Yearly Archives: 2016

Sunday night, Sept. 18, 2016. As my “industry” colleagues attend Emmy parties and dress for the red carpet, I stand on the chilly docks of Ajaccio, Corsica, in the wee hours of the morning awaiting the arrival of a small sailboat called the Zaytouna-Oliva. What possessed me to travel 6,000 miles from L.A. and my family in order to brave the Mediterranean Sea in what is now beginning to look like the smallest vessel on the docks? Why join yet another effort to break the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza?

City College is the heart of San Francisco. Proposition W will allow us to re-grow our school to its full capacity and empower those who are most in need. In times like these, when the cost of living continues to rise, students shouldn’t be forced to choose between textbooks and food, or between tuition and rent. Join me this Nov. 8 in voting for Proposition W. Let’s make City College free again, and empower our school, our city and our community.

Dr. Léopold Munyakazi was deported to Rwanda early this morning. The linguist, scholar and former French professor at Goucher College was arrested shortly after giving several lectures at Northeastern University college campuses in which he said that the Rwandan war of the 1990s was a class conflict, not an ethnic conflict, and that it was therefore incorrectly characterized as genocide.

Back in the ‘60s, the founders of the Black nationalist Black Panther Party told white radicals asking to join the BPP to go found their own party. Thus, the White Panther Party was born. The WPP was generally viewed as a far lesser threat than the BPP to national security by various national and local police organizations in the United States. However, actions taken by members of the WPP, whether alleged or actual, did serve to expose the FBI’s widespread illegal wiretapping of the BPP’s phones.

The United States of America is presently home to 2 million active slaves and approximately 6 million document­ed as slaves for future use. You ask how the land of the free can be home to some 8 million slaves and why Americans know noth­ing about it? The answer is that Congress enacted the 13th Amendment in 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. It abolished slavery throughout the country but it al­lows all states to enslave all persons convicted of a crime.

In 1969 I decided to join the Black Panther Party and commit myself to a lifetime of revolutionary struggle. In the early 1990s I became a supporter and advocate of Fanmi Lavalas. Lavalas means a cleansing flood that would wash away political corruption and Fanmi means family. I saw the similarities in practice of our Panther and Lavalas activists, whose dedication to the liberation of our peoples and provision of essential goods and services were paramount and well worth any risk to our lives.

Nathaniel Mason Jr., nicknamed Red Bean and Sonny Boy, 87, died Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016, peacefully in his home in Oakland, after a brief illness. Throughout his life, Nathaniel worked as a school teacher, a postman, a sheriff for the City and County of San Francisco, a police officer for the City of San Francisco, and Head Start director for the City of San Francisco, to name a few. Nathaniel lived his life to the fullest and he did it his way! We will miss his caring, loving and strong personality.

The SF Bay View newspaper applauds the strength and integrity of state and federal regulators who have taken the ultimate stand in protecting the health and future of the Bayview Hunters Point community. In so doing you have joined the “Forest of Mighty Oaks” planted in Bayview Hunters Point who have stood in open defiance against the tyranny and onslaught of political corruption and for-profit development operating in San Francisco. But we hate to say we told you so ... for over 15 years!

As we honor the 75th birthday of our beloved Comrade George Jackson, field marshal of the Black Panther Party behind prison walls, may we remember his revolutionary ideas and practice, his mentors and his sacrifice. Author of two books, “Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson,” a 1970 bestseller reprinted three times and translated into several languages, and “Blood in My Eye,” published posthumously and recently reprinted.

On Sept. 13, Richmond Mayor Tom Butt and Councilmembers Nat Bates and Vinay Pimplé blocked a proposed 45-day “urgency” moratorium on rent increases and no-cause evictions. Before Mayor Tom Butt voted “no” to block the moratorium, he failed to disclose to the residents at the Sept. 13 City Council meeting that he has been accepting political contributions from the California Apartment Association, an organization representing the interests of landlords, not tenants.

