Tag: SF Chronicle

The hub of Hunters Point at Third and Oakdale was buzzing with traffic and throngs of people as they assembled outside of the Bayview Opera House. The Moon Candy soul band was on the stage as people began to sit in the new seats in the outside auditorium. The Opera House had been closed for remodeling for four years. Finally, on July 20, the new Opera House was unveiled to the public.

As police murders accumulate, and police chiefs get fired and replaced because they cannot stop it – as in Oakland and San Francisco – the notion that this represents a political crisis becomes a truism. It is not a “crisis of policing,” which would suggest a situation beyond the capacities of the police. It is the police who have become the crisis.

The No New SF Jail Coalition has been selected to receive the prestigious Hero Award by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and its Equity Advisory Committee. The coalition celebrated a monumental victory last December, when, after years of community organizing and advocacy, they persuaded the Board of Supervisors to reject plans for a new jail in San Francisco.

The Blue Ribbon Panel on Transparency, Accountability, and Fairness in Law Enforcement has released its final report detailing its year-long investigation into issues of potential bias in the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). The panel found that the SFPD is in need of greater transparency, lacks robust oversight, must rebuild trust with the communities it serves, and should pay greater attention to the potential for bias against people of color, with respect to both its own police officers and members of the public.

The air has gotten worse, not better. So these are some of the things that are caused by the dust, the construction and the latent chemicals they have not cleaned up since World War II – plus the current concentration of light industry just outside our neighborhood that all blows into our neighborhood. Yet currently less than 1 percent of African Americans who live in Bayview work in that area and reap the economic benefits. All we get is the pollution and death.

Oakland City Council President Lynette McElhaney discusses the most recent sex scandal sweeping OPD and other Bay Area law enforcement agencies, where over two dozen officers and agents had sex or inappropriate dealings with the same underage girl. Councilwoman McElhaney equates sex work with slavery. She also stresses the need for the community to help organizations that support women and girls who have been abused by the sex industry.

The politics, color and income of Oakland is changing rapidly, similar to what happened over in San Francisco, where the population went from 16 percent Black in the 1970s to 3 percent Black and shrinking today. Oakland, like many other largely Black cities, is being plagued by gentrification. Instead of suffering in silence, Timothy Killings, a member of the Northern California People’s Housing Union, invites you to join the collective this Saturday, 12-3 p.m., at the Quilombo Community Center, 2313 San Pablo in West Oakland. Food and child care will be provided and all are invited.

On March 1, medical services returned to the historic Arthur H. Coleman Medical Center at Third and Ingerson. As a community healthcare clinic, we are honored to reopen a place that is special to this community – and to me, personally. I spent part of my life in Bayview Hunters Point. These new services carry forward the spirit of Dr. Arthur H. Coleman, who campaigned for better service for African American patients.

Just as we know Indigenous Life is Sacred, we know Black Lives Matter. There is a state of emergency. From British Columbia to Ferguson, from the Amazon forest to Oakland, from Alcatraz Island to Minneapolis, we are demanding our freedom. As First Nation people, we understand that OUR justice relies on the respect, appreciation and liberation of Black lives. Because if they can’t get it, we definitely won’t be seeing it. ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter!

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, dozens of long time Black San Francisco community residents – many whose families arrived generations ago – took over the Mayor’s Office demanding real solutions. Pastor Yul Dorn, ACCE member and Bayview resident facing eviction, was in attendance and spoke in front of 60-plus protesters crowded into Mayor Ed Lee’s office. ACCE provided a list of demands, also criticizing Ed Lee’s plan to rebuild public housing.

Apple DESERVES the upcoming protest at Apple Headquarters in Cupertino this Monday, June 22, 11:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. Apple required that union workers undergo criminal background checks and then caused these union workers to be fired if they had any felonies within seven years. Keep in mind, these workers were working on a construction project, not in Apple’s plant.

Leola King brought memorable class and dignity to every business she operated during a 50-year career in San Francisco. Most of the Black people here now know nothing positive of what it was like to walk and live amongst the greatness we had created there on Fillmore Street. Redevelopment viciously undermined and ripped Mrs. King’s fortune away. Her funeral is Friday, Feb. 13, 11 a.m., at Third Baptist Church, 1399 McAllister, the repast 4-7 p.m. at West Bay Conference Center, 1290 Fillmore St., San Francisco.

A cleanup worker at the decommissioned Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in southeast San Francisco is facing a rare life threatening cancer he believes is caused by his exposure to known toxins at the federal Superfund site. Diagnosed with a Peripheral T Cell Lymphoma, an aggressive high grade lymphoid malignancy with a five year survival rate of 32 percent, the worker has retained the high powered New York law firm Weitz & Luxenberg.

The headline, “Biological bad luck blamed in two-thirds of cancer cases, researchers say,” has received very wide coverage. Tell that to the people living at Hunters Point! If one ignores chemistry, biology, physics and history, then one might believe it. It matters little whether exposures occur at home, workplace or neighborhood – it is not bad luck, it is exposure to carcinogens, and they are additive and cumulative.

Ma’am, I have to admit, I was watching you. You probably didn’t notice me sitting across from you on the AC Transit bus leaving the Oakland Coliseum. It was a warm day and I was sweating, glad to have gotten a seat. I’d just come from SF, where I’d taken part in a rally for housing rights. So many evictions across the Bay in San Francisco. You’re probably aware of the situation but one can’t assume.

If you are involved in some way with the Black Frisco visual arts scene, either as a fan, artist, media-maker or space owner, chances are that you have run across the twins, Melonie and Melorra Green. They’ve created a radio show that comes on 89.5FM KPOO weekly, and, as a major part of the planning for the successful San Francisco Black Film Festival June 12-15, are basking in the after-glow.

Calls have flooded the POOR Magazine office from families and elders in desperate search for help and support to battle land thieves that utilize the Ellis Act to break laws that are in place to “protect the people” but that are overlooked or flat out ignored. As the hipster-techies invade the once family-oriented “City by the Bay,” the families and elders who contributed to the life of the Bay Area now watch helplessly as our homes are being stolen from us.

“Whose college? Our College!” The wave of thousands of people’s voices at City Hall rang in our collective ears. If we ever needed to put our bodies in the forefront of this fight, it is now. The fight to save City College comes to Bayview Hunters Point Wednesday, April 3, 6 p.m., Southeast Campus, 1800 Oakdale at Phelps, San Francisco – come learn and get involved.

Oakland may seem like a local anomaly with its big increase in homicides in 2011-12 and the anti-crime hysteria which now engulfs it. But Oakland is just a prime example of the intertwining of crime and criminalization under capitalism, in which the ruling class divides working people one from another and targets particular groups for victimization.

CCSF, one of the nation’s most successful community colleges, is fighting for survival. A lifeline to immigrants, students of color and the poor, the school has been knocked to its knees by brutal austerity measures. Students, staff, faculty, and community are joining together in the fight to save CCSF from closure. You are invited to the launch of the campus-community coalition on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 6-8 p.m., at CCSF Mission Campus, Room 109, 1125 Valencia, between 22nd and 23rd streets, San Francisco.