Tag: KPFA

Malcolm X is one of the best known figures of the human rights struggle and one of the most attacked by institutions that serve the elite. A new book – “A Lie of Reinvention” – defends his legacy against an attempted ivory tower assassination. Editor Jared Ball says Manning Marable's book on Malcolm "is a corporate product, a simple commodity to be traded, but for more than money; it is a carefully constructed ideological assault on history, on radical politics, on historical and cultural memory, on the very idea of revolution."

Imprisoned Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire and her supporters await a Kigali court’s verdict in her case this coming Friday, Sept. 7. Ingabire has been in prison for nearly two years, charged with giving financial support to a terrorist group, planning to cause state insecurity, and divisionism, a violation of Rwanda’s “genocide ideology” statute.

I didn’t know what to expect and was pleasantly surprised when Esperanza Spalding, the singer-musician, treated her audiences to a socially conscious tour of America with stops at the doors of the prison industrial complex and Mother Nature. The evening moved fluidly from a fireside chat on relationships and love to the concluding number, which spoke to Spalding’s philosophy.

The New York Times published a piece called “Oakland, the Last Refuge of Radical America” that pretty much had everyone in Oakland scratching their heads and mouthing a collective WTF? Is Oakland the last refuge for radicalism where outsiders are invading the city? No, Oakland is a city where people are not shy about fighting for and demanding justice.

Long before Karim “Hard Hitta” Mayfield held a professional boxing title, he was considered a beast in the streets of San Francisco – because of his hands. Eight years after retiring as a street fighter, this professional boxer has risen to superstardom.

The fierce debate about competing visions for KPFA and Pacifica Radio continues, with the focus now on the attempt to recall Tracy Rosenberg from the KPFA Local Station Board and the Pacifica National Board and the competing campaigns to keep Tracy on the board. Mail your ballot in time for it to arrive at KPFA by Aug. 3.

Tupac Shakur, a very talented rapper and actor who defined the aspirations and frustrations of a generation, was shot on Sept. 7, 1996, and died on Sept. 13. On June 16, Bobby Beats, the father of Digital Underground’s Money B and a former Black Panther, organized one of the biggest, most exciting and most meaningful Tupac birthday parties in history.

You may recognize Floyd Mayweather and Andre Ward as two major figures in today’s world of boxing, but very few have heard of Raquel Miller, a female fighter from the streets of Hunters Point. All of that is about to change with this 2011 Golden Gloves winner and rising star taking the Northern Cali boxing world by storm.

Safety First is one third of the super art crew Black Diamonds Shining, which also consists of Dead Eyes and Ras Terms. These brothas are very talented visual artists who seem to be everywhere in the Bay where people are talking about young Black and Brown art by contemporary artists. We have to buy and support local art so that we can keep our local dope artists in business.

When Kenneth Harding, 19, couldn’t show police a Muni transfer to prove he’d paid his $2 fare on July 16, 2011, he ran, they shot him in the back and for an agonizing half hour, instead of trying to save his life, they trained their guns on Kenneth and the crowd while the young man slowly bled to death and the crowd screamed in horror. Knowing that the police murder of Kenneth Harding was the outcome of the routine, though unofficial, police practice of stopping and frisking young men of color, why would San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, a former civil rights attorney, consider importing New York City’s disastrous stop-and-frisk policy?

Storytelling is one of the most ancient forms of entertainment – before radio, television, paper and cinema. Ayodele “Wordslanger” Nzinga is one of the Bay Area’s most talented griots who tells stories of the past through her West Oakland-based theater company, The Lower Bottom Playaz. The legendary August Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” opens July 13.

Davey D, host of KPFA’s Hard Knock Radio and a well known and respected community activist and advocate, will headline the Homeboy Hotline's first annual fundraiser celebration on Saturday, June 23, 2-4 p.m., at Hibiscus Restaurant, located at 1745 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. Donations raised will fund the work of HBH, a nonprofit organization that provides support, resources and hope to the formerly incarcerated.

The first book I read after I decided to consciously educate myself to be a part of the movement was Sanyika Shakur’s “Monster” in the mid-‘90s. I was inspired by the sharpness of his ideas, his vocabulary and his grasp on history. I respected him in the same way I respected Tupac Shakur. I knew that one day I wanted to be able express myself as articulately as the two of them.

On May 14, nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners ended their historic mass hunger strike in Israeli jails, as prisoner representatives entered into an Egyptian-mediated agreement with Israeli prison officials. Israel agreed to limit the use of administrative detention indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial and said it would ease harsh restrictions on visiting.

San Francisco Bayview’s own, the undefeated Welterweight Champion of the World, Karim “Hard Hitta” Mayfield (16-0-1), brings his knockout power to the San Francisco Black Film Festival. “In the Hive” director Robert Townsend is coming a day early, on Thursday, to promote his film, which opens the festival. It stars Michael Clarke Duncan, Loretta Devine, Vivica A. Fox and newcomer Jonathan McDaniel.

There’s more mischief underway at community radio station KPFA. KPFA subscribers will soon be receiving ballots in the mail asking them to vote on whether media activist Tracy Rosenberg should be recalled from her seat on the KPFA board. This swiftboat-style attack on the station’s hardest working board member must be defeated!

The Congo conflict and human catastrophe has continued despite a 2003 peace treaty. It entered a new phase with the Rwandan backed CNDP rebellion in the Kivu Provinces in April 2012. Ugandan reporter, television producer and broadcaster Paul Ndiho told KPFA that everyone knows who is doing what in Congo, but that regional and international powers are unwilling to stop it.

“This is survival radio, without- it-us-po’-folks-might-die radio, police-harrassed-criminalized-and-under-attack radio. Welcome to Poor News Network; thats PNN, not CNN, people.” – Introduction to the Poor News Network show once heard regularly on KPFA’s old Morning Show, now heard occasionally on KPFA’s Morning Mix

On May 12, Sonoma State University awarded honorary doctorates in humane letters to former Citigroup CEO Sanford Weill and his wife Joan, paid for with a $12 million “donation.” On the same day, William Penn University awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters to Rwandan President Paul Kagame, despite his army’s atrocities in Rwanda and Congo.

On April 18, a picket was called by the KPFA members of CWA Local 9415 to demand the firing of the anti-labor law firm Jackson Lewis. The firm has been retained to provide legal services to Pacifica, which owns the five stations on its network, including KPFA. Over 80 percent of the workers at KPFA are unpaid volunteers who are not represented by the union.