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2019 April

Monthly Archives: April 2019

No-cost solar system for Bayview family

To commemorate Earth Day, volunteers from a local bank’s environmental finance team joined nonprofit GRID Alternatives Bay Area staff to install a 4.1 kW solar system...

Juneteenth, second annual day of solidarity to end prison slavery

It’s that time again and I am sending out this call to action in order to encourage everyone who is passionate about ABOLISHING all forms of SLAVERY and involuntary servitude to get organized and come together in one united action of revolutionary solidarity on June 19, 2019, to protest against enslavement, degradation and dehumanization of Amerikan prisoners and all human beings throughout the world who are subject to any form of SLAVERY or OPPRESSION!

True life: I’m serving a 40-year sentence too

Secondary prisonization is what happens when people visit someone in prison. Children are no exception. We experience subtle versions of our parent’s physical confinement, elaborate surveillance and strict guidelines for any and everything. In my experience, from the long rides all the way to small prisons in the middle of nowhere, Kentucky, to my little sister’s severe nosebleeds in the car as we traveled through the mountains of West Virginia, to the amped up security at each facility, to the absurdly cold visitation rooms – all of it was miserable.

CavityFreeSF aims to eliminate disparities in oral health care

Neighborhoods like Bayview Hunters Point and Visitacion Valley have some of the highest rates of dental caries among children aged 0-5 in San Francisco. In San Francisco, there remains a significant disparity in the populations of children currently experiencing this cavity epidemic.

Nipsey Hu$$le, a rose from concrete

“It was like he was sent by God to give some love to bring us together because that’s what his lyrics were saying, always. He’s not shy to tell the truth even though it might not look good. He wasn’t scared of anything,” said Nipsey’s Eritrean father, Dawit Asghedom. “[God] sent him to send a message, then said, ‘It looks like your time is up because you have completed what I sent you to do. We all have a plan, but God has his own plan. So he had completed what he needed to be doing and he did it early so [God] probably wanted to take him early too.”

Challenging Oakland’s encampment evictions

The city seems to be able to find shelter when it wants to – in this case, it wants to keep people from camping at public places like the highly visible Lake Merritt. So, by camping at the lake, people might quickly motivate the city to find shelter.

Right2Vote Campaign update

Earlier last week we launched a national petition in support of all states with legislation introduced to end felony disenfranchisement. This petition demonstrates the national movement taking place to restore prisoners’ voting rights. With the 2020 election making prisoners’ voting rights a national priority, this is our opportunity to harness the energy being created by recent presidential campaigns’ discussions.

Art and the African Diaspora: Five SFIAF artists feature Black culture

Five artists who identify with the African Diaspora are presenting work at this year’s San Francisco International Arts Festival that takes place at the Fort Mason Center from May 23 to June 2. In interviews with the San Francisco Bay View, they each go into detail about how their respective projects shed light on and teach about the myriad legacies of the Diaspora.

Toxic land! Walk carefully! Notes on the UC-led independent review of the Hunters Point...

My senior colleagues have stepped into a toxic land! It is a land contaminated by chemicals and radioactive materials but, more importantly, a land full of distrust, ignorance and injustice. I respect their courage to step in, and I hope they manage to persuade the community that their work is inclusive, reliable and helpful for making them feel safe. At the end, I join Mayor Breed and repeat her words: “This community deserves transparency and accountability.”

Free South Carolina Movement statement on the first anniversary of the state-orchestrated fratricide at...

We are gathered here on this day to commemorate the fallen comrades that made their transition in the Lee County Massacre exactly one year ago. If it weren’t for the innovative resources of prisoners, this travesty would have been downplayed by the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC), or worse: It could have been swept under the rug.

CaliCarceration: My first 90 days out

by Marcus Bedford On January 17, 2019, I paroled. I would like to say that it was a smooth transition, but it wasn’t. I would like...

Knockin’ doors down to end solitary confinement

In adherence with the beloved Komrade Keith “Malik” Washington, deputy chairman of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter, this is the year of “knockin doors down.” We must start with the doors of solitary confinement. It was estimated in 2017 that over 87,000 prisoners across Amerika are being held in solitary – despite the many studies done by neuroscientists around the world proving that solitary confinement is a neglected social, ecological and environmental risk that also causes and worsens mental illness.

Vengeful Pelican Bay gang investigators try to kidnap an author of Agreement to End...

These are people so caught up in their make believe reality they’re like drunks who think they’re walking a straight line. And who the hell are the real criminals falsifying documents, falsifying confidential information on a regular basis? What’s so horrible is that they have been locking us up for decades – 23 ½ hours a day with nothing. And now it’s finally proven to be done on a fake ass foundation of lies. They put people in prison for such crimes, so shouldn’t they be held accountable?

The Nation of Gods and Earths at San Quentin seeks a volunteer teacher

I am writing to request that a teacher come in and teach us here in San Quentin Prison. I have filed all the paperwork, from San Quentin to Sacramento, from the religious oversight unit and chaplaincy division of adult institutions, back to the warden here at San Quentin, from the third level review, giving the order to allow us here in San Quentin to practice and function like the gods we are, the Five-Percent Nation of Gods and Earths.

Poor folks’ victory: Port Commission unanimously approves Embarcadero navigation center after ‘painful conversation’

The Port Commission voted unanimously on Tuesday, April 23, to allow San Francisco to build a temporary 200-bed SAFE Navigation Center on the Embarcadero, following weeks of heated debate.

Shaka Shakur, traded for Rashid, exposes ‘domestic exile,’ new strategy in prison low intensity...

by Shaka Shakur Hidden from public view and without any real political or judicial oversight, the Prison Industrial Complex has been forcing revolutionary political prisoners, prison rebels,...

ISIS attacks in DR Congo: Latest phase of a Western cover for resource plunder

In October 2017, a video calling for an Islamic State jihad in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) appeared online and in a few news reports. It was purportedly made in Beni Territory, within Congo’s North Kivu Province, where a phantom, so-called Islamist militia, the Allied Democratic Forces, has been blamed for massacres of the indigenous population that began in October 2014.

After South Carolina prisoner brutalized, guard recommends writing to the Bay View

This is an issue that the people need to know: how we are being treated back here in the South Carolina prison system, and how they get away and try to cover their steps when they have been wrongly treating inmates. I want to sue and press charges against the officers and associate warden on this issue, but with the grievance lady working for and with the warden at the institution, it will be hard to raise my claim. And with me being indigent, won’t no one hear my case or statement.

‘I like to move it, move it!” How dance and other rhythmic movement can...

“The only way to move from these super-high anxiety states to calmer, more cognitive states, is rhythm,” he concludes. "This needs to happen before children see a therapist, because otherwise they may be too fearful and distraught to participate."

Alabama hunger striker Kenneth Traywick issues demands and is force fed

Tens of thousands of men confined behind what is being called the “most dangerous” prison system in the nation. Alabama prisons have the highest homicide rate in America, as well as the highest suicide rate. But what is hidden – what has not been reported – are the root causes behind those statistics.