Tag: George Floyd

Jeremy Miller succinctly describes the seemingly benign invitation from the FBI to help them keep us safe from scary events like the recent white supremacist insurrection at the People’s House as being somewhat akin to the fox asking the chickens to help with the slaughter. As Jalil Muntaqim said, “We Are Our Own Liberators.”

Free Zulu! The US prison system, designed to capture, confine and control, denies it holds Political Prisoners like Kenny Zulu Whitmore, Imam Jamil Al-Amin, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Leonard Peltier, Russell ‘Maroon’ Shoatz, Ed Poindexter, Romaine ‘Chip’ Fitzgerald and so many more, most falsely accused and wrongfully convicted. Released after 50 years, Jalil Muntaqim was rearrested, charged with trying to vote as the State attempts to reclaim his captivity.

The election is over – the work is not. What’s not working for Black and Brown people, and what’s killing them, is one long familiar list. And there’s the other list that continues to demand our devoted attention to change and build the world we deserve by loving and uplifting our ravaged communities through relentless action.

The 13-page letter from Concerned Black Employees to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to specify experiences of racism at CARB – widespread, routine and systemic – and shared, as well, with CARB’s staff, may provide the incentive to engage action towards introspection and change at the agency.

Shaka Shakur makes crystal clear that freedom is not given. Freedom is taken and the price is high. The will of the oppressor to protect property and power is vicious and relentless. To win freedom, we must commit to the courage to take it.

In 1996 Eva Patterson, then executive director of Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, and Fred Jordan, President of the African American Chamber of Commerce, with Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Senator Diane Feinstein, opposed Prop 209. Today they are fervently supporting Prop 16 on the Nov. 3, 2020 ballot to repeal the 1996 Prop 209 with an amendment to the California Constitution.

Kevin Cooper, still caged in San Quentin after 37 years, 35 years on Death Row, speaks with KPFA’s Flashpoints Dennis Bernstein in an exclusive in-depth interview. Cooper talks about simultaneously surviving Death Row and the COVID-19 pandemic, the blues and highlights the opportunity for Governor Gavin Newsom to order an Innocence Investigation, which will shine direct light on prosecutorial wrongdoings and new DNA evidence to support his innocence.

Vote and register (y)our interests for changes and recovery from this ongoing deadly coronavirus pandemic; deepening imperialist monopoly capitalist economic depression; worsening corporate abuse of Mama Nature; European and american “white” terrorist wars against The People.

Emmett Till, the Scottsboro Boys, the Central Park 5, and the list goes on. The ramifications of being falsely accused of a crime in America can be, and often have been, deadly for Black people.

Racial violence against Black America is a regular part of America’s history; hiding and denying this racial violence is also a part of America’s history. For decades, African Americans have complained about police brutality. White America dismissed them or paid little attention and this denial allowed White America to feel innocent.

Without question, we who represent the most negatively impacted communities are committed to upending policing as we know it: This is the call of the moment – and the mandate of my life.

Just released by Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Shamann Walton is a report from the Human Rights Commission (HRC) quantifying the intention to redirect funding from the police department into the African-American community, with recommendations heard directly from community members, particularly those most impacted by systemic racism, through a process facilitated by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.

“We are marching in solidarity and trying to make change. My first march was on the school system. We were protesting Berkeley High school, because we don’t have enough resources for Black students,” said Shayla Avery, a 16-year-old Berkeley High senior due to graduate this upcoming school year.

From behind the enemy lines, within the “Belly of the Beast” that is the Amerikan injustice system, I invite my fellow prisoners and their families throughout Amerika to celebrate the annual commemoration of Black August. Join together in honoring our beloved martyrs with fasting, studying and sharing Panther Love and knowledge, in the spirit of our fallen comrades.

The failure of both Congress and state legislatures to respond to the murder of George Floyd with any meaningful action reminds us that our nation’s attempts at reform can often amount to nothing. We need to look elsewhere for reform – to local prosecutors.

Rebellions, protests and racial tension have consumed the COVID-19 summer of 2020 following the police executions of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. The San Francisco Black Film Festival (SFBFF.org) film selection “American Dream” presents a relevant 19-minute short by French born filmmakers Nicolas Polixene and Sylvain Loubet dit Gajol.

“An unarmed people are slaves or are subject to slavery at any given moment” – Huey P. Newton, co-founder and Minister of Defense of the Black Panther Party

It is said that Mark Twain once quipped that “history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.” One cannot escape comparisons with 1968, and with widespread civil unrest, troops in the streets, warring abroad and a rabidly reactionary Republican president seeking re-election while executing his own Southern Strategy replete with dog-whistle appeals to “law and order,” such comparisons are not without merit.

Oakland – On Monday, young people from across the East Bay led a peaceful march to show solidarity with George Floyd’s family and the Black community at large, which falls victim to the systemic racism and barbarity of America’s police forces.

Today, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and Supervisor Shamann Walton announced a resolution motivated by the murder of George Floyd to protect the public and particularly people of color from police misconduct. The resolution urges the San Francisco Civil Service Commission to prohibit the San Francisco Police Department and San Francisco Sheriff’s Department from hiring officers with a known history of serious police misconduct. Supervisors Hillary Ronen, Aaron Peskin, Matt Haney, Dean Preston, Sandra Lee Fewer and Norman Yee are cosponsors of the resolution.