Yearly Archives: 2014

Thespian, comedian, humanitarian, radio broadcaster and father would all be words to describe this Bay Area renaissance man who has been putting his stamp on Oakland and the Bay Area’s culture for decades. Donald Lacy will be performing his world renowned play, “Color Struck,” on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 3 and 4, at Laney College, 900 Fallon St., at 8 p.m. Check out this Oakland legend as he speaks to us about his history and thoughts.

President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, is organizing what he calls Rwanda Day in the city of Atlanta. The United States, which takes pride in its democratic history, and the City of Atlanta, which played such a proud role in the American Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, cannot want to appear to the world as supporters of dictatorship and mass murder, but allowing Paul Kagame to organize “Rwanda Day” in Atlanta tells the world that they are.

From the moment the doors opened on the evening of Sept. 13, it was apparent that the honoring of our global African media would begin its night of empowerment with the tradition of honoring one of the community’s foremost elders. We celebrated the 82 years of life and struggle of Dr. Willie Ratcliff and Dr. Ratcliff’s 22 years of Black media ownership of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper. Black Media Appreciation Night 2014 was filled with wisdom, communication and the exchange of knowledge, as well as people receiving awards for life changing, revolutionary work.

The graphic work of Myron Potier dominated the Oakland rap scene in the ‘90s after he worked on the album cover of Askari X’s classic “Message to the Black Man” and Seagram’s legendary album “Reality Check.” Today, Myron draws and designs mostly out of his apartment in the San Antonio-Fruitvale District of East Oakland, not far from where he grew up in the streets of Oakland. Check out one of Oakland’s unsung humble heroes in his own words.

We, the undersigned members of the Black Women’s Roundtable, are writing to request an emergency meeting with you to share our deep concern and outrage about the plethora of domestic violence cases that has been exposed involving current and past players that are a part of the National Football League. In addition, we would like to discuss your recent decision to establish an advisory group of women to assist you in developing new policies to eradicate domestic violence within the NFL and other diversity issues within the NFL.

The instant that the call on whether to prosecute Brown’s killer, Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, would be made by the hard-nosed St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCullough, who has a well-worn record of refusal to prosecute any officers who have been involved in dubious, even outrageous killings of mostly unarmed Black suspects, the screams were loud for a special prosecutor.

On Aug. 21, Haitian police wearing black masks and carrying heavy arms appeared in front of the home of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide as a Haitian judge issued calls to arrest him. Hundreds of people courageously surrounded the house to protect him. One week before, President Aristide was summoned to court on false corruption charges. On Sept. 10, he was placed on house arrest and barred from leaving the country.

They call themselves a “circle of fathers,” a group made up of people who know first-hand what Michael Brown’s family is experiencing. The young man’s shooting death by a Ferguson police officer has brought them together – again. The “circle of fathers” hopes some powerful new, young leaders will be formed by these experiences. From the activity on the streets around the country and online, I believe that’s already happening.

The internet has made it easier to book and search for airfares, but unless you have the time and the expertise to conduct extensive internet fare searches, it’s become harder to find the cheapest fares available online. Google has come to the aid of fliers looking for the best air deals. Google’s new website app Google Flights (google.com/flights) gives travelers a one-stop option to quickly search for the best fares and flight options.

When Dr. Samuel Cartwright coined the term “drapetomania” in 1864, he advanced a historical agenda to secure Black subjugation in America. The logic underlying the continuation and funding of the mass incarceration of the disproportionately Black mentally ill and Dr. Cartwright’s medical breakthroughs is the same: Black people’s mental health cannot be achieved, so society has to maintain extreme and inhumane restrictions on their freedom.

Supporters of Michael Brown plan to march on I-70 Wednesday, shutting down the highway, to protest St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s failure to appoint a special prosecutor in the case. “I want to thank the youth leadership that has come to the forefront,” said attorney Eric Vickers. “Our obligation is to support them, to use our experience in civil disobedience to help bring forward their desire to change the system.”

In 2006, Ariane divorced her husband, who, before and during their marriage, had racked up over $74,000 in tax debt to the IRS. After their divorce, her ex-husband’s whereabouts became completely unknown, so the IRS went after her for the entire debt. She brought her case to Jeff, one of BHP Community Legal’s staff attorneys. In January 2014, Ariane received a court judgment legally freeing her from her ex-husband’s tax debt.

This month, I’m challenging all fathers of school age children to visit their classrooms at least one time during the school year. There is nothing that makes a child feel more appreciated and proud than having a parent come to school for positive reasons. Moms usually fill this role; let’s change that up this year. You don’t need any special skills, and most teachers will welcome you with open arms.

The November election pits a grassroots initiative protecting Golden Gate Park against a SF Recreation and Park Department park power grab. The Rec. and Park Department has been pushing to demolish the natural grass fields at the Beach Chalet soccer fields in western Golden Gate Park to make way for a seven-acre artificial-turf soccer field containing toxic tire waste and 150,000 watts of stadium lighting on 60-foot-tall poles.

Gingi Allen is a doula in the Bay Area, an expert in the science and art of becoming a mother. For all of the people who want to consider new ways of looking at giving birth other than your ordinary hospital, this is a woman who can help you. I wanted to sit down with her to talk about this very important subject that really doesn’t get enough attention. Check her out in her own words.

I spent a week in Harlem for the Centennial Celebration of the Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association-African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), an organization that looked at Africans separated through the institutions of slavery and colonialism, both global systems of exploitation of people, goods and environments.

Every two years, Block Report Radio and the SF Bay View newspaper get together to sponsor Black Media Appreciation Night, a night when we honor the very best in Black media from around the Bay Area. BMAN 2014 is Saturday, Sept. 13, 7 p.m., at the African American Art and Culture Complex (AAACC), 762 Fulton, San Francisco. Tickets at EventBrite (click the banner above). Headliners are pianist Kev Choice, comedian Donald E. Lacy, and Phavia Kujichagulia and Ma'at. Read on for the full list of honorees ... and more.

Often when citizens of this nation think of “state repression,” images of Egypt, North Korea, Apartheid Palestine or Nazi Germany immediately spring to mind. U.S. state controlled media has become practiced at flooding our airwaves and attitudes with images of violent retali­ation and systematic repression of dissent in other nations as a means to obfuscate the U.S. state’s engagement in identical activity in its own society.

I thought of my son who was at the Homefulness Revolutionary Youth Summer Camp and the soon to open DEECOLONIZE Academy school launching in September and felt so much gratitude for conscious programs and revolutionary schools like this. They exist so that our children can grow up aware with a revolutionary state of mind. The world needs what Homefulness is so graciously and unapologetically offering.

“Motown the Musical” is a wonderful story of a man’s ability to take a dream and, with the support of first his family and secondly his community – in this case, artists in Detroit, Michigan – see the vision through to its fruition. Berry Gordy Jr. decided to open his own music company, Motown, a company that put Black music on the map and provided the bridge between mainstream white America and the parallel nation Black people occupied, but not for long.