When World Bank President Jim Kim visits the Democratic Republic of Congo this week, he will find a country rich in natural resources but blighted by a lack of basic services. The world’s poorest country has not only been ravaged by civil wars, but by decades of grandiose development schemes that inevitably failed. The World Bank and other donors are now concocting the continent’s biggest pie in the sky: the $80 billion Grand Inga Dam on the Congo River.

Micro hydropower and other renewable energy solutions are effective at reaching Africa’s poor. – Photo: International Rivers

On Saturday, the DRC government announced plans to start construction on the Congo River in October 2015. The World Bank, the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank want to join the ride. The World Bank is considering support for the Inga 3 Dam, the first stage of the much larger Grand Inga scheme, and two similar projects on the Zambezi River. The Inga dams feature prominently on the agenda of the bank president’s visit to the DRC.

The enthusiasm of the World Bank and other funders for mega-dams has a long history. Over the past 40 years, donors have poured billions of dollars into dams and associated transmission lines on the Congo River. The projects have been plagued by rampant corruption, perform far below capacity, and have failed to benefit the poor.

About 85 percent of the electricity in the DRC is consumed by the mining industry, while only 6-9 percent of the population has access to electricity. Worse, the centralized nature of these investments has created a winner-takes-all system that has encouraged tension and civil war.

The World Bank argues that a new generation of mega-dams could “catalyze very large-scale benefits to improve access to infrastructure services” in Africa. Yet once again, the projects on the Congo and the Zambezi are designed to power the mining industry and urban centers. More than half of the electricity generated by Inga 3 would be exported to South Africa. The International Energy Agency has found that for most of Africa’s rural poor, grid-based electrification is not a realistic option, and billions of dollars in aid for the energy sector will once again bypass them.

Over the past 40 years, donors have poured billions of dollars into dams and associated transmission lines on the Congo River. The projects have been plagued by rampant corruption, perform far below capacity, and have failed to benefit the poor.

 
Africa is more vulnerable to the vagaries of climate change than any other continent. The World Bank’s proposed support for mega-dams will further increase this climate vulnerability. In a period when rainfalls are becoming ever less predictable, focusing investments in centralized reservoirs amounts to putting all energy eggs into one basket.

Luckily, better options are available. Distributed renewable energy solutions have become affordable for poor consumers, who currently spend a big part of their income on candles and kerosene. Decentralized wind, solar and micro hydropower projects are much more effective at reaching the rural poor and creating local jobs than grid-based power projects. Like cell phones in the telecom sector, they can revolutionize the lives of the poor that have been bypassed by the centralized landline and electric grid systems.

Unlike large dams, decentralized renewable energy projects strengthen the resilience of poor societies to the vagaries of climate change. They have a smaller environmental footprint than large dams. And in contrast to big, corruption-prone hydropower projects, they are at a scale that can be monitored by a poor country’s civil society.

Donors claim that they will learn the lessons of their past failures with mega-dams. Yet they are excluding civil society voices from the decision-making process. The DRC government did not invite any NGOs to the stakeholder meeting which launched the Grand Inga Project on May 18. World Bank President Kim is not meeting any NGOs during his visit to the Congo. The dam industry even excluded my colleague, Rudo Sanyanga, from attending their Africa 2013 hydropower conference as a paid participant.

Luckily, better options are available. Decentralized wind, solar and micro hydropower projects are much more effective at reaching the rural poor and creating local jobs than grid-based power projects.

 
Donor governments will be asked to underwrite the new era of mega-dams for Africa through the replenishment of IDA, the World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries. They have a choice. They can support an outdated top-down approach that has failed Africa’s poor in the past. Or they can throw their weight behind the creative, decentralized energy technologies of the future. Africa can’t afford to waste another decade on a new generation of mega-dams.

Peter Bosshard is the policy director of International Rivers. He can be reached at peter@internationalrivers.org.

Last week, Gov. Brown released his May Budget Revise, which advocates who have been pushing for comprehensive prison population reduction reforms were anxious to see. We hoped that the minor reforms to good-time credits, medical parole and elder parole from the governor’s court-ordered population reduction plan would find their way into the revise.

However, last Tuesday’s revised budget shows, yet again, that Jerry Brown is not committed to any sustainable change in prison policy and has no real interest in even these modest measures.

California remains No. 1 in poverty and No. 1 in prison spending.

 
A quick summary of what is in the revise:

• Increase in corrections spending: This year’s plan shows a 1.9 percent increase in corrections spending, which is growing from $8.763 to $8.929 billion with an additional $2.272 billion in “special funds.”
• Reverse to realignment: The budget authorizes the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to house people who have long-term sentences if the county agrees to accept an equivalent average daily population of short-term people and after they have served three years in county jail. It does encourage the use of split sentencing at the county level.
• Increase in probation funding: An increase of $72.1 million from the general fund goes to county probation departments that demonstrate success in reducing the number of adult probationers going to prison or jail for committing new crimes or violating the terms of probation.
• Increase in fire camps: An increase of $15.4 million reflects the participation of 3,800 new state prisoners in fire camps.
• Construction funding: Over $2 billion of total expenditures and $260 million for health care facilities improvement are budgeted for eight separate prisons.

To free up more space for men prisoners, CDCR moved all the women prisoners to the largest women’s prison, which is now at nearly double capacity, even though 4,500 women had been approved for release. These prisoners have been assigned to fire camp. – Photo: Maya Sugarman, LA Daily News

What stands out the most is the blatant refusal to heed a generation of painful real-life evidence that expanding prisons only expands the problem while the social safety net budget continues to remain stagnant. It is no surprise that California remains No. 1 in poverty and No. 1 in prison spending.

It is clear that Gov. Brown’s “plan” requires intervention from the Legislature if we want to see the implementation of any true population reduction strategies.

What stands out the most is the blatant refusal to heed a generation of painful real-life evidence that expanding prisons only expands the problem while the social safety net budget continues to remain stagnant.

 
Please take a moment now and join CURB’s list! In the coming weeks we will be letting our legislators know that we need real reform in this year’s budget to get our state out of poverty, our loved ones out of prison and end the overcrowding crisis in our prisons.

Diana Zuñiga is statewide coordinator for Californians United for a Responsible Budget.

Picture AT&T Park, home of the World Series champion San Francisco Giants. Picture about as breathtaking a baseball stadium as exists in the United States with McCovey Cove and the San Francisco Bay framing the outfield like a Norman Rockwell postcard as conceived by Leroy Neiman. Picture seats packed with people clad in their iconic orange and black reveling in the once hard-luck team that now defines the city and stands atop the game. What we don’t picture when we conjure images of this or any ballpark are the people actually doing the work to keep it all running.

As idyllic as the aesthetics of the park remain, those prepping the food and cleaning the toilets make $11,000 a year in a city where, due to yet another round of tech-bubble gentrification, they cannot afford to live. Concession workers at the park earn their $11,000 in a city where a one bedroom apartment runs $3,000 a month and people are spending near that much to live in laundry rooms and unventilated basements.

These same workers, who commute as much as two hours each way to get to the park, have now gone three years without a pay increase. This despite the fact that the value of the team according to Forbes has increased 40 percent, ticket prices have spiked and the cost of beer has climbed to $10.25 a cup. This also despite the fact that, as packed sellouts become the norm, the stress and toil of the job has never been greater. Now, the 800 concession workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 2, have voted 97 percent to strike.

Team management, which subcontracted food services to a South Carolina outfit called Centerplate, claims no responsibility for the labor troubles even though they receive 55 percent of every dollar spent by the Giants fans. I spoke with Billie Feliciano who has been working at the park for over three decades. She said to me: “This is the first time in 35 years we’ve had to go to these extremes. Centerplate says talk to the Giants. The Giants say talk to Centerplate. If we stepped back for five minutes they’d figure it out after they started to lose all that money. All we are saying is we want a fair share.”

Getting their “fair share” from Giants owner, 80-year-old multi-billionaire Charles Johnson, will not be easy. A child of Wall Street wealth whose fortune has grown exponentially with the expansion of the financial markets, he now heads the mutual fund Franklin Templeton started by his father. As he said to the San Francisco Chronicle, quoting the company’s namesake Ben Franklin, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” (It would be far more fitting, if he quoted the Ben Franklin who said of money, “The more one has, the more one wants.”)

Team management, which subcontracted food services to a South Carolina outfit called Centerplate, claims no responsibility for the labor troubles even though they receive 55 percent of every dollar spent by the Giants fans.

 
In a startling bit of symmetry, Johnson lives in the city’s Carolands Chateau, a 100 room, 65,000 square foot palace originally built a century ago for the daughter of railroad magnate George Pullman. That would be George Pullman, namesake of the bloody 1894 Pullman Railway Strike where the United States Army intervened to crush the nascent industrial workers organization known as the American Railway Union. Then, destroying the mere idea of an industrial union like the ARU was seen as a high priority.

Today we are seeing service industry workers starting to organize, walk out and be heard and a 21st century Pullman is looking to halt the mere idea that the expansion of service unions will happen on his watch. This is why the struggle at AT&T Park is bigger than 800 concession workers and why everyone has a stake in offering solidarity and support.

Now, the 800 concession workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 2, have voted 97 percent to strike.

 
As legendary Bay Area KPFA Hardknock Radio host Davey D said, “There is a lot of talk about having a citywide fast food union in San Francisco. So if you can topple the union at AT&T Park, then you can topple that idea. And if you can topple (service) unions there, you can topple them anywhere and can stop that tide around the country.”

The workers are ready. Ms. Feliciano said to me: “We come there rain or shine. Are we striking? Not yet. But these workers are ready to strike.” The community, the Major League Players Association, and the players on the Giants from Buster Posey to Tim Lincecum to Sergio Romo should support them as well.

As for the negotiations, they display all the arrogance of both Centerplate and Charles Johnson. During one session, while management scolded the union for thinking they were worth more than $11,000 a year, hedge fund honcho Mike Wilkins, a partner at $400 million Kingsford Capital Management, was on the field running the bases with 100 of his buddies, at a one day rental cost of $500,000. This was described to the website Buzzfeed as an exercise in “grown up boys’ fantasy time.” Will San Francisco ever again be anything but a playground for the overgrown millionaire children of the tech sector? That’s the question. We’ll find out the answer in the weeks to come.

Go to thegiantzero.org for updates on the struggle.

Dave Zirin is the author of several books, including “The John Carlos Story“ (Haymarket), and writes a weekly column for The Nation magazine, where this column first appeared. Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.

News flash: Centerplate sues Local 2, prepares for strike

 
In a press release issued Tuesday evening, May 21, Giants spokesman Sam Singer writes: “The concessionaire at AT&T Park today filed a dynamic lawsuit against Local 2 Unite Here union for violations of national labor laws …

“Centerplate said Local 2 is attempting to illegally force the San Francisco Giants into signing a ‘successor addendum’ that would bind the baseball team and any future concessionaire at AT&T Park to the same terms Local 2 negotiates with Centerplate. This action is illegal under the federal labor laws, Centerplate officials said.

“Normally, the legal charges Centerplate made today are filed with the National Labor Relations Board, but Centerplate said immediate action is necessary by the legal system to protect the Giants, Centerplate and nonprofits from Local 2’s illegal activities, which could harm all the parties. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco and seeks damages and declaratory relief.”

Claiming “Centerplate’s employees are already the highest paid workers in the concession industry,” Singer concludes that in the event of a strike, operations “will not be disrupted as the company has contingency plans in place.”

She recommends that readers “visit www.re-examininglucasville.org for information on the prisoner leaders and prisoners’ spokesmen, who were immediately targeted and framed up. Five men are facing the death penalty and a dozen more have long prison terms, including the tortuous death of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP).”

Here are the statements delivered at the conference from prison by Bomani Shakur and in person by Staughton Lynd.

From Bomani Shakur

This photo of Bomani Shakur (Keith LaMar) of the Lucasville 5 in shackles was projected larger than life above and behind the panelists at the Lucasville Conference as they and the audience listened to his recorded statement.

Before I speak my piece tonight and express what’s going on inside of me, I want to first extend my heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you.

I am aware that there are any number of places that you all could be on this Friday evening. And so it means a lot to me that you are here to mark this very important occasion with us.

By anyone’s estimation, 20 years is a long time. But 20 years spent in solitary confinement is torture.

In all this time, we have yet to tell our side of the story. In a very real sense, we have been silenced, held incommunicado, while we move ever closer to being executed.

Well, enough is enough. By the time you hear this message, we will have been on hunger strike for over a week now, protesting the unfair and unreasonable refusal by the state to allow us access to the media.

It’s time for the public to hear our voices. It’s time for you all to hear our side of the story.

By anyone’s estimation, 20 years is a long time. But 20 years spent in solitary confinement is torture.

 
As many of you may or may not know, there was no physical evidence linking anyone to crimes. No fingerprints, no DNA or any other kind of forensic evidence that conclusively connected anyone to any of the crimes that were committed during the 11-day uprising.

This means the state had to rely solely on the testimony of individuals who, from the very outset, were lacking in credibility.

Yet, and still, a guard was killed and somebody had to pay for that. However, with no physical evidence linking anyone to the crimes, the question inevitably becomes, “How does one manufacture credibility and bring to justice those responsible?” This was the formidable task that was taken on by the state.

In almost every case arising out of the disturbance of 1993, there were multiple versions of what actually occurred, and multiple individuals who, for various reasons, were willing to testify to different versions of the truth. So who to believe?

“What made one would-be witness more credible than the next?” This is the question to ask.

In my particular case, the state called more than six witnesses against me who testified, under oath, that they saw me murder and/or order the deaths of five inmates, and they made it appear as though the testimony given by these individuals was irrefutable. And in a certain sense it was. Not because what was said about me was true, but because they prevented me from putting forth testimony that refuted their rendering of the facts.

Keith LaMar (Bomani Shakur) with his niece and nephew – Photo: © Courtesy Bomani Shakur

When my attorneys made the request in discovery for statements that tended to point the finger at someone else, the prosecutor refused to turn over these damning statements, and there were many. Indeed, for every witness who testified against me, there was a witness who claimed to have seen someone else commit the very crimes for which I was ultimately sentenced to death. Unfortunately, the jury in my case never got the opportunity to hear from these witnesses.

Indeed, it wasn’t until my case was over and I was already sitting on death row that I even learned of these conflicting and damning statements. But it was too late by then.

“So why, then, am I rehashing all of this now?” you may ask. “What do we possibly hope to gain by asking you all here tonight?”

Well, since we didn’t receive fair trials through the criminal justice system, we intend to retry our cases in the court of public opinion. Since, when all is said and done, the ultimate outcome – be it freedom or death – will be carried out in your name. It’s to you, the public, that we must now turn.

Out of the five men who were sentenced to death, my case is the furthest along in terms of being resolved.

In late December of 2012, I filed my last appeal, moving me one step closer to the execution chamber.

Since we didn’t receive fair trials through the criminal justice system, we intend to retry our cases in the court of public opinion.

 
If the state has its way, they are going to kill me soon. However, inasmuch as my life is not for them to take, I intend to fight them, to stand up and speak truth to the power that has delivered me to this evening.

I … no … we need your help.

I’ve written a book called “Condemned.” In it, I lay out the particulars of my case and the overall injustice that occurred. Please read it and, if you believe it and if what you hear over this long weekend rings true, join us in our efforts to right these wrongs. We can stop this thing. I’m innocent. The state of Ohio is trying to kill me.

Send our brother some love and light: Keith LaMar (Bomani Shakur), 317-117, P.O. Box 1436, Youngstown OH 44501.

From Staughton Lynd

 
Our focus this morning has been a detailed discussion of what happened before and during the 11 days and in the trials that followed. My comments are intended to build a bridge between that analysis and the broader perspectives that will be offered this afternoon. I will divide my remarks in four parts.

First, I shall recall the three biggest prison rebellions in recent United States history. I will suggest that while we are just beginning to build a movement outside the walls of both prisons and courtrooms, there are particular aspects of the Lucasville events that help to explain why that has been so hard.

Second, I will make the case that, despite appearances, Ohio’s prison administration was at least as responsible as were the prisoners for the 10 deaths during the occupation of L block.

Third, I shall describe the manipulation by means of which the state of Ohio induced a leader of the uprising to become an informer and to attribute responsibility for the murder of hostage Officer Robert Vallandingham to others. I shall add that to this day the state says it does not know who the hands-on killers were.

Finally, and very briefly, because I recognize this will be the agenda for tomorrow morning, I will ask: What is to be done?

Three prison uprisings

 
There have been three major prison uprisings in the United States during the past half century.

Two powerful advocates for prisoners are, at left, Staughton Lynd, the attorney who wrote the book, “Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising,” and a play on Lucasville, and Denis O’Hearn. Denis, born in the U.S. of Irish and Native American (Aleut) parents, lived and taught for many years in Ireland, where he covered Irish prisoners for the London Guardian and wrote the acclaimed biography, “Nothing But an Unfinished Song: Bobby Sands, the Irish Hunger Striker Who Ignited a Generation.” He is now a professor of sociology at the University of Binghamton in New York. – Photo: © Noelle Hanrahan, Prison Radio

Initially the state of New York, including Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, claimed that the hostage officers who died in the yard had their throats cut by the prisoners in rebellion. A courageous medical examiner said, No, the officers all died of bullet wounds. And only one side in the conflict, or massacre, had guns.

Because the brazen cover story of the authorities was so soon and so dramatically refuted, the prosecution of prisoners at Attica never got far off the ground. On Dec. 31, 1976, a little more than five years after the events at the prison, New York Gov. Carey declared by executive order an amnesty for all participants in the insurrection. He stated in part:

“Attica has been a tragedy of immeasurable proportions, unalterably affecting countless lives. Too many families have grieved, too many have suffered deprivations, too many have lived their lives in uncertainty waiting for the long nightmare to end. For over five years and with hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless man-hours, we have followed the path of investigation and accusation. … To continue in this course, I believe, would merely prolong the agony with no better hope of a just and abiding conclusion.”

The governor concluded by saying that his actions should not be understood to imply “a lack of culpability for the conduct at issue.” Rather, Gov. Carey stated, “These actions are in recognition that there does exist a larger wrong which transcends the wrongful acts of individuals.”

In 1980 a second major uprising occurred at the state prison in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Again there were numerous deaths, but all 33 homicides resulted from prisoners killing other prisoners. No officers were murdered. No prisoner was sentenced to death.

Finally we come to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville in 1993. In trying to understand the tangle of events we call “Lucasville,” one confronts: a prisoner body of more than 1,800, a majority of them Black men from Ohio’s inner cities, guarded by correctional officers largely recruited from the entirely, or almost entirely, white community in Scioto County; a prison administration determined to suppress dissent after the murder of an educator in 1990; an 11-day occupation by more than 400 men of a major part of the Lucasville prison; 10 homicides, all committed by prisoners, including the murder of hostage officer Robert Vallandingham; dialogue between the parties ending in a peaceful surrender; and about 50 prosecutions, resulting in five capital convictions and numerous other sentences, some of them likely to last for the remainder of a prisoner’s life.

