Store
by Baba Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma’at
6261 AAAK, January 2021 JC-PG
Africans Deserve Reparations! ‘Cause Black Lives Matter!
Habari Gani? What’s the message? Blessings of Imani, Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia and Kuumba – faith, unity, self-determination, collective work, cooperative economics, purpose and creativity – on every day and all year long. Victorious gods, esteemed elders, sisters, brothers and youthful revolutionaries!
We pray this new season is off to a glorious beginning for you and yours! May our divine mother-father creator of and in all – and incredible ancients and ancestors from millennia past, yesteryears and, literally, yesterday – find you and your extended family staying healthy and keeping in positive spirits.
We know you are doing your best to stay safe despite the continuing criminal actions of the US government that has led to a sickening 20 million-plus infections in the US alone and a guesstimated 85 million worldwide. We are approaching 400,000 unnecessary deaths – at least 2 million around our planet – from the capitalist systematic health rationing and coronavirus! As well as deaths from the ongoing horrors and killer crimes of police and military terrorism and corporate climate destruction caused by an escalation of blizzards, flooding, droughts and dangerous winds leading to increasingly deadly wildfires, hurricanes, typhoons and tornadoes. Asé.
Honoring our new ancestors
As always, we offer our immense gratitude to several notable humane beings who recently transformed to the ancestral realm. These include our incredible high school coach, the great Jackson “Uncle Jack” Bush Jr. Asé. And, just three days later, his wife of 60-plus years, Queen Mother Marcheita Bush. Asé.
Another high school classmate and football teammate, Lee Roy Wolford III. Asé. My dear neighbor, Charles “Coach” Carter. One of my favorite athletes Richie – later Dick – Allen, who shined as a baseball all-star with the Phillies and White Sox – and a strong, outspoken Black man who didn’t take no mess from nobody.
Finally, in what wasn’t planned to be a sport-themed remembrance, San Francisco’s great K.C. Jones, who joined the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) Elder Bill Russell in winning NCAA championships as all-American basketball stars at the University of San Francisco, then going on to achieve even more titles than any other players or coaches in NBA history. Asé.
Long live the spirit and contributions of these new, and all our incredible, ancestors. Asé. Asé. Asé-O.
Change the name of ‘White’ House
A dozen years ago, around the swearing-in as US president of our former community labor coalition partner in Chicago, Barack Obama, we launched a petition to change the name of the “White” House. It was featured on the front page of our Bay View newspaper in February 2009 and garnered thousands of signatures. Well, we are back again, having recently re-launched our petition online.
In doing so, we again challenge the deliberate false notion of the racial superiority of Europeans; expose the truth and criminality regarding the brutal enslavers, robbers and rapists often described as “founding fathers”; honor our beloved enslaved Afrikan ancestors who played a major role in designing, constructing, re-building and maintaining this building and “capital” of imperialist power that they named “City of (George) Washington, District of (Chris) Columbus”; and to further illustrate our just demands for full repair and reparations. Please take a moment to review, consider, sign-on and forward our petition to your networks: https://www.change.org/p/u-s-house-of-representatives-change-name-of-white-house.
In addition, we invite you to join our freedom and justice-loving community in helping us increase our efforts to win freedom, amnesty and restitution for all our political prisoners and exiles and victims of the US government’s admitted repressive COINTELPRO programs to divide and destroy Black and progressive leaders, organizations and movements. Go to the Jericho Amnesty Movement to learn more and get involved at thejerichomovement.com and check out that petition at https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/release-our-elders-and-political-prisoners-now Asé.
Destination reparations
I and we are so grateful to everyone who took time to study, endorse and make calls to elected officials on H.R. 40 and S.1083, our “Commissions to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African Americans Act.” You all helped make it possible that WE now have 174 endorsers in the House of Representatives (as of this writing); nearly all of our Bay Area congresspersons; as well as U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein. Now, we must all get outgoing California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who was recently appointed to replace Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, on board with S.1083.
Speaking of the incoming vice president, our movements are preparing major mobilizations to push for an executive order for reparations down payments from the Biden-Harris administration in its first 100 days. Voters of African ancestry are the ones who provided the Democrats – Biden-Harris in particular – with the margin of victory to assume power. And it’s Black folks who continue to disproportionately suffer and die from the ongoing capitalist economic exploitation, current depression and coronavirus. So it’s up to us to tell Biden and Harris that it’s definitely pay-back time! Right now!
WE applaud one of our newest members, Queen Mother Attorney Virginia Hollins-Davidson, for inviting N’COBRA to share our views and music on reparations at a recent Sacred Sunday and International Human Rights Week zoom gathering of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists (BFUU). Asante Sana. Asé.
So, we invite you and your organization to become a part of our all-volunteer, fully people funded N’COBRA. Help us prepare and update our righteous demands and actions for reparations. We need you! And you need us! Get ready for our renewed actions by going to ncobraonline.org or contact me at support@africansdeservereparations.com or at the address below. Free the land! Reparations right now for African nations, descendants and ascendants! Asé.
Congratulations!
Congrats! To our Oakland City Attorney Queen Mama Barbara Parker for her resounding victory in the November election. She has steadfastly represented residents in our righteous fights against criminal slumlords, greedy gentrifiers, dirty polluters, criminal police officers and others who threaten our lives – often in opposition to the mayor and members of our City Council. Asante Sana (Many Thanks) to Barbara Parker for all you do! Asé.
Congrats! To our incredible educator, justice-seeker and reparationist Assemblywoman Dr. Shirley Weber. She has been nominated to serve by Gov. Newsom to fill the position of California secretary of state, replacing Alex Padilla. We know Dr. Weber will continue her outstanding efforts in this and other roles in the future. Asé.
Finally, a couple of corrections from our previous column in December 2020. We incorrectly stated that Ruby Bridges and her Queen Mama Lucille Bridges fought for civil and human rights in Little Rock. We should have said in New Orleans, La. We also listed an old, outdated email address jahahara@newafrikan777.com – that email is no longer valid.
Support our Bay View! Please send a check or money order of any amount to us at 4917 Third St., San Francisco, CA 94124 or go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/fundraiser-for-the-bay-view-newspaper!
Continue to take your righteous steps, knowing our Divine will do the rest. And walk in the power of Imani (faith) on each and every day. Amen-Ra Hotep! Asé.
#BlackLivesMatter #AfricansDeserveReparations #BringOurEldersHomeNow #AbolishPrisonsandPolice #LoveandDefendMotherEarth #BlackNewDeal
Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma’at is an ascendant of the Yoruba and Ewondo nations in Alkebulan-Afrika, a Baba (Elder), Pan-Africanist, socialist and internationalist. He is also a “free-tired” community, labor, environmental and justice organizer, writer, composer, yogi, martial artist, vegan and author of several books, including “Many Paths to Kujichagulia (Self-Determination).” He is a life member, former national male co-chair and recently assigned acting west regional representative of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA). Take a listen to a few songs from his musical catalog at, https://soundcloud.com/search?q=jahahara. Invite Baba Jahahara to present at your group, school, spiritual gathering or event via support@africansdeservereparations.com or by mail: FONAMI, P.O. Box 10963, Oakland, CA 94610.
