Monthly Archives: August 2017

Marcus Gardley’s “black odyssey,” currently on stage at Cal Shakes in Orinda, translates the Black Holocaust into modern language. Gardley takes an oral history, Homer’s Grecian hero’s tale, then ruptures and reinterprets it so the folks submerged in the waters of confusion gain clarity. Those ancestors at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean are resurrected in “Ulysses Lincoln” – a hero and a warrior.

Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick still doesn’t have a job with the NFL. However, the protest he began by kneeling during the national anthem at last season’s games keeps growing. A group of Black community leaders and pastors have announced an NFL “BlackOut” unless and until Colin Kaepernick is signed to play with an NFL team. They introduced their movement in a YouTube video.

“The responsibility of being the first in history to charge the government of the United States of America with the crime of genocide is not one the petitioners take lightly,” according to the primary document in the new edition of the book “We Charge Genocide,” published by New York City-based International Publishers. Released in February, the book’s title comes from the petition “We Charge Genocide: The Crime of the U.S. Government against the Negro People.”

Called by prisoners to give voice to their demand to strike the slavery clause from the 13th Amendment – making slavery legal “as a punishment for crime,” thus legally holding 2.3 million imprisoned Americans in slavery today – thousands turned out in as many as 16 cities in the middle of Black August, on Aug. 19, 2017, to abolish slavery and end mass incarceration. In San José, about 200 marched to the county jail for a rally with powerful speakers who saluted the prisoners and inspired the crowd.

The situation regarding the escalating tensions between North Korea and the United States must be addressed with negotiations with North Korea and peaceful diplomacy through the United Nations, not by saber-rattling, threats of war against North Korea, threats of pre-emptive strikes, and words by President Trump threatening North Korea with “fire and fury, like the world has never seen.”

Florida Department of Corrections has placed all of its 97,000 inmates on lockdown, just days before the Aug. 19 Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March on Washington, D.C., calling for an end to the legalized slavery of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Cracking down on the mobility of inmates by correctional officials has become a common tactic to prevent prisoners from joining outside supporters in calling for an end to mass incarceration.

I am one of the leading voices of prisoners throughout the United States who are calling for the amending of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and a total and final abolition of slavery in Amerika. An organization located here in the USA, Raleigh, North Carolina, to be exact, is educating, organizing and mobilizing as many people as possible to support and/or participate in the Millions 4 Prisoners March on Washington, D.C., on Aug. 19, 2017. The organization is called I Am We.

Even though many whites thought of him as the father of the “lost cause,” Jefferson Davis was for most African-Americans what racism symbolizes. From the end of slavery, recently freed ex-slaves felt the same way about him. Ex-slave Dilly Yellandy remembers, “Old Jeff Davis said he wus goin’ to fight de Yankees till hell wus so full of em dat their legs us hangin’ over de sides.” Slaves like Mr. Yellandy had heard about Jeff Davis, all right. They had heard about how he tried to run away and hide in a hole, like a fox, and how he tried to escape by wearing his wife’s dress.

  REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS FOR AS-NEEDED ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING CONSULTANT SERVICES Solicitation #: 17-050-RFQ-0018 The San Francisco Housing Authority is soliciting qualification proposals for As-Needed Electrical Engineering Consultant Services...

Little doubt remains that former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is being blackballed by the National Football League for kneeling during the national anthem to protest police violence against Black people and other people of color. Many quarterbacks with less impressive records have been signed, but Kaepernick still doesn’t have a job. KPFA’s Ann Garrison filed this report.

On the weekend of Aug. 19, 2017, a historic event, the Millions for Prisoners March will take place in Washington, D.C., to bring awareness to a constitutional injustice and a banquet to honor and celebrate 41 years of service of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper. In the midst of this fight for freedom, it is an honor to be a part of such a historical event, it is an even bigger honor to be a part of a coalition that shares the same views for freedom and vision to preserve a much needed tool in the fight for freedom. The San Francisco Bay View is one of those much needed tools to aid in this fight.