The task for defense lawyers and for a community campaign demanding reconsideration, is more difficult than at Attica or Santa Fe. At Attica, 10 of the 11 officers who died were killed by agents of the state. At Santa Fe, only prisoners were killed. Lucasville presents a distinct challenge: the killing of a single hostage correctional officer by prisoners in rebellion.

Who is to blame?

 
In a summary booklet Alice and I have produced, entitled “Layers of Injustice,” we argue that the Lucasville prisoners in L block, considered collectively, and the state of Ohio share responsibility for the tragedy of April 1993. Both sides contributed to what happened. Events spun out of control. Neither side intended what occurred.

The collective responsibility of prisoners in L block seems self-evident. Ten men were killed. The victims were unarmed and helpless. In contrast to what happened at Attica, all 10 victims were killed by prisoners.

However, Muslim prisoner Reginald Williams, a witness for the state in the Lucasville trials, testified that the hope of the group that planned the 1993 occupation was to carry out a brief, essentially peaceful, attention-getting action “to get someone from the central office to come down and address our concerns” (State v. Were I at 1645), “to barricade ourselves in L-6 until we can get someone from Columbus to discuss” alternative means of doing the TB tests (State v. Sanders at 2129). Siddique Abdullah Hasan, supposed by the state to have planned and led the action, said the same thing to the Associated Press within the past two weeks.

Since the prisoners, whatever their initial intentions, nonetheless carried out the homicides, the responsibility of the state is less obvious. Here are some of the main reasons I believe that the state of Ohio shares responsibility for what happened at Lucasville in 1993.

1. In 1989, Warden Terry Morris asked the Legislative Oversight Committee of the Ohio General Assembly to prepare a survey of conditions at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. The Correctional Institution Inspection Committee received letters from 427 prisoners and interviewed more than 100. Such was the state of disarray in 1989 that, four years before the 1993 uprising, the CIIC reported that prisoners “relayed fears and predictions of a major disturbance unlike any ever seen in Ohio prison history.”
2. After the murder of educator Beverly Jo Taylor in 1990, a new warden was appointed. Warden Arthur Tate instituted what he called “Operation Shakedown.” A striking example of the pervasive repression reported by prisoners is that telephone communication between prisoners and the outside world was limited to one five-minute outgoing telephone call per year.
3. The single feature of life at Lucasville that the CIIC found most troublesome was the prison administration’s use of prisoner informants, or “snitches.” Warden Tate, “King Arthur” as the prisoners called him, expanded the use of snitches. In 1991 the warden addressed a letter to all prisoners and visitors in which he provided a special mailing address to which alleged violations of “laws and rules of this institution” could be reported. Six alleged snitches, a majority of the persons murdered during the rebellion, were killed in the first hours of the disturbance.
4. The immediate cause or trigger of the rebellion was Warden Tate’s insistence on testing for TB by injecting a substance containing phenol, which a substantial number of Muslim prisoners believed to be prohibited by their religion. Alternative means of testing for TB by use of X rays or a sputum test were available and had been used at Mansfield Correctional Institution. In its post-surrender report, the correctional officers’ labor union stated that Warden Tate was “unnecessarily confrontational” in his response to the Muslim prisoners’ concern about TB testing using phenol.
5. Before Warden Tate departed for the Easter weekend on Good Friday, three of his administrators advised against his plan to lock the prison down and forcibly inject prisoners who refused TB shots. The warden did not adequately alert the reduced staff who would be on duty as to the volatile state of affairs. Slow response to the initial occupation of L block let pass an early opportunity to end the rebellion without loss of life. It was two hours after the insurgency began before Warden Tate was notified. The safewells at the end of each pod in L block, to which correctional officers retreated as they had been instructed, turned out to have been constructed without the prescribed steel stanchions and were easily penetrated.
6. Sgt. Howard Hudson, who was in the administration control booth during the 11 days and was offered by prosecutors as a so-called “summary witness,” conceded in his trial testimony that the state of Ohio deliberately stalled when prisoners tried to end the standoff by negotiation. Hudson testified in Hasan’s case: “The basic principle in these situations … is to buy time. … [T]he more time that goes on the greater the chances for a peaceful resolution to the situation.” This assumption proved – to use an unfortunate phrase – to be dead wrong.
7. By cutting off water and electricity to the occupied cell block on April 12, the state created a new cause of grievance. The prisoners’ concern to get back what they had at the outset of the disturbance became the sticking point in unsuccessful negotiations to end the standoff before Officer Vallandingham was murdered.
8. On the morning of April14, spokeswoman Tessa Unwin made a statement to the press on behalf of the authorities. Ms. Unwin was asked to comment on a message written on a sheet that was hung out of an L block window threatening to kill a hostage officer. Rather than responding “No comment,” she stated: “It’s a standard threat. It’s nothing new. . . They’ve been threatening things like this from the beginning.” According to several prisoners in L block and to hostage officer Larry Dotson, this statement inflamed sentiment among the prisoners who were listening on battery-powered radios. In the judgment of the officers’ union, in their report on the disturbance:
    
   As anyone familiar with the process and language of negotiations would know, this kind of public discounting of the inmate threats practically guaranteed a hostage death.
    
   When an official DR&C spokesperson publicly discounted the inmate threats as bluffing, the inmates were almost forced to kill or maim a hostage to maintain or regain their perceived bargaining strength.
9. In 2010, documentary filmmaker Derrick Jones interviewed Daniel Hogan, who prosecuted Robb and Skatzes and is now a state court judge. Hogan told Jones on tape: “I don’t know that we will ever know who hands-on killed the corrections officer, Vallandingham.” Later Mr. Jones asked former prosecutor Hogan: “When it comes to Officer Vallandingham, who killed him?” Judge Hogan replied: “I don’t know. And I don’t think we’ll ever know.” Nonetheless, four spokespersons and supposed leaders of the uprising have been found guilty of the officer’s aggravated murder and sentenced to death.

Who did kill Officer Vallandingham?

 
With the help of Attorney Niki Schwartz, three prisoner representatives accepted a 21 point agreement and a peaceful surrender followed. The agreement stated in Point 6, “Administrative discipline and criminal proceedings will be fairly and impartially administered without bias against individuals or groups.” Point 14 added, “There will be no retaliatory actions taken toward any inmate or groups of inmates.”

At the Lucasville Conference, former Southern Ohio Correctional Facility prisoners Sam Oliver, Ishaq Alkhair and Kunta Kenyatta, with moderator Alice Lynd, discuss conditions at SOC at Lucasville, Ohio, prior to the Lucasville Uprising in 1993. – Photo: © Noelle Hanrahan, Prison Radio

“They made it clear they wanted the leaders. They wanted to prosecute Hasan, George Skatzes, Lavelle, Jason Robb and another Muslim. They had not yet begun their investigation but they knew they wanted those leaders. I joked with them and said, ‘You basically don’t care what I say as long as it’s against these guys.’ They said, ‘Yeah, that’s it.’”

Newell named the men who had interrogated him: Lt. Root, Sgt. Hudson, and Troopers McGough and Sayers. According to Newell:

“These officers said, ‘We want Skatzes. We want Lavelle. We want Hasan.’ They also said, ‘We know they were leaders. … We want to burn their ass. We want to put them in the electric chair for murdering Officer Vallandingham.’”

With the same motivation, the prosecutors pursued a more sophisticated strategy. ODRC Director Reginald Wilkinson put it this way in an article that he co-authored with his associate Thomas Stickrath for the Corrections Management Quarterly:

“According to Special Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier, his staff targeted a few gang leaders. … Thirteen months into the investigation, a primary riot provocateur agreed to talk about Officer Vallandingham’s death. … His testimony led to death sentences for riot leaders Carlos Sanders [Hasan], Jason Robb, James Were and George Skatzes.”

The so-called primary riot provocateur was prisoner Anthony Lavelle, leader of the Black Gangster Disciples, who, along with Hasan and Robb, had negotiated the surrender agreement.

How did the state induce Lavelle not only to talk, but to say what the prosecution desired?

During the winter of 1993-1994, Hasan, Lavelle and Skatzes were housed in adjacent cells at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution. On April 6, 1994, Skatzes was taken to a room where he found Sgt. Hudson, Trooper McGough of the Highway Patrol and two prosecutors. This was the third such occasion and, as twice before, Skatzes said that he did not wish to continue the interview and turned to go back to his cell in the North Hole.

What happened next, according to Skatzes, was that Warden Ralph Coyle entered the room and said that Central Office did not want Skatzes to go back to the North Hole. Skatzes protested vehemently that this would make him look like a snitch. Coyle was adamant and Skatzes was led away to a new location.

Back in the North Hole, Lavelle reacted exactly as Skatzes feared. Lavelle wrote a letter to Jason Robb that became an exhibit in Robb’s trial: “Jason: I am forced to write you and relate a few things that happen down here lately. With much sadness I will give you the raw deal, your brother George has done a vanishing act on us. … On Wednesday, April 6, 1994, G. said about 8:00 a.m. that he had a lawyer visit . … Now to be short and simple, he failed to return that day. Today they came and packed up his property which leads me to one conclusion that he has chose to be a cop.”

Later, Lavelle himself testified that he turned state’s evidence because he thought he would go to Death Row if he did not. This was an accurate assessment. Prosecutor Hogan told a trial court judge at sidebar that his colleague Prosecutor Stead had told Lavelle, “Either you are going to be my witness or I’m going to try to kill you.” According to the testimony under oath of prisoner Anthony Odom, who celled across from Lavelle at the time, Lavelle entered into his plea agreement, Lavelle “said he was gonna cop out [be]cause the prosecutor was sweating him, trying to hit him with a murder charge. … He said he was going to tell them what they wanted to hear.”

Lavelle was understandably concerned that the prosecutor might hit him with a murder charge because it is overwhelmingly likely that it was, in fact, he who coordinated Officer Vallandingham’s murder. I have laid out the evidence in my book and in an article in the Capital University Law Review. Briefly,

Three members of the Black Gangster Disciples stated under oath that Lavelle tried to recruit them for a death squad after Ms. Unwin’s statement on April 14;

Sean Davis, who slept in L-1 as Lavelle did, testified that when he awoke on the morning of April 15, he heard Lavelle telling Stacey Gordon that he was going to kill a guard, to which Gordon replied that he would clean up afterward;

The late James Bell, a.k.a. Nuruddin, executed an affidavit before his death to the effect that Lavelle had left the morning meeting on April 15 furious that the Muslims and Aryans were unwilling to kill a hostage officer;

Three prisoners saw Lavelle and two other Disciples come down the L block corridor from L-1 and go into L-6, leaving a few minutes later;

James Were, on guard duty in L-6 and thereby an eyewitness to the murder, went to L-1 when he learned that the action had not been approved by other riot leaders and knocked Lavelle to the ground. Willie Johnson and Eddie Moss heard Were explicitly blame Lavelle for the killing;

Two older and, in my opinion, reliable convicts, Leroy Elmore and the late Roy Donald, say that on April 15 Lavelle told each of them in so many words that he had had the guard killed.

Unlike prisoners who testified for the state, the 12 men whose evidence I have summarized received no benefits for coming forward and, in fact, risked retaliation from other inmates by doing so. No jury has ever heard their collective narrative.

What is to be done?

 
So, what can we do?

The first task is to make it possible for the men condemned to death and life in prison to tell their stories, on camera, in face-to-face interviews with representatives of the media.

Illustration by Mr. Fish

In telephone calls to the authorities during the first night of the occupation, prisoner representatives proposed a telephone interview with one media representative, or a live interview with a designated TV channel, in exchange for the release of one hostage correctional officer. At 7:00 a.m. on Monday, April 12, the prisoners in rebellion broke off telephone negotiations, demanding local and national news coverage before any hostage release.

In the late morning of April 12, George Skatzes volunteered to go out on the yard, accompanied by Cecil Allen, carrying an enormous white flag of truce. The men asked for access to the media already camped outside the prison walls.

When on April 15 and 16 the prisoners released hostage officers Darrold Clark and Anthony Demons, what did they ask for and get in return? The opportunity for one spokesperson, Skatzes, to make a radio address and for another, Muslim Stanley Cummings, to speak on TV the next morning.

Now the Lucasville prisoners are again knocking on the door of the state, hunger striking, crying out against their isolation from the dialogue of civic society. They ask, “Why are we being kept incommunicado? What is the state afraid of?”

The first task is to make it possible for the men condemned to death and life in prison to tell their stories, on camera, in face-to-face interviews with representatives of the media.

 
I urge all present not to be distracted by official talk about alternative means of communication. The state tells us that the men condemned to death can write letters and make telephone calls. But the media access that these prisoners seek is the kind of exchange that can occur in courtroom cross-examination. The condemned are saying to us, “Before you kill me, give me a chance to join with you in trying to figure out what actually occurred.”

These are not homicides like that of which Mumia Abu Jamal is accused or that for which Troy Davis was executed: homicides with one decedent, one alleged perpetrator, and half a dozen witnesses. This is an immense tangle of events.

There is no objective evidence except for the testimony of the medical examiners, which repeatedly contradicted the claims of the prosecution. Very few physical objects remain in existence. The medical examiner testified that David Sommers was killed by a single massive blow with an object like a bat. A bloody baseball bat was found near the body of David Sommers. Special Prosecutor Mark Piepmeier ordered the bat to be destroyed.

We need media access to the Lucasville Five and their companions not just to perceive them as human beings, but to determine the truth. George Skatzes and Aaron Jefferson were tried in separate trials and each was convicted of striking the single massive blow that killed Mr. Sommers.

Eric Girdy has confessed to being one of the three killers of Earl Elder, using a shank made of glass from the mirror in the officers’ restroom, and slivers of glass were found in one of the lethal wounds and on the nearby floor. Girdy has insisted under oath that Skatzes had nothing to do with the murder; yet the state, while accepting Girdy’s confession, has not vacated the judgment against Skatzes.

Hasan and Namir were found not guilty of killing Bruce Harris, yet Stacey Gordon, who admitted to being one of the killers, is on the street.

The trial court judge in Keith LaMar’s trial refused to direct the prosecution to turn over to counsel for the defense the transcripts of all interviews conducted by the Highway Patrol with potential witnesses of the homicides for which LaMar was convicted, and LaMar is now closest to death of the five.

Jason Robb did nothing to cause the death of Officer Vallandingham except to attend an inconclusive meeting also attended by Anthony Lavelle, but only Robb was sentenced to death.

These things are not right, not just, not fair. The men facing death and life imprisonment for their alleged actions in April 1993 need to be full participants in the truth-seeking process. That is why, to repeat, I believe that our first task following this gathering is to make it possible for these men to tell their stories, on camera, in face-to-face interviews with representatives of the media. Journalists, for example from campus newspapers, who wish precise information as to how to request interviews should contact me.

Legendary attorney, professor, historian, author, playwright, and civil rights and peace activist Staughton Lynd can be reached at salynd@aol.com.

Yo. You. Yea, you with DOC (Department of Corrections) printed on your back. Naw, don’t turn the page … WAKE UP! Better yet, look around. Like what you see? I know the streets were live: Money was flowing, women were chasing, and the respect was there. But that’s over now.

Are you really going to do all this time just to go back to what got you here in the first place? I hate to be the one to tell you, but no matter what Rick Ross says, you’ll never make it as a dopeboy. Common sense will tell you that if it really was a future in the streets, he’d be trappin’ instead of rappin’.

Early on the morning of Nov. 19, seven members of Decarcerate PA set up school desks, banners and a little red schoolhouse to block the entrance to the prison construction site on the grounds of SCI Graterford in Montgomery County. They sat at the desks, linking arms and refusing to move or allow construction vehicles onto the site. Construction was delayed for over an hour before all seven protesters were arrested and taken away. If completed, the new prisons will cost $400 million and house 4,100 people.

Knowledge will always rule ignorance, and in case you were wondering, we’re the ignorant. But ignorance is a choice. At any time we can choose education over entertainment. We can choose to be real bosses and leaders instead of criminals and ex-cons. At any time we can choose to be the masters of our own destiny instead of having our fate determined by judge and jury.

Brandon T. Jones and Michael Ta’bon get it. They came home and went right to work trying to wake people up. Tyrone Werts and Darryl Goodman see what’s going on. That’s why they’re spending their time – since getting out – trying to save the youth. And we all know that’s no easy task. Them young boys are hard headed!

Then there’s DecarceratePA. This organization tried to block construction of the new prisons being built next to Graterford – now that’s gangsta! Their message: Our government must spend its money on community reinvestment, education, housing and social services – not mass incarceration. These folks are fighting for us and our children. What are we doing? The best parent in the world can only do so much in a 15-minute phone call and two-hour visit.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said that “nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself will not be defended.” So don’t spend your time learning. Don’t prepare for release. Keep chasing packs and smut pics. But, one day when your child becomes your cellie, don’t be mad at him; just look in the mirror.

Send our brother some love and light: Shuja Moore, GU4039, SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932. Copyright © 2013 by Shuja Moore.

I met Ajuan Mance at a function at the San Francisco Main Library, where she had a table displaying her sketches of the many faces of Black men. I talked to her for a second and noticed the activist nature of her work.

She was protesting the objectification of the Black male image in the media, while at the same time capturing the natural wild beauty of the Black man. I was taken aback by her collection of drawings, and even saw some faces that I thought I recognized. Ajuan’s elegant pen work is second to none. Check this interesting local artist out in her own words …

M.O.I. JR: Can you tell the people a little bit about your work? Why do you choose to draw Black men?

Ajuan: I have worked in a number of artistic media, but since July of 2010, my primary focus has been on creating the drawings that appear in “1001 Black Men,” my online sketchbook at 8-ROCK.com. My goal is to create 1,001 drawings of African American men in roughly 1,001 days.

Ajuan Mance

The irony is that it is not just mainstream white America that is putting the Black male image to these uses. Black-owned and Black-created media are complicit in the objectification of Black men and in reinforcing the limited ways in which African American men become visible. And, of course, very few people either inside or outside of the media are speaking about or acknowledging that this is happening.

Drawing by Ajuan Mance

M.O.I. JR: How have people responded to your sketches?

Ajuan: People have generally been quite receptive to this project. People enjoy the diversity of the men I have depicted, which really thrills me, because that was one of my goals. Many have recognized people they know or people they’ve seen. The most common question I have gotten is why I am not doing a series of drawings of Black women.

M.O.I. JR: Are you selling these sketches as a book or as postcards or both?

Ajuan: Currently, I am selling these sketches as postcards, prints and in the form of ‘zines. By fall I plan to have a book of my first 250 drawings available for sale.

M.O.I. JR: What do you want people to get out of your project?

