Tag: Black and Brown communities

We are at war and it is our duty to arm ourselves with facts to fight for truth.

One of the blessings of challenging times is the person and/or organization who enlightens us to the blessings going on around us like Jim Oswald’s exalting the spirit- and life-saving services of Meals on Wheels San Francisco, volunteers having delivered 2.4 million meals and groceries to a total of 16,462 people including those impacted directly by COVID-19 in 2020.

The June 2020 shooting death of Sean Monterrosa by Vallejo Police Officer Jarrett Tonn remains in limbo after all legal efforts have been exhausted, peacefully and respectfully. Ongoing disregard from Gov. Newsom has prompted an open letter to demanding action and revealing his inaction as justice delayed, which is justice denied, which is complicity.

Cutting public transportation is a racial unjust act against particularly Black and Brown and low income communities. Working people, students, people with disabilities and elderly folks depend on the public bus system as part of their daily lives and would be further disenfranchised without it.

Dr. Kim Rhoads, MD, MS, MPH, is an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF); director of the Office of Community Engagement at UCSF; and member of the COVID-19 Equity Task Forces in both San Francisco and Alameda County.

Housing is a national crisis due to speculative investment and gentrification. I spoke to Noni Session, executive director of the Oakland-based East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative (EBPREC), about solutions. “EBPREC is: A movement based, investor crowd-funded, multi-land holding entity through which Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and allied communities can cooperatively organize, finance, purchase, occupy, and steward properties, taking them permanently off the speculative market." The Co-op launch party is tomorrow, Dec. 5, at the Oakland Impact Hub.

The purpose of this press release is to notify prisoners, community organizers and all those who care of the upcoming Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March in Washington, D.C., scheduled for Aug. 19, 2017. This is a national effort to bring world attention to the 13th Amendment enslavement clause, its ramifications, and to solidify organizing efforts to amend it. In essence this is an abolitionist movement to abolish legalized enslavement.

If you care about everything from civil and human rights to economic justice and climate survival, Trump’s impending presidency is terrifying – but the amount of wreckage he can cause depends in part on how people respond. Already, a Dump Trump rebellion is rising up in the streets and online; it’s also worth remembering Trump lost the popular vote, the Senate is close to tied and not filibuster-proof, and things have a way of see-sawing in American politics.

The killings we see and hear about taking place not just in Oakland, but in communities all around the country via intra-community violence are such that they simply can’t be tucked away under a rug. These tragedies pierce our souls and touch our hearts. They leave us sad, angry, traumatized and frustrated, especially if you organize or are in any way politically active and know intimately the forces at work that help foster a climate where Black and Brown life is devalued.

The Blue Ribbon Panel on Transparency, Accountability, and Fairness in Law Enforcement has released its final report detailing its year-long investigation into issues of potential bias in the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). The panel found that the SFPD is in need of greater transparency, lacks robust oversight, must rebuild trust with the communities it serves, and should pay greater attention to the potential for bias against people of color, with respect to both its own police officers and members of the public.

“Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” Moving in slowly like they were on a hunt, high-powered weapons pointed down, the descendants of slave-catchers aka police stalk an indigenous man crouching on Shotwell Street holding a soccer ball. They shout disgustedly and dismissively in English from the video screen; my heart stops. I try to keep watching, reminding myself I need to wear my reporter hat instead of my trauma-filled police-terror-from-my-life-of-houselessness blanket. We are watching the extrajudicial murder of Luis Demetrio Góngora Pat by San Francisco police. Why did they kill him? “He was a homeless man.”

May 19 was less than a month since the “Frisco 5” began their hunger strike with a single demand: that Police Chief Greg Suhr resign or be fired … this chief, who for five years has been crying crocodile tears while justifying every police killing of a Black or Latino person … this chief, who for five years has been vigilantly protected by the mayor, the media and the city’s Democratic political establishment. On May 19, the mayor forced him to resign.

Five hunger strikers dubbed the Frisco 5 – angered by new police murders of Black and Brown people – have been occupying half the sidewalk in front of Mission Police Station since April 21. It’s Day 13 of their liquid-only fast and they’re losing weight, but they vow to keep it up until SF Police Chief Greg Suhr resigns or is fired. The Frisco 5 hunger strikers are Maria Cristina Gutierrez, 66, Ilyich “Equipto” Sato, 42, Selassie Blackwell, 39, Ike Pinkston, 42, and Edwin Lindo, 29.

One month after SFPD killed Mario Woods, the family of Alex Nieto is joining Black Lives Matter SF and other community organizations in a solidarity march with Woods’ family. The march will start Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2016, in Bernal Heights and Bayview Hunters Point, with the two groups meeting in the middle for a solidarity ceremony. SFPD has turned San Francisco into the eighth deadliest city in the country in terms of killings by police.

Once a killer cop, always a killer cop! Black San Francisco is demanding that Mayor Ed Lee face the music and fire Chief Greg Suhr, as well as the five officers involved in the execution of Mario Woods, a young man with special needs who was gunned down by five gang members of the SFPD. Records reveal that many of the officers involved had used deadly force on unarmed individuals in the past.

The Bay View thanks Donald Lacy for making the recording of this incomparable historic interview available for publication in print for the first time. Don’t miss “Superheroes,” inspired by Gary Webb and “Dark Alliance,” which Lacy calls “the most important play written in the last 25 years.” It runs Nov. 21-Dec. 21 at the Cutting Ball Theater, 277 Taylor St., San Francisco.

Thespian Donald Lacy is one of the stars of the new play “Superheroes,” which starts today and runs through Dec. 21 at the Cutting Ball Theater. “Superheroes” looks at the cocaine era in U.S. history from the perspective of a series of people interlocked in the scheme, or the uncovering of it. Check out renaissance man Donald Lacy, the father, journalist, activist, comedian, thespian and so much more as he speaks on Gary Webb and “Superheroes” ...

The Blueford family and the Justice 4 Alan Blueford coalition (JAB) held a vigil for Alan on the one-year anniversary of his murder by Oakland police officer Miguel Masso. JAB has based itself deep within the Afrikan community that birthed it and has brought together many organizations and individuals to fight for justice for Alan and to stop continued police violence.

Black and Brown communities are terrorized by police on a daily basis on a physical and emotional level. We are all too familiar with the physical terrorism: bodies being slammed on pavement with knees penetrating necks, batons beating against skulls mimicking a life-size piñata that spills blood instead of candy and, last but not least, the iconic image of a body riddled by a volley of bullets.

In this manifesto that shows why JR Valrey is rightly called the Minister of Information, he exposes "gentrification journalism" as "the public relations team that is put in place to make gentrifiers feel safe," the media's twisting of the murders of Chauncey Bailey and Oscar Grant to demonize Blacks and the hyper-funding of "hyper-local media" as an effort to drown out community media. Everyone who wants to stop the exodus of Blacks from the Bay must read this.