Colin Kaepernick, Yusef Lateef, Willie Dixon --- Prelude: It’s nev-er, it’s nev-er, ever the time, --- It’s nev-er, it’s never, never, ever the way --- Never, ever time for free-dom fight-ing --- It’s al-ways, it’s al-ways, always the wrong way --- It’s al-ways, al-ways, al-ways wrong and unwise --- Al-ways wrong and un-wise, to fight for free-dom (REPEAT) --- The Chinese had a saying --- About single sparks igniting prairie fires --- #7’s that spark – for The Fire This Time …

William Shakespeare’s “Othello” rings with contemporary accuracy in the Marin Shakespeare Company’s production. Damieon Brown, who performed in Marin Shakespeare Company’s 2015 “Shakespeare at Solano” theater arts program at Solano State Prison, studied, pursued, auditioned and won the role of Othello, one of Shakespeare’s most complicated and enthralling characters. The show closes Sept. 25.

A few things we should all be thinking about: A young man named Justin Carr (his name was initially reported as Cantrell) was shot in the head Sept. 21, the second night’s demonstrations in Charlotte. The first accounts came from clergy and other eyewitnesses. This is what one of them penned on his Facebook page. “Been in Uptown Charlotte with the protesters since 7:30. It was peaceful. Then for some reason, riot cops showed up. And within 5 mins (no exaggeration) a dude lay bleeding on the ground. After the young man went down, it became chaos. The police started this though. Remember that. Don’t let the news lie to you. Don’t let CMPD lie.”

“We are determined to get justice for our children,” said Sala-Haquekyah Chandler as she and other mothers stood outside the San Francisco courthouse where the alleged murderer of her son and three other young African sons in a quadruple homicide Jan. 9, 2015, was being tried. Had it not been for the endless resistance, marching, speaking, praying and fighting on the part of the mothers and families of the four murdered boys, this case would not have gotten this far.

There is a well-documented history of the U.S. government supplying weapons and arms to both friends and foe for political purposes and for profit. In addition to publicly known global arms deals to U.S. political allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, revelations about the rise of ISIS indicate that U.S. arms and military trainees have been a critical factor in the rise of the terror group. With the recent rise of violence in Chicago involving over 3,000 shooting victims in 2016 so far, it appears that another case of U.S. sponsored gun-smuggling and intentional destruction of inner-city communities may be at play.

I have been asked to write a SOLIDARITY statement to everyone about the Camp of the Sacred Stones on Standing Rock. Thank you for this great honor. I must admit it is very difficult for me to even begin this statement, as my eyes get so blurred from tears and my heart swells with pride as chills run up and down my neck and back. I’m so proud of all of you young people and others there.

Since 1994, Rwanda and the international community invested tremendous resources in acknowledging, documenting, remembering and bringing to justice the perpetrators of the genocide against Tutsi. Sadly, though well documented by the international community and known by the victims, there has never been an acknowledgement that the crimes committed against the Rwandan Hutu fully satisfy the definition of genocide according to the Genocide Convention of 1948.

In a society where peaceful resistance is purported to be the correct method of protest, we must ask ourselves why these thousands of prisoners, engaging in peaceful methods of protest, are being retaliated against and punished in the most brutal and inhumane ways? The answer is simple. The actions of these courageous prisoners – however peaceful – are not constitutionally protected.

“A Brilliant Genocide” tells the story of the Acholi Genocide that President Yoweri Museveni and his army committed against the Acholi people during their 20-year war and occupation of the Acholi homeland in northern Uganda, from 1986 to 2006. Museveni waged that war in the name of fighting Kony and claimed to be protecting the Acholi, not destroying them. RT will air “A Brilliant Genocide” on Oct. 1.

The Green Party campaign for presidential candidate Jill Stein and vice presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka has completed its 2016 ballot access drive. Stein-Baraka will be on the ballot in 45 states, including Washington, D.C., and they will be official write-in candidates in three more states. Ballots cast for official write-in candidates are counted, whereas unofficial write-in ballots are not. KPFA’s Ann Garrison spoke to Rick Lass, ballot access coordinator for the Stein-Baraka campaign.