Monthly Archives: January 2017

Just a few hours ago, I placed a call to my civil lawyer, Bret Grote of the Pittsburg-based Abolitionist Law Center. I could hear the excitement in his voice. “Did you hear the news yet?” he asked. I hadn’t. Then he told me that U.S. District Judge Robert Mariani granted our motion for a preliminary injunction, ordering heath care staff on the DOC’s Hepatitis Care Committee to cease their unconstitutional protocol in my case and to begin treatment of my hepatitis infection with direct-acting antiviral medications.

In pouring down rain, city officials started clearing “Box City” at 7 a.m. this morning. City workers threw belongings into dumpsters and crushed previously occupied boxes. The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness released best practice guidelines for municipalities recommending that individuals in encampments should have access to housing before they are removed from said areas and, if no such housing exists, to provide temporary shelter that leads to housing. San Francisco is violating those guidelines.

The people who organized the country’s biggest prison strike against what they call modern-day slavery have planned their next target: corporate food service giant Aramark. The $8.65 billion company is one of the country’s largest employers and serves food to more than 100 million people a year. It also provides meals for more than 500 correctional facilities across the country and has been the subject of complaints about maggots and rocks, sexual harassment, drug trafficking and other employee misconduct.

In a huge victory for the voters and renters of Richmond, earlier today Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Judith S. Craddick rejected a temporary restraining order (TRO), sought by the California Apartment Association (CAA) to block rent control and just cause eviction protections passed by the voters on Nov. 8, 2016. The City Attorney’s Office in Richmond mounted an effective defense against the TRO, and it was rejected at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, Jan 6.

The end of the unipolar, U.S.-led global order is most dramatically signified by the U.S. loss of its proxy war with Russia in Syria. For the past year and a half, a much quieter struggle has been playing out in the tiny East African nation of Burundi. The U.S. and E.U. nations have repeatedly demanded that Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza step down, but Russia and China have stood up for Burundi, as for Syria, on the U.N. Security Council. Despite its small size, Burundi is, like Syria, very geostrategically situated.

This holiday season, many are wondering what we can possibly do to get involved and create real change in our communities. One way to make a difference at the local level is to become a volunteer in public schools, especially schools that are under-resourced and can really use the support. Anyone who has stepped inside a school knows teachers and principals simply cannot do it alone. It takes a whole team of caring adults to educate a child.

The late Eldridge Cleaver, minister of information of the Black Panther Party, once said that when fascism comes to America, it won’t need a swastika; it’ll be singing Yankee Doodle Dandy – and waving American flags. Welcome to the New Fascism – unleashed will be the most racist, vicious and nationalist forces in the country. That’s what “America First” really means. (Guess who’s last?) “New Fascism” – also known as Trumpism.

In 1908, Estella Washington was born to Eli and Ellie Bendy in Texas. Later, she joined her family in California, where she worked at the Post Office and taught special needs children in the San Francisco public schools. Estella was a devout Christian. On Nov. 19, 2016, Estella Washington departed this life surrounded by family in the arms of her loving granddaughter. She went peacefully and did not suffer.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Ben Carson as the next secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and, former disgraced HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson supports and vouches for Ben Carson to take his old job, according to the Dallas Morning News. Having Jackson endorse Carson is troubling. In May 2004, as secretary of HUD, Alphonso Jackson made headlines across the nation when he stated “being poor is a state of mind, not a condition.”

Uppity Edutainment presents “Out of Darkness,” a full length three-part documentary, on Saturday, Jan. 14, at Oakstop, 1721 Broadway in downtown Oakland. The director, Amadeuz Christ (Δ+), an Oakland native now living in Atlanta, will be present, with Sabir Bey of the Sabir Bey Show, to discuss the content of the film. The post-film screening dialogue will be facilitated by Rahme’el Bey.

We are freedom fighters incarcerated at Angola State Prison and are moving to build our organization Decarcerate Louisiana. We’re advocating for community reinvestment. We believe in sustainable economies and strong local communities. Decarcerate Louisiana is organizing to redress injustice and to battle against systemic racism, classism, inequality, oppression, repression, criminalization and mass incarceration in our communities.

BOBSA founder Sam Ennon, who was invited to China this past October by the Chinese government and their hair manufacturers, has found a way to change the odds for Black hair-care store owners. After making the first Black business agreement with the Chinese government and manufacturers of hair, he announced: “We have created an alliance named Enterprise of Black Hair Alliance (EBHA) to change the distribution of hair in the U.S.”

Community members and public officials gathered Saturday morning, Dec. 3, to celebrate the completion of a $6.9 million renovation of Bayview’s Hilltop Park, which neighbors the Westbrook public housing complex. The project, managed by Rec & Parks, was primarily funded by the statewide Park Development and Community Revitalization Act of 2008, which set aside $368 million to improve parks and recreation facilities in underserved communities throughout California.

2017 marks the centennial of the nation’s bloodiest race riot in the 20th century in East St. Louis, Illinois. Migrant Black people were hired to work as miners to replace striking white workers at the Aluminum Ore Co. The white workers stormed City Hall demanding redress from the mayor. Shortly thereafter, news of an attempted robbery of a white man by an armed Black man set off the reign of terror in downtown East St. Louis in which unarmed Black men, women and children were pulled from trollies and street cars and beaten and shot down in the street.

We write to ask your assistance in securing compassionate release from prison for an elderly, disabled prisoner in poor health. Richard (Mafundi) Lake is serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole in an Alabama state prison – the mandatory term under the state’s “three strikes and you’re out” policy. Now 76, Mafundi is in poor health in an overcrowded prison that is inadequately heated during the cold weather and without air conditioning in the stifling Alabama summers.

James Curtis Ratcliff was born on April 29, 1934, in East Liberty in “Deep East” Texas, a community of farmers and ranchers founded over 200 years ago by ancestors of the Ratcliffs and several other families, who still live there. For more than 50 years, he was a driver for Sunset Scavenger and then went to work for his brother, Dr. Willie Ratcliff, who had a contract with Alyeska Pipeline Co. James made his transition on Nov. 30, 2016, after a long illness. He will be greatly missed but never forgotten.

In September, prisoners across the country launched a nationwide strike to demand better working conditions at the numerous facilities that employ inmate labor for little or no pay. Inmates in America’s state prisons – who make everything from license plates to college diploma covers – are not only excluded from the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on slave labor, but also exist largely outside the reach of federal safety regulations meant to ensure that Americans are not injured or killed on the job.

A Mario Woods candlelight vigil in the Bayview commemorated his death a year ago at the hands of San Francisco police on Dec. 2, 2015. The community response made headlines all year. A group of community members supported by the Justice For Mario Woods Coalition and Mario’s mother, Gwen Woods, kicked off the ceremony at Martin Luther King Park in Bayview on Third Street between Armstrong and Carroll at 3:30 p.m.