Ajuan: I want these drawings to convey not only the many ways of being Black and male, but also the immense possibilities for Black manhood. When people look at the wide range of Black men I depict, I also want them to be reminded of all of those experiences and presentations of Black manhood and masculinity that I haven’t had the space to portray.

Drawing by Ajuan Mance

M.O.I. JR: Where can people see your work? Do you have any public appearances in May?

Ajuan: I will be showing my work at Art Murmur/First Fridays on May 3. I will be at Uptown Body and Fender, 401 26th St., in Oakland. I’ll be showing some new mixed media works in the exhibit “Afro-Futurism: Envisioning the Year 2070 and Beyond,” from May 17 through Aug. 1, 2013, at the San Francisco Public Library’s African American Center. And, of course, people can always find my drawings on my website.

M.O.I. JR: How do people stay in touch with you?

Ajuan: People can always reach me through my website at 8-Rock.com. There they can find links to my Etsy store and to the websites of lots of other interesting and talented artists of African descent.

The People’s Minister of Information JR is associate editor of the Bay View, author of “Block Reportin’” and filmmaker of “Operation Small Axe” and “Block Reportin’ 101,” available, along with many more interviews, at www.blockreportradio.com. He also hosts two weekly shows on KPFA 94.1 FM and kpfa.org: The Morning Mix every Wednesday, 8-9 a.m., and The Block Report every other Friday night-Saturday morning, midnight-2 a.m. He can be reached at blockreportradio@gmail.com.
 

Drawing by Ajuan Mance

Drawing by Ajuan Mance

On the joyous occasion of his 26th birthday, at a party surrounded by his family and friends, Malcolm Shabazz kisses his beloved mother, Qubilah Shabazz, on Oct. 9, 2010, a month before his Hajj to Mecca. – Photo: Minister of Information JR Valrey

The spiritual warmth could be felt flowing all through the hall in the stately Islamic Center in downtown Oakland, as over 300 people mourned, paid last respects, celebrated his life and gained inspiration during the service held Friday morning, May 17, in loving memory of Hajj Malcolm Latif El Shabazz.

The faces of grief and mourning were also the faces of strength, courage and commitment.

“Young Malcolm,” as he was often recognized, in remembrance of his grandfather, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X), was a jewel in the making, just coming into his own when he was assassinated this past week under circumstances that fairly reek of COINTELPRO manipulation.

But this service celebrated his life, even as it mourned his passing.

Mourners entered the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California here. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

A beautiful plaque and candle greet visitors at the entrance to the Islamic Center. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

An obituary read to the audience spoke of Hajj Malcolm’s travels in the states and in the world, where he spoke out against global injustice, Black on Black violence and the prison industrial complex. He advocated for political prisoners and visited Mumia Abu-Jamal and Sekou Odinga. He learned from all whom he encountered, most particularly human rights activist Yuri Kochiyama, whom he adored. One of her relatives was present in the audience.

It also bespoke his travels to Qatar, France, Holland, Canada and the United Arab Emirates, stating that “the two most enjoyable highlights of his overseas experiences were his Hajj (spiritual pilgrimage) to Mecca in 2010, where he met the late scholar Shaykh Amri in Medina, and his studies of Islam from ulama (scholars) in Damascus, Syria, at the Hawza Ilmiya Zainabiyah (Islamic Seminary.) It was also here that he made a spiritual connection during a ziyarat (visitation) to the tomb Hazrat Zainab, the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad (AS).”

A mourner is overcome as she stands beside the casket. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

In a beautiful video, his speeches flowed. Even those who may not have known him (myself included) could see and hear that he was gifted in his ability to hold the attention of a crowd, that he was extremely popular with young people, and that even as he reached people of all ages and from all walks of life, it was evident from his conversation that he was a scholar.

Mourners of the many faiths and nationalities Malcolm had touched paid their respects. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Aside from being a consummate teacher and activist, he was also a father and a son, with uncompromising love for his daughter, Saudi Shabazz, and for his mother and comrade, Qubilah Shabazz. He was also soon to be the author of two books, one of which was a memoir.

And so, from all walks of life, religions and creeds, from Oakland, frequently his home base in recent years, and far beyond, people came to express their love. They listened intently to the Quranic recitation of the Al Fatiha, the Ahadith reading, opening remarks, statements of condolences in the form of a video presentation of the life of Hajj Malcolm Shabazz, told with loving memory, to remarks by professors from UC Berkeley, clergy, family and friends, the eulogy and final dua and prayers.

TaLea Monet Carpenter with her daughter Nailah pays her respects to Malcolm and his family. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

There was a table of fresh fruit, from which people could partake, as well as water.

Buttons were being made and sold outside the service to defray the cost of carrying Hajj Malcolm Latif El Shabazz to his final rest beside his grandparents in New York.

At the conclusion of the service, those who wished formed a line in order to say their personal farewells in prayer or by touching his casket.

Hajj Malcolm Shabazz’ family included the pre-deceased El Hajj Malik El Shabazz and Dr. Betty Shabazz. He is survived by his mother, Qubilah-Bahiyah Shabazz, his daughter, Saudi Shabazz, and his aunts, cousins and paternal and maternal great aunts and uncles.

Hajj Malcolm Latif El Shabazz has made a profound and an indelible mark upon the world. In the finest traditions of the Shabazz family; by his life he will continue to inspire.

The photographs, taken after the ceremony with the permission of the Imam, reflect the love of Malcolm’s global community for him, and his love for his community.

Malaika H Kambon is a freelance photojournalist and the 2011 winner of the Bay Area Black Journalists Association Luci S. Williams Houston Scholarship in Photojournalism. She can be reached at kambonrb@pacbell.net.

Tribute to Malcolm

by Yahaya Ezemoo Ndu and Gerald A. Perreira, African Revolutionary Movement

Africans all over the world mourn the death of Al Hajj Malcolm Al Shabazz, grandson of the great African revolutionary, Al Hajj Malik Al Shabazz (Malcolm X). ARM is in no doubt that this young African freedom fighter, who was using his legacy to inspire a whole new generation, was targeted for assassination.

Veteran campaign manager and John Burton staffer Ronald Colthirst, Amir Hassan of the UC Berkeley African American Studies Department and Bay View publisher Dr. Willie Ratcliff were among those grieving the loss of young Malcolm. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

The Empire is in deep crisis and knows that the final blow will come from the mounting internal resistance to its reign of terror. Young Malcolm’s assassination comes at a time when the Empire’s state terrorist apparatus is intensifying its harassment of militant African organizations and leaders and has recently placed Assata Shakur at the top of its most wanted terrorist list.

We send our deepest sympathy to the Shabazz family. As revolutionaries, we know only too well the toll that our struggle takes on our families and the sacrifices they must make. The Shabazz family has made the ultimate sacrifice too many times, and it is with deep appreciation and respect that people all over the world are praying for and with them at this time.

The corporate media’s shameless attempts to discredit this young warrior has fallen largely on deaf ears, since it is clear to all that these agencies of mass deception are simply in the service of Empire. There is hardly an African family in the Diaspora whose young sons have not had issues with “the law.” As many African scholars have noted, it is in fact “the law” that has issues with our youth who are targeted globally.

Hajj Malcolm Latif El Shabazz is depicted in the loving embrace of his grandfather, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

May Allah welcome him as a martyr, who died like his grandfather, in the service of his people.

African Revolutionary Movement Chairman Yahaya Ezemoo Ndu and International Secretary Gerald A. Perreira can be reached at mojadi94@gmail.com.

Read the words of Malcolm Shabazz

So that you may come to know him for yourself, following are a few of the stories posted at SFBayView.com by and about Hajj Malcolm El Shabazz:

Notes from Tripoli, Libya, Africa

Live from Saudi Arabia: an interview with El Hajj Malcolm Shabazz

Mumia, the media and more: Davey D, MOI JR and Malcolm Shabazz on Hard Knock Radio

Malcolm Shabazz on the three chapters missing from ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’

The legacy of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz lives! an interview wit’ his grandson Malcolm Shabazz In this extremely revealing interview, Malcolm addresses such difficult topics as the fire that killed his grandmother, his time in prison and who killed his grandfather.

KPFA Evening News May 18, 2013

KPFA Evening News Anchor: The mayoral contest in Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, is now widely reported to be very close as it heads for a conclusion on Tuesday, May 21. Jackson’s population is majority Black and Democratic, so Tuesday’s Democratic primary run-off, between Black Democrat Chokwe Lumumba and Black Democrat Jonathan Lee, will effectively determine who the city’s next mayor will be.

The Jackson Free Press reports, however, that donors to the Jonathon Lee campaign have also given $1.2 million to federal Republican campaigns since 2008. Lee is a businessman running for political office for the first time. Lumumba is a human rights attorney, renowned for winning Jamie and Gladys Scott’s release from prison, who has served on the Jackson City Council for the past four years.

KPFA’s Ann Garrison spoke to Bob Wing, a founding editor of Color Lines, who traveled from Durham, North Carolina, to work on the Chokwe Lumumba for Mayor campaign.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Can you explain why you thought this campaign was so important that you traveled from Durham, North Carolina, to Jackson, Mississippi, to work on it?

Bob Wing: Yeah, there’s a couple main reasons. First of all, for much of the country, when they think of the South, they think of rednecks and red states, and they forget that the majority of Black people in the United States still live in the South. And that’s why I moved to Durham and that’s why the Jackson election is so important.

Mississippi is the state that has the highest percentage of Black people and Black voters. And it’s also often off the radar screen of much of the rest of the country.

While they’re looking at Obama and the drama in Washington, in many ways the main action going on in the country is a withering, literally withering attack that the Republicans have launched in the red and purple states like Mississippi and North Carolina, where they are dramatically altering the legal, political and social landscape, or at least attempting to in a very short time.

Chokwe Lumumba is, like Barack Obama, “a Christian brother with an African name,” but his opponent, Jonathan Lee, has used his name to suggest that he is non-American, perhaps not even Christian. Lee has also suggested that Chokwe Lumumba does not support Barack Obama. Lumumba himself has said that he and his supporters voted for Obama, but that he is an MLK-Fannie Lou Hamer Democrat.

KPFA: Having lost his family name during the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Chokwe Lumumba took the first name Chokwe, that of a West African tribe, and the last name Lumumba, which is of course the name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, who was assassinated in a Western backed coup. How does this play in the state of Mississippi?

Bob Wing: Well, it’s definitely something that he knows is an issue, and really his opponent is trying to use his name to paint Chokwe as a non-American, or some kind of other, or as a Muslim. And so Chokwe, he tends to introduce himself as Chokwe Lumumba, the Christian brother with an African name.

KPFA: OK. In a controversial television attack ad launched this week, the Lee campaign charged that Chokwe Lumumba is not a Christian, because he once said that the resurrection was not his thing. And Chokwe Lumumba responded that he’s always been a Christian and that he tries to live Christlike. Is a literal interpretation of the Bible really important in this part of the country where the Old Testament narrative, “Let my people go,” was transposed during the Civil Rights movement into the story of African Americans recovering from slavery and fighting Jim Crow segregation and voter suppression?

Bob Wing: Well, I don’t know that it is. I mean I think it’s important, or let’s put it this way, it’s a big plus if you’re a Christian. But for sure, Chokwe is in fact a Christian, and in a city that is overwhelmingly a Christian city – it’s about an 80-plus percent Black city, almost all of whom are Christians – it’s been an important thing for him to assert that he is a Christian.

KPFA: Could you explain why 2nd District Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson’s endorsement of Chokwe Lumumba is being reported to be so important?

Bob Wing: Well, I think that there’s two reasons: One is that a Congressional seat – you’ve got to remember that Misssissippi is a very small state; it has only about 2.5 million people. Jackson, the City of Jackson, has just under 200,000 people, so a Congressional seat takes up virtually all of Jackson, plus more people.

A congressional seat in the United States is approximately 750,000 to 800,000 people, so when you’re a congressman in Mississippi, you’re the congressman for a huge swath of the population. In the case of Bennie Thompson, he is the congressman for a good part of Black Mississippi, which is concentrated primarily in the Mississippi Delta and Jackson.

Chokwe Lumumba with his daughter Rukia and grandson Qadir

He has quite a bit of power, and he is very well known and widely admired, so his endorsement is definitely important.

KPFA: Anything else you’d like to say about this?

Bob Wing: Well, I guess the last thing I’d like to say, and it’s part of the answer to your first question, is I think that Chokwe also represents a very important new trend in the progressive movement in the United States, and that trend is that people are, especially on the left side of the progressive movement, the social justice movement, are really starting to understand the importance of elections as part of social justice organizing.

And Chokwe has been extremely successful at it, and it’s becoming really part of the culture of the progressive movement here in Jackson and in certain other parts of the country as well – Virginia, North Carolina and other places. And I think that’s a very important trend, which is another reason why I’m here.

KPFA: Bob Wing, thank you very much.

Bob Wing: Thank you.

KPFA: And that was Bob Wing, founding editor of Color Lines and Chokwe Lumumba campaign volunteer, speaking from Jackson, Mississippi.

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison

Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Star News and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News and her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at ann@afrobeatradio.com. This story first appeared on her website. If you want to see Ann Garrison’s independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website at anngarrison.com.

The State Department of the United States recently released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012, posing as the world judge of human rights again. As in previous years, the reports are full of carping and irresponsible remarks on the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China.

This photo with the following caption was used by China Daily to illustrate this report: “Kimani Gray protest on Church Avenue between East 55th Street and Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, on March 13. In response to the shooting of a 16-year-old boy by police, protesters in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn had been holding nightly vigils and marches, and there have been frequent clashes with NYPD.” – Photo: Stephanie Keith, Polaris

The human rights situation in the U.S. in 2012 has deeply impressed people in the following aspects:

– Firearms-related crimes posed serious threat to the lives and personal security of citizens in the U.S. Some shootings left astonishing casualties, such as the school shooting in Oakland, the Century 16 theater shooting in Colorado and the school shooting in Connecticut.

– In the U.S., elections could not fully embody the real will of its citizens. Political contributions have, to a great extent, influenced the electoral procedures and policy direction. During the 2012 presidential election, the voter turnout was only 57.5 percent.

– In the U.S., citizens’ civil and political rights were further restricted by the government. The government expanded the scope of eavesdropping and censoring on personal telecommunications. The police often abused their power, resulting in increasing complaints and charges for infringement upon civil rights. The proportion of women in the U.S. who fell victim to domestic violence and sexual assault kept increasing.

– The U.S. has become one of the developed countries with the greatest income gaps. In 2011, the Gini index was 0.477 in the U.S. and about 9 million people were registered as unemployed, about 16.4 million children lived in poverty and, for the first time in history, public schools reported more than 1 million homeless children and youth.

Facts show that there are serious human rights problems in the U.S. which incur extensive criticism in the world.

 
 – There was serious sex, racial and religious discrimination in the U.S. Indigenous people suffered serious racial discrimination and their poverty rate doubled the national average. A movie produced by a U.S. director and aired online was deemed insulting to the Prophet Mohammed, sparking protests by Muslims worldwide.

– The U.S. seriously infringed upon human rights of other nations. In 2012, U.S. military operations in Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan caused massive civilian casualties. U.S. soldiers had also severely blasphemed against local residents’ religion by burning copies of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, and insulting bodies of the dead. There has been a huge rise in birth defects in Iraq since the war against Iraq with military actions in which American forces used metal contaminant-releasing white phosphorus shells and depleted uranium bombs.

– The U.S. was not able to effectively participate in international cooperation on human rights. To date, the U.S. remains a country which has not participated in or ratified a series of core U.N. conventions on human rights, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

U.S.-led military operations bring forth ecological disasters to other countries

 
Military operations led by the United States have brought forth ecological disasters to other nations such as a huge rise in birth defects, says the report on the U.S. human rights record.

An article posted on the website of the Independent cited a study that reported a “staggering rise” in birth defects among Iraqi children conceived in the aftermath of the war, says the report, titled “the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2012,” which was released by China’s State Council Information Office.

The study found that in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which saw two of the heaviest battles during the Iraq war, more than half of all babies surveyed were born with a birth defect between 2007 and 2010.

Before the war, the figure was more like one in 10. More than 45 percent of all pregnancies surveyed ended in miscarriage in the two years after 2004, up from the previous 10 percent, according to figures of the study cited by the report.

Military operations led by the United States have brought forth ecological disasters to other nations such as a huge rise in birth defects.

 
The report also quotes Steve Kretzmann, director of Oil Change International, as saying that the Iraq war was responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) from March 2003 through December 2007. “The war emits more than 60 percent of all countries,” Kretzmann said.

U.S.-led wars cause massive civilian casualties

 
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both started by the United States, have caused massive civilian casualties, says the report.

From 2001 to 2011, the U.S.-led “war on terror” killed between 14,000 and 110,000 per year, the report cites an article on the website of Stop the War Coalition as saying.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) tallied at least 10,292 non-combatants killed from 2007 to July 2011.

The Iraq Body Count project records approximately 115,000 civilians killed in the cross-fire from 2003 to August 2011, according to the report.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both started by the United States, have caused massive civilian casualties.

 
Beyond the two states under occupation, the “War on Terror” has spilled into a number of neighboring countries, including Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, killing a great many civilians there, it says.

In addition, a news report posted on BBC’s website pointed at recurrent U.S. drone attacks in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the report. “Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists – while the rest are innocent civilians,” the report quotes an article on the website of the Daily Mail as saying.

U.S. women victims of discrimination, poverty, sexual violence

 
Women in the United States are facing discrimination in employment and more vulnerable to poverty and violence, with some falling victim to sexual assault, says the report.

The U.S. remains one of a few countries in the world that have not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, says the report.

Women made up about two-thirds of all workers in the U.S. who were paid minimum wage or less in 2011 and 61 percent of full-time minimum wage workers, the report says, citing the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

On average, women have to work as far as April 17 into 2012 to catch up with what men earned in 2011, it says.

Pregnant women and new mothers face the danger of being forced out of the workplace, according to the report.

A Houston mother was reportedly fired from her job at a collection agency after asking to bring a breast pump into the office so she’d have plenty of fresh breast milk for her newborn. A new Connecticut mom said her new employer asked her to resign after she told them she was pregnant.

The poverty rate for women in 2011 was 14.6 percent, compared to men’s 10.9 percent. Women are more likely to live in poverty and about 40 percent of women who head families live in poverty, the report cites the U.S. National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) as saying.

The U.S. remains one of a few countries in the world that have not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

 
Women are the victims of violence and sexual assaults. A national census of domestic violence agencies in September 2011 found that more than 67,000 victims were served in a single day, the report says.

According to the Report on Violence against Women, its Causes and Consequences, submitted by the Special Rapporteur to the U.N. General Assembly in 2012, most prison staff in the U.S. are not adequately trained to prevent or respond to inmate sexual assaults, and prison rape often goes unreported and untreated, says the report.

