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2016 March

Monthly Archives: March 2016

My take on ‘The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution’

The film by producer Stanley Nelson, entitled “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution,” is a well-produced documentary with a specific focus. Nelson makes good use of footage of actual events and music from the era to serve as both a background and accompaniment for the main ingredient of this film – comments from a number of former Black Panther Party members, featuring mainly some of the so-called “rank and file” members.

NALC Rally Call

New Afrikan Liberation Collective is a revolutionary political organization aimed at winning the consciousness of the people. Our objective is to agitate, educate and organize our people around the necessity to fight and overthrow the oppressive forces and establishment that continue to work against us and hold us down – the oppressive forces being white supremacy and the establishment being the power structure, based on the economic infrastructure.

Dr. Raymond Tompkins: How and why does pollution poison Bayview Hunters Point? Part 1

Although Bayview Hunters Point is one of the most beautiful Black communities in California, it is also one of the most toxic places in the country due to the radiation experiments that took place on the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in the ‘40s and many other generators of deadly toxins, most of them government owned. Dr. Ray Tompkins, a historian and a scientific expert on the pollution in Bayview Hunters Point, gives an in-depth interview. Check him out in his own words.

Petition on abuse in Virginia prisons

We are demanding that our rights be respected, protected and adhered to. These demands are not abstract or hyperbolized, nor are they privileges disguised as rights. Privileges are earned, and rights are guaranteed via law, policies and/or the Constitution. In every section of this petition, I have cited law, policy and the U.S. Constitution that governs what prisoners are guaranteed.

Ward’s Oracle: The return and the triumph

The final boxing scores were not even close. On March 26, 2016, Andre “Son Of God” Ward unanimously defeated Sullivan Barrera 119-109, 117-109, 117-108 – his debut into the light heavyweight realm of boxing an unqualified success. Oakland’s legendary Oracle Arena didn’t need a seer to predict that in point of fact, Sullivan Barrera should thank the universe that Andre Ward didn’t knock him out in the first round.

10 easy steps to understanding the protests in Brazil from the bottom up

To really appreciate the untold factors boiling just beneath the surface of the current wave of protests, one must understand that Brazil is a rich nation filled with poor Black and Brown people. Rarely are they seen at the protests demanding the impeachment of President Rousseff and besmirching the image of ex-President Lula. How does the country’s mainstay allure, racial democracy, deflect and misinform us about the current wave of protests against the only aspect of Brazilian life that is truly democratic – political corruption?

I shed a tear

Old friends passing ... I shed a tear ... Remembering ... Their smiling and laughing ... Educating me ... And making me feel loved ... I shed a tear ... ‘Cause now ... I feel as if I’m all alone ... I shed a tear ... DeAndre Williams went to trial in 1997 as a result of a six-count indictment. He was acquitted on all six counts. Normally, any defendant acquitted on every count of an indictment would walk out of the courtroom a free man. Not Williams. He was sentenced to 25 to life and remains in prison in New York.

Keep the St. John Coltrane Church in San Francisco

The Saint John Coltrane Church is a historical fixture in the San Francisco Black community and a direct descendant of the work of the late great Marcus Mosiah Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association. One reason the Coltrane Church is important is that it defines for itself who are the saints that are worthy of our praise, instead of basing its doctrine on the philosophy and understanding of god that came out of the Council of Nicea.

Women do the choosing: Why do they give up their power to boys masquerading...

This is the question that was posed to me recently at the 40th anniversary of the Bay View celebration held in San Francisco. On two separate occasions, women cited poor choices on the part of women as a serious contributor to the erosion of the family structure. Neither of them had any sympathy for women who select men they know from the outset do not measure up as potential fathers or, for that matter, even good friends.

Pride of consciousness

Although we remain conscious of past events described, ... Justice postponed even a second is still justice denied. ... Like the rivers of the Nile, Black blood is constantly flowing ... And it pains me greatly to realize how many of us are still not knowing. ... It is also beautiful to witness my hero Sekou Odinga finally free ... After 33 years in the belly of such an insatiable beast. ... To see him finally liberated physically brings hope to me.

