Monthly Archives: August 2018

Bobi Wine, Ugandan pop singer, parliamentarian and opponent of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, was arrested on July 17. His lawyers report that he has been beaten so badly by Ugandan police that they weren’t sure he understood the charges read when he was brought into court. Bobi Wine’s driver was shot dead in the driver’s seat of his car before he and more than 30 of his allies, many of whom are also members of Parliament, were arrested.

Community members, formerly incarcerated people and anti-prison activists marched today through downtown Lansing to raise awareness about the 2018 national prisoner strike that began two days ago on Aug. 21, and will continue through Sept. 9. The national action is organized and led by prisoners around the country who have already begun engaging in hunger strikes, work stoppages and other actions to protest their inhumane living conditions. Their demands include “an immediate end to prison slavery” as well as various other demands related to sentencing reform and racism.

The following statement was released by the Palestinian prisoners of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, jailed by Zionist colonialism for their role in struggling for the freedom of their people. They are among nearly 6,000 Palestinians imprisoned by the Israeli occupation today. Their solidarity comes to extend fists of resistance and hands of unity through prison bars to support the U.S. National Prison Strike, beginning Aug. 21.

First and foremost, I send out a clenched fist salute to all of the women and men incarcerated across the United States who stood up on Aug. 21 and who continue to do so! Without your sacrifice there will be no change. oppressors and enemies of freedom are waging an aggressive war and assault against any individuals or organizations that have defined themselves as anti-imperialists and/or prison abolitionists. This illegal and unconstitutional ”program” is a nationwide program enacted by the U.S. Department of Justice! Ol’ racist Jeff Sessions is at it again!

The prisoner strike has been underway for more than 24 hours now. In the first day we got word of actions coming out from the prisons from Halifax, Nova Scotia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, and Folsom Prison in California reported strike action. We saw outside solidarity actions in at least 21 cities around the U.S. and as far abroad as Leipzig, Germany. We saw Palestinian political prisoners give a statement of solidarity from their prisons in occupied Palestine. Those of us who have been coordinating media relations on the outside have been overwhelmed by the number of reporters and outlets who are covering the strike.

Boots Riley has a problem with Spike Lee's “BlacKkKlansman,” and he explained why in a three page essay. Besides being the veteran rapper from Oakland’s The Coup, Riley is also a filmmaker who created the movie “Sorry to Bother You,” which, like Spike’s film, has a lot of buzz surrounding it. If you’re familiar with the subject matter of “BlackKkKlansman,” then you know it’s based on the true life story of former Colorado Springs officer Ron Stallworth and how he infiltrated the local Ku Klux Klan through the telephone.

The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) and a for-profit health care provider it contracted to provide medical services to inmates at the Santa Rita county jail are being sued for failure to provide medical care to a pregnant inmate, locking her in an isolation cell even as she was in “the throes of childbirth” and ignoring her screams for help, according to a new federal civil rights lawsuit filed here Aug. 20.

Hundreds of anti-fascists confronted a coalition of far-right extremist bullies in Seattle on Aug. 18. The fascist event was part of the “National March Against Far-Left Violence” that was scheduled to take place in several cities one week after “Unite the Right II” in Washington, D.C. In Seattle, the far-right event was only confirmed two weeks prior. A local coalition came together quickly and called for a “unified, militant and orderly” counter-protest at City Hall with the theme of “Unite against fascism: Remember those lost to far-right violence.”

Trump declared that he would give a presidential pardon and release any federal prisoner presented to him by a NFL player who may be innocent, unduly convicted or have an unjust sentence. So, NFL players, adopt a federal prisoner for President Trump’s pardon. It might not end mass incarceration or stop Attorney General Jeff Beauregard Sessions from turning back the clock on social justice, but it surely would save some lives that otherwise would die in prison. Besides, it’s a win-win situation for NFL players and President Trump. What do you got to lose?

Salt, grease and fried meat filled the air with just a hint of burnt sugar thrown in. My mind wandered to breakfasts past sizzling in a greasy diner. This time, however, I was on my bike, riding past an empty lot in East Oakland at 6:30 a.m. No houses or restaurants were remotely close. And then I saw the smoke and heard the sizzle. It was coming from one of a long line of late model Subarus, Hondas, BMWs, Acura sedans and even a Mercedes.

