Yearly Archives: 2016

Cannon Ball, N.D. – Hundreds of water protectors were injured at the Standing Rock encampments when law enforcement blasted them with water cannons in freezing temperatures Sunday evening, Nov. 20. The attacks came as water protectors used a semi-truck to remove burnt military vehicles that police had chained to concrete barriers weeks ago, blocking traffic on Highway 1806. LaDonna Allard, director of the Sacred Stone Camp, says: “We are asking for clean water, for the right to live. Instead they attack us, because they protect oil.”

On Nov. 10, 2016, the state of Texas transferred me and 43 other men to the Administrative Segregation Unit at the Eastham Unit in Lovelady, Texas. Eastham is one of the oldest units in the state. The conditions there are much worse than at the Telford Unit. The most glaring issue for prisoners and guards alike is contaminated drinking water! High levels of copper and lead have been found in the water supply. The water has a horrible stench to it. And the taste? absolutely repulsive!

If you care about everything from civil and human rights to economic justice and climate survival, Trump’s impending presidency is terrifying – but the amount of wreckage he can cause depends in part on how people respond. Already, a Dump Trump rebellion is rising up in the streets and online; it’s also worth remembering Trump lost the popular vote, the Senate is close to tied and not filibuster-proof, and things have a way of see-sawing in American politics.

Tell me, what does it mean when a white adjudicator is unmoved by the racism, oppression and police terror that Black folks in this country are subjected to but becomes unhinged when a Black man decides to demonstrate in opposition to it. Again, what does it mean? That “white adjudicator” just so happens to be United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As for that Black man, he is no other than San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepemick.

It is a hobby that began almost 50 years ago. Now, decades later, Albert Feldstein has the desire to preserve this history and share his button collection with others in a purposeful manner, the result being a new and unique poster entitled, “A Black History of America in 110 Buttons: The Events, The Issues, The Organizations, The People.” The goal of Feldstein’s poster is to recall the historic people and events which characterize African-American history. For some, it will rekindle memories – while for younger generations it will provide an impetus for research and a greater appreciation of past struggles.

While much attention has rightly been paid to those who are courageously protecting water resources and sacred land on North Dakota’s Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, few mainstream commentators have situated Standing Rock as part of a larger political struggle for self-determination and survival. Linking the politics surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline project to Flint, Michigan’s lead-poisoning crisis is critical for understanding how race and class informs presumed social risk, vulnerability to premature death and access to democratic decision-making.

Thursday, Nov. 10, Nate Parker visited historic McClymonds High School for a screening of his film, “Birth of a Nation” (2016). His visit and the screening were a part of Supervisor Keith Carsen’s Community Empowerment Forums which, hosted that evening by Elaine Brown, former Black Panther Party chair, are to create spaces for public discourse and problem solving. In this case, the topic was the importance of knowing one’s history.

While Barack Obama speaks without blushing about the virtues of the North American “democracy” and lectures us on human rights, an innocent man languishes in his cell, totally isolated, awaiting only death or for what the U.S. president alone can, but does not, do. Leonard Peltier, Anishinabe-Lakota, a leader of the American Indian Movement, AIM, writer and poet, has just completed 40 years in prison, and is one of the political prisoners jailed for the longest time in the whole planet.

You say / she killed him. / Not because / he’d put his hands up / or because / he’d turned / and walked away / or because / his car broke down. / She killed him / after / we’d trained her / in lethal violence / after / we’d given her / a gun and a badge / both loaded / with expectation / after / we’d trained her / to see him / not / as a stranded motorist / but / as a Black man / aka a threat.

Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., LLC, one of the nation’s top-ranked investment bond firms and the largest African-American, Latino and woman-owned investment bank, announced its newest equity partner, Gary Hall, who serves as the firm’s head of investment banking. Mr. Hall, based in the firm’s West Coast headquarters in Oakland, becomes the sixth equity partner.

In a Friday interview with The Wall Street Journal, Donald Trump repeated his campaign criticism of U.S. wars in the Middle East and said that he would focus on defeating the Islamic State in Syria and finding common ground with the Syrians and their Russian backers. Both the politics and the material interests of Trump’s top national security advisor, James Woolsey, however, seem counter to Trump’s anti-interventionist stance regarding Syria.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera declared that the state’s current bail system is unconstitutional, and, in a court filing, Herrera said he will not defend the bail system in a federal class-action lawsuit brought by a national civil rights group against San Francisco’s sheriff. “This two-tiered system of pretrial justice does not serve the interests of the government or the public and unfairly discriminates against the poor,” Herrera told the court.

City leaders announced the “New Oakland” as if to say it was no longer a “Black city.” As Oakland became more attractive to outsiders, housing costs rose and more African Americans were displaced. Oakland was voted one of the country’s “coolest cities,” but today, Oakland’s homeless people have been displaced into visible encampments located throughout the gentrified areas. They are mainly African Americans displaced by the city’s gentrification.

Yolanda’s Construction Administration and Traffic Control, Inc., was given a proclamation honoring YCAT-C as “Small Business of the Year” at a special ceremony, Thursday, Oct. 27, at YCAT-C’s Bayview Hunters Point headquarters in San Francisco’s Industrial Park. Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, honored YCAT-C’s CEO Yolanda Jones with a special proclamation, in recognition of her achievements and commitment to hiring locally.

I didn’t see this coming. The words I never thought I’d say, “President Trump,” have become reality. In a remarkable campaign, full of bile, hatred, fear and loathing, guess what? Fear won. Today, a new, dark day dawns in America, as a curtain falls over the Obama presidency, and with it, the last vestiges of Clintonism.

This country was stolen by hate-filled, manipulative wealth-hoarding colonizers like Trump who raped, abused and murdered first peoples of this land and bought, sold, raped and killed other humans for free labor. Trump is already here. He has been here for 525 years. So realize the work we are all doing is that much more serious now and we all need to stay strong and continue the badass organizing work we are already doing.

We DEMAND that San Francisco District Attorney Gascón perform the duties of his office and charge the San Francisco police officers in the shooting death of Mario Woods, Jessica Nelson-Williams and other victims of deadly police violence. We DEMAND that San Francisco District Attorney Gascón bring forth murder charges against the San Francisco police officers who were involved in the shooting death of Black and Brown citizens of San Francisco. We DEMAND a response from the DA – to whom we have recently reiterated our position in a formal letter – by Nov. 15, 2016.

by Ann Garrison Ann Garrison: Earlier this year, you told me that you differ with Noam Chomsky, your co-author of “Manufacturing Consent” and other books,...

Multiple Bay Area cities have been slapped with multi-million dollar claims for the abuse that took place in their back yards. Jasmine Abuslin, formerly known as Celeste Guap, has come back swinging with a fusillade of abuse, neglect and modern day sex slavery claims against Bay Area police officers. Officers from several Bay Area cities have been charged with sexual misconduct, but most are retired. What about those still actively patrolling the streets and victimizing young girls?

Video footage from the police cruiser where Black Lives Matter protester Tynan Krakoff was taken into custody is raising questions about Columbus police tactics and why he was targeted for arrest. Krakoff is a lead organizer in the Columbus chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice, a national organization of white people who fight against racial injustice. He returned to Columbus, Ohio, his home town, last year after years of activism in the Bay Area.