Tag: homicide

To educate our entire Oakland community, I’m writing to explain why Oakland needs a smoke-free multi-unit housing policy. This is a social justice issue. Smoking and tobacco products kill more African-Americans than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drug use, homicide, suicide and other non-tobacco related cancers. We must educate our youth and communities regarding the dangers of smoking because it is an unhealthy life choice for them.

Mexico, John M. Ackerman wrote recently for Foreign Policy, “is not a functional democracy.” Instead, it’s a “repressive and corrupt” oligarchy propped up by a “blank check” from Washington. Since 2008, that blank check has come to over $2.5 billion appropriated in security aid through the Mérida Initiative. Clinton’s State Department overlooked human rights abuses and corruption while keeping a lucrative flow of contracts moving to U.S. security firms working in Mexico.

It is clear that Ricky Davis never had a chance of receiving fairness in a toxic judicial environment. The Ricky Davis affair is just one of the little known travesties that has arisen as a result of Hurricane Katrina. In Louisiana, a life sentence means you die in prison. Mr. Davis’ act of heroism has turned him into a victim of an arbitrary racially motivated legal lynching. If Black Lives Matter, it’s hard to tell down here in Louisiana.

“Richmond is Better Now; Let’s Build on a Decade of Progress” is the theme promoted by a progressive team of candidates for Richmond City Council, announced Feb. 13. Mayor Gayle McLaughlin – limited by City Charter to two consecutive terms as mayor – will run for a City Council seat, along with Vice Mayor Jovanka Beckles and Planning Commissioner Eduardo Martinez. Mike Parker will seek the office of mayor.

I do not accept the common usage of the term “crime.” Why? Crime is not solely the violation of legal codes. It encompasses behavior that violates human rights. But beyond the legal understandings, crime shatters relationships, both social – including political and economic – and interpersonal. Instead of correcting the problems it is intended to relieve, the justice system itself in many ways has become a monstrous crime against humanity.

Amid rumors that SCI (State Correctional Institution) Albion has been authorized to establish a brutal and bloody regime in its solitary confinement hole, prison guards murdered Stony Schaeffer (DW8560) in his cell using chemical munitions – Oleoresin Capsicum (O.C. or pepper) spray – and electro-shock weapons. Stony, 44, had been in the hole for the past eight years straight.

By the 1980s, the largest population of African Americans in the state of California owned homes, property and businesses in the Bayview Hunters Point district of San Francisco. Now, the BVHP Redevelopment Project threatens to deprive them of their land, historical legacy and culture, fulfilling the United Nations definition of a government sponsored genocidal campaign.

"Have you forgotten the holocaust? Have you forgotten the gulags in Russia? Communism, nazism, fascism did not come from Africa. ... A Western country was the first to use weapons of mass destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those countries have been able to rise. Africa, there is hope," Bishop Tutu assured.