Tag: Allen Jones

Rodney Reed’s scheduled execution has been put on hold five days before he was to be put to death, after more than 20 years in prison. Common sense and 21st century DNA technology could take 20 days, not 20 years, to give an innocent person his or her life back. It is time for a change in who should control clemency.

Proposition I on San Francisco’s June 5, 2018, ballot: “Establish a Declaration of Policy of: ‘Thou Shall Not Covet’ to Make It Clear to All Owners of Professional Sports Teams that the City and County of San Francisco Will Not Endorse or Condone the Relocation of Any Team With an Extensive History in Another Location.” The 81,000 votes of support of Proposition I were proof that this was no “frivolous” ballot measure. But the 110,000 votes that opposed it only made me philosophical: I’m deflated but not defeated. A setback is really a step forward for those who are determined.

Tuesday night, Jan. 23, 2018, supporters of San Francisco acting Mayor London Breed walked around in a daze in City Hall’s opulent Board of Supervisors chambers, shocked to realize Breed had just been ousted as mayor. One supporter asked, “What is a caretaker mayor anyway?” Answer: The term “caretaker mayor” was invented by self-serving members of the Board of Supervisors vying to be the next mayor of San Francisco in the November 2011 election.

San Francisco has the highest employment disparity between Blacks and Whites in the country according to a February 2017 report from the Brookings Institution. The legend of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men who stole from the rich to give to the poor has more myth than truth to it. However, in San Francisco, the story of Mayor Hood Robin’ and his Merrie Men, who steal from the poor to give to the rich has more truth than myth.

On March 27, 2017, NFL owners voted 31 to 1 in favor of allowing the Oakland Raiders to move from Oakland to Las Vegas. The lone vote against the move came from Miami Dolphin’s owner, Stephen Ross. Call me crazy, but I say the statement by Ross and a June 2011 letter from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should embarrass the league enough to trigger an NFL Black fan revolt to reverse the decision to move the Raiders to Las Vegas. Since 1970 I have been fooled into thinking the NFL really made strides against racism in America. A Black team leaves a Black city, and Blacks have nothing to say about it?

The “Merit Center” at the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Center is a new room at the detention facility designed to reward kids for good behavior. According to staff, it was “100 percent complete” eight months ago. According to Juvenile Justice Center Chief of Probation Allen Nance, it is “95 percent complete” as of Oct. 6, 2016, and will be ready in “a few weeks.” No kid will be able to enjoy or play one game in this new room, until Allen Nance is finished playing the bizarre “Dog and Pony” game.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has vowed to donate “$1 million” to community groups who are dedicated to the fight against Black oppression and police brutality. I hope Kaepernick will consider financial support for the work of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper and its commitment to keeping the Black community – as well as prisoners and oppressed people throughout the world – informed in print and online. The Bay View has been fighting against Black oppression and police brutality since 1976.

From 1983 to 1993, I taught Bible to teenaged felons housed at San Francisco Juvenile Hall. Teaching teenaged felons with lives on hold due to youthful anger, ignorance and mistakes was a challenge but also a lot of fun. However, what made me good at what I did was in part due to a stabbing I witnessed away from the facility and a special moment I missed out on when Muhammad Ali came up to the SF Juvenile Hall.

On May 12, 2016, Black gardener Byron Gill, who works for the City of San Francisco, was informed that a San Francisco Superior Court jury rejected his retaliation claim against his employer, SF Recreation and Park. Gill, represented by attorney Gregory P. Brock, described the matter in his closing arguments as “death by a thousand cuts.” He painted a picture of employer retaliation and harassment.

What began in 1991, thanks largely to the tenacious work of some women lawyers, eliminated the need for parents or guardian to panic when faced with the dilemma of having to do business in a San Francisco courthouse without childcare. The Children’s Waiting Room is open and free for all who have court business in a San Francisco courthouse. They provide a safe place for infants, children and teens to have fun while their parents or guardian are doing business in the building.

It appears that Mayor Ed Lee’s liaison to the Black community, Theo Miller, has been reassigned to direct Lee’s continued marginalization of San Francisco Blacks for the next four years. In mid-2013, Theodore Miller was hired on a three year $360,000 contract to “try” and reverse the outmigration of Blacks from San Francisco using the Gavin Newson-commissioned 2009 Black outmigration report as his guide.

On July 13, President Barack Obama followed up his March 2015 pardons of 22 federal prisoners by commuting the sentences of 46 federal prisoners who had served time for what has been described by the Washington Post as overly harsh sentencing. On Thursday, July 16, Obama will meet with law enforcement officials and prisoners at El Reno, the first time a sitting president has visited a federal prison.

Early reports revealed that Dylann Roof, a high school dropout, had a seldom used Facebook page and many Black friends. Then the Facebook photo of Roof sitting on his car with a Confederate flag license plate was revealed and another of Roof wearing a jacket with the flags of Apartheid South Africa and White-run Rhodesia, indicating that Roof was capable of tragically putting into practice what had been preached to him.

Report after report reminds and warns the Black community that AIDS is not yet under control for the Black population. However, when I saw several new 6-foot-by-4-foot billboard ads in the Castro district of San Francisco this past week with the image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. under the heading, “AIDS is a civil rights issue,” I first thought, “Well, that’s a stretch.”

What has changed for the better for the Black community in and around the city? Does the City of San Francisco care about this group of disenchanted people who helped build this great city? Though the mayor heralded The City’s low unemployment rate of 4.5 percent, many Black men hearing the word “jobs” in San Francisco know better than to get too excited.

There is a new sheriff in town … I mean a new president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She is Supervisor London Breed and I don’t need to tell anyone who knows of her that she is no shrinking violet. However, Blacks excited at the fact that a Black person will now guide this board is a trap that only sycophants can really enjoy. City Hall is still hostile to the San Francisco Black community.

As a member of the Equity Advisory Committee of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission (SFHRC), I learned a lot. It was all bad for The City’s Black community. The SFHRC was formed in 1964 to fight discrimination against Blacks in The City. Today, it is clear to me that this charter commission discriminates against the Black community – with no end in sight.

Another Black History Month with pomp, circumstance and countless hollow speeches has been taking place all over San Francisco. Does anyone notice it is only a matter of time until Black people living in San Francisco will become history? The 1970 Black population of “everyone’s favorite city” was a hundred thousand, according to city records. The latest census says Blacks account for just under 47,000 of the city’s 825,000 people.

California Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to send nonviolent prisoners back to county jails under a new law, AB-109, also known as “Realignment,” reclassifies certain nonviolent, non-serious and some sex offense felonies, allowing the convicted to serve time in a county jail, home detention or probation instead of prison.

The Supreme Court ordered California to release 33,000 prisoners due to unhealthy conditions and prison overcrowding in the Plata vs. Brown prisoner lawsuit. The high court showed it was serious by demanding the release of 10,000 of these prisoners by a December 2011 deadline.