Tag: JR Valrey

“I learned how to jailbreak iPhones through a lot of different YouTube tutorials. My mom was worried at the time because it was something unfamiliar and taboo, but my peers at school were so intrigued after seeing what iPhones are truly capable of that they started to pay to get their phones broken and customized by me,” said George Hofstetter.

“No Lye: An American Beauty Story” is one of the best documentaries on Black history this year. It gives a definitive history of the Black hair care industry and how it paralleled Black political movements. It presents historical accounts of early Black entrepreneurs who were pioneers in the Black cosmetics trade, the Black press and who created a lobbying group in Washington.

History teaches us that the people who govern the United States have no regard for the health of Black people and in this case Black children. The Oakland Unified School District faces the looming ‘20-‘21 school year, beginning Aug. 10 and Black parents are rightfully terrified for their children’s safety faced with the federal push to carelessly open schools amid COVID spiking in Alameda County and new lockdown orders.

The East Oakland Youth Development Center aka EOYDC is a deep anchor in the Deep East Oakland community, helping Black and Brown families navigate the uncertainties of the historic COVID pandemic. Regina Jackson and staff have sustained this community lifeline and shined a light on the creative choices possible when critical disruption occurs.

DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter, well-known community activist from Hunters Point, is helping people get their stimulus checks by signing them up with his pop-up help clinics happening every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The U.S.is in a frenzy behind the coronavirus pandemic and TV and media want us to believe that the federal, state and local governments are doing everything possible to curb the spike in infection numbers. If California was a country, it would be fifth in infections, following only the U.S., Brazil, India and Russia. As California approaches the 4 million mark we surpass New York as the nation’s hotbed of infection.

Black people in the racist U.S. are typically the last people hired, first people fired. We have the biggest population infected with COVID-19, and we are the most likely to die from the virus or its complications.

TreeMoon Cannabis Fashion is busy rebounding after having its production line interrupted by the COVID-19 quarantine. It's estimated that up to 60 percent of Black-owned businesses will not survive the extended COVID quarantine and national rebellions of 2020. Our Black community must step up our support for Black business at this critical juncture in history.

The Education, COVID-19 and Communities of Color Sanctuaries Virtual Town Hall will be on Zoom on Wednesday, July 15, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Everyone, especially from the East Oakland community, is encouraged to join. You may RSVP by calling 510-712-2855 or emailing Kristina.Molina4Education@gmail.com.

“We’re just tired and fed up with people calling 911 for non-emergencies. Any action with law enforcement can get Black people and people of color killed. And that abuse has to stop.” – San Francisco District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton

“I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they’ll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action.” – El Hajj Malik Shabazz aka Malcolm X

“Bit” is a 34-minute short comedy, directed by Morgan Mathews, about a young Black tech entrepreneur, Houston, and his ambition to create a start-up around his trivia game app, “Jambo.” The film, set mostly in downtown Oakland, is on the post-racialism fringes of the ever-growing Silicon Valley.

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.

“Our power comes from the fact that we create the wealth. Wealth is power; we have the ability to withhold that power.” – Boots Riley, filmmaker and activist, Juneteenth 2020 ILWU shutdown Port of Oakland

As new issues in our community continue to mount as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, education of Black youth is taking center stage. In Black communities locally and across the nation, there were already learning gaps, achievement gaps, a digital divide, and a lack of knowledge of self that Black youth as a body were already struggling to overcome before this forced pivot to online school.

Preventive medicine is the best medicine, especially in a capitalist country where the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed long encrusted health disparities that have been in place for centuries. Presently, people have had their ability to move around freely curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine’s shelter-in-place policy.

The San Francisco Black Film Festival, starting June 18 and going for a month strictly online, features a documentary, “70 Years of Blackness: The Untangling of Race and Adoption”, by filmmaker Christopher Windfield. Subject Verda Byrd is a Black woman adopted in the ‘50s into a Black family only to find out 70 years later that both of her birth parents were white.

As the longtime publicist for the San Francisco Black Film Festival, I have to go on record and say that “Digging for Weldon Irvine” is, out of over 200 films, one of the most informative and well crafted documentaries that has been selected to screen in the 22nd San Francisco Black Film Festival.

“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

The coronavirus pandemic and quarantine has created a massive mental health challenge to an already terribly inadequate mental health system that has been teetering on collapse in the Black community since mental health became a science in this country.