News & Views

Locked out of the Oakland home she says Dr. Laura Dean Head left her, Zakiya Jendayi is still fighting to stop its sale and seeking an independent investigation into the probate case. The courts found undue influence, but Jendayi says the record tells a different story about a teacher, mentor and friend.

After nine months in Mesa Verde detention, Black Brazilian musician Leandro “Leo” Oliveira Xavier is free on asylum but says the trauma and the fight are far from over. In this interview, he calls on Black communities to recognize immigration detention as a Black issue and stand with those still locked up.

Your phone’s location pings are being harvested, sold and used to build a surveillance machine that can reach from advertisers to police. This investigation traces the data trap — and lays out steps to fight back.

Cuban diplomat Gabriela Castillo warns that the blockade is cutting off the exchanges, friendships and Black internationalist ties that bring people together. She argues that Cuba and the United States are neighboring peoples, not enemies, and that future generations should not inherit mistrust and separation.

Oakland and San Francisco organizers are fighting data centers they say will drain resources, pollute Black neighborhoods and help billionaires automate away jobs. The struggle, rooted in the Panthers’ demand for community control of technology, is pushing for people—not corporations—to decide what gets built and who benefits.

Nola Brantley says protecting exploited children means more than ending arrests or fining buyers: It means housing, economic opportunity, survivor-led support and adults who keep showing up. Drawing on her own survival and two decades of work, she calls on Oakland to confront the racial and economic conditions that leave Black girls vulnerable before traffickers arrive.

Gary, Indiana’s long blackout after a devastating derecho exposes how FEMA’s disaster relief system leaves Black and poor communities waiting while wealthier, whiter places get protected. Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright argues that ending this disposability demands climate and environmental liberation, not empty promises of justice.

The Regional Transit Measure could decide whether Bay Area public transportation is gutted or kept running for the people who depend on it. Voters in five counties face sales-tax increases alongside the threat of station closures, fare hikes and bus cuts.

Obi Egbuna Jr. traces a militant Pan-African history of confronting the United Nations, from DuBois and Robeson to Lumumba, Malcolm and Cuba. He warns that liberation struggles face imperial pressure, opportunists and political theater at the very institutions claiming to uphold justice.

A guide to California, San Francisco and regional ballot measures outlines proposals involving housing, public transit, taxes, city governance and the Great Highway. Readers are encouraged to review official voter materials and learn about the measures before casting a ballot.

Seventeen license-plate readers are mapped in Hunters Point as SFPD’s network of 500 AI-enhanced Flock cameras spreads across San Francisco. Residents and researchers question whether this corporate-backed surveillance dragnet delivers public safety or puts whole communities under watch.

After following Berkeley Unified’s transfer process for her daughter, Ty-Licia Hooker says she was met with delays, dismissal and humiliation. Her experience asks whether Black families have real access to the educational opportunities districts claim to offer.

Dhoruba Bin-Wahad argues that a Guardian-published open letter on Iranian political prisoners gives cover to U.S. and Zionist aggression against Iran while ignoring Palestinian and Black political prisoners. He calls on its signatories to account for what he sees as their selective anti-imperialism.

Black Panther Party archivist Billy X Jennings speaks on the survival programs that fed children, served elders and met needs the system refused to meet. He explains why preserving Panther history is a frontline defense against having that struggle stolen and watered down.

During October, while we are honoring the Black Panther's 60th anniversary, we reexamine some of the revolutionary stances of The Black Panthers Party. Here Huey P. Newton argues that capitalism cannot solve Black community exploitation, while reconsidering how Black businesses can be pushed to serve community survival rather than profit from it. He calls for theory joined to action and for building the people’s power to control their own destiny.

A massive data-center complex operates across the street from Bayview homes, yet no comprehensive system tracks what its pollution may be doing to residents’ bodies. Hunters Point Community Biomonitoring is proposing a one-year pilot to measure toxic exposure, dirty air, noise and heat before the neighborhood is forced to pay the price for San Francisco’s AI boom.

Kevin B. Williams examines wage and contracting disparities affecting Bayview Hunters Point and other southeast San Francisco neighborhoods, drawing on findings presented at a July 2026 Town Hall. He calls for public racial contracting data, meaningful compliance oversight and enforcement.

Gerald A. Perreira argues that Oct. 7, 2023, was the culmination of generations of Palestinian oppression and resistance, not the beginning of the crisis in Gaza. He casts Gaza’s struggle and the Axis of Resistance as part of a global fight against imperialism, Zionism and Western power.

Fillmore boxing legend Karim ‘Hard Hitta’ Mayfield and his brother Ronski are bringing Frisco Fight Night to the African American Art and Culture Complex on Oct. 17. The community event puts local fighters, youth boxing and neighborhood pride in the ring before the complex closes for a three-year retrofit.

As SF Bay View Publisher Dr. Willie Ratcliff turns 94 during the newspaper’s 50th anniversary, his Alaska legacy is traced through civil rights advocacy, Native village schools and pipeline-era contracting victories.