Culture Currents

Wanda Sabir always brings the best treats to the party and this new year 2021 is no different. Preluding with the celebrations and remembrances in Kwanzaa and then deftly moving along to delicacies of movies, art, poetry and jazz, we are filled with satisfied contentment.

Dr. Frederick Haynes III, pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, widely known for its focus on social, economic, gender, food and environmental justice, is hosting the 4th Annual King Teach-In with a panel featuring San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who advocates deliberately ending the disparities that plague the Black community.

The Ancestors hold the hearts of their children as the struggle continues to break the chains of bondage in our modern reality of feet on the earth of the past. Calling in the courage and honor of the risen Ancestors to the Slave Rebellion Reenactment seals the bond of love and self-determination in those who will be liberated.

HOPE is the thread that tenaciously weaves its way through the chaos and darkness to infuse we humans with connection, courage and creativity to walk the storm and greet the buds emerging from twigs in spring. HOPE is the validation of our humanity.

As we transition between the trials and traumas of 2020 into the possibilities of hope and inspiration for 2021, Baba Jahahara remembers our new ancestors with honor, respect and love, notes the challenges ahead to infuse renewed energies into the call for reparations, Mother Earth love, freedom for our Political Prisoners and the new Biden-Harris administration’s debt to those who’s votes made the nightmare escape possible.

Nube Brown reads aloud the poem 'Don't Let The Die in Vain' by Corey J. Elder, Folsom State Prison.

Nube Brown reads aloud the poem 'Amerikka' by Michael Philpot, CCI-FL.

Today at 1:30 p.m. at 49 Kiska Road in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunter Point, the acclaimed Curtis Family Cnotes will team up with Mother Brown’s Dining Room in a unique partnership providing free food and song to support the city’s COVID-19 testing and prevention efforts.

Creative must create. The Covid-19 has hurt many people’s ability to remain employed, but Paul Tillman Smith leaped right over that drum set and, with a vibrant team of musicians, created joy and profits from the Bay Area Jazz Society Presents the ‘Higher Power Project’ CD, which will go into a special fund to help musicians and artists of all ages.

Wanda Sabir serves it up for December 2020, from reflecting on the imposed-by-pandemic isolation and remembering time before mask-wearing, to expanded awareness of unhoused people and people passing out food, to upcoming personal care gatherings, poetry, films, and plenty of comedy to lift us into the laughter we so much need.

Speaking the revolutionary love that embodied Comrade Karen Smith and touched so many left behind, Gregory ‘King’ Enegess wholly honors and mourns her transition from this life to Rest In Power.

While mainstream media wasn’t/isn’t looking – ever – Dr. Willie Ratcliff joined in love and gratitude at Mother Brown’s celebrating the Bayview community and Thanksgiving with the best homemade, healthy food laced with the usual warmth and good tidings to feed the spirit and body.

A spectacular simultaneously real and virtual party/fundraiser lifted the love and light on Nov. 20-21, 2020 in the Bayview community! The SF Bay View editor’s torch was passed by Mary and Willie Ratcliff to Malik Washington who, along with Wanda Sabir and new managing editor Nube Brown and so many others, remembered the ancestors and highlighted art, dance, music, food, interviews, homegrown business and voices from the community.

Following the 2020 election of Kamala Harris as the 49th vice president of the United States, well-known poet, Leslé Honoré, paints a conversation with a young brown girl about what she sees, and where realized dreams come from.

Let’s talk gangs, real gangs, New York City gangs, violence, hip hop and rap. The new documentary, ‘Rubble Kings,’ will lift you out of the depths of election frazzle and drop you into a different conversation, perhaps one of inspired possibilities.

Wanda’s Picks are right on time to lift us out of the anxiety of the day-to-day crisis attention, COVID-19 limbo and election/post-election teeth-grinding – like taking the lid off that gift box of chocolate truffles, creams and caramels, with plenty to share.

Writer Marcus ‘Zahir’ Blevins joyfully shares his personal, seminal, transformative and enlightening journey into the 25th Annual Virtual Maafa Commemoration, an experience expressed as moving beyond any perceived boundaries.

Call the police at our peril. Tony Robles clearly describes that reading “How Not to Call the PoLice Ever” might transform reaction to response by providing the realization that the present system is, and always has been, a set-up.

Could massive internal displacement today rewire the Jonestown of yesterday? Wanda Sabir offers an up-close narrative of the MoAD-hosted reading and discussion with Dr. James L. Taylor, playwright Sikivu Hutchinson Ph.D., audience and cast of the play “White Nights, Black Paradise,” dissecting the Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple phenomenon.

The stories of domestic violence against women around the world is told again and again. Is this the telling we listen to, the one we hear, the one we feel, the one we commit ourselves to by standing in her place and saying “No More”?