Women in the U.S. armed forces are the victims of widespread sexual abuse. Around 79 percent of women serving in the military reported experiences of sexual harassment. Military sexual trauma often leads to debilitating conditions such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression, according to the report.

The report also warns of the health of women of color. A media report in June 2012 says the rate of HIV infection in heterosexual African American women in the poorest neighborhoods of Washington, D.C., nearly doubled the 6.3 percent infection rate of two years before.

Minority women in the U.S. are more likely to die during or soon after childbirth than white women, according to a report posted on the website of the Chicago Tribune on Aug. 3, 2012.

U.S. scores low on children’s rights protection

 
Children in the U.S. are not blessed with enough protection for their safety, freedom and right to education, says the report.

Citing the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the report says at least 100,000 children across the country are trafficked each year.

Child sexual abuse is a widespread public health problem. Research indicates that 20 percent of adult females and 5 to 15 percent of adult males experienced sexual abuse in childhood or adolescence, the report says.

In 2012, several religious figures were found to have sexually assaulted children. In July 2012, Roman Catholic monsignor William Lynn was sentenced to six years in prison for allowing a priest suspected of sexual misconduct with a minor to have continued contact with children. In September, a Roman Catholic bishop in Kansas City was found guilty of failing to tell authorities about child pornography that was produced by a priest under his supervision, according to the report.

Children in the U.S. are not blessed with enough protection for their safety, freedom and right to education.

 
The number of homeless children increased sharply in the U.S., and many children are stricken by poverty, the report says.

For the first time in history, public schools reported more than 1 million homeless children and youth. Only 52 percent of identified homeless students who took standardized tests were proficient in reading, and only 51 percent passed the math portion, the report cites the data released by the U.S. Department of Education on June 27, 2012, as saying.

Forty-four states reported school year-to-year increases in the number of homeless students, with 15 states reporting increases of 20 percent or more. The number of homeless children enrolled in public schools has increased 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year, according to the report.

Racial discrimination remains rampant in U.S.: report

 
Racial discrimination in the United States sees no improvement, and non-whites do not enjoy equal political, economic and social rights, says the report.

Ethnic Americans’ rights to vote are limited; even some Asian-American voters were obstructed at voting stations during the presidential election in November 2012, according to the report.

As of 2010, more than 2 million African-Americans were stripped of their right to vote, says the report, citing media reports.

Racial discrimination is rampant in the field of law enforcement and justice, as police were reported to tend to be more lenient with whites, it says, adding that ethnic Americans are discriminated against in the job market, and their economic well-being worsens as a result.

Racial discrimination is rampant in the field of law enforcement and justice.

 
Religious discrimination is also rapidly on the rise, with an increase in insults and attacks against Muslims. In one case, a U.S. film director last year made a film that was insulting to the Prophet Muhammad and posted it online, which triggered waves of protests in the Muslim world.

Citing a recent poll released by American media, the report says 51 percent of Americans now express explicit anti-African-American attitudes, three percentage points higher than in 2008.

Besides, the rights of illegal immigrants are violated. Deaths often occur in immigration detention centers.

Some United Nation human rights experts and South Florida Haitian rights advocates call for the U.S. to suspend all deportations to Haiti, as it may constitute a human rights violation and may threaten the lives of Haitians, according to the report.

Ethnic Americans in poverty due to discrimination

 
Ethnic Americans’ economic well-being has worsened as a result of being discriminated against in the job market, said the report.

The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2012 was released by China’s State Council Information Office in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012 issued by the U.S. State Department.

The median household income for African-Americans was $32,229 in 2011, less than 60 percent of that of non-Hispanic whites, the report says, citing U.S. Census Bureau statistics.

The poverty rate for African-Americans stood at 27.6 percent in 2011, almost three times that of non-Hispanic whites.

Employment discrimination is the main reason behind income disparity and poverty, reads the report, an annual move of the Chinese government to counter the U.S. assessment belittling China’s human rights condition.

Statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor show the unemployment rate of whites was 7.0 percent in October 2012, while the rate for African-Americans and Hispanics was 14.3 percent and 10 percent, respectively, in that month, according to the report.

The average period of unemployment for ethnic minorities is also notably longer than that for whites, it says.

Employment discrimination is the main reason behind income disparity and poverty.

 
According to data from the Labor Department, over half of African-Americans and non-Hispanic Blacks in New York City who were old enough to work had no jobs in 2012, and it takes them almost a full year on average to find another job, the report says.

Wealth gap growing in U.S.

 
The gap between the rich and poor has been growing in the U.S. over the years, says the report.

America’s Gini index was 0.477 in 2011 and income inequality increased by 1.6 percent between 2010 and 2011, indicating a widened rich-poor gap, the report says.

Between 2010 and 2011, the share of aggregate income increased 1.6 percent for the quintile with the highest household income, and increased 4.9 percent for the top five percent households, it said, citing U.S. official figures.

During the same period, the aggregate share of income declined for the middle quintile, and the changes in the shares of aggregate income for the lowest two quintiles were not statistically significant, it added.

America’s poverty rate in 2011 was 15 percent, with 46.2 million people in poverty, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released in September 2012.

Furthermore, the report says there were 21 homeless people per 10,000 people in the general population, and nearly four in 10 homeless people were unsheltered.

U.S. election marked by political donations

 
Elections in the United States are like “money wars,” with trends of the country’s policies deeply influenced by political donations, says the report.

In the 2012 election, the Obama campaign and the Democratic camp raised $1.06 billion, and the Romney campaign and the Republican camp raised a total of $954 million, the report says. Both groups receive funding from business giants.

An opinion poll showed that nearly 90 percent of Americans believe the 2012 election was marked by too many political donations from business circles, which will mean the increased influence of the rich over the country’s policy-making, the report says.

“America’s political system is sinking into serious crisis as it is under manipulation of interest groups and their sponsors,” the report says, citing a Harvard professor.

“American politics are corroding the people, making them increasingly dependent on interest groups,” the professor is quoted as saying.

Abuse of suspects, jail inmates common in U.S.

 
Abuse of suspects and jail inmates is a common occurrence in the United States, says the report.

A litany of lawsuits was brought against the New York City Police Department, with police officers charged with violating civil rights in law enforcement, the report says.

Citing a May 2012 report by CNN, the document adds that some 9.6 percent of the prisoners in American state prisons are sexually victimized during confinement, more than double the rate cited in a report on the subject in 2008.

U.S. government steps up surveillance of citizens

 
The U.S. government continues to step up surveillance of ordinary Americans, seriously violating the freedom of citizens, says the report.

The U.S. Congress approved a bill in 2012 that authorizes warrantless wiretapping and electronic communications monitoring by the government, a move that violates people’s rights to privacy, the report says.

Documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union in September 2012, reveal that federal law enforcement agencies are increasingly monitoring American’s electronic communications.

The U.S. government continues to step up surveillance of ordinary Americans, seriously violating the freedom of citizens.

 
Between 2009 and 2011, the U.S. Justice Department’s combined number of original orders for “pen registers” and “trap and trace devices” used to spy on phones increased by 60 percent, from 23,535 in 2009 to 37,616 in 2011, the report says.

The National Security Agency collects purely domestic communications of Americans in a “significant and systematic” way, intercepting and storing 1.7 billion emails, phone calls and other types of communications, it adds.

Firearms-related crimes pose serious threat to U.S. citizens

 
The United States was haunted by serious violent crimes in 2012 with frequent occurrence of firearms-related criminal cases and with some shootings leaving astonishing casualties, says China’s report on the U.S. human rights record.

According to statistics released by the FBI in September 2012, an estimated 1,203,564 violent crimes occurred in the U.S. in 2011, about 386.3 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants, says the report.

Aggravated assaults accounted for 62.4 percent of violent crimes reported to law enforcement. And firearms were used in 67.7 percent of the nation’s murders, 41.3 percent of robberies, and 21.2 percent in all crimes in the U.S., the report quotes FBI figures as saying.

Figures from USA Today’s website showed that the violent crime rate went up 17 percent in 2011, the report says.

Statistics from the website of the Congressional Research Service showed that an estimated 14,612 people fell victim to murder in 2011 and 9,903 of them were firearms-related murder victims, according to the report.

U.S. people’s lives, personal security not duly protected

 
The lives and personal security of United States citizens, who were haunted by serious violent crimes, were not duly protected, says the report.

The U.S. government has done little on gun control. Americans are the most heavily armed people in the world per capita, according to the report.

It quotes CNN as saying that there were an estimated 270 million guns in the hands of civilians in the U.S. and more than 100,000 people are shot by guns each year.

The lives and personal security of United States citizens, who were haunted by serious violent crimes, were not duly protected.

 
In 2008 and 2010, landmark Supreme Court rulings on two firearms-related cases dramatically diminished the authority of state and local governments to limit gun ownership, according to the report.

Roughly half of the 50 U.S. states have adopted laws allowing gun owners to carry their guns openly in most public places. And many states have “stand your ground” laws that allow people to kill if they come under threat, even, in some cases, if they can escape the threat without violence, the report says.

The foregoing are the report’s foreword and highlights, which appear in Global Times, where the full text is also available.

Due to the litany of contradictions that we as an oppressed people are confronted with, it is easy for us to focus solely on the problem and lose sight of formulating concrete solutions to our problems. The current discussions that are centered around the revisions to the gang validation process are no exception.

And with the recent implementation of the “Step-Down” Pilot Program issued Oct. 11, 2012,¹ it has become absolutely clear that our oppressors, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Prison Intelligence Unit, are dug in on their position of maintaining the status quo of genocide population control via the continued indefinite internment of prisoners in their torture chambers – or solitary confinement units.

A New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalist historian and theoretician once warned us years ago when he stated: “I don’t think that we can afford to be nice much longer. The very last of our protection is eroding from under us. There will be no means of detection when that last right is gone … The process must be checked somewhere between now and then, or we will be fighting from a position of weakness with our backs against the wall.”

This prognosis was based upon a historical material analysis of the contradictions that have existed throughout the history of U.S. imperialist colonial slavery, in which the prison industrial slave complex has its roots. The Step-Down Pilot Program is a by-product of state repression, and only serves to reinforce the totalitarian rule of our oppressors over the captive prisoner class.

Proof of this is predicated upon the provisional policy language within the Step-Down Pilot Program in that said policies are an extension of the laws that were enacted under “Jim Crow,”² where U.S. government officials sought to relegate New Afrikans (Blacks), Mexicans, Indigenous Natives, poor Whites, Asians etc. to second class citizenry under the construct of a race-based social caste system that was based upon their previous social status as chattel slaves, alleged felons, vagrants etc.

This meant that our ancestors were stripped of their human rights, which enabled our oppressors to continue and to maintain control over our ancestors via the construct of a new form of slavery that became manifest following what was deemed the Reconstruction Era. This era of Amerikkkan history has falsely led many to believe that the remnants of slavery had ended, as the social standing of this decadent society was somehow improving.

But how can this be, when we still have caste-based economic segregation, with the same transgressions against humanity remaining in existence today? Yes, I am talking about the Security Threat Group Step Down Program!

The problem

CDCR’s Prison Intelligence Unit officials have reformed their gang management policies into what they’re now calling the STG-SDP. In other words, they have put lipstick on a pig and call it change, in spite of the fact that a pig with or without lipstick is still a pig! These revisions are supposed to make gang activity “behavior-based.” But we would like to focus on one aspect of the STG-SDP Program, where it talks about issuing prisoners disciplinary form CDC 115 Rules Violation Reports for Gang Activity.

The STG-SDP Pilot Program Gang Validation revisions are in Section 600, “STG Disciplinary Matrix for STG Related Behavior or Activity,” which states in part:

“The STG policy incorporates a behavior based disciplinary component as a foundation to its pre-existing intelligence based system. The STG validation system also incorporates a layered approach of procedural safeguards to affirm appropriate due process in the validation and housing placement of STG affiliates.”³

For those who are not familiar with American jurisprudence, a prisoner’s entitlement to due process protections is implicated only when a disciplinary guilty finding impacts a prisoner’s time credits to the point of extending that prisoner’s sentence. For example, in Sandin v. Conner,⁴ the U.S. Supreme Court held:

“Actions that may or may not have some effect on discretionary parole release have ‘too attenuated’ a relationship with the length of incarceration to constitute a deprivation of liberty invoking due process protections.”

This contradiction is critical in the sense that the overwhelming majority of indeterminate SHU class prisoners have long surpassed our minimum eligible parole dates that were handed to us under the Indeterminate Sentencing Law (ISL) that was repealed in July of 1977, meaning that any disciplinary CDC 115 Rules Violation Report that CDCR’s Prison Intelligence Unit officials choose to impose upon us for alleged “behavior-based” gang activity subjects us to summary executions via the subjective whims of our oppressors.

Now, how is this phenomenon any different from the race-based social caste system that existed under Jim Crow, where New Afrikans were falsely arrested, harassed, tormented, dehumanized, lynched, hanged etc. on the spot, under suspicion of violating the Black Codes,⁵ or “vagrancy laws”?

As was the case under the Jim Crow social caste system, CDCR’s Prison Intelligence Unit officials also have a history of filing false reports against prisoners. This truism has been substantiated by the following facts: 1) A civil §1983 legal petition that a prisoner at Calipatria State Prison brought forth against IGI Officer E. Duarte,⁶ where said CDCR PIU agent planted evidence in the prisoner’s cell and then falsely charged and validated the prisoner as a prison gang member; and 2) in 2006, a prisoner with a violence-free prison record named Ricky Gray was validated as a member of the Black Guerrilla Family and given an indeterminate SHU sentence. But the warden at his prison, who Gray claims was sympathetic to his case, took an unusual step: He instructed a staff assistant to re-interview the informants who had given evidence against him. The assistant concluded that the entire validation package was “comprised of conjecture, second hand expression, assumptions, frivolous statements, incomplete documentation and blatant lack of thorough investigation.”⁷

These contradictions are further magnified by the fact that under the “some evidence” standard that is applied to disciplinary hearings and prison gang validations, the courts have historically refused to analyze, weigh or evaluate the credibility of the evidence that is being used to keep us indefinitely consigned to their torture chambers!⁸

It has also been proven that CDCR’s Prison Intelligence Unit officials have a “rubber-stamp” process in place when it comes to investigating evidence in gang validations, as was proven in the Lira v. Cate case.⁹ Therefore, it is fundamentally impossible for those officials to be “re-affirming” our human rights to due process protections in their STG-SDP program, when historically they have been engaging in systemic extra-judicial activities ever since these “torture chambers” have been in existence!¹⁰

The solution

So now it is necessary for us to move forward and utilize our NARN science in order to resolve these contradictions – the problem – so as to enhance the power of the people! Hence, the Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement (PBHRM) is hereby proposing to the people – the Prisoner Hunger Strike Support (PHSS) Coalition – that we initiate an online petition campaign with the goal of obtaining 1 million signatures. With the current advancement of media technology in today’s society, we believe that a million signatures can be very easily achieved in time for the next state and federal elections. But prior to the next elections, we propose that the 1 million signatures be presented to both state and federal legislative officials in Sacramento, California, and in Washington, D.C.

The petition may be constructed autonomously, but we strongly encourage the people to put together their petitions on a collective basis, so that they resonate the collective spirit of our struggle! We will leave it up to the people as to how the wording of the petition or petitions is formulated, but the petition or petitions must include the following demands from the PBHRM:

1. The PBHRM hereby demands that state and federal government officials immediately institute a law that mandates and accords every prisoner the human right to due process protections in CDCR prison gang validations and disciplinary hearings in order to protect every prisoner from summary executions and persecutions. Due process must be accorded to every prisoner, regardless of whether the disciplinary finding extends our prison sentence or not, as we have a human right to be treated fairly.
2. The PBHRM hereby demands that state and federal government officials immediately abolish the current “some evidence” standard of law that is applied in prison gang validations and in disciplinary hearings and replace it with a law that mandates every piece of information and evidence in prison gang validations and disciplinary hearings be reviewed, assessed and analyzed by a committee of individuals, who must function autonomously to CDCR’s bureaucratic system.
3. The PBHRM hereby demands that state and federal government officials immediately institute a law that makes it illegal to consign any human being to indefinite solitary confinement status, based upon Amnesty International’s investigative findings¹¹ that any form of solitary confinement amounts to torture! And that this law include provisional stipulations for STG labeled prisoners not to be housed in any living conditions that are consistent with solitary confinement or isolation.
4. The PBHRM hereby demands that state and federal government officials immediately institute a law that mandates that the current construct of the Board of Prison Terms be disbanded, so that a culturally diverse community-based Board of Prison Terms can be constructed. It is currently constructed without any cultural diversity or viable representation of the poor oppressed communities that many of us come from and hope to return to one day. This is an essential point, as the CDCR prison population is overwhelmingly populated with prisoners from New Afrikan (Black), Mexican, Indigenous Native and Asian racial ancestry. And furthermore, this law must have provisional stipulations that every member of the Board of Prison Terms must have experience and rehabilitative credentials in the life work of religious clergy, community-based social workers, human rights activists, community-based psychologists and sociologists, community-based drug and alcohol counselors, and community-based re-entry experts who can provide each prisoner with vocational job training that will lead to a sustainable paying job, housing etc. upon each prisoner being paroled. As of right now, the Board of Prison Terms has only been hiring individuals with law enforcement backgrounds, such as former police officers and prison guards and prosecutors. All of these types of people have a vested economic interest in maintaining the status quo of “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” in order to maintain their job security.
5. The PBHRM hereby demands that state and federal government officials immediately institute a law that mandates that every prisoner who was sentenced under the Indeterminate Sentencing Law be provided with a release date, as mandated by Penal Code Section 1170.2(h).

In the event that the state and federal government officials fail to adopt and incorporate these five demands from the PBHRM into law, then we take the people’s 1 million signatures and utilize them as a means to support and create ballot initiatives that are consistent with these five demands from the PBHRM.

A copy of the proposal needs to be forwarded to every California state and federal legislative official.

And with that, we would like to thank the community for taking the time to review this PBHRM proposal, with the hope that you will find the humanity and determination to act upon the ideas herein.

Build to win!

For more information about the Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement, contact us:

• Kijana Tashiri Askari, s/n M. Harrison, H-54077, P.O. Box 7500, D3-122 SHU, Crescent City, CA 95532, www.myspace.com/dare2struggle, email Tashiri@gmail.com
• Ifoma M. Kambon, s/n D. Barnett, B-60892, P.O. Box 7500, D4-103 SHU, Crescent City, CA 95532
• Yafeu Iyapo, s/n L. Alexander, B-72288, P.O. Box 7500, D3-118 SHU, Crescent City, CA 95532
• Baridi Yero, s/n J. Williamson, D-34288, P.O. Box 7500, D4-107 SHU, Crescent City, CA 95532

Stop the torture!

