Culture Currents

Can you imagine 45,000 people dying each month and hardly a peep from anyone in the age of the Internet? There is a media blackout about Congo and no worldwide resolution to end the conflict and carnage there. The purpose of the Break the Silence Congo Week is to raise awareness about the devastating situation in the Congo and mobilize support on behalf of the people of the Congo.

Director of the San Francisco Black Film Festival Kali O’Ray has already showed me a number of potential films that are in the running to be selected to be for this year’s festival; great films like “Codigo Color” about colorism in Cuba, “Hustler’s Convention” about some of the greatest protest poets of the last 50 years, the legendary Last Poets, “Tear the Roof Off,” the untold story of Parliament Funkadellic, and “Blackboard,” a movie about Black professional skateboarders.

Keeping it real, honorable, celebratory and focused, Baba Jahahara brings our news home.

In this New Year and beyond, can we courageously enter the painful conversations, and love each other enough to focus on the heart of our dis-ease in shared humanity?

Baba Jahahara’s lens sees full-spectrum the good, the bad and the ugly.

Duane Deterville is a dedicated organizer in the Village Bottoms Cultural District in West Oakland and is the host of their Oct. 29 open house. The SF Bay View thinks that this open house is important because the Village Bottoms is a collective of Black business owners and homeowners who are working together to protect their property and institutions and to generate business. Listen to Duane in his own words ...

Ayodele “Wordslanger” Nzinga is a major thespian and theatrical force in the Bay Area hailing from the Lower Bottoms of West Oakland. She is now involved in producing the works of the great August Wilson and is currently producing “Seven Guitars,” which will run the last weekend in June and the first two weekends in July. Tune in as Ayo gives us some game on our history.

The Leimert Park Village Book Fair is held in the well preserved and nationally known Los Angeles Black artistic and cultural neighborhood Leimert Park, home to legendary filmmaker and owner of the Kaos Network Ben Caldwell and the Black bookstore Eso Won Books. Cynthia Exum and her crew have been organizing the Leimert Park Village Book Fair for a decade, which is no small feat. So I sat down with her to discuss this monumental accomplishment.

I especially want to remember the mothers who are not with their families this year due to physical distancing. I hope you are still able to connect with loved ones via technology. We are going to have a special radio show Friday, May 8, featuring Mrs. Sadie Williams, 96, in conversation with other mothers. Listen in beginning at 8 a.m. by calling 347-237-4610.

"I realized that this is a newspaper that speaks to the Black community as well as gives the community a voice."

The play “Every Five Minutes” by Scottish writer Linda McLean is an unique look into the effects of solitary confinement on a man named Mo – recently released after 13 years behind bars. Captured by insurgents, he was tortured, denied contact with family or others outside of his captors. The effects of this deprivation are one disorientated man whom we meet at his coming out dinner.

Death came to the old revolutionary - put out what was left of his cigar - leaving him his military cap - so they would not place laurels - that would bother him. It is no little thing to confront the empire - & survive its rage of a mad dog - from which a bone is taken. Oh Cuba of the bitter history, - of palms, dances, songs, - of the drums of Alegba and Yamayá, - of the cane made sweet by blood and sweat - mourn and remember, sing, dance, work - for justice and never return to slavery. © Rafael Jesús González 2016

Success in life steps are joys to share, and a team at PDEC is doing just that to spread the joy and successful healing.

Self-love is the first and most important love that an individual or a community can have. Without it, self-hatred develops. And I believe that our community is crawling out of the cave of self-hatred with more women desiring to do their hair naturally, and more men desiring women who are not afraid of their natural beauty.

Ty-Licia Hooker is one of the most dynamic Black women working in Oakland for the good of the Black community and other underserved communities. This former Black Girls Rock awardee is the executive director of Boost! West Oakland, a non-profit dedicated to empowering young people and strengthening their academic performance. They were just awarded the prestigious Partner Organization of the Year Award from the Oakland Unified School District.

Honoring Charles Eugene “Gino” Armstrong and fellow New Ancestors, still suffering Political Prisoners, Reparations and S. 40 are the center of Baba Jahahara’s offering.

If you are involved in some way with the Black Frisco visual arts scene, either as a fan, artist, media-maker or space owner, chances are that you have run across the twins, Melonie and Melorra Green. They’ve created a radio show that comes on 89.5FM KPOO weekly, and, as a major part of the planning for the successful San Francisco Black Film Festival June 12-15, are basking in the after-glow.

Block Report Radio interviews legendary Cuban poet Nancy Marejon about Black culture in Cuba after the revolution. She talks about Cubanismo and African pride, she talks about contemporary Cuban painters, musicians of the past, Jazz, and more. If you would like to hear more from the Block Report, you could tune in regularly to BlockReportRadio.com.

by Raymond Nat Turner Abracadabra Open sesame Om Presto Poof! Twisting useless, endless parades of powdered wigs, wars, battles, bills, laws, names, dates, great men, generals, captains of industry, presidents Bore us to tears … We must be real Historians  – Ju-ju workers with Way Back Machines Alchemists...

by Baba Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma’at 6262 AAAK /April 2022 JC-PG Africans Deserve Reparations! ‘Cause Black Lives Matter! Blessings of Imani (faith) beloved, brilliant, bold, brave and beautiful G-o-ds, Elders, Sis-Stars, Bro-Stars and youthful revolutionaries!  May our Most High...