Tag: JR Valrey

by JR Valrey, The Black New World Journalist Society Everyone in our society has had their lives altered in ways that we would not have...

It is extremely emotionally and mentally taxing to continue work on a project when your business partner, who is one of your best friends, gets murdered. I commend PK for, five years later, still carrying out the objective that him and the Jack drew up the blueprints for.

The neighborhood known as Fillmore or Western Addition has been one of the most, if not the most, organized Black communities in the Bay Area when it comes to providing and distributing resources to its residents in need. This has been the case for years, and in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, nothing has changed.

While the U.S. media plays politics and continues to drum up support for the Gates Foundation’s alleged forced mass vaccination program, I wanted to fill the readers’ minds with information that is actually more comprehensive about our health and how to protect ourselves from this invisible enemy, COVID-19, beyond being told to socially distance, use hand sanitizer, and wear masks and gloves.

“Imagine you taking (the COVID-19 virus) home to your mama, grandmama, sister. You’re gonna be responsible for that death, the loss of one of your loved ones,” said Kev. “Hopefully somebody like me getting it will wake people up.”

Do prison authorities see prisoners as worth saving? Some prisoners say: “Prisoners will not be at the top of the list for any kind of medical treatment. They will be forced to die a lonely death inside their cell, by way of suffocation.” Others say: “We are a commodity to these people, an asset that brings money to them. When you live in a capitalist society, the key is to protect your assets.”

This is a very important film for today’s times. Fela was a political Black revolutionary who used music as his sole weapon to address injustices perpetrated by the government, mostly in his country of Nigeria.

In light of the Oscar Grants, Sandra Blands, Nia and Latifah Wilsons, Philando Castiles, Mike Browns, Tamir Rices, Kathryn Johnstons, Kenneth Hardings, Gus Rugleys and Idriss Stelleys of the world, the Black community needs to be bombarded with a message of protecting ourselves and one another in a nation that considers us the enemy.

“Since my release, I only hope to continue living my life in this way: raising my kids, building and making contributions to my community and keeping a positive outlook on life.” – Kevin Epps, Hunters Point filmmaker

It is important for our community to see love, understanding and forgiveness between Black males in a family, especially when the corporate media is so diabolically bent on showing us images of us as dysfunctional.

The family suffers tremendously when a loved one has a mental health disorder or becomes homeless. It can destroy a family for generations.

We have lived in the past metaphysically for too long. Now it is time to nosedive into the future to start on the creation of the “New Us.” Don’t miss Matatu – all this week.

F.A.B. is the voice of the streets, the voice of the voiceless. F.A.B. is the embodiment of the struggle of young Black men growing up in the raw, merciless streets of post-industrial Oakland, California. He is still a young man. However, in these latter years, F.A.B. has used his voice to offer direction, encouragement and advice to young people desiring to stand on the peak of hip-hop stardom next to him. As he grows into O.G. status, that voice of wisdom becomes more pronounced.

On Tuesday, Aug. 21, the first day of the historic National Prison Strike, Democracy Now interviewed Amani Sawari. The segment began with an excellent interview with Cole Dorsey of IWOC and then suddenly the bright, brilliant, radiant face of 23-year-old Amani filled the screen and a voice of eloquence, inspiration and power filled the room. All it took was host Amy Goodman saying she’s a journalist, and, involuntarily, spontaneously, I pointed at the screen and shouted, “There’s the new Bay View editor!” Amani and I have been talking ever since, and she came to visit Oct. 8-12. What fun we had.

At 6:13 a.m. on July 23, Big Man joined the ancestors. Above all else, Elbert “Big Man” Howard loved his comrades and all oppressed people, who he never stopped fighting for. His Celebration of Live will be on Saturday, Aug. 25, 1 p.m., in the Bobby Hutton Grove inside of DeFremery Park, Oakland. Big Man was responsible for a free medical clinic for sickle-cell anemia and a work-study program for parolees at Merritt College. He was the first editor of The Black Panther newspaper, rebuilt Black Panther chapters decimated by COINTELPRO and built Solidarity Committees in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

“Sorry to Bother You,” written and directed by Oakland’s resident revolutionary MC, Boots, the front man of the political rap group The Coup, is a hilarious cult classic in the making, set to hit theaters in New York, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area in July. This political comedy is based in the streets of Oakland, but it is refreshingly not a cliché hood story. I loved “Sorry to Bother You” most because although it is a protest film, it’s a comedy.

Introduction: Kiilu Nyasha, Black Panther veteran, revolutionary journalist and mother of every movement, joined the ancestors on April 10, and just three days later, Bay View Arts Editor Wanda Sabir opened the phone lines on her morning radio show for tributes to our revered comrade. To listen to the entire show, go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2018/04/13/wandas-picks-radio-show-special-tribute-to-kiilu-nyasha or listen here. – Editor

Our beloved Kiilu, 78, passed peacefully into the welcoming arms of the ancestors in the early morning of April 10, 2018. Kiilu was a serious political animal. She didn’t just debate or go to meetings; she was on the frontlines of political struggle. Kiilu personified the spirit of a Black Panther and a dragon breaking free from a dungeon rolled into one, with the resiliency of a Haitian freedom fighter in their revolution and the resolve of a Palestinian resisting the settler colonial Zionist. Kiilu Nyasha, we love you, and we will never forget what you gave.

It’s 2016, 40 years since Muhammad al-Kareem founded the New Bayview, now renamed the San Francisco Bay View, in 1976. Inspired by Malcolm X, he wanted to bring a newspaper like Muhammad Speaks to Bayview Hunters Point. He’ll tell the story of those early years, and I’ll pick it up now at the point when my wife Mary and I took over in 1992. Watching our first paper roll through the huge two-story tall lumbering old press at Tom Berkley’s Post Newspaper Building on Feb. 3, 1992, was a feel-like-flying thrill we’ll never forget.

In 1969 I decided to join the Black Panther Party and commit myself to a lifetime of revolutionary struggle. In the early 1990s I became a supporter and advocate of Fanmi Lavalas. Lavalas means a cleansing flood that would wash away political corruption and Fanmi means family. I saw the similarities in practice of our Panther and Lavalas activists, whose dedication to the liberation of our peoples and provision of essential goods and services were paramount and well worth any risk to our lives.