1. Pilot Program Memorandum for Security Threat Group Identification, Prevention and Management Plan, dated Oct. 11, 2012 (Step Down Program). [CDCR still has not posted this document online for the public to read; it is available only on the SF Bay View website, at http://sfbayview.com/2012/cdcrs-oct-11-2012-security-threat-group-pilot-program/. – ed.]
2. For further reading about the historical materialism of Jim Crow as a race-based social caste system, I urge the people to read the New Afrikan Black sista Michelle Alexander’s book, “The New Jim Crow.”
3. Section 600 et seq.: STG Disciplinary Matrix for STG Related Behavior or Activity, Page 21.
4. In Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 487 (1955), the court held that due process is not implicated when a prisoner’s sentence is not extended per a disciplinary finding.
5. For further information about the historical materialism of the Black Codes and vagrancy laws, I urge the people to read the New Afrikan Black sista Michelle Alexander’s book, “The New Jim Crow.”
6. See Velarde v. Officer E. Duarte, Case No. C-11-00287-AJB-CAB, dated Feb. 10, 2011.
7. In 2006, prisoner Ricky Gray, who had a violence-free prison record, was validated as a BGF prison gang member. The warden in this case took the unusual step of instructing a staff assistant to assist Ricky Gray with investigating the evidence that was being used to validate him, and the investigator concluded that the validation was based on conjecture, as reported in the December 2012 issue of Mother Jones magazine on Page 32.
8. “Some evidence” is the standard of review that due process requires, meaning that a gang validation or a disciplinary finding will be upheld as long as there is some evidence. See Superintendent v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445 (1985).
9. The courts factually found that CDCR IGI officials routinely “rubber-stamp” their investigations by not independently reviewing the evidence used in gang validation. See Lira v. Cate, Case No. C-00-0905-SI, dated Sept. 30, 2009.
10. In the San Quentin 6 case, these prisoners were falsely and wrongfully charged with killing prison guards on Aug. 21, 1971, as they were later acquitted. But while awaiting trial in solitary confinement, they were deprived of outdoor exercise and other essential human rights. See Spain v. Procunier, 408 F.Supp.534 (N.D. Cal. 1976).
11. Amnesty International U.S. researcher Angela Wright reported on Sept. 27, 2012, that current conditions in California’s isolation units are extremely severe and too widely used, according to a report from the Amnesty International Media Centre.

“The 166 prisoners have been there 11 and a half years and 90 percent of them haven’t been charged with a crime,” according to RT.com. Approximately 86 prisoners have been cleared of any wrongdoing and slated for release but continue to be held indefinitely without any pending charges because there is no politically viable agreement about where or how to transport them out of Guantanamo.

Fifty-six of these are from Yemen, and President Obama has imposed a ban on releasing them. President Obama could use his bully leverage to close Guantanamo and release all the prisoners, despite his blaming Congress.

Prisoners come together for early morning prayer in Camp IV at the U.S. Naval Base detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. – Photo: Deborah Gembara, Reuters

“Hunger strikers who have been force fed describe it as the final humiliation,” reports RT.com. “There are three stages to the pain: Firstly there is the sensation of a tube being forced past their sinuses into their throat, which causes their eyes to water, then an intense burning and gagging sensation as it goes down the throat and finally when the tube enters the stomach there is a strong urge to vomit. When the tube has delivered the ‘food,’ it triggers the most painful sensation of all: the return of hunger.”

Currently three prisoners are in the hospital and 30 are currently being force fed with feeding tubes, a violation of international law for political prisoners.

Support for the prisoners is growing

A petition at Change.org titled “President Obama: Close Detention Facility at Guantanamo Bay” has gathered over 208,000 signatures.

Seventy-one-year-old S. Brian Willson, a Viet Nam veteran member of Veterans For Peace, Portland Chapter 72, beginning Sunday, May 12, reduced his food intake by more than 85 percent, fasting on 300 calories a day in solidarity with the 130 uncharged Guantanamo prisoner hunger strikers now in deteriorating health, many of whom are being force fed.

Willson, a trained lawyer and criminologist, anti-war activist and author who lost his legs on the railroad tracks in Concord, California, when he was run over by the train he was trying to prevent from transporting weapons to Central America, lives by the mantra: “We are not worth more; they are not worth less.”

He joins 65-year-old grandmother Diane Wilson, a fifth-generation Texas shrimper, anti-war activist and author, who began an open-ended, water-only fast on May 1 outside the White House and intends to fast until the prisoners are freed.

More than 1,200 people around the country are participating in a rolling hunger strike to bring attention to the plight of the fasting prisoners at Guantanamo, who have been illegally detained for over 10 years with little recourse.

Conditions at Guantanamo are medieval

The 166 prisoners from 25 countries who remain housed in the U.S.-constructed and operated gulag at Guantanamo, located on Cuban soil without Cuba’s permission, have no contact with their families and only limited legal counsel when lawyers persist to overcome military obstruction.

Although the U.S. is a signatory to the U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, its maltreatment of these detainees openly violates international laws and its own Constitution.

Conditions at Guantanamo are medieval. Stripped of their dignity, their bodies are the only place where they retain some control, yet even this is taken away as their U.S. captors have induced force feeding to keep them alive in their misery.

The American Medical Association and the World Medical Association both declared that force feeding of competent patients or prisoners is in violation of international law.

The larger context

Of the 2,300,000 prisoners warehoused in 9,000 U.S. jails and prisons, nearly 1,400,000 are racial and ethnic minorities. As many as 80,000 are held in solitary confinement.

More than 30,000 immigrants are languishing in indefinite detention. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture has concluded that physical isolation of 22-24 hours one day or longer for young people constitutes cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment.

Force feeding is not unique to Guantanamo; some U.S. prisoners are routinely and systematically force fed. The U.S. possesses but 4.6 percent of the world’s population, but incarcerates 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, owning the highest per capita detention rate of any country in the world.

This story combines one from PeopleNotProfit.net with a press release announcing S. Brian Willson’s hunger strike issued today by Dan Shea. Willson can be reached at bw@brianwillson.com.

The inclusion of Assata Shakur, a former member of the Black Liberation Army, on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Terrorists list last month – marking 29 years since her liberation from a New Jersey maximum security prison in 1979 by members of the Black Liberation Army – while aimed at Cuba’s leadership should also be interpreted as a shot across the bow of any internal revolutionary movement or revolutionary activists in the United States who dare challenge empire’s march across the planet.

“I am a 20th century escaped slave,” wrote Assata Shakur. “Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the U.S. government’s policy towards people of color. I was convicted by – I don’t even want to call it a trial; it was lynching, by an all-white jury. I had nothing but contempt for the system of justice under which I was tried.”

As a young woman she joined the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s and participated in its community service programs such as the free breakfast program for poor Black youth as well as other programs aimed at ending drug addiction amongst women. She embraced the Panther’s 10 Point Program that demanded Black people have complete control over their/our communities, free from a corrupt government’s interference and free from police forces that occupy Black communities as if they were enemy territory.

She watched in horror and then rage as the FBI, in concert with local law enforcement agencies, responded to the Panthers’ revolutionary program with state sponsored terrorism by framing, falsely arresting, imprisoning, wiretapping and even murdering Black Panther members across the country in a state sponsored counter intelligence program that specifically targeted the Panthers community activism.

This counter intelligence program was called COINTELPRO and we know it existed and we know that it targeted the Panthers’ community activism because we have the FBI’s own documents targeting the Panthers’ community work. In one memo, J. Edgar Hoover, the late director of the FBI, chastises a FBI agent who questioned why the FBI should be disrupting and harassing Panther members involved in legal community work that is widely supported by the Black community. In a scathing response, Hoover states to the FBI special agent in charge in San Francisco May 27,1969:

“You state that the Bureau under the Counter Intelligence Program should not attack programs of community interest such as the Black Panther Party Breakfast for Children. You state this is because many prominent humanitarians, both white and Black, are interested in the program as well as churches which are actively supporting it.

“You have obviously missed the point … You must recognize that one of our primary aims in counterintelligence as it concerns the [Black Panther] Party is to keep this group isolated from the moderate Black and white community which may support it. This is most emphatically pointed out in their Breakfast for Children Program, where they are actively soliciting and receiving support from uniformed white and moderate blacks.”

This is the environment of state repression Assata Shakur existed in as a young woman who joined the Panthers to address the needs of her community that the government wasn’t addressing. Within the two-year period of Assata Shakur’s membership in the Panthers, over 28 Panthers were killed around the country in suspicious confrontations with police and hundreds if not thousands were arrested on false charges.

Assata Shakur is no terrorist; she is a freedom fighter and dedicated activist who emerged from the Black community.

 
Faced with this repression, Assata Shakur did what any sane person would do when faced with death or false imprisonment by a government bent on destroying, by any means necessary, the movement she belonged to. She was forced to go underground and helped build the Black Liberation Army (BLA), an armed revolutionary movement committed to defending itself and the Black community against an all out war declared on militant Black revolutionary activists and movements. The creation of the BLA was the logical and natural response by activists who faced a government onslaught of repression and assassination. In Assata Shakur’s own words:

“The Black Liberation Army is not an organization: It goes beyond that. It is a concept, a people’s movement, an idea. The idea of a Black Liberation Army emerged from conditions in Black communities: conditions of poverty, indecent housing, massive unemployment, poor medical care and inferior education.

“The idea came about because Black people are not free or equal in this country. Because 90 percent of the men and women in this country’s prisons are Black and Third World. Because 10-year-old children are shot down in our streets. Because dope has saturated our communities, preying on the disillusionment and frustration of our children.

“The concept of the BLA arose because of the political, social and economic oppression of Black people in this country. And where there is oppression, there will be resistance,” writes Assata Shakur in “Assata Shakur: An Autobiography.”

So, we can dispense with the nonsense of Assata Shakur being a terrorist! If anyone is a terrorist, it is the agents who were responsible for a campaign of assassinations, false imprisonment, illegal wiretaps and a host of other illegal acts that emerged from COINTELPRO. Assata Shakur is a freedom fighter!

Next, let’s make it clear that Assata Shakur is no fugitive from the law or justice, because in order to be a fugitive one has to be in flight or violation of a government and criminal justice system that possesses legitimacy. The charges, conviction and sentence Assata Shakur was subjected to were the results of the illegal COINTELPRO campaign the FBI launched against members of the Black Panther Party and other militant revolutionary Black movements.

“And where there is oppression, there will be resistance.”

 
So excessive were the illegal violations of COINTELPRO, the United States Senate was forced to convene a Senate hearing (Church Commission) in 1975 to rein in and expose the FBI’s illegal conduct and secret campaign against the Black Liberation Movement. If it is a fact that Assata Shakur was the victim of the FBI’s illegal COINTELPRO tactics based on her membership and activism in the Black Panther Party, the United States government possesses absolutely no legitimacy to declare Assata Shakur a fugitive nor attempt to apprehend her!

The real reason the government wants Assata Shakur has nothing to do with her unjustified conviction for allegedly murdering a New Jersey state trooper and everything to do with the government not letting go of the fact that after Assata Shakur was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison in 1975, in 1979 her comrades in the Black Liberation Army broke into the prison, liberated her and successfully spirited her off to Cuba where she was granted political asylum by the Cuban government.

Assata Shakur represents a symbol of militant Black resistance that challenged and humiliated the United States government for its repressive and indifferent policies towards the Black community. Assata Shakur is uncompromising in her beliefs and continues to represent and carry the legacy of the Black Liberation Movement.

We can dispense with the nonsense of Assata Shakur being a terrorist! Assata Shakur is a freedom fighter!

 
Her freedom keeps alive the memory of her imprisoned and martyred comrades from the Black Liberation Army. It must drive the FBI and New Jersey law enforcement crazy that she is beyond the grasp of Imperial America, yet only 90 miles from its borders in revolutionary Cuba.

For those of us who embrace the legacy of the Black Liberation Movement, this latest move against our sister Assata Shakur is a potent reminder that, because there is no longer a militant Black underground that can inflict consequences, the FBI can add Assata to the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted Terrorists List and the state of New Jersey can double its “bounty” on Assata’s head to $2 million without repercussions. This is something for us to ponder.

And lest someone should think the BLA is passé or a relic from another era, just read over Assata’s above statement on the conditions that gave birth to the BLA and you’ll see that we are confronted with the same conditions today – even with a Black president. It should also be hoped that Assata’s inclusion on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted Terrorist List draws attention back to Assata Shakur’s case and galvanizes opposition to the government’s attempt to capture her.

Robert Saleem Holbrook and family 2009

Assata Shakur on the other hand will be all right, Assata descends from a long line of Black women who have stood up to and confronted state repression. Her example and actions stand in the company of Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Kathleen Cleaver, Angela Davis and other Black women who have stood the storm of racism and oppression in White America.

In addition, Assata Shakur draws on the legacy and example of our enslaved ancestors who escaped the plantation and took to the mountains and swamps of the New World as maroons, dodging and fighting slave hunters and U.S. federal marshals paid by white slave owners to hunt them down and deliver them in chains back to the plantation.

Assata ain’t coming back to the plantation and we should do everything possible to ensure that she doesn’t. For if Malcolm X was, in the words of the late Ossie Davis, “our Black Prince, a shining example of Manhood,” then Assata Shakur is our “Black Queen, a shining example of Black Womanhood.”

Send our brother some love and light: Robert Saleem Holbrook, BL-5140, SCI Coal, 1 Kelley Dr., Coal Township, PA 17866, www.freesalim.net.

The concept of “comrade” has a special meaning and significance in revolutionary struggle. We have often been asked to explain our use of this term, especially by our peers who are new to the struggle, instead of more familiar terms like “brother,” “homie,” “cousin,” “dog,” nigga” etc.

Kevin 'Rashid' Johnson

Terms like “mister” or “youngster” imply a difference of social status, entitlement to greater or lesser respect and built-in concepts of superiority or inferiority. Terms like “bitch,” “dog,” nigga,” “ho” etc., are degrading and disrespectful – even when used affectionately – as some do to dull the edge of their general usage in a world that disrespects us.

“Comrade,” however, connotes equality and respect. It implies “I’ve got your back” and “we are one.” Comrades stand united unconditionally and, if need be, to the death. It implies a relationship that is inclusive, not exclusive, and not based on any triviality but revolutionary class solidarity. It represents the socialist future we seek to represent in the struggles of today and the eventual triumph of classless communist society.

Most forms of address used by New Afrikans carry subtle implications of differing status and worth or were originally meant to insult and dehumanize us. Embracing these terms has led to our subconsciously embracing these roles and feeling and believing we are inferior and treating each other as worth less than others.

The concept of “comrade” has a special meaning and significance in revolutionary struggle.

So it is definitely important that we remind ourselves constantly that we are equal to and as good as anyone else and address each other accordingly. As Malcolm X put it in an interview with the Village Voice in 1965:

“The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first; then you’ll get action.”

“Wake them up to their exploitation?” the interviewer asked.

“No,” Malcolm replied, “to their humanity, to their own worth.”

Conscious use of the term “comrade” instead of the many disparaging terms of address popular today explicitly connects all people up as humans and equals. It reminds us of our interdependence for survival; it promotes relations of equality, friendship and camaraderie between all oppressed and exploited people; it expresses the unified outlook of the proletariat; and it will promote a change in people’s outlook and thinking. It’s use identifies those committed to the revolutionary struggle and represents the future in the struggles of today.

“Comrade” connotes equality and respect.

As Amilcar Cabral expressed in “Our People Are Our Mountians”: “I call you ‘comrades’ rather than ‘brothers and sisters’ because if we are brothers and sisters it’s not from choice – it’s no commitment – but if you are my comrade, I am your comrade too, and that’s a commitment and a responsibility. This is the political meaning of ‘comrade.’”

In the interpersonal sense, camaraderie binds people by respect, mutual support and trust, making organizations cohesive and stable. It builds and cements unity in the process of struggle, generating mutual confidence between people, affirming that we can rely upon each other regardless of the dangers that come from standing for the people and social justice for all.

Examples of genuine camaraderie are inspirational to the people and build their willingness to make a commitment to the struggle. The development and maintenance of organizational structure depends on the close and genuine camaraderie of the revolutionaries – what we call Panther Love!

Rashid Johnson, a prisoner in Virginia who was transferred last year to Oregon, has been held in segregation since 1993. While in prison he founded the New Afrikan Black Panther Party – Prison Chapter. As a writer, Rashid has been compared to George Jackson, and he is also the artist who drew the image that became the icon of the California hunger strikes. His book, “Defying the Tomb,” with a foreword by Russell “Maroon” Shoats and afterword by Sundiata Acoli, can be ordered at leftwingbooks.net, by writing to Kersplebedeb, CP 63560, CCCP Van Horne, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3W 3H8, or by emailing info@kersplebedeb.com. Send our brother some love and light: Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, 19370490, Snake River CI, 777 Stanton Blvd., Ontario, OR 97914.

by JR Valrey

First I want to offer condolences to everyone who knew and loved Hajj Malcolm Shabazz. When I got the word Thursday that Hajj Malcolm Shabazz had been assassinated in Mexico City, like many, I did not want to believe it. As somebody who traveled with him extensively over the two-year period of ‘10-’12, it was hard to imagine that he was beat to death in Mexico City, including reports that said that he was thrown from a window.

Yuri Kochiyama, a renowned leader in the Asian and other communities of color in the Bay Area, had been a strong supporter of Malcolm X in Harlem. She submitted a letter from his grandson, Malcolm Shabazz, to the Bay View for publication in the mid-2000s. That letter, written from prison, sparked a correspondence between Malcolm and JR Valrey, leading eventually to this meeting of the three of them in November of 2010.

But as I was taught by my Panther mentors, “No investigation, no right to speak.” That is the reason why this article took so long for me to release. The white power system (the government) assassinated the father of Hajj Malik El Shabazz for being a Garveyite. The Little/Shabazz family have been targets of Cointelpro for over four generations, which is why I cannot accept a story like the one being told about what happened. We know the U.S. government wants to eradicate the bloodline.

What I do know about this assassination is that the enemy’s media has been working overtime to malign Malcolm as a drunk or hoe-chaser who got into a “bar fight” over the last few days. That depiction is far from anything I knew about Malcolm.

What I know about the man is that he had a passion for helping young people understand and hopefully avoid the pitfalls that the U.S. government has set up for our community. He used his troubled life as a platform to let people, in general, know that he is not just preaching – he spent years locked up and, like his grandfather, he used the time to politically and spiritually educate himself for his next stage in life, that of an ever evolving freedom fighter.

Malcolm was a very charismatic speaker, who had no problem holding a crowd’s attention. He was comfortable speaking to diverse audiences. He could speak in a Masjid to Muslims from other nations in Houston, then turn around and spend 20-30 minutes talking to young people walking down the street in East Oakland. That was another skill he seems to have inherited from his grandfather.

