Tag: People’s Minister of Information JR Valrey

Young Eric Davis was taken from his loved ones and community because our electeds just don’t care enough.

JR Valrey’s interview is a deep dive into learning about Oakland mayoral candidate, Allyssa Victory, and reminds that self-education is also required to get what we need from those whom we elect.

At a recent event that I attended at the African American Art and Culture Complex, I had my first experience with virtual reality. Virtual reality technician Shawn Alston has set up a virtual reality lab, where the participant gets a chance, in the 10-minute presentation, to grow from a seed to a tree.

Adante Pointer Esq. is one of the legal warriors fighting the people’s fight for a long time in the streets and courtrooms of the Bay Area. I became aware of him during the Oscar Grant movement in 2009-2010. I remember he would be flanking John Burris, the Bay Area’s Johnnie Cochran in the courtroom, and at press conferences he would help explain the “legalese” to the media and public so people could understand what exactly happened in the courtroom.

Councilwoman McElhaney urges everyone who might be affected or wants to support a solution to come to a town hall meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 6:30-8:00 p.m., at the West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St. RSVP at https://west-oakland-environmental-town-hall.eventbrite.com.

Project Level is a non-profit youth organization that serves underserved communities by teaching them how to create opportunities for themselves by utilizing the arts and their own creative talents.

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.

Given that Mumia’s next court hearing is on Oct. 29, two weeks away, many of us have felt that not enough attention has been paid to challenging Philadelphia’s widely hailed, new “liberal” District Attorney Larry Krasner. His deadly role in Mumia’s current legal proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas has not been understood by many Mumia supporters. We must pressure him to drop his opposition to Mumia’s current legal action aimed at giving Mumia new rights of appeal of his conviction.

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.

We want to invite every friend of the SF Bay View newspaper to our 40th anniversary party. It’s a free event this Sunday, Feb. 21, 1-5 p.m., at the Main Library, 100 Larkin St., San Francisco. Come one, come all and let’s celebrate 40 years of the most radical Black newspaper in the country. Enjoy a panel of Bay View writers, a fashion show and performances by the legendary Avotcja, Stoney Creation and Sista Iminah reminding us of the beauty and talent in our community.

Kenia Serrano is a member of the Cuban National Assembly, as well as the president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People. We sat down with her to discuss the normalization of diplomatic relations, Cuban-developed medical technologies that the U.S. has been denying its residents because of the blockade, the release of the Cuban 5 and the security of our beloved Black Liberation Army political exile Assata Shakur.

Ky-Mani Marley, one of the many children of Reggae icon Bob Marley, speaks on his new album “Maestro,” growing up outside of the “House of Marley” with humble beginnings, and the revolutionary nature of his father’s music. He will be performing at the Independent in San Francisco at 8:30 p.m. this Thursday, July 16.

I caught up with Aaron Patterson’s lawyer, attorney Demitrus Evans, to get the story firsthand. This will be the first in a series of stories that I am working on to expose the cases of current day Black political prisoners in this country, because it is very important that our people know the truth about how this government deals with the people who truly do work on behalf of our empowerment.

“Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp” is a documentary about the illustrious life of a pimp who metamorphosed into one of the most well known Black writers in this nation’s history. In the opening lines of the documentary, “Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp,” taken from his autobiography, “Pimp,” Iceberg Slim states: “In this book, I will take you the reader with me into the secret inner-world of the pimp. I will lay bare my life and thoughts as a pimp.”

In the documentary “Farming a Legacy,” I learned that since the Emancipation Proclamation, one of the biggest fights that Blacks have had in this country was and is to own and retain farmland. In the 1920s, there were 1,000,000 Black owned farms in the United States. By 2013, that number had dropped to 18,000. “Farming a Legacy” is a majestic cinematic look at the day to day life and family history of a third generation farmer named Dale Jones.

While people were righteously rebelling in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, against police terrorism, a Center for Disease Control whistleblower confirmed something that has been on the lips of conscious ghetto dwellers for decades. International peace activist Cynthia McKinney speaks on the U.S. government spreading autism through vaccinations in the Black community, on Ferguson and much more.

The graphic work of Myron Potier dominated the Oakland rap scene in the ‘90s after he worked on the album cover of Askari X’s classic “Message to the Black Man” and Seagram’s legendary album “Reality Check.” Today, Myron draws and designs mostly out of his apartment in the San Antonio-Fruitvale District of East Oakland, not far from where he grew up in the streets of Oakland. Check out one of Oakland’s unsung humble heroes in his own words.

The documentary “Virunga” tells the story of the rangers at Virunga National Park in eastern Congo who are battling to keep the last remaining 800 mountain gorillas that live in the park alive – a battle against poachers, the M23 rebel forces and the British corporation Soco, which is trying to convince officials inside the park and in government to allow them to exploit the huge ocean of oil that lies under the park.

Alongside the political and class contradictions that you can see in the documentary about how Baltimore police – and police all over the nation – treat Black youth, “The 12 O’Clock Boys” is a very human story about a young Black man trying to survive in an environment not meant for his survival, but for his capture and/or his extermination.

The fiery H. Rap Brown, chairperson of SNCC, minister of justice for the Black Panther Party and one of the original four targets of the FBI’s infamous COINTELPRO to neutralize Black power, is presently entombed in the federal prison at Florence, Colorado, one of the world’s 10 worst prisons. Pursued relentlessly since the ‘60s, he was wrongfully convicted in 2002 – the prosecutor bragging that they finally got him after trying for 24 years. His wife, attorney Karima Al-Amin, tells his story on the Block Report.