Tag: Bayview Hunters Point

San Francisco Trolley Dances, now in its ninth year, is an annual outdoor festival linking dance, public transit and San Francisco’s neighborhoods. This year, the free, site-specific event comes to Bayview Hunters Point. Trolley Dances director and curator Kim Epifano and Campo Santo founder and director Sean San José told Allison Frost about Trolley Dances and what makes this year’s show a must-see.

Sometimes one gets tired of living in a place that doesn’t want you there, Zaccho Artistic Director, Joanna Haigood, states at the reception Thursday at the California Historical Society. The only problem is 154 years later, Black people are still unwelcome in San Francisco, which is what “Sailing Away” addresses so eloquently without words.

In late August, Aboriginal Blackman United organized over 30 unemployed union members from Bayview Hunters Point to protest construction at Bayview’s Willie Brown Academy. We did not protest because we disagree that our public schools are much in need of repair or with the $531 million that the San Francisco School District will spend to upgrade our public schools. We protested because, despite this historic opportunity for the School District to work with local communities to rebuild our schools, there are no Black workers and no Black contractors at Willie Brown Academy. And at ABU we say that if we don’t work, nobody works.

The San Francisco Bay View newspaper and LaHitz Sports are starting a “Great Kids in the Bay View” writing contest. Each contestant will write about his or her favorite 49er (offensive and defensive players) to win tickets to a game and get their photo in the paper with the players.

The boxing world has its eye on Northern Cali, because the area is producing champions in every division, right and left. Later on, I will talk to more of the fighters, but I wanted to write this story first, so that people could see boxing from the eyes of trainers, not just fighters.

George Washington, the first president and one of the founding fathers of the United States, once argued, “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led to the slaughter.” Yet in many controversial cases, United States courts have ruled against the First Amendment guarantee to free speech.

The police line was hard, boot to boot, helmet to helmet, unmoving, bringing the threat of death with each gaze. The opposing line was a circle and it was moving, with resistance. And strength and people power. We were mamaz, uncles, daddys, sisters and brothers in solidarity, and we won’t stop fighting, we won’t stop walking, we won’t stop speaking until this ongoing police murder of our babies is over. “Our children are being stalked and murdered in cold blood, and it cannot continue,” said Oscar Grant's Uncle Bobby.

On June 26, a group of committed residents kicked off a campaign to restore Youngblood Coleman Park to its former glory. On the first of what will be many planned service days, residents toured the park, brainstormed ideas for public art and children’s activities and learned about the area’s history.

When Kenneth Harding, 19, couldn’t show police a Muni transfer to prove he’d paid his $2 fare on July 16, 2011, he ran, they shot him in the back and for an agonizing half hour, instead of trying to save his life, they trained their guns on Kenneth and the crowd while the young man slowly bled to death and the crowd screamed in horror. Knowing that the police murder of Kenneth Harding was the outcome of the routine, though unofficial, police practice of stopping and frisking young men of color, why would San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, a former civil rights attorney, consider importing New York City’s disastrous stop-and-frisk policy?

Despite quadrupling the number of solar panels in the City in just over four years, the GoSolarSF program is proposed to be gutted and City leaders have remained mum as environmental and cleantech industry opposition to the cuts grows. The Board of Supervisors will vote on a final two-year city budget as early as tomorrow.

The Southeast Food Access (SEFA) Food Guardians – food ambassadors of the Bayview Hunters Point community – are taking back our neighborhood by conducting assessments of the corner and grocery stores in Bayview and working with store owners to help them stock more fresh produce and healthier foods.

It’s election time. Whether you vote by mail or go to the polls like I do on Election Day, June 5, be sure that you and your household, family and friends cast your votes. You’ll be upholding a proud tradition – Bayview Hunters Point oldtimers’ motto, VOTE 100%, once made Blacks a powerful political force in San Francisco. By voting – and by organizing, making demands and showing the way – we can regain and expand our power, stop the backsliding and get the boot off our neck. - Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff

The restraining order barring DeBray (Fly Benzo) Carpenter from the Cahill construction site and the stay away order barring Fly’s presence at Mendell Plaza are SFPD examples of this nation’s conspiracy to mass incarcerate and control the lives and the deaths of the young, Black and male in America. A victory for Fly Benzo is a victory for us all. Pack the courtroom Wednesday, May 30, 1:30 p.m., at the San Francisco Superior Court, 400 McAllister St., Department 514. Occupy Fly Benzo’s courtroom for us all.

Bayview Hunters Point might consider investing Lennar's "community benefits" in a scholarship fund, a community development group, and a credit union that can pool the funds with residents’ own deposits and loan them for higher education, buying or improving a home, and founding or expanding a business to residents who have long been redlined and betrayed by banks.

As a union carpenter and general contractor with over 30 years of experience, I can safely say that the first year under San Francisco’s landmark new local hiring law exceeded even my hopeful expectations. The next step is to identify and support local community contractors. The City can partner with local contractors who actively recruit and employ local residents.

The name Beasley has rung true in the streets of Bayview Hunters Point since before the Double Rock housing projects were built in the 1950s. Of all of the Beasleys, there was none who controlled the streets like James Beasley Jr. James tells his amazing story in the soon-to-be-released autobiography and documentary entitled “Deep Rooted.”

DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter. He was busted on Oct. 18, 2011, by two of SFPD’s finest, John Norment and Joshua Fry, for (gasp!) participating in a community organized rally while playing a boom box in Mendell Plaza in the heart of Bayview Hunters Point. For speaking out against police brutality, especially the SFPD murder of Kenneth Harding last July, he was brutally arrested, tried and now is barred from Mendell Plaza by order of Judge Jerome T. Benson.

Oscar Grant. Kenneth Harding. Trayvon Martin. These are just a few names of young Black men who have yet to receive justice in the criminal justice system. Dregs One addresses the issue of police brutality and the abuses of power that have been committed by police and the justice system.

A press conference will be held Wednesday, April 18, at 3:30 p.m., on the spot where Fly Benzo (DeBray Carpenter) was arrested in October, in Mendell Plaza at Third Street and Palou in the heart of Bayview Hunters Point. Fly Benzo, resistance leader for justice for police murder victim Kenneth Harding, is campaigning against trumped up misdemeanor charges. He faces probation or up to three years in county jail at his sentencing hearing on Friday, April 20, 9 a.m., in Department 27 at 850 Bryant, San Francisco.

Supervisor John Avalos is calling for suspension of foreclosure activities in San Francisco. Rally to support Avalos’ resolution Tuesday, March 20, 12 noon, on the City Hall steps, Van Ness side, where foreclosure sales are held. “We have to do everything in our power to stop any more foreclosure fast-tracking,” he said.