People have asked, “With you and Malcolm having been close, why did you not rush to say something in the media?” The answer is that when I first heard of Malcolm’s assassination, I was shocked and saddened. At no time did I have the urge to run to jot down my feelings on Facebook or to write an article or do a radio interview. Malcolm was a comrade and Brotha to me. I have feelings just like everybody else; just because I am a journalist does not mean that things don’t affect me.

While emotions are running high and people are asking for answers, there are a small number of opportunists who are playing off of the raw emotions in the situation for their own malicious intent. I have heard that someone said I was in Mexico and that I am responsible for Malcolm’s assassination. I was not in Mexico nor did I know that Malcolm was in southern Cali with intentions to go to Mexico. I was in Oakland. I am disgusted that somebody from another state, who knows nothing about what’s going on, could accuse me of something with no investigation into the real facts of the case. I did not have any prior knowledge of or responsibility in his assassination.

Somebody said that I introduced Miguel and Rumec to Malcolm. Malcolm and I met Miguel and the crew at the same time, at Malcolm’s first speaking event in Oakland, at the Black Dot Cafe, in July of 2010. Miguel talked in depth to Malcolm about building a Masjid. This can be verified by Malcolm’s Imam, Hashim Alauddeen, located in the Bay Area. I am not Muslim. I was not involved in those conversations.

Another accusation was that I was selling Malcolm’s books and DVDs. I haven’t sold any of Malcolm’s stuff. The Bay View newspaper put up an old ad, on their website, for an unpublished, unfinished book that was never used. The intent of the sfbayview posting is clearly stated in a response that the newspaper just released on their website sfbayview.com. It was to show that Malcolm was working on something constructive in contrast to the mainstream media just tying him to his prison time. This can also be cleared up by Imam Hashim Alauddeen, the Imam over the Janazah, who was working with Malcolm on his literary projects.

Somebody asked, “Why would Fred Hampton Jr. slander you?” The only thing I could say is that we organized together and went around the country and world as comrades for over seven years. After we parted ways, he started slandering me and my family, calling my grandfather and myself a government agent. My grandfather retired from the military as a special forces pilot in the U.S. army before I was born.

If you know the history, the Bay Area was populated by Blacks from the South who were seeking to work in the wartime industries in West Oakland, Hunters Point and Richmond. It’s hard to find families on the West Coast who did not play a part in World War II and the Vietnam War. That is who first employed Blacks in mass to the West Coast.

I have never worked for the U.S. government in my life. I can’t speak for anybody’s intentions but my own. I don’t know why Fred does the things that he does. I challenge you to judge me by my work record and not some rumor that somebody started to try and become the center of attention. Hit me on my Facebook page about questions that you may have and I will respond – FB: Jayshortbutfunky.

Oakland had three acting police chiefs in five days last week, and on Thursday, the police department’s controversial consultant, William Bratton, released his six-page report which criticized OPD’s top brass.

Oakland’s then Police Chief Howard Jordan and consultant William Bratton speak at a press conference March 6. – Photo: Avila Gonzalez, San Francisco Chronicle

On Friday former Deputy Chief Sean Whent became interim chief, and Toribio returned to captain’s rank. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan then announced that Oakland would spend $30,000 on a headhunter’s nationwide search for a permanent chief.

Three new deputy chiefs who share Interim Chief Whent’s experience in investigating OPD internal affairs were also named, leaving only one of the previous week’s top five commanders in place.

The Oakland Tribune reported that unnamed inside sources told them Jordan “raced for the door” because Thomas Frazier, the court appointed federal compliance officer brought in to clean up the department, planned to seek his ouster.

On Thursday, in between Jordan’s announcement and Whent’s appointment, the OPD officially released a report by its consultant, William Bratton, titled “Oakland Crime Reduction Project, Bratton Group Findings and Recommendations,” which said that the OPD must more rigorously apply his Compstat policing model to make it work and criticized top brass for not doing so.

No one seems to have reported that William Bratton, rather than federal compliance officer William Frazier, was behind this week’s sudden shakeup in the OPD chain of command. However, back on Jan. 22, the day that the Oakland City Council met and voted to contract with Bratton as an OPD consultant, Berkeley law professor Frank Zimring, who authored a book praising Bratton’s work in New York City, told KPFA Upfront Host Brian Edwards-Tiekert that Bratton would not be effective unless he was effectively in charge:

“The reason that you have an outsider coming in is that you have too many different perspectives. You’ve got a mayor, you’ve got a police chief, you are soon going to have a director of compliance with a long, ineffective consent decree. And everybody’s got to be on the same page.

“So the good news about a consultant would be if everybody wants to work with him. Then, it seems to me, Bratton’s credibility could be a real down payment towards changes in Oakland. If, on the other hand, it’s just going to be one more player with another set of perspectives, that’s the last thing Oakland needs.”

No Oakland officials have suggested that William Bratton, who is a former chief of both the New York City and Los Angeles police departments, might be recruited by Oakland’s headhunter, though popular Oakland blogger Zennie Abraham joked, on April Fool’s Day this year, that Bratton already has the top job.

Abraham was prescient at least regarding Interim Chief Howard Jordan’s imminent departure.

In 2009, Businessweek reported that Bratton had become chairman of Altegrity Risk International, a new division of Altegrity, a billion dollar company owned by the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners.

Altegrity Risk International was created to bid on highly lucrative State Department contracts to help train police forces in 14 “post-conflict” nations, including East Timor, Haiti and Afghanistan. Bratton described this turn in his career as “like the Peace Corps but better paying.”

Bratton went on to become the CEO of Kroll Associates, a similar business, which has since been acquired by Altegrity. He later stepped down as Kroll’s CEO but remained as its senior advisor. He also serves as vice chair of the Advisory Council of the Homeland Security Department.

Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Star News and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News and her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at ann@afrobeatradio.com. If you want to see Ann Garrison’s independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website at anngarrison.com.

by Mary Ratcliff

During a visit to the offices of the historic Black newspaper the Los Angeles Sentinel, Malcolm Shabazz paused to contemplate a portrait of his grandfather, Malcolm X. – Photo: LA Sentinel

Like his grandfather’s, the smile of young Malcolm Shabazz not only lit up the room but set a fire of fervent hope in your heart and soul. When he met you, he gave you his undivided attention, no matter how much or how little you had to say, and made you feel part of the legacy he bore proudly but painfully as the first male heir of the great El Hajj Malik El Shabazz.

Malcolm Shabazz, 28, died tragically in Mexico on Thursday. His funeral will be held in Oakland later this coming week. The Bay Area has much love for young Malcolm, as this is where he began to become an outstanding speaker, known as El Hajj Malcolm El Shabazz for his stirring accounts of his pilgrimage to Mecca. The Bay View was honored to sponsor him on speaking tours arranged by Bay View associate editor and the People’s Minister of Information JR, his close comrade over the past several years.

Young Malcolm not only attended the African Migrants Conference in Tripoli, Libya, in January 2011 with Minister of Information JR with Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney’s delegation but was invited to address a plenary session. He was the only speaker besides Qaddafi who was given a standing ovation. – Photo: Minister of Information JR

That mission should not have led to his death, and I can’t help but wonder whether the fear of a “Black messiah” by the powers that be in the U.S., which put young Malcolm, like his grandfather, in their cross hairs, could have been involved. The five goals of Cointelpro issued March 4, 1968, by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, labeled “COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROGRAM: BLACK NATIONALIST – HATE GROUPS, RACIAL INTELLIGENCE,” are:

“1. Prevent the COALITION of militant black nationalist groups. In unity there is strength …

“2. Prevent the RISE OF A ‘MESSIAH’ who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement. Malcolm X might have been such a ‘messiah;’ he is the martyr of the movement today. …

“3. Prevent VIOLENCE on the part of black nationalist groups. …

“4. Prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining RESPECTABILITY, by discrediting them …

“5. A final goal should be to prevent the long-range GROWTH of militant black organizations, especially among youth. …”

Could young Malcolm now be a “martyr of the movement”? With Assata Shakur placed on the Most Wanted Terrorists list and the doubling to $2 million of the bounty on her head, this has been a tough week for Black revolutionaries.

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi warmly welcomed Malcolm to the conference. – Photo: Minister of Information JR

“‘I sincerely appreciate the care and concern of the People over my well-being after Press TV’s report of the most recent events which have transpired regarding the FBI’s harassment of me.’ …

“‘The agents of this division – and in collaboration with others – have visited several residences of which I was known by them to frequent.’

Malcolm, JR and Ra’shida met many African leaders at the conference, including Samia Nkrumah, daughter of Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, a member of Parliament, the first woman to chair a major political party and one of the most popular African women leaders. – Photo: Minister of Information JR

“‘These are the homes of long-time friends and very close supporters. Yet, when federal agents begin knocking on someone’s door on multiple occasions to snoop and ask questions, whether one is guilty of an offense or not, it’s enough to coerce people into distancing themselves from you.’

“‘This cheap tactic employed by the FBI is a means of agitation and harassment. They seek to neutralize my networking abilities.

“‘They have visited locations in California, Chicago, Miami and most aggressively in New York.’ …

“‘It wasn’t even until my mother informed me that they had been contacting her that I truly became agitated.’

On Hajj in Mecca, the grandson of Malcolm X was welcomed with open arms and given a tour of the city and access to official people and places. Here he is with Sheikh Faisal Ghazawi, Imam of the Mosque Haramain (center). The Holy Kabaa in Makkah (Mecca) is in the background.

“‘They expressed concern’ in his ‘international travels.’

“‘I have lived and studied in Damascus, Syria, for over a year, and now the U.S. is instigating conflict within the very same region.’

“‘I went on ex-Congresswoman and former presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney’s delegation along with Dr. Randy Short to Libya and met with Leader Muammar Qaddafi one week prior to NATO intervention, and I was most recently getting ready to travel to Tehran, Iran, to be a participant of the International Fajr Film Festival and give a lecture addressing the issues of Hollywood and violence.

Yuri Kochiyama, a renowned leader in the Asian and other communities of color in the Bay Area, had been a strong supporter of Malcolm X in Harlem. She submitted a letter from his grandson, Malcolm Shabazz, to the Bay View for publication in the mid-2000s. That letter, written from prison, sparked a correspondence between Malcolm and JR Valrey, leading eventually to this meeting of the three of them in November of 2010.

Though Cointelpro no longer officially exists, heavy investment of taxpayer resources into preventing the rise of a Black Messiah continues. Did government agents know young Malcolm was in Mexico? You decide.

It’s your decision too whether to swallow all the garbage in the mainstream media right now in a Cointelpro-style effort to discredit and demonize Malcolm. Yes, he had a lot of trouble with “the law” in his short life, but that does not define him as a man and that’s not why the FBI watched and harassed him.

“Did CIA kill Malcolm X’s grandson?“ asks Dr. Kevin Barrett today on Press TV. “Make no mistake,” he writes, “Malcolm Shabazz, like his grandfather, posed a serious, ‘actionable’ long-term threat to the powers-that-be.

M1 of the rap group dead prez, Hajj Malcolm Shabazz, film director Samm Styles, and the host, Minister of Information JR, spoke on a panel at the People’s Human Rights and Hip Hop Film Fest in San Francisco on Feb. 12, 2011. – Photo: Minister of Information JR

“I do not know whether the usual suspects – the ‘asteroids’ who assassinate the enemies of empire on behalf of the CIA, the World Bank and related entities, according to author John Perkins – killed Malcolm Shabazz. But I am 100 percent certain that they were thinking about it. …

Hajj Malcolm Shabazz, a loving father, spoke often to school children. Here he is at Masjid Al-Islam School in Washington, D.C.

“And now, Malcolm Shabazz – who was forging an updated version of the same anti-empire alliance – is murdered in Mexico. Coincidence? Maybe. …

“Whatever happened to Malcolm Shabazz, it is abundantly obvious that the intelligence agency assets infiltrating US mainstream media are conducting a scripted posthumous character assassination designed to obscure Malcolm’s role as an up-and-coming activist and long-term threat to the Empire.”

JR interviews Malcolm for the Block Report on KPFA Dec. 3, 2011.

“The imperial propagandists at the New York Times, Huffington Post and similar outlets are working overtime smearing Malcolm Shabazz. This apparently pre-orchestrated smear smells like an intelligence operation. It is strong circumstantial evidence that Malcolm Shabazz was yet another political assassination victim.

Less than a month after the police murder of 19-year-old Kenneth Harding in July 2011 a block from the Bay View office, JR and Malcolm traveled to visit and interview his mother, Denika Chatman, and brother, Ondrell Harding, in Seattle. – Photo: Minister of Information JR

The Shabazz family issued this official statement today: “We are deeply saddened by the passing of our beloved El Hajj Malcolm El Shabazz. To all who knew him, he offered kindness, encouragement and hope for a better tomorrow. Although his bright light and boundless potential are gone from this life, we are grateful that he now rests in peace in the arms of his grandparents and the safety of God. We will miss him.

On his Twitter page, Malcolm posted this photo replicating a famous picture of his grandfather. He described himself there as “Grandson, name-sake and first male heir of the greatest revolutionary leader of the 20th century.”

My own comfort comes from imagining the meeting between Malcolm and his grandfather.

Bay View editor Mary Ratcliff can be reached at editor@sfbayview.com or (415) 671-0789.

Read the words of Malcolm Shabazz

So that you may come to know him for yourself, following are a few of the stories we’ve posted at SFBayView.com by and about Hajj Malcolm El Shabazz:

This portrait of a thoughtful Malcolm Shabazz was taken at the potluck in Oakland to kick off Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney’s Bike4Peace cross-country bicycle ride, on July 23, 2010. – Photo: Kamau Amen-Ra

Live from Saudi Arabia: an interview with El Hajj Malcolm Shabazz

Mumia, the media and more: Davey D, MOI JR and Malcolm Shabazz on Hard Knock Radio

Malcolm Shabazz on the three chapters missing from ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’

The legacy of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz lives! an interview wit’ his grandson Malcolm Shabazz In this extremely revealing interview, Malcolm addresses such difficult topics as the fire that killed his grandmother, his time in prison and who killed his grandfather.

by Paradise Free Jahlove

Calling all Black celebrity athletes! Calling all Black celebrity entertainers! Calling all Black celebrity entrepreneurs! Calling all rich Black people and people who are rich in their Blackness! The ancestors are calling. The ancestors are calling for a national Black radio station. The same ancestors who enabled you to excel in this country by sacrificing their lives for the struggle are calling for outlets for the voices of Black America. We need more Black Power outlets!

Come check out Planet Oakland, Friday, June 7, 7-9 p.m., at J. Posh Design Studio, 3824 Telegraph Ave. in Oakland, featuring yours truly, Paradise (www.trueviberecords.com), and Aries Jordon (www.journey2womanhood.tumblr.com), above, who was just recently selected as Miss Cleopatra 2013, and others.

Hollywood has the Big Mikes. The GOP has the Big Mikes. D.C. has the Big Mikes. The governor can get on the mike and speak to 30 million Californians. The president can get on the mike and speak to 300 million Americans. The pope can get on the mike and speak to a billion Catholics. But do you remember anything a pope has ever said. Has a pope ever said anything to make a significant difference in your life? What a waste of the biggest platform in the world. Give that mike to a mediocre poet and the world would be a better place in a Nubian minute.

We need microphones uncontrolled by special interests. We need a national Black radio station, programs and shows. Which is why you always hear me say, “Give me the ear of Black America for one year and I’ll make 40 million model citizens appear.” So-called White America, you wouldn’t have to worry about the so-called “Negro Problem” anymore if you gave the right people the Big Mikes.

But Zeus and Uncle Sam don’t want that. They don’t want to see a functional, happy nation of Black people in America. The cystem is designed for history to repeat itself. For his story to repeat itself, for the 1 percent who thrive off the misery and suffering of the 99 percent, for the status quo to stay on top. Otherwise, America could put truth on the microphone right now and the problems of America could be fixed in a jiffy.

America grew so afraid of the 1970s rise of the Black Panthers and Oakland’s ability to churn out community messiahs and change the American and world landscape that Oakland was purposefully discombobulated and flooded with guns and drugs. But perhaps worse than being Ground Zero for the crack epidemic – and still we rise – the entire city of Oakland was taken off the microphone! So Oakland is probably the only major city in the country, if not the world, without its own radio station. We can’t even get on the mike and say, “Stop killing each other, you idiots. It’s a setup. It’s a trap.”

Can you imagine, Oakland used to have its own radio station, like KDIA, with people like Sly Stone DJing on the mike! Spitting game like: “Everybody is a star. Stand. It’s a family affair!” Are you kidding me? Man, Bobbie Seale should have his own national radio show. Angela Davis should have her own national radio show. Congresswoman Barbara Lee should have her own radio show. Author Ishmael Reed should have his own radio national show. Oakland should have its own national Black radio show, so the voices of Oakland can be heard. So our revolutionary veteran soldiers can put out word.

Unfortunately, since Oakland was taken off the mike, about 150 people a year have been killed in Oakland for the last 30 years. And if we don’t do something about it, it’s going to happen again this year. His story repeats itself. The cystem is designed that way, so the same people on top can stay there, thriving off the suffering of the masses, and pretending that they are in the process of fixing things.

Kola Soljet, Paradise and Aries Jordon – Miss Cleopatra 2013 – at Cleopatra's Ball

But this kind of violence is happening everywhere, not just in Oakland. In Connecticut, Chicago, the Middle East, Afrika, Boston. Violence in America today is more American than apple pie. Gun control? Terrorism? Turn on the TV and see 30,000 murders a day. But why do we let it happen in Oakland (which is like a metaphor for urban America)? Because we don’t take it personally. We are not in enough pain or it hasn’t hit home enough. Plus we can always run to our suburbs – the suburbs of our computers and TVs and gadgets. The suburbs of our minds. The suburbs of our hearts … on the perimeter where we don’t have to feel the pain of others.

But today there are no more suburbs. The violence is so prevalent and pervasive that at the world’s present rate of violence, corruption, pollution and consumption, humanity has less than 40 years to live. We are all on death row. And need to take a stand like Paul Robeson, until the day when a single gunshot in Oakland will be a shot heard around the world! And no less than a thousand concerned citizens will converge on that area to try and find out what happened and not leave until the problem is resolved or the citizens in that neighborhood are convinced it’s not going to be business as usual with violence and terrorism in our communities.

We should react to violence in our communities like America reacted to the recent Boston Marathon bombings. We saw recently in Boston, after people were killed during a high publicity event, how the so-called authorities know how to catch a killer if they want to: Shut down the city, send out the dogs, fly up the helicopters and aeroplanes, review the spy cameras, put the whole nation on alert.

