crawl space, hiding because he’d recently spent a short time in jail and was afraid of going back. According to press reports, officers were responding to a neighbor’s complaint of possible trespassers, yet Asa and his friend were there with the tenants’ permission.

Oakland International Film Festival is accepting submissions still

To all of the filmmakers in the community, the Oakland International Film Festival is accepting submissions until Jan. 30, so if you have something that you want for them to consider, read this article and get your work in. For all the cinema buffs, this festival is one of the premiere events in the Bay Area for you to get your cinematic fix; movies from all over the world from different genres will be screening April 2-5, 2015, at different theaters around the East Bay.

Rwandan witness to Habyarimana assassination disappears

A Rwandan witness for a French court investigating the assassination of two African presidents, Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira, in 1994 has gone missing and is reported to have been kidnapped in Nairobi, Kenya. The witness, Emile Gafirita, is a former bodyguard to Rwandan President Paul Kagame. KPFA’s Ann Garrison has the story.

Angola 3: Robert King on the ongoing struggle to free Albert Woodfox

In Louisiana, a federal appeals court has affirmed a lower court’s ruling that overturned the murder conviction of Albert Woodfox, the last member of the Angola 3 still in prison. The Angola 3 are internationally recognized as political prisoners and symbols of a racist system of mass incarceration and solitary confinement. KPFA’s Ann Garrison spoke to Robert King, the other surviving Angola 3 member. Here’s that interview.

Let’s talk about Ferguson

I was born and raised in Missouri, so hopefully I can shed some light on how Ferguson, a little Missouri suburb of 21,000 people, became the focus of the nation, and even the world. I am getting the stench that they’re about to pull the pin on another grenade to throw that community into upheaval, so first let’s take a hard look at what they’ve been through and why. First of all, when we think of racism, we tend to think of Mississippi and Alabama due to the events of the ‘60s. However, Missouri was one of the bloodiest states during the Civil War because it was so divided – and it is still that divided today, as we’ve seen in Ferguson.

Salute to the Freeman Brothers! Last testament of Elder Freeman, a giant of a...

Here is the story of two legends who gave everything to their people for decades and continued to their last breaths. Salute to the Freeman brothers, Roland and Elder. Elder Freeman was a mentor and uncle-like community figure at whose feet I sat for half my life, learning from him and his comrades fundamental lessons: true African communalism and how to sincerely love Black people through action

Thespian Donald Lacy talks Gary Webb, cocaine and the play, ‘Superheroes’

Thespian Donald Lacy is one of the stars of the new play “Superheroes,” which starts today and runs through Dec. 21 at the Cutting Ball Theater. “Superheroes” looks at the cocaine era in U.S. history from the perspective of a series of people interlocked in the scheme, or the uncovering of it. Check out renaissance man Donald Lacy, the father, journalist, activist, comedian, thespian and so much more as he speaks on Gary Webb and “Superheroes” ...

The overturned conviction of the Angola 3’s Albert Woodfox is upheld in a unanimous...

The International Coalition to Free the Angola 3 declared today: “This is THE moment those of us whose lives have been touched by these men and this case over the years have been waiting for. This is the time when we must call upon the whole of our connections, creativity and courage to call with one voice for the immediate, unequivocal release of Albert Woodfox from prison once and for all without delay.”

A silence that speaks: Ayotzinapa, the Zapatistas and the politics of listening

The disappearance of 43 students from a rural school in Ayotzinapa, Mexico, dedicated to training teachers that are mostly from indigenous communities has sparked outrage and solidarity throughout Mexico and the world. These horrible acts of violence must be understood within the context of an increasingly vile and murderous narco state.