Monthly Archives: May 2018

My first five minutes in court were a revelation. Law school prepared me to write motions, make oral arguments and meet with clients. But I was startled when the uniformed bailiff bellowed “All rise!” and rows of working people, family members from all walks of life and suited-and-booted attorneys all scrambled to their feet. I realized I had underestimated the concentrated power of one person in this courtroom constellation whose entrance required a public show of fealty: the judge.

Women Transforming Technology, a consortium of companies and organizations in industry, academia and non-profit companies and organizations committed to building a community and tackling issues that are top of mind for women in technology, on May 22, 2018, hosted a conference in California’s Silicon Valley. The conference theme was “Inclusion in Action.” This broadcast is the focus of Laila Ali’s opening keynote.

We are enraged and disheartened by the cowardly decision of the San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón NOT to file charges against the officers who killed Mario Woods and Luis Gongora Pat. Charges for killer cops are among the three demands we have made since our start in December 2015. This DA has never – not once, in all of his tenure, and all of the egregious cases during his watch – filed any charges against officers who kill. Spread the word: Protest and press conference Tuesday, May 29, 12 noon, at 850 Bryant.

On May 9, 2018, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon’s White Collar Crime Division issued a letter to the San Francisco Ethics Commission referring allegations of “willful misconduct” violations of the Sunshine Ordinance under San Francisco Administrative Code section 67.34 by management of the San Francisco Arts Commission. Twenty-four hours after receipt and distribution of the District Attorney’s letter, the decade’s old signage marking the “Bayview Opera House Ruth Williams Memorial Theater” was vandalized and quickly removed.

  REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS FOR CONNECTSF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES (RFP 17/18-16) Notice is hereby given that the San Francisco County Transportation Authority is requesting proposals from...

If chemical weapons abuses in Syria that lead to people suffocating, foaming at the mouth and dying are evil and justify international military responses, who will intervene to stop U.S. prison officials doing the same to U.S. prisoners? Just an example of the utter hypocrisy of U.S. rulers who go around the world masquerading as opponents of injustice and pretending to have the moral – or might I say imperialist and racist – authority to police everyone else, when in reality they are the greatest purveyors of injustice in the world.

This Memorial Day, let us renew our commitment to work for peace. Dr. King stated, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Let us ask ourselves, “What would Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. say today?’” Let us remember Dr. King’s sermon. Let us reclaim our belief in the sanctity of human life. Let us turn swords into plowshares. Let us work for peace in our world.

“Sorry to Bother You,” written and directed by Oakland’s resident revolutionary MC, Boots, the front man of the political rap group The Coup, is a hilarious cult classic in the making, set to hit theaters in New York, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area in July. This political comedy is based in the streets of Oakland, but it is refreshingly not a cliché hood story. I loved “Sorry to Bother You” most because although it is a protest film, it’s a comedy.

This June, San Francisco voters will make an important decision on whether to hand over a dangerous power to the San Francisco Police Officers Association (POA). Proposition H, a measure funded by the POA, is an attempt to loosen important use of force restrictions on Tasers that were pushed on the troubled SFPD by a team of experts from the Obama Justice Department. Police unions don’t get to decide their own use of force policies. Don’t be fooled. Vote No on Prop H!

On May 14, 2018, a Mayoral Forum was held at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club. The race for mayor of San Francisco is close to the wire, with the election coming up on June 5. If elected, front-runner and San Francisco Board of Supervisors President London Breed will become San Francisco’s first Black woman mayor.

Reminder: May 31 Deadline for Applications: Maynard 200 National Journalism Fellowship Program Dear Colleagues: We are excited to announce that the Robert C. Maynard Institute for...

Introduction: Kiilu Nyasha, Black Panther veteran, revolutionary journalist and mother of every movement, joined the ancestors on April 10, and just three days later, Bay View Arts Editor Wanda Sabir opened the phone lines on her morning radio show for tributes to our revered comrade. To listen to the entire show, go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2018/04/13/wandas-picks-radio-show-special-tribute-to-kiilu-nyasha or listen here. – Editor

by Tiny   What is a shero who never gave up & NEVER let go never stood down, sold out or took the politrickster road who breathed liberation from...

In 2017, Cheri Honkala, the founder of the Poor People’s Campaign for Economic Human Rights, ran for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in Philadelphia’s District 197. I spoke to her about what happened. It was a special election last year for a representative to the Pennsylvania State House. On the night of the election, there were literally hundreds of calls to our campaign headquarters and the district attorney’s office about election fraud.

While a delegation from the Trump administration and leaders from various parts of the world gathered in Jerusalem to witness the illegal and immoral move of the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to the beleaguered and contested city, Israeli soldiers slaughtered unarmed Palestinians in Gaza. The latest count reports more than 50 dead and 2,700 wounded. The Black Alliance for Peace demands the United States condemn Israeli state violence and the use of U.S.-supplied weapons to murder unarmed Palestinians, a violation of U.S. law.

I am deeply disappointed in the U.S. District Court ruling that could allow transport of coal to the planned new bulk terminal at the Port of Oakland. I urge the City to continue seeking to protect people’s health by preventing the coal shipments. Oakland youth will hold a spirited protest in the face masks they will be forced to wear if the toxic dust and climate chaos promised by the terminal arrive in Oakland. Students will join in the environmental justice protest organized by Youth vs. Apocalypse.

 

Slavery has indeed marked this nation. Its soot leaves a residue the best detergent cannot wipe away or wash out. Truth – bitter, the missing ingredient is hard to swallow, let alone see – yet this is what The National Memorial for Peace and Justice and by extension The Legacy Museum: From Slavery to Mass Incarceration demands we face. It is not in your head or imagination that these atrocities to other people reside.

May Day – International Workers Day – is celebrated around the world, including in the United States, honoring the fighting spirit and struggle of all working and oppressed people. It is a time when workers show their strength, demand their rights and forge global solidarity. Its roots are in the struggle for the eight-hour day in 1886 in Chicago. Only in the United States, whose working class gave birth to May Day, have the powers that be managed to conceal that history, erase the memory of May Day, and suppress the class struggle that it represents. ILWU Local 10 shut down all Bay Area ports on May Day for the fourth consecutive year.

by Genoa Barrow, California Black Media Oakland – He was an out of work party promoter and she was a single mother, living in...