If crime weren’t a part of the cystem and the economy of the rich – like giving out parking tickets – it could be squashed by knowledge and technology in a few years. But capturing the killer was only of great importance because it happened in the land of the Caucazoids, at one of their major money making and high publicity events. If a similar bombing had taken place at a similar event in the hood, dudes would still be running around and the whole affair would only get a blurb in the mainstream news – if that much. Where was the outrage and coverage of the most recent Middle East-like war violence in Chicago, where in one weekend last March over 40 people were shot and 10 killed?

But frankly, my dear, if we continue to lose our voices, our hopes for the future look very dim. Essence magazine is no longer Black owned. Ebony is no longer Black owned. BET is no longer Black owned. Motown is no longer Black owned. Even Famous Amos cookies ain’t Black owned anymore. Dag. Are you Black owned? Is your mind Black owned? Is your behind Black owned? If it is, you need to take it to a Black owned business and buy Black.

There is a movie out now about the Jackie Robinson story. I personally don’t feel the need to see it or empower this non-Afrikan entity with my dollars. The Jackie Robinson story is a great one and he is a great man for what he accomplished and suffered through. You gotta love Jackie Robinson. But truth be told, his “integration” into the “great white way” was the beginning of the end for the Negro Baseball Leagues. And on a larger scale, the Jackie Robinson story is reflective of the beginning of the mass integration that would wind up being the disintegration of Black culture and self-sufficiency in this country.

On KPOO for decades, Donald E. Lacy Jr.’s Wake Up, Everybody, fills Saturday morning with movers and shakers from the hood and across the world. It’s a must-listen show, 7 a.m. to noon.

I would prefer to see or hear about the Curt Flood story. An Oakland brother who graduated from McClymonds High School and went on to play pro baseball during a time in the ‘70s when the major league baseball team owners could keep a player on their team for as long as they wanted and pay them whatever they chose. The league was making millions off the players and the players were getting paid pennies in comparison!

Curt Flood freed the baseball slaves by taking the league to court and winning free agency. So the players could bargain for their contracts and play for any team that would pay for their services. Curt Flood was soon blackballed or, rather, whiteballed from the league. But he is the reason most pro athletes are getting these mega million dollar contracts today,

Currency is like electrical power: Who or what are you empowering with your dollar? Professor John Henrick Clarke said being “Black and beautiful” in this world today is practically meaningless. He said we need to be “Black and powerful.” Curt Flood was Black and powerful because he raised his voice for righteousness!

Raise your voice and the voices of our people – the voice of truth. Until we get the big mikes, we gotta hit a lot of little mikes. Bring back the doo woppers on street corners and concerned citizens speaking on footstools like Malcolm and Black New Yorkers used to do in the ‘60s – and even today. Support your local poetry, spoken word and open mike scenes where – at least there – we still have a voice.

Don’t go just to suit yourself or after a disaster and you want to know what other people are thinking and doing about it. Disasters are happening in our communities every day. Go to support the process and free speech, keeping in mind that in places like China they don’t play that – they don’t have open mike.

Fortunately, something positively amazing has recently happened in this country, so please support it. There’s this new Black (owned?) television (station?) channel 66.1, called BOUNCE, BTV, and so far it seems to be really good and representative of our people. It has quality Black drama, classic Black movies, comedy and videos, and it’s not degrading, minstrel or coonish. Please check it out and let me know what you think.

Make your mama happy for Mother’s Day, the busiest day of the year at the post office! Purchase Black stamps and flowers from Black flower shop owners and Black greeting cards. Be Black! Think Black! Buy Black!

Black Business of the Month: KPOO

Speaking of having a voice and a choice, my Black Business of the Month is KPOO radio in San Francisco. Black-owned KPOO has been giving our communities a voice for some 30 years; but it may be closing down and taken off the mike as early as mid-June without your support!

Go to www.kpoo.com/donations, where you’ll see several ways to contribute. KPOO’s fundraising drive on Indiegogo has a goal of $10,000. As of May 1, with only 38 days to go, they are $8,300 from their goal.

We rallied together to save Marcus Books. Let’s do the same for the lone Black voice of San Francisco and the Bay, KPOO! Give KPOO a call and thank them for their many years of service, then ask them what they need – in addition to your generous donation – and how you can be of service to them.

We tolerate KPFA because its powerful signal potentially reaches millions and could provide an invaluable service to our communities worldwide, but racism continues to rear its ugly head there too. We, with all the capital and currency that we command, as a people should not be losing radio stations, but building more!

Paradise is president of the International Black Writers & Artists Local 5 in Oakland and was honored by the City of Oakland with “Paradise Day,” on Oct. 6, 2007. Visit www.2012worldsfair.wordpress.com and email him at oaklandworldsfair@yahoo.com. Paradise also facilitates the Buy Black Wednesdays Facebook page and group, hosts the Black Wednesday Show every Wednesday at 6 p.m. on www.harambeeradio.com and blogs at www.blackwednesdays.blogspot.com.

by Lynne Stewart

A worldwide embrace to all of the thousands of people who helped me [by signing the petition for her compassionate release – to sign, go to LynneStewart.org]! As my hero said, we are motivated by great feelings of love and compassion, and I am fortunate to be the beneficiary this time around.

Lynne Stewart embraces her husband and No. 1 supporter, Ralph Poynter, before surrendering for prison on Nov. 19, 2009. – Photo: AP

To all of them I replied that I have been fighting battles like this all my life and I would never quit. Then I had this white blood cell setback, making me super-vulnerable and was quarantined for a week. I was released on Friday to learn that indeed “the children had shouted” and the walls “did come a-tumblin’ down” [when the warden of her prison conceded that he would not oppose compassionate release]. I must say that I was in a state of bliss. Not just to win but to accomplish it in the time honored method! We will organize the people and you dare not ignore us!

I owe an enormous debt to so many. This is the one we had to win where the medical decision was made that compassionate release was warranted. That cannot be trifled with, BUT we who have been out here struggling from the ‘50s onward know that the government is masterful at co-optation, at snatching victory and making it defeat.

Please do not think that my struggle is WON. We have this fabulous win, but we still have the D.C. Federal Bureau of Prisons – if there ever was a time to hold Obama’s feet to the fire, this is it – and then their forwarding of the case to the judge in New York for a final decision. Yes, he’s the same one who increased my original sentence from 28 months to 10 years!

Ralph Poynter leads a march for his wife, Lynne Stewart, on her 71st birthday, Oct. 8, 2010, outside the federal prison in New York City where she was then being held. – Photo: Workers World

Lynne sends her appreciation to petition signers

I want you, individually, to know how gratifying and happy it makes me to have your support. It is uplifting, to say the least, and after a lifetime of organizing it proves once again that the people can rise.

The acknowledgement of the life political – and solutions brought about by group unity and support – is important to all of us. Equally so is the courage to sign on to a demand for a person whom the government has branded with the “T” word: Terrorist.

Understanding that the attack on me is a subterfuge for an attack on all lawyers who advocate without fear of government displeasure, with intellectual honesty guided by their knowledge and their client’s desire for his or her case, I hope our effort can be a crack in the American bastion. Thank you.

Go to LynneStewart.org to sign the petition for compassionate release that nearly 14,000 people have signed so far and that persuaded the warden to no longer oppose compassionate release. And please spread the word to help save Lynne’s life! Ralph Poynter can be reached at ralph.poynter@yahoo.com.

Editor’s note: Lynne wrote this from her bed at Carswell Federal Medical Center. She’s now so weak she can rarely sit up, so writing is very difficult. Because for her treatments at an outside hospital, she’s shackled with 10 pounds of chains in transit and handcuffed to the bed and under armed guard constantly while there, she’s relatively relieved to be in the prison hospital, where she’s not tied down. This information and more is in a powerful interview with Lynne’s husband, Ralph Poynter, by Professor Walter Turner broadcast on Africa Today on Monday, April 29, at http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/91142.

The people of Haiti stand for justice, but they are against the misuse of the justice system for political persecution. That is why they have come out by the thousands in support of former President Aristide.

Haitians’ love is boundless for Jean-Bertrand Aristide, their first democratically elected president and the only president they ever had who cares about his people. Knowing they deserve good leadership, they constantly resist the U.S./U.N. occupation and the sweatshop regime of Martelly. This banner reads “Persecuting him is persecuting us” at the top and at the bottom, “The more you persecute him, the more we love him.”

Members of Haiti’s most popular political party, Lavalas, as well as international supporters, view this “invitation” as the latest effort in what has been an ongoing assault against Haiti’s grassroots democratic movement and its principal leader. The Haiti Action Committee includes itself amongst those who denounce unequivocally these attacks.

Since his return two years ago from forced exile, President Aristide has reopened the University of the Aristide Foundation’s Medical School (UNIFA). On Sept. 26, 2011, the medical school once again opened its doors, seven years after the school’s forced closure by the U.S.-orchestrated coup in 2004. Currently over 200 future Haitian doctors are in attendance at the school. Now a nursing school has opened as well. This is just the beginning of an initiative to improve healthcare for all Haitians.

Ever since Aristide and his family returned to Haiti, he has been a particular target of Michel Martelly – who assumed the office of president in March 2011 as the result of fraudulent elections – and the occupation-installed Martelly administration. Two months ago, Aristide was summoned to court in two separate cases.

In Haiti, it is implicit that these ridiculous allegations are attempts to discredit President Aristide’s reputation and delegitimize his current work. The efforts to link him in any way to the assassination of Jean Dominique – a journalist beloved by the people for his unbending criticism of U.S. interference in Haiti – are equally outrageous.

Thousands of Haitians, undeterred by the rain, surround Aristide’s car, guarding him against any harm intended by authorities who “invited” him to court. Reportedly, he got out of the car and walked part of the way to share his love with the people he has heroically served all his life.

Yet, as ever, grassroots organizations throughout Haiti have a clear understanding of the repressive nature of the May 8 summons. This attack against Aristide represents an attack against the entire democratic grassroots movement.

Nevertheless, they accepted the “invitation” on their own terms and planned full-scale support of Aristide today, when thousands joined him at the Judicial Palace. Refusing to be intimidated, the organizations announced peaceful actions today, which they have chosen to mark the beginning of a sustained campaign for the people’s full participation in the running of their country.

The Haiti Action Committee stands in solidarity with the people of Haiti as they struggle to regain national sovereignty, rebuild their democracy and end the U.S./U.N. occupation.

Contact the Haiti Action Committee at www.haitisolidarity.net and on Facebook or by email at action.haiti@gmail.com.

Wilfred Batin, Wanda’s nephew, at the Honor Roll Tribute in February at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco – Photo: Wanda Sabir

Tour de Cure this weekend in the Gold Country

Support me in making my $1,000 goal! I am a Red Rider, which means I am personally affected by diabetes. Read my story at http://main.diabetes.org/goto/wandasabir. If anyone wants to join me in the 62-mile bike ride, I’d love company (smile).

‘The Expulsion of Malcolm X’

“The Expulsion of Malcolm X,” Larry Americ Allen’s epic play, is closing its successful run this weekend, May 3, 4 and 5 at the Southside Theatre in Fort Mason Center, Building D, 3rd Floor, in San Francisco. Written more than 20 years ago, “Expulsion” tells a story many theatres were afraid to touch, but not COVE or Colors of Vision Entertainment, where DeJuan Conner is executive producer and CEO. He is also portraying El Hajj Malik so well, I thought it was he on stage.

COVE also produced “A Soldiers Play,” which had a very successful run in this same theatre. Abbie Rhone, who directed “A Soldier’s Play,” is cast as Elijah Muhammad in “Expulsion.” Yes, he is the weasel who kicks his biggest fan out of the Nation (smile). Seriously though, Rhone portrays the elder leader with finesse, his Elijah a man who rules with an iron hand, yet is upset by petty rivalry and jealousy directed towards MX.

Under Lange’s direction, Conner’s MX is a family man who loves his wife Betty, portrayed well by Kreshenda Jenkins, and his kid brother, Reginald, portrayed by Terry Stanley. Reginald, who introduced MX to Islam, ends up leaving the fold, though not of his own choice. It is here that MX’s love for the Messenger is tested.

Conner’s MX is obedient, yet thoughtful. Blinded initially by values he assumes all in leadership uphold, he cannot believe his teacher, father, mentor would betray the laity as he has. And even when his eyes are fully open, he does not curse his teacher; he bids him peace, his very posture one of respect, yet he can no longer participate in a ministry that is hypocritical.

In Conner’s able hands, America’s MX is principled and kind. This is a lesson for youth today who talk about elders earning their respect. Even when MX was expelled from a community he loved, he did not curse his savior.

“The Expulsion of Malcolm X” is epic in length and quite comprehensive in its breadth, as over 14 scenes, two acts, we get to traverse the terrain that was Jim Crow and the rise of the Civil Rights Movement. MX questions the Nation of Islam’s “do-nothing” policy when he sees Martin King putting his and other people’s lives on the line to combat racial injustice. He asks Muhammad about this and is told, the NOI is a religious organization, not a political one. I thought about today and how Islamic organizations still lag behind other religious groups when it comes to fighting injustice and providing sanctuary for those in need, whether that is battered women, single parents, AIDS victims, the homeless or any number of social ills.

I am a product of the Nation of Islam in San Francisco, was a vanguard, a junior lieutenant, graduated from Muhammad University at 15 years old, top of my class and valedictorian, met my husband there, and was present when the Hon. Elijah Muhammad died and the community went in multiple directions. I remember sitting in what is now the Fillmore Auditorium listening to the Messenger each month on fourth Sundays. Sometimes he was too sick to speak long, so his late son, Wallace Muhammad, later Warith Din Muhammad, or Min. Farrakhan would speak. This happened in the play too. Suffering from asthma, the Hon. Elijah Muhammad left the speaking to Minister Malcolm while he recuperated. The scenes where the two men are juxtaposed – their words overlapping one another – are quite powerful. For tickets or information on “Expulsion,” call (510) 213-0401 or visit brownpapertickets.com.

‘Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners’

April was a busy month with quite a few cinematic highlights, among them Shola Lynch’s wonderful film, “Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners” (2013). Sister Lynch knows how to tell a story right. If folks know her “Shirley Chisholm: Unbought, Unbossed” (2004), then one can certainly say that in this director’s capable hands Black history, especially stories untold, get their day on the screen from a perspective that is profound, as is this latest work about a woman who is still going strong, Dr. Angela Y. Davis. I hadn’t realized prior to seeing the film that the campaign to free Davis was a global one, nor had I known the details of her relationship with Comrade George Jackson, how he inspired her and helped her survive captivity, which before her arrest was theoretical.

Defense attorney Leo Branton Jr. and Angela Davis confer during her 1972 trial in San Jose. Branton passed away on April 26, 2013. – Photo: AP

A young, fiery Davis is shown articulate, brave and fierce at 28 when she is arrested and accused of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in the 1970 death of a state judge who was shot with one of several weapons she had bought. After 18 months in prison, she was acquitted by an all white jury in Santa Clara County. Some of my favorite parts of the film are when she is on the lamb, her brother, Reginald Davis, taking her from one safe house to another, one motel or hotel to another as the two evaded the FBI manhunt. What is interesting is the conversation the director has with one of the FBI agents, who reflects on this time, as footage of Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover speak about the threat the Black Panther Party and the movement for Black liberation are to national security and why all such mobilization needs to be stopped immediately.

Davis speaks about why she didn’t leave the country like Assata Shakur and her defense strategy. Presiding Judge Richard E. Arnosan, who ruled in her case to grant bail and the young farmer who put up his farm as collateral when Aretha Franklin was out of the country at the time the decision was reached let her stand trial as a free woman.

California’s timely decision to suspend the death penalty – a crucial moment – was a key reason why Davis was able to get released on bail. The charges brought against her were a capital crime and, had the death penalty been an option – by lethal gas – she could have been sentenced to death.

The film is shot with serendipitous moments like this. The prosecution plays up the fact that Davis’ guns were used in the courthouse siege and the fact that Davis ran when charged. Branton asked the jurors to close their eyes and visualize what is means to be Black in America, so they could empathize with Davis when she refuses to turn herself over to the FBI. He has them walk backward into United States history to enslavement of his and Angela’s people, then forward through Jim Crow all the way to the present, where Black life was pretty worthless on the Stock Exchange – even peace warriors like Dr. Martin King.

I love it when Fania Davis, Esq., is in Paris speaking at a rally in French. Then later on when Angela Davis wins her case and she travels the world thanking her supporters, the span and reach is once again breathtaking. Reminds me of when Mandela walked out of Robben Island into the world’s hearts. The woman’s impact is HUGE! Critical Resistance didn’t wear an organizational hat yet, but certainly it was conceived in these moments of her life. Davis was living it as were her supporters against a mighty nation, and she won.

The drama of the courtroom is also big in “Free.” The decision to have her case tried separately from the case of Ruchell Cinque Magee, one of the only shootout survivors, is addressed, along with Davis’ membership in the Black wing of the Communist Party and then Gov. Reagan and the UC Regents’ vote to dismiss Davis from her position at UCLA. See http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/08/home/davis-campaign.html.

The legal defense team shares on screen in recent interviews why Davis had a Black legal team and why the team, which included women legal experts too, decided to let Davis make her own opening remarks – which were not about her trial, rather the sexist remarks lead prosecutor Albert Harris Jr. made in his opening statement – placing Davis’ alleged participation in the Marin Courthouse shooting on the fact that she was in love with Jonathan Jackson’s brother George.

One doesn’t get to see the icon, Angela Davis, within a cultural context, a milieu which includes family who are just as devoted to justice and freedom as their more publically recognized daughter, sister and aunt. What I love the most about the film is its title: “Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners.” The call, “Free them all,” is an affirmation as much as it is the title of a thought provoking wake-up call.

Daphne Muse, writer, poet and social commentator, was present at the trial and writes on her blog about Leo Branton: “He was one of the first to hire consultants to develop psychological profiles of jurors and demand fairer diversity of juries. Psychologist Dr. Tom Hilliard, Anne Ashmore (Poussaint-Hudson) and psychiatrist Price Cobb Jr. were part of the team who contributed their expertise to voir dire potential jurors. As secretaries for the defense team, Marlene Cassel and I came to witness his brilliance, legal acumen and forthrightness every day of that trial.

“Branton always swooped through the office in suits that bespoke the unbridled and astute confidence and experience he possessed. He turned litigation into well crafted performance art; after all, it was his desire to be an actor that paved the way for him to become a lawyer. He was exemplary in his ability to cross examine witnesses and during the trial, he put eye witness testimony in a tailspin and, as a result, a witness pointed out Kendra Alexander as the woman he saw in the Marin Courtroom and not Angela.

“He was so masterful in the courtroom that his legal charisma mesmerized the presiding judge, Richard E. Arnosan, the bailiffs, jurors, spectators and many members of the press; it also totally flummoxed prosecutor Albert Harris Jr. and his team. Harris looked as though he’d been bricked with a brief, the day of the verdict. I often wonder if the jurors knew that Leo was Black. He had that kind of racial ambiguity, for some, where he could represent either or.