Bernie Sanders speaks to Cleveland’s Black community at Olivet Baptist Church

The Community Coalition Concerned for Black Life convened a town hall-style meeting with Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at the historic Olivet Institutional Baptist Church on Cleveland’s majority Black east side on Saturday, March 5. Organizers said that the overall purpose of the meeting at Olivet was to discuss issues affecting the Black community and how Sanders would address such issues if ultimately elected president.

America, we have a problem: Homelessness is out of control

It’s hard to imagine that the country that controls so much nuclear firepower and drops so many bombs every day is unwilling to educate its children and house its own people. As much as I would like to see zero poverty in the United States, I know that the political will for such policies is just not there today. This, despite the efforts of thousands of people just like me all over the country to alleviate the unnecessary suffering of the poor in the U.S.

Young prisoner speaks on Yogi’s assassination and bridging the generation gap

It just gets my blood boiling what the Klansmen did to brother Hugo. I don’t expect anything different from them. When they see they can’t break you, they kill you. From George Jackson to Stanley Tookie Williams and now Hugo “Yogi Bear” Pinell, whenever you’re not asleep, whenever you’re awake and aware to who these people are and what they are out to do and doing, then you’ve got to go.

How Bayview businesses are getting a big boon and its residents could be the...

The overwhelming challenges faced by Black businesses were probably not on the minds of the 30 speakers, all white, at the Silicon Valley crowdfunding conference, but equity crowdfunding may prove to be a way to bring Black businesses roaring back – to once again anchor and stabilize Black communities and make them thrive. Crowdfunding under Title III will become a reality. Companies must wait until May 16, 2016, to begin raising money under Title III.

Pennsylvania’s torture chamber for juveniles

I am a 19-year-old Black male from Pittsburg, Penn. This is my first time being in a state prison. I was shot by a white male police officer in the leg and hip. I was falsely accused of a crime when I was minding my own business. I’ve been in prison a few months now for a two-year term. I was sent to the only jail in the state that specifically holds juveniles, called SCI Pine Grove. SCI Pine Grove is where they brainwash and dehumanize mainly Black children.

Black and Brown unity against police impunity

San Francisco’s Black and Latino/a communities came together March 18 on the steps of City Hall to launch a united campaign to end police impunity in the officer-involved murders of Mario Woods, Alex Nieto and Amilcar Pérez López. The new Black and Brown United Coalition coalesced after the shocking March 10 exoneration of police in a federal civil trial in the killing of Alex Nieto, 28, by a jury on which no Blacks or Latinas or Latinos had been selected to serve.

Are you interested in a career in transit? BART offers fully paid training

BART Transit Career Ladders Training (TCLT) Program The program focuses on training in the electronics and electrical area and specifically targets training for BART job classifications...

Exposing the Libyan agenda: a closer look at Hillary’s emails

The brief visit of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Libya in October 2011 was referred to by the media as a “victory lap.” “We came, we saw, he died!” she crowed in a CBS video interview on hearing of the capture and brutal murder of Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi. But the victory lap, write Scott Shane and Jo Becker in the New York Times, was premature. Libya was relegated to the back burner by the State Department.

Prisoners file federal lawsuit to end prison slavery in Texas

On March 7, 2016, U.S. Magistrate Judge John D. Love issued an order in the federal civil lawsuit brought by 89 prisoners housed at the Coffield Unit located in Tennessee Colony, Texas. The lawsuit challenges the fraudulent good time and work time credit scheme the state uses to defraud prisoners of their “work product” and exploit them in order to enrich the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, as well as their slave industries known as TCI, or Texas Correctional Industries.

Hillary Clinton’s dark drug war legacy in Mexico

Mexico, John M. Ackerman wrote recently for Foreign Policy, “is not a functional democracy.” Instead, it’s a “repressive and corrupt” oligarchy propped up by a “blank check” from Washington. Since 2008, that blank check has come to over $2.5 billion appropriated in security aid through the Mérida Initiative. Clinton’s State Department overlooked human rights abuses and corruption while keeping a lucrative flow of contracts moving to U.S. security firms working in Mexico.