Tag: Lebron James

Black NBA players are just beginning to understand the power of the attention and admiration they command, which is morphing into bringing their “messages” to the courts on their sleeves, chests and feet, along with other actions in solidarity with public demands from the streets.

A grand sunny day dawned in San Francisco’s Hunters Point Bayvew District for the naming of “Sam Jordan Way,” formerly Galvez Avenue between Phelps and Third Street. Over 150 people gathered for the celebration on Aug. 18. It is fitting that his two sons, Allen and Sam Jr., and baby girl Ruth with other family members were on hand. They pointed out that their father was the first African American to make a serious run for mayor and now we have a Black woman, Mayor London Breed.

Yolanda’s Construction Administration and Traffic Control, Inc., was given a proclamation honoring YCAT-C as “Small Business of the Year” at a special ceremony, Thursday, Oct. 27, at YCAT-C’s Bayview Hunters Point headquarters in San Francisco’s Industrial Park. Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, honored YCAT-C’s CEO Yolanda Jones with a special proclamation, in recognition of her achievements and commitment to hiring locally.

HOW SWEET IT IS, GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS 2015 NBA CHAMPIONS! NOW, THE BATTLE IS ON TO KEEP the team in Oakland and owners from moving WARRIORS TO SAN FRANCISCO Mission Bay and proposed new arena to be built at Third and 16th Street. While talking sports, CANDLESTICK STADIUM IS DOWN! GONE! Nothing left but the TOWER in the parking lot!

BRING EM’ ON! HOW SWEET IT IS! The GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS are making their FIRST NBA Finals appearance in 40 years, beating The Rockets, advance to FIRST CHAMPIONSHIP series since 1975, ready to beat LEBRON JAMES and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Last time Warriors’ great AL ATTLES led the team, AND live to see the day the young Warriors are destined to repeat history!

This upcoming week, on May 19, we will celebrate the 90th birthday of the late great El Hajj Malik El Shabazz aka our beloved Malcolm X, all over the world. But what will not be talked about in most of these celebrations, unrightfully so, will be the murder of his grandson, Malcolm Latif Shabazz two years earlier on May 10, 2013. Here is Hashim Aluddeen’s perspective on Young Malcolm, on the second anniversary of his assassination.

Over the last month, we have seen a veritable “Sports World Spring” as athletes have spoken out on politics in a manner unseen since the 1960s. They have been inspired by the #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations directed against the killing of unarmed Black men and women by police as well as the inability of the criminal justice system to deliver justice. Now, in the wake of the horrific killing of two NYPD detectives, everything has changed.

The marches in the streets are not done. The die-ins disrupting traffic are not done. Any kind of closure for the families of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley and so many others is far from done. Athletic protest actions have the effect of amplifying the impact of a new struggle for human dignity in the face of racism. It has found expression in all 50 states and in solidarity actions in cities around the world, all with the message that Black lives matter.

Michael Jordan, as an NBA player, owner and cultural force, has always been proudly apolitical. Most famously, he refused to oppose segregationist Jesse Helms in his home state of North Carolina by saying, “Republicans buy sneakers too.” Yet Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s racist rant has so upended the NBA apple cart that even Jordan is speaking out.

The latest Hollywood brouhaha over Gwyneth Paltrow’s decision to tweet the caption “ni**as in Paris for real” to accompany a picture of her with friends Jay-Z and Beyoncé while in Paris doesn’t compare to the new evidence of “fraud upon the court” that has emerged in a largely unnoticed civil rights case that very well should be reopened after being unfairly dismissed six years ago.

Afrika! Black people! Afrikans! Let’s do like China did and put the whole continent on lockdown by closing our doors to the rest of the world until we’re ready to come back out again as a superpower.

Jesus El, a member of the Golden State Warriors acrobatic dunk team, has started a youth program, Boys to Eagles, to help young men who grew up in single parent homes in the ghetto just like him. The program not only helps train acrobats, but musicians, video journalists, dancers and entrepreneurs.