At the Maroon the Implacable Tour at the California Institute of Integral Studies are Wanda Sabir with Theresa Shoatz, Russell “Maroon” Shoatz’s daughter, center, and Annie Paradise, who hosted the event. The event looked at the effects of prison on families. Anita Wills of Occupy 4 Prisoners and People’s Investigators and a genealogy expert, spoke along with others about the state’s capture of her sons. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

“With so many precedents set in litigating the Angela Davis trial, it really was indeed one of the major trials of the century. I’m sure John Jay, first chief justice of the Supreme Court; Clarence Darrow, attorney for the legendary, early 20th century Scopes Trial; and Charlotte E. Ray, first known African American woman lawyer, are all a-turning in afterlife awe. The power of his closing argument still resonates beyond that chamber into curricula in law schools throughout the United States. The trial transcript of the closing argument, May 30 to June 1, 1972, is available at the Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley, and the Angela Davis Papers and in the Howard Moore Jr. Papers, Woodruff Library, Manuscripts and Rare Books, Emory University, Atlanta, Ga.

Ms. Muse says that she invited the attorney to a holiday party December last year where he spoke of Davis’ trial and its “significant milestones and precedents.” Though many people know the Davis story, not many, Muse reflected, know Branton. She continues, “His presence and words brought a serious dimension of reality to that history. With a worldwide movement mobilized and upon her acquittal, Branton told Angela that she was the most powerful woman in the world” (http://daphnemuse.blogspot.com/). You can listen to Branton speak at the party thanks to videographer Mateenah Floyd-Okanlawon.

Executive produced by, among others, Jay-Z, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith, “Free Angela” is the product of cooperative economics or Ujima (smile).

The film is having a special screening Tuesday, May 7, 7-9:21 p.m. at Landmark Piedmont Theatre, $12 general admission. This screening is being presented by Sankofa Events in solidarity with the Mayor’s Office of the City of Oakland, Critical Resistance, KPFA and the San Francisco State University Women and Gender Studies Department. For tickets, visit http://www.tugg.com/events/3958#.UXr9BZOOV0E.email.

‘Virgin Soul’

We celebrate with author Judy Juanita the publication of her first novel, “Virgin Soul.” The novel is a tour de force featuring Geneice Hightower, who takes us on a journey through the Black Arts and revolutionary movements of the ‘60s, most notably the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Up close and personal, this old soul in a young body, smart and cute and hip when she needs to be, innocent and fierce, yet always honest, is a for real foot soldier, movement woman, who attends Oakland City College, hosts Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) at her flat, which becomes a Safe House, learns to clean and assemble guns, dodges police bullets, graduates from SF State, feeds kids breakfast, tutors in Bayview Hunters Point, recites poetry, gets laid and ultimately finds herself (smile). Yes, it’s that exciting.

Just back from the LA Book Festival, she has other tour dates and special events like the one this Saturday, May 4, 2 p.m., at the 57th Street Gallery, where the author will be joined by veteran Panthers in a panel discussion about this important history. You can also catch her at Moe’s Books in Berkeley May 1 at 7:30 p.m.; at Book Passage in San Francisco at the Ferry Bldg. at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 2; Saturday, June 2, she’ll be at the Peralta Hacienda Historical Park at 2 p.m. If you get to this event, my younger daughter, TaSin, and I are a part of an exhibit, “Telling Stories.” Give us a listen and let me know what you think (smile). Listen to an interview with Judy a couple of weeks ago on the air: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2013/04/19/wandas-picks-radio-show.

SFIFF at 56

The San Francisco International Film Festival continues with quite a few Pan African and other films of note, among them two riveting films, “The Pirogue,” directed by Moussa Touré, “God Loves Uganda,” directed by Roger Ross Williams, and “Tall as the Baobab Tree,” directed by Jeremy Teicher. These three films look at the systematic economic disenfranchisement of Africa, whether that is the global impact of trade on families who have to send their sons and daughters on perilous journeys across the Atlantic ocean on boats ill-equipped for the hazards to the implementation of an educational system that undermines community values as it seeks to strengthen its nation’s ability to compete and survive.

When one thinks about the enslavement of African people, which is how many in the Diaspora landed in their present locations, and the subsequent colonialism, religion is the major culprit, then and now. African American director Roger Ross Williams, in his film, “God Loves Uganda,” takes an unprecedented look at a major church whose mission is to evangelize Africa, with a special focus on Uganda, what Lou Engle, International House of Prayer, calls “The Pearl of Africa.”

Featured artist Victoria Theodore with her mother and pianist and mentor Mary Watkins on the left at the Music SHE Wrote concert at the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music on Friday, April 26 – Photo: Wanda Sabir

I remember when Uganda was granted aid money during George W. Bush’s tenure, with the stipulation that abstinence would be the only prevention method allowed, so a country which had been the model for other nations regarding HIV/AIDS prevention saw its numbers increase at an alarming rate. Then a bill was introduced which would make homosexuality a crime punishable by death. A list of gay activists and their supporters, such as Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, was published and David Kato was beaten to death in January 2011. The vehement atmosphere engendered by such legislation fueled by American evangelist Scott Lively, whose 2009 call to “Kill the Gays” was the culmination of a high profile campaign begun in 2002 in Uganda.

Last year, I interviewed the directors, Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall, and Longjones, one of the subjects in “Call Me Kuchu,” a film that tells David Kato’s story and that of others who continue his dangerous work to preserve the rights of this sexual minority in Kampala, Uganda: http://www.trbimg.com/img-5179eaf9/turbine/la-la-me-0425-branton-obit2-jpg-20130425/600.

The director writes: “I thought about following the activists – brave and admirable men and women – who were fighting against these policies. But I was more curious about the people who, in effect, wanted to kill me. (According to the provisions of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, I could be put to death or imprisoned.) Notably, almost every evangelical I met – American or Ugandan – was polite, agreeable, even charming. Yet I knew that if the bill passed, there would be blood on the streets of Kampala.

“What explains that contradiction? What explains the murderous rage and ecstatic transcendence? In the well-known trope about Africa, a white man journeys into the heart of darkness and finds the mystery of Africa and its unknowable otherness. I, a Black man, made that journey and found – America (http://www.godlovesuganda.com/film/directors-statement/).”

“God Loves Uganda” screens at the 56th Annual San Francisco International Film Festival, Monday, May 6, 8:15 p.m., Tuesday, May 7, 3:30 p.m., and Thursday, May 9, 8 p.m., at the Kabuki Theatre in San Francisco. Visit sffs.org.

In veteran Senegalese Moussa Touré’s film, “The Pirogue,” a fishing vessel turns into a chariot to heaven, and the keepers of The Pearly Gates speak Castilian Spanish. Opening with a wrestling match where once again the protagonist’s fighter loses, he is convinced that perhaps he should leave home for heaven, though from what we can see, he seems to be doing okay – son is healthy, his wife is happy, his spoiled brother loses his job yet can still buy electronic devices. But everyone is leaving the country, including his kid brother to pursue a music career.

Fishing is becoming a less viable livelihood, ditto cattle herding, and as African men find themselves at a loss with how to support their families and villages in an ever increasing global community where foreign investors can undercut a formerly regional economy, they make the treacherous and dangerous trek across the water. If they make it, their worries supposedly are over and they can send money to their impoverished families or communities.

So our fisherman is convinced to navigate the pirogue. He receives his money up front and leaves it with his wife. There are 30 men aboard and as he checks his GPS – yes, GPS – the immediacy of this problem hits the audience, which has its collective memories of “boat people.” I think of little Cuban national Elián Gonzalez and how the uncle of Haitian-born American writer Edwidge Danticat, Rev. Joseph Dantica, was allowed to die in the Krome detention center in Florida.

Western nations are perceived as sanctuary or preferred destinations for refugees escaping the consequences of industrialized greed and conquest, yet why would an African expect their former masters to treat them fairly? Reminds me of a character in playwright Matthew Lopez’s “The Whipping Man,” Simon, who expects his master to return after the war and pay him a sum of money – a personal 40 acres deal. The man’s back is scarred and his memories of enslavement are horrific, yet he holds out for a measure of humanity despite all he has experienced which show inhumanity and untrustworthiness.

The titular boat men from a variety of nations, with distinct languages and cultures, remind us of another journey hundreds of years or so before in the opposite direction. This time the living cargo isn’t sure of its welcome. Black bodies are no longer trading high on Western markets.

Tossing on the high seas, fearing for their lives, some men regret their decision to leave home. Perhaps there were other choices, a bit safer, ones that didn’t mean splintering families. Africa has been fleeced, but it doesn’t need to remain bare if nations refuse to be exploited any longer.

“The Pirogue” screens one last time, Thursday, May 2, 6:45, at New People Cinema in San Francisco.

The director promotes films by African filmmakers in Rufisque, Senegal, and since 2011, he has been the director of documentary filmmaking at FESPACO. To read more about him, see the https://www.festivalscope.com/director/tour-moussa.

Lorraine Hansberry Theatre presents Marcus Gardley’s ‘Black Odyssey, a Reflection’

Marcus Gardley is brilliant, and at almost 30 his light is shining so brightly, at the end of the two-act play, not only was I blinded, I was speechless – so full of emotions was I. And I was not alone; men and women were wiping away tears as Ulysses Lincoln made it home.

Based loosely on Greek playwright Homer’s “Odyssey,” this journey was one most in the audience recognized, yet perhaps had not articulated it so masterfully prior to this production. We know the trail of bones, whether it is Black Mary Wilkes following Aunt Ester Tyler: a former slave and a “soul-cleanser’s” instructions so that Citizen Bartlow can get right with himself in August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean” or Great Aunt Tina (Athena) pleading with her dad, Great Grand Daddy Deus (Zeus) to talk to Great Grand Paw Sidin (Percedian) to save her kin from drowning.

It is interesting that like Wilson’s “Citizen,” Gardley’s “Ulysses Lincoln,” a Gulf War veteran who has blinded Polyphemus, a one eyed cyclops, Great Grand Paw Sidin’s or Poseidon’s son, which is why Sidin is trying to drown him, also has to go to the City of Bones. He needs to find his story or learn his history so he can get home.

As Ulysses Lincoln travels, he meets friends and foes – even family. Maps are etched in hands and he finds paths or trails similar to his own. These familiar markings make the journey, if not less harrowing, certainly more satisfying for Ulysses, who has been lost so long his memories are legends he shares with his new friend, Nella Pell. She saves his life.

Stranded people with limited rations are not the most sympathetic rescuers, but the child Nella Pell convinces her dad not to shoot him and her mom to let him stay.

There is a lot of water imagery, floods and heavy rains. Is it New Orleans after the levees break or some other water odyssey? Ulysses is at first confused, until he realizes that he is in the future, the journey a memory past, one previously inaccessible, thus the forced journey. He will not get a pass home until he knows where he comes from, not physically, which, when asked, he’d say New York City, but a deeper look at home as in who are his people? How many generations can he name? What ancestors’ stories does he carry in his bones?

Jacque Barnes, right, is the owner of Casa de Cultura in Berkeley, where the fundraiser for Jacque took place Saturday, April 27. Jacque is a cultural legend in the Afro-Brazilian community. Val Serrant, center, is leading us in a healing chant for Jacque, who is recovering from heart surgery. Send funds to the Jacqueline Barnes Fund at any Chase Bank, account 423-594-766. – Photo: Wanda Sabir

What is blood but water? First blue and then when air hits it the color changes? The human body is 90 percent water and if the planet is a metaphor for our vehicles for this journey, then what does this memory-blood-water connection mean?

The sibling rivalry between Paw Sidin and big brother Daddy Deus is so amusing, as are the relationships between other characters, I guess too numerous to name, that the actors portray, yet are absent from the program.

The major characters are nine, yet many more fill out the story, like Malachi (Telemachus), Ulysses’ son, who is born while his dad is away and does not know him, and Ulysses’s wife, Benevolence Nausicca Sabine (Penelope).

In the world these characters inhabit, while gods technically can’t cross each other, Great Aunt Tina leaves home to go to stay with Ulysses while he is away. Hanging with human beings changes her. She loses her looks and the human container starts to give her pain and trouble. Magic ceases to work in this realm, or perhaps what she notices is how hard the life her Ulysses and others trapped in this realm manage.

Ancestors speak to Ulysses. He dreams and in this state he and his wife, Benevolence, speak.

There was much to recommend “Black Odyssey”: the staging, which was marvelous, especially the various songs and choreography and the cast, which was stellar. When Aldo Billinglea’s Ulysses makes it home to Benevolence (Britney Frazier), one sees tears rolling down his cheeks. And then there is the single mother, Benevolence. She wants to believe her husband is gone, but something makes her continue to hold on even after at 14 years she almost gives up.

Margo Hall as Great Aunt Tina, exemplifies how much our ancestors love us and how hard they work for Great Uncle Paw Siddin, portrayed by Darryl V. Jones, our salvation and happiness even if their advocacy doesn’t work out for the best. Aunt Tina begs her dad to stop Paw Siddin, but his hands are ethically tied.

“Black Odyssey” covers the period Ulysses has been lost, Black people from our earliest memory of enslavement to the present. Stranded on rooftops waiting for a savior, Ulysses sees the Four Little Girls from Birmingham, Emmett Till from Chicago, Martin King and others. Is this his fate, to be stranded?

If Ulysses represents post-Apocalypse or life after captivity, then how much longer must we wander as a people? When will our choices open the hinges which are rusted shut? True, like Ulysses, we’ve inherited trauma – mother dead before he was born, Ulysses is without family or at least he thinks he is an orphan until he starts traveling and realizes how much family there is waiting to claim him.

The memory is in the blood and perhaps one has to spill the blood to release the spirit trapped inside? Sounds like what happened with Jesus – the trapped divinity wasn’t released until crucifixion. That’s when the magic begins – water becomes buoyant whereby Jesus can walk on its surface. What does he learn while blue that he didn’t know when the water was red?

Paw Siddin admits to his stirring the waters, yet Ulysses does have choices. Paw Siddin reminds me of Olukun, the orisha who rules the deepest waters. Post traumatic slave syndrome, this genetic memory and our participation in its continued perpetuation that is our own enslavement is no skinny dip.

The cast is rounded out by Steven Anthony Jones, LHT artistic director, and the director of this production as he plays the role of Artex Sabine; Halili Knox is a number of characters, her primary one is Alsendra Sabine; Kehinde Koyejo as Nella Pell; Dimitri Woods as Malachi; Carl Lumbly as Great Grand Daddy Deus; Bert van Aslsburg as stage manager.

Visit www.lhtsf.org or call (415) 474-8800 to find out about subscriptions and other free readings. The next one is May 4, 2 p.m., at MoAD, “We Are Proud to Present,” by Jackie Sibblies Drury.

The playwright’s work was a part of Bay Area Playwright’s Festival about two years ago. Listen to the interview: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2011/07/15/wandas-picks.

Another film which is was also shot in Senegal in a remote village where education has just been introduced within the past decade shows the changes this means for a community where girls were married off as child brides, literacy was not necessarily widespread and chiefs still were consulted on major decisions. In this setting we meet two girls, Coumba and her little sister Debo. The stories are based on the young people, whom the director Jeremy Teicher met when in the village just outside Mbour for a shoot as a college student.

Unfortunately the youth are not traveling with this film, which is having much success on the film festival circuit. I do not know why they are not here, since it is their story. Reminds me a bit of Kathryn Stockett’s “The Help.” She didn’t live the story, and her protagonist didn’t either, yet both the fictional and actual novelist got all the glory. “The Help” didn’t get to move to New York and start a writing career. The screenplay softens these edges quite a bit. In the novel it’s pure exploitation.

Nonetheless, I am giving Teicher the benefit of the doubt as the villagers liked the film and he employs Africans on both ends of the production. “Tall as the Baobab Tree,” directed by Jeremy Teicher, screens Sunday, May 5, 1:30, KAB; May 7, 6:00, New People; May 8, 1:00, New People. Here is an archival interview from a couple of weeks ago: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2013/04/24/wandas-picks-radio-show.

Other films to note: “Let the Fire Burn,” directed by Jason Osder, Sunday, May 5, 9 p.m., Wednesday, May 8, 6:15 p.m., Thursday, May 9, 6:30 p.m.; “A River Changes Course,” directed by Kalyanee Mam, Sunday, May 5, 1 p.m., at New People; “Salma,” directed by Kim Longinotto, Thursday, May 2, 6:15 p.m., Saturday, May 4, 2 p.m., “Fatal Assistance,” directed by Raul Peck, Monday, May 6, 6:30, BAM/PFA, May 7, 9:15, KAB, May 8, 6:45 KAB. Visit www.sffs.org.

On the fly

Ms. Ruth Beckford is having a luncheon at Geoffrey’s on 14th Street in Oakland this month to celebrate retirement and think out loud about “what’s next?” There is life after 70, 80 even 90 years old. Don’t miss an opportunity to listen to the elders speak. I am not intentionally leaving the date out; as of this writing, I do not know when the event is happening (smile). Ms. Beckford told me about it two-three months ago, and Mrs. Belva Davis told me she was on the panel when I spoke to her before her gala celebration. If I wrote it down, I have since lost the paper bearing the details, so if anyone knows, send me an email please. I’d like to attend.

The 13th Annual Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival is May 18, 11-7, at San Antonio Park in Oakland. Visit www.eastsideartsalliance.org. Gina Breedlove’s CD release party is at Freight and Salvage Sunday, May 5, 8 p.m., in Berkeley. Listen to an interview at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2013/04/26/wandas-picks-radio-show. The Northern California Book Awards is Sunday, May 19, 1:00 p.m., San Francisco Main Library, Civic Center, 100 Larkin, enter on Grove, Koret Auditorium. Reception follows in the Latino/Hispanic Meeting Room.

In “For Every Mountain,” veteran Bay Area playwright Beverly Brown’s Totally Led Ministries brings her play to El Cerrito Theatre, 540 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito, May 4-5. Tickets for the play are now available. General seating is $25 per person, with children age 15 and under $15 at the door only. Group rates for 10 or more persons are discounted to $22 per person. For ticket information, visit totallyled.org or contact Beverly Brown at (510) 677-7046, sistahbev@sbcglobal.net. View “For Every Mountain” promotional video at www.totallyled.org. The Third Annual San Francisco Green Festival is Thursday, May 30, through Wednesday, June 5. Visit sfgreenfilmfest.org.

Bay View Arts Editor Wanda Sabir can be reached at wsab1@aol.com. Visit her website at www.wandaspicks.com throughout the month for updates to Wanda’s Picks, her blog, photos and Wanda’s Picks Radio. Her shows are streamed live Wednesdays at 6-7 a.m. and Fridays at 8-10 a.m., can be heard by phone at (347) 237-4610 and are archived on the Afrikan Sistahs’ Media Network.