Monthly Archives: November 2015

I’m used to reading about and advocating for adults with disabilities, but today our Black and Brown youth with disabilities are increasingly targeted for police brutality and incarceration. Everybody cares about kids, so when will disabled and Black community activists focus more on stopping state violence against youth with disabilities and providing programs after the tragedy?

In Rwanda and Burundi, the massacres of the last 20 years have followed the assassination of Hutu presidents. First, the assassination of Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye in Burundi in 1993, then the assassination of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira in 1994. Now insurgents in Burundi claim to have fired mortar rounds on the Burundian president’s residence in Bujumbura, the country’s capital.

Hooded gangs attacked a large demonstration against election fraud today in the Haitian capital. Haitians, determined to thwart what they see as an ongoing “electoral coup d’état,” have been in the streets almost daily in their tens of thousands since the Oct. 25 first round presidential elections. There were huge demonstrations, punctuated by police firing into the crowd, wounding several, on Nov. 18. On Nov. 1, a big election protest in the Bel Air popular district, led by a Rara band, was attacked and two marchers shot dead; later that day a third protester was ambushed and killed on the way home.

It is clear that Ricky Davis never had a chance of receiving fairness in a toxic judicial environment. The Ricky Davis affair is just one of the little known travesties that has arisen as a result of Hurricane Katrina. In Louisiana, a life sentence means you die in prison. Mr. Davis’ act of heroism has turned him into a victim of an arbitrary racially motivated legal lynching. If Black Lives Matter, it’s hard to tell down here in Louisiana.

The light from their eyes was missing; in its place was the color of fear. This was the scene at City Hall last week as the people stood up to behemoth developer Forest City, about to build multiple luxury condominium towers and office buildings that will span almost an entire city block in San Francisco’s long-time Filipino community, effectively wiping out the last shred of this working class community of color.

One of the most important conferences hosted in Oakland over this past year for the Black community has been the Black Urban Growers Conference. With several hundred people attending, there seems to be a lot of interest surrounding one of the most fundamental things that human beings do: grow food to eat. I talked with Kevin Cartwright, who worked with the organizing committee to make this conference happen about his thoughts on the gathering.

The Canadian Globe and Mail reports that the United States has warned former Rwandan military officer Robert Higiro that his life is in danger because of evidence he gave to The Globe and Mail, to the BBC and to a U.S. House Subcommittee about the Rwandan government’s alleged efforts to assassinate dissidents who had fled abroad. KPFA’s Ann Garrison has the story.

Before I drew closer to the wide steps of the church, I realized my mistake – it was not empty at all. Three lines of people stood waiting to enter the doors to hear what Alicia Garza had to say. That evening she would be receiving the Robert Coles “Call of Service” Award. The Coles Award is certainly prestigious, if for no other reason than that Harvard’s famous Dr. Robert Coles is known to set the bar very high to encourage others to follow his example.

Dr. Léopold Munyakazi is a Rwandan intellectual and former Goucher College French professor who expected to be deported from the U.S. to Rwanda on Friday, Nov. 13, 2015. His attorney, Ofelia L. Calderón, had filed legal papers requesting a stay until his appeal could be heard in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, but the stay had been denied and his wife had been told to deliver a suitcase of no more than 40 pounds to the jail by 4 p.m. on Friday.

On Tuesday, Nov. 17, members of the No SF Jail Coalition mobilized against a controversial jail construction plan at the Board of Supervisors meeting, where legislation regarding the plan was introduced. The continuing pressure and testimony from community groups has compelled the board to seriously consider the harmful impacts of imprisonment on marginalized communities in San Francisco and to question whether a new jail is even necessary.

Urgency to end mass incarceration and the criminalization of poor people and people of color is growing. The general public’s awareness that it simply does not make sense to lock up people with substance abuse or mental health issues is setting the stage for important reforms to our justice system. With this understanding, California voters passed Proposition 47 “The Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act.”

The Block Report speaks wit’ Ohio death row political prisoner Bomani Shakur (Keith LaMar) about the Lucasville Rebellion, the recent hunger strike that he came off of, the state of Ohio planning to set his execution date and more. Tune in for more at BlockReportRadio.com. The Justice for Keith LaMar Campaign is asking you to join the fight to #FREEKeithLaMar. We must call for freedom not death.

Internationally renowned political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal has just published a brilliant 15-page pamphlet about the challenge of the period we’re living in in this country. “To Protect and Serve Who?” is truly a handbook discussing the roots and history of the police in this country, a class and historical analysis of who the police are, and finally a strategy for transforming the role and definition of the police and their power relationships with the people.

Covered California is in the third year of helping millions of Californians gain health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Still, hundreds of thousands of Californians don’t have insurance – many of whom are African-Americans. With that in mind, Covered California has launched a new marketing and outreach effort to boost African-American enrollment, emphasizing financial assistance available to help consumers pay for insurance coverage.

A heavy and cruel hand has been laid upon me. On Oct. 6, 2015, I was transferred back to Marquette Branch Prison, a two-day ride on the bus, shackled, mistreated and intimidated. I was forced to strip on five different occasions. I am forced into overcrowding, inadequate exercise, lack of clean clothing and inadequate medical care which violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

With everything that has been going on lately in my life, I am just realizing that my picture is on every major news outlet that I can think of. Yes, that is me that you see in the many pictures floating around the internet with world renowned movie director Quentin Tarantino, holding a banner of my loved one. But what you may not know is the story behind why I was marching that day in New York and why I continue to fight for justice for Mario Romero.

On Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 12 and 13, Mbongui Square Festival will be celebrating art and community through dance with over two dozen dancers and choreographers showing off their moves. We caught up with choreographer Byb Bibene of the Kiandanda Dance Theater Company to fill us in on what will be going on at the Mbongui Square Festival, as well as his history with dance and more.

The images we see in the Western media of Africa and Africans show an Africa that is always on its knees, begging for aid, where there is nothing but wildlife and poverty. This myopic view needs to be changed so that Africa can take its deserved seat at the global table of economics and politics as equal partners. The Silicon Valley African Film Festival, from film screenings to food, entertainment, African marketplace, dialogue with filmmakers, Innovate Africa Technology forum, etc., is guaranteed is leave audiences with a deeper appreciation of Africa and Africans.

Will the recent election results in Canada have an effect on the other side of the Atlantic? Canada is the world’s mining superpower and its mining corporations are aggressively engaged on the African continent, which contains much of the world’s remaining mineral wealth. KPFA’s Ann Garrison spoke to Yves Engler, the author of “Canada in Africa: 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation.”

The Fantastic Travelling Film Circus speaks with rapper and executive producer of “Sweet Micky for President” Pras Michel, founder of the Fugees, about his new movie on how he helped to inspire Haitian singer Michel Martelly to run for president of the world’s first Black republic, Haiti. We discuss Pras’ bandmate Wyclef entering the race, Aristide, the earthquake, the Clintons, Sean Penn and much more.