An event celebrating natural hair, described as aspirational conversations with the artists and curator, is coming to Oakland Saturday, Aug. 18, 1-3:30 p.m. The three principal artists of “The Black Woman Is God” exhibition presents ‘A Sacred Beautiful – a Natural Heritage Hair: An African Diasporan Photo Exposé’ – KaliMa Amilak, Nye’ Lyn Tho and Egyptsia Mcgillvery – establish themselves as cultural zeitgeist spirits by using the novel visual language of the natural hair movement cultural iconoclasts.

Rally at the San Francisco Federal Courthouse while the four California prisoner hunger strike and Ashker class representatives meet and confer* with CDCr to address the continuing solitary conditions that violate the Ashker lawsuit settlement agreement. The four prisoner hunger strike representatives will be present in the courtroom, an historic presence! Help create a strong show of solidarity with prisoners fighting for human rights! Join the rally outside the courthouse on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, 11:30 a.m., at the Phillip Burton Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, 450 Golden Gate Ave., San Francisco.

Today, Aug. 15, 2018, marks the four year anniversary of the terrible day 2-year-old Mi’Yana “MyMy” was taken away from her family. On this day, four years ago, a speeding driver hit her, drove over her tiny frame and left her defenseless body on the street. Today, her family still mourns her loss. Her twin brother has spent the last four years missing his twin sister. Her mother continues to mourn the loss of this beautiful angel, and the SFPD still has not found the person that hit and ran and murdered MyMy.

A white jogger throwing a Black homeless man’s property into Lake Merritt. A well-dressed man kicking a sleeping man’s face so severely he was hospitalized. The owner of a local club circulating death threats to homeless people and chasing a camper with a gun. These are just some of the publicized events. Of course, people forced to live outdoors face this and worse on a regular basis.

Over the past five fiscal years, from 2013 to 2017, federal government agencies have spent approximately $5 billion in advertising, but a minute share – $327 million – went to minority-owned businesses, according to a long-awaited report from the Government Accountability Office. “This factual report exposes gross racial discrimination and the refusal of the federal agencies cited in the report to be serious about diversity and inclusion with respect to annual federal spending on advertising.”

With heartbreak, yet hope, we reach out to you in the Name of our Lord and Liberator, Jesus, the Christ. It was unsettling and upsetting to witness the meeting with you, our moral leaders, and one of the most amoral persons to ever occupy the White House in the name of discussing prison reform. We are sure it must have been intoxicating to walk the corridors of power and sit at the table of governing authority. Unfortunately, those precincts of power have been infected by White supremacy and moral bankruptcy.

A new documentary film directed by Robert “Fleetwood” Bowden entitled “Zephaniah” will be out soon; it is based on embracing the responsibilities of fatherhood and the joy that comes with the journey. In the project, Fleetwood will take an in-depth look into the relationship between a father and his toddler daughter. He will also explore why so many fathers abandon their children and how the system plays a part in separating households.

He was our local Frederick Douglass. Even looked a bit like him: dashingly handsome, tall, strong, fierce, dedicated, educated, elegant and eloquent. And deeply rooted in the community. The former civil rights activist, mayor of Oakland and congressman, who put programs for the people ahead of war and weapons of mass destruction, the honorable and distinguished elder Ron Dellums joined the ancestors July 30, after making his presence felt on this planet for 82 years.

Having been incarcerated since 1973, original Black Panther activist Robert Seth Hayes, 69, was released on parole last Tuesday. He joins a short list of revolutionaries from the 1960s and 1970s who are now hitting New York’s streets as elderly men after spending decades in the belly of the beast, simply for fighting for their freedom. Hayes denied participating in the June 1973 Bronx shooting death of New York Transit cop Sidney Thompson, but he was arrested, convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life nonetheless.

He’s the president of Rwanda and the current president of the African Union, feted by the Brookings Institute, one of the most venerable ideological pillars of U.S. capital interests. So why is Paul Kagame manifesting more and more signs of paranoia? Let’s consider just a few possibilities: Assassination rumors, insurgency, political prisoner Victoire Ingabire, 7,000 Rwandan churches and mosques shut down.