Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Cynthia McKinney’s Gaza Solidarity Triumph Tour: Main event Aug. 20 Grand Lake Theater

Welcome former Congresswoman and presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, the people's advocate, to your Bay Area city Thursday-Monday, Aug. 20-24. She'll discuss her stay in an Israeli prison, her triumphant trip to Gaza and the importance of independent media. Click the picture for her schedule. Check back often for updates. Cynthia is our Paul Robeson. Show her your love!

Foreclosed and evicted in West Oakland

At 8 a.m. July 20, 10 sheriff’s deputies arrived at Tasha and James Alberti's West Oakland home after they had left for work, forced their children and grandchildren out and left them on the sidewalk. The grassroots movement to stop unfair foreclosure evictions is heating up. ACORN is helping the Albertis reclaim their home from B of A. Just Cause Oakland invites the community to a press conference at Karen Mims' home of 42 years at 9401 Cherry St., East Oakland, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 12 noon, to announce a temporary stay of her eviction.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t give a damn

According to The ARC (advocacy, respect and commitment) of California, the governor has made devastatingly destructive cuts in the support system for people with developmental disabilities and their families. Recently I received a letter from the president of the ARC, Dwight Stratton, stating that our elected legislators decided to ignore the will of the people of the state of California by decimating the Lanterman Act.

Democrats sell out California’s poor, elderly and disabled in budget deal

California’s phony bleeding heart liberal Democrats have just helped to pass a Republican budget deal that shreds California’s safety net by cutting $15.5 billion from the state’s service sector to partially close a $26.3 billion funding shortfall in state revenues. The Democrats supported a $1.3 billion cut to MediCal, a $2.8 billion cut to the statewide university system, and a $6 billion cut to California’s K-12 schools. The Democratic leadership also supported the Republicans’ push to slash the children’s health insurance program known as Healthy Families, as well as In-Home Supportive Services and the CalWORKs program by cutting $878 million or more in coming months.

An economic justice paradigm for Black San Francisco

Mayor Gavin Newsom claims the most important item on his agenda is the revitalization of Bayview Hunters Point. Illustrating his editorial is this picture of a Black woman laborer. She is likely to be the only Black worker on any Hunters Point construction if things do not change. I propose an anti-gentrification subsidy of affordable housing and jobs for all residents displaced or in danger of displacement.

Watching the murder trial of Mehserle: an interview with Cop Watch Oakland cofounder Rekia...

Rekia Mohammed Jabrin has been involved in the Justice for Oscar Grant Movement in more than one way. She has been a consistent spectator at the Johannes Mehserle indictment hearings, taking notes, as well as one of the cofounders of Oakland Cop Watch. We are talking to her to get our audience prepared for the July 24 hearings in Oakland’s Superior Court, where Mehserle’s lawyer will be arguing to get the murder trial taken out of Alameda County.

A video tribute to Oscar Grant from his family

This video will change your life by giving you the strength to commit - and organize others to commit - to ending the police war against Black and Brown communities and especially our youth, our future. The BART board will hold a special meeting Thursday, July 30, 6:30 p.m., in the MetroCenter auditorium, 101 Eighth St. in Oakland, across from BART's Lake Merritt Station, to discuss citizen review of BART police. Be there!

I was born here

“I was born here.” Mrs. Patterson didn’t look up as she spoke, her voice inaudible, lost in the cement, concrete, doorways, truck exhaust, honking horns, brick walls and glass storefronts of downtown San Francisco. Her skin, the color of earth and wind, land and nature, was camouflaged in long ago lost clothing, shredded blankets and plastic ware.

Save Bayview parkland! No on SB 792!

Add your name and organization to the growing chorus of grassroots and environmental justice organizations — including the Caravan for Justice, Sierra Club, Audubon Society, Chinese Progressive Association, POWER, PODER, La Raza Centro Legal, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Arc Ecology, Greenlining Institute, San Francisco Green Party, San Francisco Bay View newspaper and many more — saying No to California Senate Bill 792, a bill state Sen. Mark Leno introduced that would allow the state of California to sell 42 acres of state parkland on the shoreline at Candlestick Point in Bayview Hunters Point for private condominium development.

Construction: While residents are trained, out-of-town workers get the jobs

The powerless are always at the mercy of the powerful. In San Francisco, voters would not knowingly allow the poor to be pushed out of the city. Those who have the votes, but not the information, often buy the explanation that gentrification is an economic issue. It is an economic issue but not the reason that causes the community of the poor to be displaced.

