Culture Currents

Berkeley, Calif.: The most liberal city in America and the world, some say. And yet Berkeley High School, with over 3,500 students and 250 teachers, has only eight Black teachers. Scandalous!

Seidah Williams, an organizer with the People’s Lunch Counter, says PLC provides an atmosphere that nurtures and develops self determination by the way of community and home gardening, holistic health and wellness, and political education. PLC's Black August Course honors fallen freedom fighters.

The MAGIC Program’s Back-to-School Celebration and Backpack Giveaway, the largest of its kind in San Francisco, will kick off the academic year Saturday, Aug. 13, by distributing health information, school uniforms and 3,200 new backpacks stuffed with school supplies to kids and teens.

Mr. James Lowe is a man who believes in keeping promises. He taught fifth grade at Malcolm X Academy in Hunters Point for 22 years. He promised that two years after retiring from teaching, he would be back at Malcolm X as an Experience Corps volunteer. This fall, James will keep that promise.

How well indeed the creator saw fit to have the Muslim population worldwide join the hunger strike started by brothers in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay July 1, which continues in other California prisons, including I heard at the Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF).

On the heels of the San Francisco Police Department killing of alleged bus-fare-evader Kenneth Harding, KPFA devoted the entire morning program – the Morning Mix – on Wednesday, July 20, to police terrorism aka “excessive use of force.”

Renowned artists and athletes meet once a year in Lake Tahoe to play golf and raise money for charities. Michael Jordan, John Elway, Kevin Nealon, Aaron Rodgers, Dennis Haysbert, Jerome Bettis, Jim Harbaugh, A.J. Hawk, Jim McMahon and many other entertainers and sports figures participated in this fun-in-the-sun annual event.

The 64th Cannes International Film Festival kicked into high gear with a galaxy of stars, writers, directors, producers, distributors and folks from all walks of life celebrating the film industry. African and Caribbean cinema industries were well represented.

A compilation of JR Valrey’s most interesting interviews, “Block Reportin'” is both revolutionary journalism and candid conversation. Combining straight-up questions and answers with much deeper analysis and inquiry, Valrey provides a forum for discussion in which interviewees have the same opportunity to say what they want. This is rare in a world where so much “journalism” is scripted and controlled.

Powwah and his family are some of the people that I check in with when I am in the Memphis area. Besides being one of the most politically educated entrepreneurs that I know, Powwah makes music. His new album, “In tha Wind,” is Southern conscious rap at its finest with precise lyrical content and the type of production that we traditionally think of when we think of bar-b-cues and Southern Comfort.

Growing up with an older brother like Sean was really a very special gift. Seven years of wisdom separated us. When I was still interested in Barbie and Ken, Sean had long been interested in music. Indeed, you could hardly escape him and his body-popping, breakdancing dance moves on the living room space any time there was company around.

I came into contact with Madam T’s music first through Facebook, although we both live in Oakland. I was impressed with her business sense off of the mic: sound, production, lyricism, marketing and her street hardened demeanor in her music. I brought her on the Block Report Music Show – every Friday midnight-2 a.m. on KPFA 94.1FM in Northern Cali – and the callers loved her.

Oakland has been always full of talent. If you didn’t know, it was the home of the Black Panther Party, Andre Ward, Too Short, Bill Russell, Huey P. Newton, Toni Tony Tone, 2Pac, Ricky Henderson, Bruce Lee, Leonard Peltier and more. Now a new, up and coming duo known as the Newlyweds, are ready to show the world what they have to offer.

Why would Voice of the Cape, the Islamic community radio station of rural South Africa, be blocked on Facebook? The feature story that day was about the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, but there were stories all over my friends’ Facebook pages about the Gaza Flotilla that day. When Voice of the Cape was still banned two days later on July 6, I scanned the featured stories on its home page.

The new book by Manning Marable, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” will help us to get a deeper understanding of Malcolm X and the times we’re living in now. This will not be a direct result of what Marable has done, but rather of what needs to happen now because of what he has done.

Historically, heroes – super-powered or not – come in all shapes and sizes. But what about colors? If we allow your standard history book and Hollywood small and silver screen productions to answer that question, the overall answer would be that the color is only one – white. Black heroes, it seems, do not exist.

The SF Bay View is holding a fundraiser! Come and meet the grandson of Malcolm X, Hajj Malcolm Shabazz, on his speaking tour hosted by the Minister of Information JR.

“Men are born, champions are made, and legends never die." David Henderson, who passed away on June 6th after being shot three times in the back, was all three.

Invariably around this time of the year, the Fourth of July, you’re likely to hear somebody talking about how great this country is. And it is, but so was the Third Reich.

There is an old saying: “Do as I say and not as I do.” 3rd Street Youth Center and Clinic’s daily activities and special events are designed with the complete opposite of that philosophy in that they empower and develop leadership in youth from Bayview Hunters Point.