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by Baba Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma’at
6260 AAAK/February 2020 JC-PG
Africans Deserve Reparations! Cause, Black Lives Truly Matter!
Greetings of IMANI (FAITH) Esteemed G-o-ds and Elder, Sister and Brother Leaders,
May our Divine Mother-Father Creator of and in All find you and (y)our extended Family thriving in healing Spirit.
During these monumental moments, WE come together to highlight some of the past, present and evolving methods of survival, accomplishments and future developments of our Alkebulan-African and New Afrikan nations and achievers. In February, and throughout the year, WE continue our studies, dialogues and learning of important lessons from our powerful Ancients and Ancestors from yesteryears and yesterday.
Check this February 2020 issue of the Bay View, particularly Wanda (Sabir’s) Picks; and, sites like the “Black Solidarity Week from 17-24 February 2020,” sponsored by Community Ready Corps for Self-Determination at http://www.crc4sd.org/calendar.
Join our REPARATIONS contingents for the CRC’s Minister HUEY P. NEWTON Solidarity March and Rally, 17 February, 11 am, at 107th & International Boulevard in Oakland; and, for the BLACK JOY PARADE, Sunday, 24 February, Noon, beginning at 14th & Alice (near our MALONGA CASQUELOURD Center for the Arts). Asé.
On a very personal level, i am lovingly honoring my own beloved Queen Mother ELIZABETH ELIZANN OAKS-ARMSTRONG, who transformed to Spirit on 17 February four years ago, in 6256/2016. As well as our incredible and dear Queen JOANNA “JO-GO” GOLDEN, who left this physical life on 19 February five years ago. Asé.
This past month, our OHLONE/Oakland CommUNITY showed its gratitude to ARTHUR “ART” SHANKS III, who co-founded and directed our Cypress-Mandela Construction Apprenticeship Program. i was pleased to work for a few years with Elders Art, Sylvester Hodges and their staff in helping train hundreds of our mostly younger, predominately Black and Brown aspiring skilled workers, contractors, business owners and leaders for careers in green construction technology, solar installation and energy efficiency.
Art also supported my proposal to the then transition team and later new administration of our former Chicago community organizing colleague Barack Obama … to give our young people from Oakland the experience of re-installing solar, at cost, on the President’s House (aka “white” house, built by enslaved and super-exploited African skilled contractors and laborers in the city named for the enslavers George Washington and district of Christopher Columbus). It was my opinion, and later that of Bill McKibben of 350.org, that this action would also inspire other states and nations around the world to address the corporate-induced climate crisis seriously.
Fyi, the system put in by Jimmy Carter (who also worked with our non-profit on several solar installations at Habitat for Humanity houses around California) had a solar system constructed in 1979. Ronald Reagan later removed the system and neither he, the Bushes or Clinton put the main array back up. It wasn’t until 2014 that Obama had an unknown private contractor install the system.
WE are appalled at the increasing violence and murder in state prisons, from DownSouth Mississippi to Up-South “CALabama” (California). Since the first of January alone, there have been MORE THAN A DOZEN PRECIOUS LIVES taken in Mississippi – including GREGORY EMARY, ROOSEVELT HOLLIMAN, DENORRIS HOWELL, A.D. MILLS, GABRIEL CARMEN, TIMOTHY HUSPETH, JAMES TALLEY, THOMAS LEE, JERMAINE TYLER, JOSHUA NORMAN, LIMARION REAVES and NORA DUCKSWORTH. And, TWO in this state, MIZRAIN NAVA CANO and JORGE CRUZ-BANUELOS.
Incarcerated movement leaders, their families and activists are calling for the immediate closing of several institutions – like the notorious Parchman Prison Farm Plantation and all private pri$on$ – to end these unnecessary deaths, and the overall horrific, sickening, violent and inhumane conditions. Our strategic vision must be for full implementation of RESTORATIVE JUSTICE PRACTICES! And, the COMPLETE ABOLITION OF THE PRISON INDUSTRY! Asé.
Finally, WE are saddened by the tragic deaths of teenagers GIANNA “GIGI” BRYANT, PAYTON CHESTER and ALYSSA ALTOBELLI. These young girls were three of the nine lives lost – including their pilot, parents and coaches CHRISTINA MAUSER, JOHN ALTOBELLI, KERI ALTOBELLI, SARAH CHESTER, ARA ZOBAYAN and KOBE BEAN BRYANT – in a fiery helicopter crash under very foggy conditions in Southern California.
Long Live the Spirit and valuable contributions of Our Past and Newest Ancestors! Asé.
Destination REPARATIONS!
Asante Sana (Many Thanks) to everyone who attended our Making Preparations to Reach Our Destination of REPARATIONS! CommUNITY gathering, in OHLONE/Oakland. WE are grateful to our participant groups and individuals for spending a couple of hours with us on a very busy day of events across the Bay Area. As well as for sharing in our UMOJA (UNITY) Building REPARATIONS exercises; and expressing your views and proposals for action in a supreme and respectful manner.
Gratitude to those who took out memberships in our National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) as WE work collectively to make the west side as the best side in expanding our righteous inter-generational movements for self-determination, justice and healing of Africans. Go to www.ncobraonline.org or reach us locally at support@africansdeservereparations.com.
