by Paradise
Congratulations to our world champion Golden State Warriors! Oakland and San Francisco are The Town and The City of Champions, winners of an unsurpassed 18 world championships – four by the Warriors, three by the As, three by the Raiders, three by the Giants and five by the 49ers!
The Town and The City are the heart and soul of the Bay Area. San Francisco is the heart and Oakland, unquestionably, is the soul.
But San Francisco is losing its heart by being affordable to only a dwindled down to 3 percent Black population! And Oakland is losing its soul, having lost 60,000 Black citizens since 1990, when Black folk were over 40 percent of the population, but are now down from 160,000 to barely 100,000 today – less than 25 percent of the town’s citizenry!
Possibly the only thing that could be worse for Oakland than a loss of a third of its Black population in less than 30 years is that so many of its stars develop their chops, their talents and skills in Oakland and then leave and don’t come back or give back! Our community treasure chest would be much richer if our Oakland All Stars came back home!
Most of the great talent that Oakland develops leaves to enrich the coffers and treasure chests of other cities and countries. We need you guys to come back home to Oakland and help out, to save and restore our legendary legacy before these out-of-towners and big money corporate interests turn Oakland into another Concord or Walnut Creek! We need you and the readers of this publication to subscribe and donate to the San Francisco Bay View.
The Town and The City are the heart and soul of the Bay Area. San Francisco is the heart and Oakland, unquestionably, is the soul.
The San Francisco mayor’s race was so close that I doubt the city would have its first Black woman as mayor today, London Breed, if it weren’t for the steady and great push her campaign received from the San Francisco Bay View!
Sister Kenyatta, my music teacher, is encouraging her woman’s group to get subscriptions because “I depend on the Bay View to get my information about what’s going on in the community, the Black community, Africa and the world,” she says. When I saw brother Kashif at the Pan Afrikan (Flea) Market he agreed, “We no longer have Jet Magazine; Essence and Ebony magazines are about glamour. Where else can we get the truth and reliable news about us, by us, except the Bay View and the Final Call – which can be hard to find?”
And sister Cheryl, who is a wheel chair bound senior, remarked when I was stacking the Bay View at the library, “Give me 10. I like to share them with my friends.”
The San Francisco mayor’s race was so close that I doubt the city would have its first Black woman as mayor today, London Breed, if it weren’t for the steady and great push her campaign received from the San Francisco Bay View!
Our community wants and needs the Bay View in circulation! So we need you Oakland All Stars and local celebrities and dignitaries who could not be where they are without Bay Area flavor and support to give back. Now that you’ve become a big star, and used The Town as a footstool, are we too uncouth for you in Oakland? Maybe we would be more sophisticated if all the sophisticated people – the Talented Tenth and the Five Percenters, the leaders – didn’t abandon their roots.
Sister Kenyatta, my music teacher, is encouraging her woman’s group to get subscriptions because “I depend on the Bay View to get my information about what’s going on in the community, the Black community, Africa and the world,” she says.
Like Dwayne Wiggins of Tony Toni Tone: Thanks for the legendary Jahva House, Oakland All Star, Dwayne Wiggins! For those of you who missed out on the Jahva House (Speakeasy) experience, it was one of the legendary turn-of-the-century poetry and spoken word venues that inspired the movie “Love Jones.”
The Jahva House had mojo! Sometimes the performers would whip the crown into such a frenzy that from the outside of the building it sounded like thunderclaps! Like church! The audience was the congregation and the poets were the preachers, pastors and traveling evangelists! The host, Greg Bridges, used to call my song, “I Love Everything about You, But You,” the Jahva House theme song.
But the neighbors eventually nudged the Jahva House out of the Lakeshore district. They didn’t particularly like the way we celebrated our culture.
They liked Motown and their children listened to Hip Hop, but they didn’t want to see Motown as neighbors or witness too much Hip or Hop! I love everything about you, but you. Little did we know this was a sign of the gentrification juggernaut that would bleach almost half the people of color out of Oakland in the coming years!
So we need you Afrakan All Stars to do like Beast Mode Marshawn Lynch of the Oakland Raiders is doing, setting up shop and rewarding the youth who come to his shop on Broadway with good report cards, with free haircuts! If one wealthy patron would invest $100,000 in the San Francisco Bay View newspaper, it would be set for a year!
A few years ago, Tyler Perry came to Oakland’s Paramount Theater with his play about Madea, the character where he portrays a man pretending to be a woman. The show sold out all 3,000 seats at about $80 per person, for a total net of about $240,000. I couldn’t help but think, “We just got robbed!” The Oakland community treasure chest was looted for almost a quarter million dollars.
If one wealthy patron would invest $100,000 in the San Francisco Bay View newspaper, it would be set for a year!
