Tag: Mary Ratcliff

Congress’ right wing is on a rampage, and the U.S. Postal Service – beginning with post offices in poor neighborhoods and rural towns – are on the chopping block. One of them, the humble Bayview Post Office on Lane Street in Bayview Hunters Point, has become the poster child for what’s shaping up to be an epic battle against privatization of fundamental public services.

I am running for mayor of San Francisco because I believe that we, the people, can bring change to City Hall and make the government work for the people and by the people, as the Constitution guarantees. I believe that I have a clear understanding of the challenges our city faces, and the administrative experience necessary to meet those challenges.

The U.S., with 4.5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, is the world’s first prison state. Too long have we tolerated this backsliding from the great advances of the ‘60s. When we are presented with a clear case of retaliation, we must protest.

Celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Bay View by sending its love and light to a prisoner behind enemy lines. One prisoner writes, “The Bay View has been a source of inspiration and life for me. It enables me to see people still care and Blacks are still fighting for justice.”

We don’t need to be “given” a voice. We have a voice. What we don’t have is our own radio transmitters, television and radio broadcasts, and TV stations. PNN is the voices of people who are never heard.

“POOR’s rule from the beginning was to break down the myth of objectivity and the implicit ‘other’ stance of journalism. We accomplished this through the integration of self, the use of ‘I’ in every story,” explains Tiny – Lisa Gray-Garcia. POOR needs your help right now. Become a Revolutionary Donor today!

The job of the media is to hold the powerful accountable. To avoid hypocrisy, the media itself must be held accountable as well. In the past few days, KPFA has broadcast at least twice a brief announcement recorded by the interim general manager scolding Bay View associate editor JR Valrey for a passing mention in one of his Block Reports of KPFA’s former interim program manager, Sasha Lilley. The Bay View respectfully questions its timing and refutes its contentions.

“We’re trying to get in. Some people don’t want us in.” That’s the message Willie Ratcliff took from the bullet that crashed through our bedroom window at 1:45 a.m. on Thursday, May 13. Ratcliff has a hunch it was fired by someone trying to scare him out of competing to build the new Bayview Library. Someone must be scared that Black power is about to break the 12-year lockout of Blacks from construction in San Francisco. Black power does not bow to a bullet.

As reported in previous issues of the Bay View, the Bay View, its readers, the community and those of us behind enemy lines had been working with attorney Anthony D. Prince to develop a litigation strategy that would address the state’s suppression of legitimate historical and cultural expressions by relegating those expressions and beliefs to the realms of gang activity.

Today at the Alameda County Courthouse, made famous by the “Free Huey!” rallies held on the steps by the Black Panther Party, all charges were dismissed against POCC Minister of Information JR Valrey! Join POCC Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. and Pam and Ramona Africa for a Power to the People Victory Celebration tonight, Monday, Feb. 22, 6:30 p.m., Black Dot Cafe, 1195 Pine St., West Oakland – YOU are invited!

Immediately following the “earthquake” that hit Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010, I started seeing reports that the earthquake was not a random occurrence or happenstance. These were the same rumblings I heard following Hurricane Katrina. After the devastation of Katrina I started seeing reports about HAARP, High Frequency Active Auroral Research.

On Friday’s Hard Knock Radio and Flashpoints shows on KPFA at 4 and 5 p.m., Minister of Information JR reported straight out of Los Angeles on the first pre-trial hearing since the murder case of Johannes Mehserle, the BART police officer who executed Oscar Grant, was moved there from Oakland.

Tonight is a night of rejoicing in San Francisco’s Black heartland, Bayview Hunters Point. After more than a decade of fighting the land-grabbing Lennar cabal – Florida-based mega-homebuilder Lennar and its sponsors, Mayor Gavin Newsom, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, richest member of the U.S. Senate Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her husband, Lennar partner Richard Blum – we the people of the poorest neighborhood in filthy rich Frisco finally won one.

Privatizing parks is not popular in San Francisco. As opposition and media attention mount, state Sen. Mark Leno wants to rush his Senate Bill 792 through the legislature. We urge the Assembly and the Senate to hold the bill until the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has voted on a resolution opposing SB 792 that is currently one vote short of a majority.

Here at the Bay View, we’ve been debating how to best commemorate Black August and celebrate George Jackson this year. Prisoners around the country often ask us for stories about them, and we have more stories than space to publish them.

A federal three-judge panel ruled today, Feb. 9, that overcrowding in California prisons is indeed the root cause of health care inadequacy so severe that it amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

A Yes We Can Coalition of Asian and Black King-Garvey shareholders chanting, "Stop the land grab; yes, we can!" marched outside Citibank subsidiary Citi Community Capital in the heart of San Francisco's Financial District on Thursday, Nov. 13.

Carpenters, community members, union organizers and human rights activists packed Hearing Room 263 at City Hall on Feb. 28 to testify to the Board of Supervisors in support of a lawsuit that 27 Black and Latino carpenters have filed against AIMCO (American Investment and Management Co.) for acts of sabotage, race-baiting and extortion at construction sites in Bayview Hunters Point. AIMCO was granted $73 million in revenue bond financing by the city to repair four subsidized housing complexes in Hunters Point – Bayview, Shoreview, All Hallows and LaSalle – even after the city had to sue the corporation in 2003 for damages it refused to repair.