Also, thanks to all the generous souls who purchased one of my books, a REPARATIONS poster by Baba Emory Douglas and/or a Red, Black and Green liberation flag which helps us raise funds in support of our Jericho Amnesty Movement to Free Our Unjustly Locked-Down and Locked-Out Exiled Political Leaders.
SPECIAL NOTE: At our recent DESTINATION REPARATIONS! event, i praised Lula da Silva, former President of Brasil/Brazil and the Workers’ Party, for beginning the process of implementing our hard-fought for and monumental United Nations’-approved “Durban Declaration and Program of Action” for Reparations, in 2001.
i do sincerely apologize for not also exposing that Lula and the PT became a tool of the U.S., France, Canada and other exploiting states in “leading” the U.N.’s so-called “Mission for Stabilization of Haiti” (MINUSTAH) for 13 years. This multi-state police force – first established after the vicious coup that kidnapped staunch Reparations advocate President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and jailed and/or murdered thousands of the majority Fammi Lavalas Party democratically-elected officials – is responsible for the now 16 years of massive abuse; rape of women, men and children; unclaimed and unsupported pregnancies; robbery of Ayiti’s treasury, wages for workers and the billions raised for relief after the devastating earthquakes and hurricanes; the deadly cholera virus that killed over ten thousand African-Haitians; and, daily beatings, hangings, shootings and disappeared too numerous to mention.
For a possible permanent seat on the U.N. “Security Council,” Lula and the PT government oversaw these unspeakable and unforgettable crimes against humanity and nature. Like many others, i have witnessed, received testimonies and condemned and protested against these ongoing horrors while visiting with the incredible people in this great African Diasporan nation of Ayiti/Haiti. Asé.
Feinstein was quoted as stating. “Some things are just better left alone … and I think that (Reparations, JAA-M) is one of those things.”
HELP WANTED: WE urge everyone to please call Senator Diane Feinstein who – as the ranking Democratic Party member on the Senate Judiciary Committee with a net worth of close to $80 million – has totally disrespected African people. She has said in regards to our desperate needs and righteous demands for Reparatory Justice, that we “need to get over it” (meaning 500 plus years of European “white” terrorism, torturous enslavement, robbery, lynchings and murder, mass imprisonment, gang rape and continuing crimes against our humanity, JAA-M).
Feinstein was quoted as stating. “Some things are just better left alone … and I think that (Reparations, JAA-M) is one of those things.” So, what say you, African Family and true allies? Will you call the liberal Feinstein’s office to voice your opinion at (415) 393-0707 in Francisco, or (202) 224-3841 in Washington? Will you tell her to immediately apologize for those statements and endorse S.1083, “The Commission to STUDY AND DEVELOP REPARATIONS PROPOSALS FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS Act”?
Now, if two white dudes in Vermont, by the name of Ben and Jerry, can endorse and advocate for our Reparations legislation and hearings, shouldn’t that be the least that WE can do as organizations and individuals? And, shouldn’t WE demand the same of every elected official and candidate as they flood our area over the next month before the 3 March 2020 elections?
PONGEZI (CONGRATULATIONS)!
CONGRATS to our Moms 4 Housing movement who, with strong commUNITY support, were able to endure a fascistic-repressive police attack by Alameda County Sheriffs and win a Victory to remain in the formerly-abandoned Magnolia Street house, in West Oakland. Gratitude to the Oakland Community Land Trust for stepping up to work out a significant agreement to purchase this property and others from profit-centered Wedgewood Properties of Southern California.
For the latest updates on this human rights battle go to https://twitter.com/moms4housing?lang=en Also, call your Alameda County Supervisors, particularly Keith Carson, to condemn the unjust action against these Mothers, children and supporters by the heavily-militarized army of Sheriff-Coroner Greg Ahern.
Please Support Our Bay View
WE urge you to make a desperately-needed contribution to our San Francisco Bay View newspaper, place an ad, or take out a subscription for yourself or an incarcerated family member. As expressed many times before, WE are struggling mightily to keep this voice of liberation in print and distributed FOR FREE throughout the Bay Area and around the united capitalist prison terrorist states of america (including to numerous penitentiaries where our Bay View is not currently banned due to our radical political stances and giving a voice to the voiceless).
Please, please make a tax-deductible donation ASAP by calling us at 415-671-0789. Or, go to our website at www.sfbayview.com. You can also send contributions of any amount the old-fashioned way by mailing a check or money order to 4917 Third St., San Francisco, CA 94124. Asante Sana (Many Thanks)! Asé.
#BlackLivesMatter #AfricansDeserveReparations #BringOurEldersHomeNow #AbolishPrisons #LoveandDefendMotherEarth
Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma’at is a Baba (Father), a “FREE-tired” community-labor-environmental and justice organizer, writer, musician and author of several books, including “Many Paths to Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)”; a former National Co-Chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) and recently-assigned Acting Western Regional Representative for the coming year. Take a listen to a few songs from his musical catalog, including his newest release “BAMN: ByAnyMeansNecessary!” (featuring the great Archbishop Franzo King of the Saint John Coltrane Church, on saxophone) at https://soundcloud.com/search?q=jahahara Invite Jahahara to present at your group, school, church or event c/o support@africansdeservereparations.com or FONAMI, P.O. Box 10963, Oakland, CA 94610.
