News & Views

I am writing to urge you to announce an immediate cease-fire followed by a withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan in the fastest way consistent with the safety of our forces. Sadly, war crimes and torture are now committed with your name on them.

On Thursday, Dec. 3, while President Obama holds a national summit on jobs and unemployment, unemployed workers will picket at 11:30 a.m. in front of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in the SF Federal Building, 90 7th St., calling for Congress to take immediate action to put people back to work.

When America talks about unemployment percentages around 10 percent, I know they are talking about white people. It is talked about as an alarming figure. As a Black man, I am not alarmed. If that were the number in my community, I would rejoice. “No Blacks working! That’s what I see at every construction jobsite in San Francisco,” exclaims Willie Ratcliff, Bay View publisher and lifelong construction worker and contractor.

The City along with its handpicked operator, Bay Area Video Coalition, are planning to close the Community Access Television Center on Dec. 20 without another location where programmers can produce their shows. A picket and press conference will be held on this attack on community access and free speech on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 4 p.m., at Channel 29, 1720 Market St. at Valencia, San Francisco.

The known health disparities that contribute to premature death from breast cancer in African American women have galvanized righteous opposition to the USPSTF mammogram recommendations. In the past, these recommendations have influenced decision making by physician groups and the health care insurers who pay for preventative studies.

As global awareness grows around the Congo and the silence is finally being broken on the current and historic exploitation of Black people in the heart of Africa, a myriad of Western based “prescriptions” are being proffered. Most of these prescriptions are devoid of social, political, economic and historical context and are marked by remarkable omissions. The conflict mineral approach or efforts emanating from the United States and Europe are no exception to this symptomatic approach which serves more to perpetuate the root causes of Congo’s challenges than to resolve them.

A young boxing sensation from Oakland - quiet, focused, deeply spiritual Andre Ward - came into the Nov. 21 World Classic Super Six Boxing Championships the underdog, slated to fight the so-called Viking King and Hitman, Mikkel Kessler. Few thought he could win. Kessler thought he was just a youngster in awe of being in his first big, world-class title fight.

Police are arresting and attacking student protesters on University of California (UC) campuses again. “Why did he beat me I wasn’t doing anything,” screamed a young Cal Berkeley women student over KPFA radio on Friday evening, Nov. 20. Students are protesting the 32 percent increase in tuition imposed by the UC regents. Our current budget crisis in California and the rest of the country has been artificially created by cutting taxes on the wealthiest people and corporations.

KCBS calls it "Another Viral BART Police Confrontation," referring to the now world famous video of a BART officer shooting passenger Oscar Grant in the back as he lay face down on a BART platform at 2 a.m. New Year's Day. The new video, shot Saturday night, shows another BART officer assaulting a passenger almost as viciously. STORY UPDATED TUESDAY, NOV. 24.

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., gained international acclaim for being the only member in Congress who courageously and extraordinarily voted against the authorization of the use of force following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. She recently authored a controversial bill, H.R. 3699, that would prohibit the funding for additional troops to Afghanistan.

With the economic depression setting in and the effects of global warming being seen all over the planet, people are having to find ways to employ themselves as well as create cost effective healthy, earth friendly alternatives to expensive fast food and cheap GMO products. Marcel Diallo, a longtime Oakland community activist and cultural worker turned real estate tycoon, thinks that he has one of the answers, the Village Bottoms Farm in West Oakland.

A bloc of African American House Democrats, angry and worried that not enough is being done about high unemployment by the administration, forced the postponement of a much-anticipated vote Thursday on comprehensive financial regulation reform. The refusal to vote was portrayed as a direct rebuke of the White House's "lack of response to the economic situation." "The recession has created a unique systemic risk that threatens all parts of the African-American community," said Rep. Maxine Waters.

Juanita Young is a grandmother who stands maybe 5 feet tall – she is legally blind and also suffers from bad asthma attacks. But that hasn’t stopped police officers from harassing her and her family at all hours of the night. “Though I have been diligently fighting against police brutality for nine years, this most recent string of attacks has left me shaken to the core,” writes Juanita Young. An all-night vigil has been called to protect her.

Supervisors Nate Miley and Keith Carson have restored my faith in Black elected officials. The leverage that public officials have just before contract award is enormous. Nate Miley and Keith Carson by their actions have established a method of enforcing contractor goals that can create economic parity in the Black community.

When the Cook County Sheriff’s Department arrives to evict Cabrini Green resident Lenise Forrest and her family Tuesday morning, they will be confronted and prevented from doing so by residents and supporters from around the city. Lenise Forrest has been a resident of Cabrini Green for 19 years. The message and goals of the new Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign are summarized as “while the rich get bailed out, we will not allow the poor to be put out.”

They shot my grandson three times – two times in his back. That must have turned him around. Then they shot him in his face just above his right eye. That was the cause of death, according to the Coroner’s Office. So we know one thing: They shot him in the back first. How was he threatening the police if he was running from them? That’s what I want to know.

On Friday, Nov. 13, the London Guardian reported a "Huge rise in birth defects in Fallujah," Iraq. I sent the news to KPFA Radio 94.1FM Weekend News anchor Anthony Fest, along with contact info for Bob Nichols, San Francisco Bay View newspaper correspondent and winner of a 2004 Project Censored Award for his reporting on the U.S. military's use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq and consequent radiation poisoning.

Tonight is a night of rejoicing in San Francisco’s Black heartland, Bayview Hunters Point. After more than a decade of fighting the land-grabbing Lennar cabal – Florida-based mega-homebuilder Lennar and its sponsors, Mayor Gavin Newsom, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, richest member of the U.S. Senate Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her husband, Lennar partner Richard Blum – we the people of the poorest neighborhood in filthy rich Frisco finally won one.

Experiencing this enlightened age of “autism” is remarkable after having parented three autistic boys over the past 21 years. Now that autism spectrum diagnoses are estimated in one out of 100 births, all I need do is mention the word and many nod knowingly, yet physically recoil. Don’t speak about our children in hushed tones with downcast eyes or, even worse, avoid our presence altogether. Don’t worry about interacting with our children; get over your discomfort and come to see us.

U.S. Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother, is being threatened with a military court martial if she does not agree to deploy to Afghanistan, despite having been told she would be granted extra time to find someone to care for her 11-month-old son while she is overseas. Hutchinson, of Oakland, California, is currently being confined at Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah, Georgia, after being arrested. Her son was placed into a county foster care system.