Following the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department retweet of white supremacist Richard Spencer, which was a video of a press conference Spencer held defending the acts of terrorism in Charlottesville, we call on the sheriff to end their collaboration with ICE, stop profiting off of the incarceration of people of color, stop hosting militarized law enforcement trainings, and accurately account for what was saved as a result of Proposition 47.

The mass of roughly 1,000 protesters, which included representatives of the Black Panthers, gathered in Oakland’s Latham Square at approximately 7 p.m. Saturday evening before taking to the streets. Demonstrators were angered over events which had taken place earlier that day in Charlottesville, Virginia, where alleged Nazi sympathizer, James Alex Fields Jr., mowed down several people with his car in an incident similar to recent terrorist attacks in London and Nice, France. One person was killed and 19 others were injured in Charlottesville.

A large group took to the streets in Oakland for several hours Saturday evening to demonstrate in solidarity with Charlottesville. The diverse crowd of approximately 1,000 people managed to shut down all eight lanes of Highway 580. The freeway shutdown was brief but boisterous. Protesters vacated the freeway voluntarily and in a celebratory mood.

It happened today in downtown Charlottesville, Va., on the second of a planned three-day rally dubbed “Unite the Right.” Thousands of counter-protesters summoned by Black Lives Matter and an allied white group, Showing Up for Racial Justice, surrounded about 500 neo-Nazis, including former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard David Duke. “Witnesses said a crowd of counterdemonstrators was moving up Fourth Street, near the mall, when a gray sports car came down the road and accelerated, mowing down several people and hurling at least two in the air.“

What happened to them on Aug. 8, the hellistic rain of police gunfire, beatings, rape threats and incarceration, was nothing compared to what they faced in Philadelphia courtrooms, where they were denied their every right, including their alleged right to self-representation, beaten again when they refused to attend their own legal lynchings, and then, the lynchpin – convictions, and common sentences before Judge Edwin Malmed of 30 to 100 years, for third degree murder?!

Don’t forget the legacy of the Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey (Aug. 17, 1887-June 10, 1940) this Black August. There is an annual program at Marcus Books in Oakland, Sunday, Aug. 20, 12:30-3:30 p.m. Happy Birthday to Karla Brundage (8/29), Cousin Jeffery Lewis (8/29), Gene Howell Jr. and to all the ancestors lost in the Great Storm – Katrina (8/29/2005), and to those still swimming home on rafts and other flotilla. Follow the light.

Genocost, a U.K.-based Congolese advocacy group, commemorated Congo Genocide this week on Aug. 2. Aug. 2 is the day that U.S. allies Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Democratic Republic of the Congo, starting the Second Congo War in 1998. Though a peace treaty was signed in 2003, the violence, displacement and mass killing continue. Genocost asks that nations formally recognize Aug. 2 as Congo Genocide Commemoration Day. I spoke to Genocost spokesperson Sylvester Mido.

When NFL owners look at out-of-work quarterback Johnny Manziel, they see themselves. Or at least they see their ne’er-do-well son or nephew: the one who was raised in cushy wealth, partied too hard, maybe got in a few legal misunderstandings with the girls, but deep down is a “good boy” and always worthy of a second chance. Playing ability isn’t even part of the conversation. They want him in their club. When NFL owners look at out-of-work NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, they see a threat.

I have had many conversations and email exchanges with people wanting to know what my vision is for the newspaper. I see the Bay View as the New York Times of the prison abolitionist movement. The Washington Post of liberation. The Wall Street Journal of prison reform. I’ve equated my position as editor with a captain of a ship, the newspaper as the ship, and my vision as the ship’s rudder. I have already begun navigating some rough waters and have found unwavering support in many places. I may sit at the helm, but no captain pilots a ship alone. My vision is no good without the vision of the people to support it.