Moving off the lie of the budget cut into community reparations

Where do we go now? Yes, keep up the struggle for budget justice, but let’s look at another frame based in our own gifts, our thrival, not just survival – a plan of action to move off of the grid of philanthropy pimps, globalization pimps, non-profit pimps, to reject the lie of budget cuts, to reclaim our land and resources stolen from us so long ago!

BMAGIC and Public Defender’s Office need your support now

The Public Defender’s Office will be forced to lay off seven attorneys and five staff members and eliminate the BMAGIC and Mo’ MAGIC programs if $1.6 million is cut from the office’s budget, as proposed by Mayor Gavin Newsom. Show the Board of Supervisors your support for the Public Defender’s Office on Tuesday, July 21, 2 p.m., City Hall Room 250. Give them a call today.

Grind for the Green: an interview wit’ organizers Ambessa and Zakiya

The dynamic duo of the Bay Area’s “green movement,” Ambessa and Zakiya, have been organizing the Grind for the Green Festival for a few years in an effort to get Black and other youth of color interested in “sustainable” living practices. Mixing the music industry with environmental politics seems to be the ticket on how they have managed to get hundreds of youth from all over the Bay to be their captive audience. Past guests have included Bicasso of Living Legends, Charlie 2na, and Dj Backside. This year the keynote speaker will be M1 of dead prez. Check out what Ambessa and Zakiya have to say about this year’s Grind for the Green conference, which kicks off July 18th at 10am in San Francisco.

Gentrification, the new form of segregation

From San Francisco’s Fillmore, Hayes Valley and Western Addition, Black people and other members of the community of the poor were removed. The removal was a new form of segregation and discrimination. The government unit that led the charge was the Redevelopment Agency. The sociological name for this removal was and is gentrification.

SF 8 victory dance: Prosecution admits evidence is insufficient

What was amazing about the hearing Monday was the prosecution’s admission that it didn’t have enough evidence to convict these men. As attorney Daro Inouye said of Jalil Muntaqim, who pled no contest to the prosecution’s charge of conspiracy, his client picked up a loaded grenade to save his brothers, his friends, his fellow defendants, and he didn’t plead guilty. That language did not pass his lips.

Legal updates on Nadra Foster and Minister of Information JR

Support both of these cases. In both cases of the police and courts have no evidence. These are bogus charges to waste the defendants’ time and resources. We as the community must stand behind these two warriors as they are attacked individually and the community is attacked through them. What's the call? Free ‘em all!

Exercise your right to free speech: Participate as a candidate or voter in the...

The KPFA station board has the responsibility to approve KPFA’s budget, evaluate management and oversee programming. Nominations for KPFA’s Station Board are now open. Anyone who becomes a member, by donating $25 or by performing three hours of volunteer work before July 15, is eligible to run as a candidate and to vote in KPFA’s Station Board elections. You may wonder why you should participate. Only 17 percent of the world’s population lives in a country with freedom of the press. So please exercise you right to have your ideas heard by participating in these elections as a candidate or voter.

Newsom gives San Francisco’s most affordable housing to developers to destroy

The San Francisco Housing Authority plans to tear down thousands of homes in public housing and give the projects to Bridge Housing, the John Stewart Co. and Mercy Housing to prey on the poor and gentrify the areas. Bridge will have Potrero public housing, John Stewart has already started executing its plans at Hunters View in Hunters Point and Mercy Housing is waiting for the green light to gentrify and make hay while the sun shines at Sunnydale. Where are the people? They are fast asleep!

It’s time to get real-sponsible about HIV/AIDS

Among youth, while only 15 percent of teens (ages 13-19) are African American, they accounted for 73 percent of the new AIDS cases reported in 2004. Comparably shocking, HIV and AIDS is the leading cause of death for African American women between the ages of 25 and 34. Where’s Black leadership on this issue? Where’s the Black church?

The RABblerousers!

In a letter dated May 22, 2009, Navy representatives announced their intention to dissolve the RAB. This is not the first time the Navy has threatened to take this action. Indeed, whenever a critical impasse has arisen regarding key shipyard cleanup matters, a threat to disband the elected body recognized by Congress as the legitimate organized voice for public comment, dissent and scientific debate has been made.