Ex homegirls Ledisi and Goapele are going to share a bill at the Fox Theater Aug. 31. I hope you Oakland All Stars don’t just take the money and run! Help us get “Closer to our Dreams.” Subscribe to View!
McClymond’s Bill Russell – who has more NBA championship rings than fingers, 11 – come home and show us how to be champions. Congratulate your alma mater for having almost 100 percent of its 2018 graduates being accepted into college!
Kerry Washington, you had a great run with the top-rated television show, Scandal! Now why don’t you be scandaliscious and build some low-income housing units in The Town!
Clint Eastwood: Go ahead, make our day! How did you get to be such a suave and tough cowboy film star? Give back to the Wild Wild West Oakland, baby!
Tom Hanks, one of a kind, grit and outrageous humor, a force of nature as an actor! Where’d you get it from? Come home and flash some of those Oscars on us – honor our Oscar Grants!
Whoopi Goldberg! Thanks for making the film “Made in America” in The Town where you were made! Did you say you got your start at the Black Repertory Theater in Berkeley? Now come home and make us go Whoopi! Subscribe everybody on The View to the Bay View!
Keisha Cole, Digital Underground, Too Short, Damian Lillard, Marc Curry – thanks for working with the East Oakland Youth Development Center – we’d love to hang with Mr. Cooper and see you all do like MC Hammer did when he took his family to the African Rainbow in Oakland to get dressed up for the “Black Panther” premiere.
Jason Kidd and Gary Payton, Hall of Famers! Joe Morgan and Mac’s Frank Robinson, the first Black Major League Baseball manager, Hall of Fame baseball players who went on to have successful broadcasting and managing careers: Come home!
Yo, Colin Kaepernick! You know we (the Bay View) were the first to have your back, always have and always will! Where else could you have made such a political stand outside of these teams in San Francisco and Oakland? Come home and get our backs – with some greenbacks!
Undefeated Light Heavyweight Champion of the world Andre Ward, you learned to develop your chops and become a warrior – in Oakland! Just like Tupac and Bruce Lee did! Thanks for coming home!
Rickie Henderson, all time Hall of Fame base stealer, they are trying to steal The Town from us! Trying to steal the Drums from us, our lake! Complaining to the authorities that our churches are making too much of a joyful noise to the Lord on Sundays! Come home and help us give Oakland back to the people.
Danny Glover, phenomenal activist actor, keynote speaker at the Black Panther’s 50th Anniversary celebration, drop on by the Bay View headquarters on Third Street and drop some love in the kitty! All The View needs is one big celebrity patron!
Shelia E, Pete and the Escovedo family, the Bay View is down for Black and Brown solidarity! Help us take Oakland black!
Oakland All Stars! Afrakan All Stars! All Americans, All Afrakans! Come home! Our youth need to see you on 14th and Broadway and Third street!
Delroy Lindo, are you still in them Oakland Hills – where Maya Angelou used to live? Come down to the flatlands and lend us a hand!
Angela Davis, Alice Walker, you define us! Terri McMillan, so largely supported by the Black community, come help us get our groove back! Then maybe Black Panther Party cofounder Bobbie Seale, who just recently turned 80, will come back.
Oakland All Stars! Afrakan All Stars! All Americans, All Afrakans! Come home! Our youth need to see you on 14th and Broadway and Third street!
Tower of Power, Lenny Williams, the Pointer Sisters, the Whispers! Come and shout it out about the View!
Sly Stone, Oakland needs a radio station like the one you used to freestyle on, KDIA!
Ismael Reed, sorry about that Crack Era that drove you and the fam out of (North) Oakland! But you can come back now … and resume your role as an Oakland All Star and one of the pillars of our community! The Town literary community will be much better off with the presence of you and your gifted daughter, Tennessee Reed.
Paul Mooney, who helped Richard Pryor find himself in the radical ‘70s West Berkeley, help us relocate ourselves in South Berkeley and Oaktown, the Mission and the Fillmore!
What Magic Johnson has done for Los Angeles we need somebody to do for Oakland and San Francisco and Berkeley – and the Bay View. We need someone to build some low rent housing! Oakland needs its own Smithsonian to record and archive its rich history! And the Bay View needs your SSSSSupport! You!
If an anonymous donor from the United Kingdom thought the Bay View was worth donating $5,300 to … and if brothers behind bars can scrounge up enough money from their meager earnings to pay for subscriptions, what can you do?
Paradise is president of the International Black Writers and Artists, was honored with his own day, Oct. 6, by the city of Oakland, and may be heard performing at True Vibe Records Presents. Find him on Facebook at Paradise Freejah Lovesupreme. For his take on the 4th of July, read “The 4th of You Lie: An EnDepenDance and Be Truly Free Poem.”