by JR Valrey, Editor in Chief

Weeks after Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee and the top brass of the Oakland Police Department were posing together in newspapers, smiling, talking about how the Oakland Police Department has fulfilled the criteria to be lifted off of federal oversight after 23 years, the police murdered a man under questionable circumstances in East Oakland. And in line with the past behavior of the department, trying to control the narrative, the Oakland Police have been slow to release any information to the public.

I talked with activist Lance Wilson of the Anti-Police Terror Project to discuss the police murder and recent happenings within the Oakland Police Department.

JR Valrey: Can you give us whatever information has been released about the recent police murder on July 13 in East Oakland?

Lance Wilson: What we know right now is limited, and that is part of the problem. OPD shot and killed a man on Monday, July 13, in the area of the 4000 block of International Boulevard in East Oakland. Initial reporting says the incident began with a California Highway Patrol pursuit and that CHP called OPD for assistance. OPD then encountered the man, used what they described as less-lethal and lethal force, and killed him at the scene. OPD has said no officers were injured.

What is deeply concerning is that the public has been given shifting language and very few facts. First, the narrative was that the man “lunged” at officers with a weapon. Then the language became that he “attacked” officers. Later, OPD said he had a bladed object. But the public has not been shown body-worn camera footage, dispatch audio, a full timeline, or clear evidence that this man posed an immediate deadly threat that justified killing him.

From my perspective, this is exactly why we demand transparency immediately after every police killing. The public should not be asked to accept OPD’s version of events before the evidence is released. A family has lost someone. A community has lost someone. And Oakland deserves facts, not a carefully managed police narrative. It has been a week now, and we still have not been provided the name of the man killed by OPD.

JR Valrey: Now that Oakland has a new police chief, who is he, and how has his leadership affected the department?

Lance Wilson: James Beere is a longtime OPD insider. He is a 29-year veteran of the Oakland Police Department and had been serving as interim chief before Mayor Barbara Lee selected him as permanent chief. Reporting notes that he has spent nearly his entire law enforcement career inside OPD, including assignments in vice, narcotics, intelligence and criminal investigations.

Our concern is that calling someone “new leadership” does not mean Oakland has a new culture inside OPD. Beere comes from within the very institution that has been under federal oversight for more than two decades because of brutality, corruption and civil rights violations. Less than a week after he was named permanent chief, OPD killed someone in East Oakland. That does not feel like a new chapter. It feels like the same status quo with a different person at the podium.

The question is not whether Chief Beere can say the right words about reform. The question is whether he will release the footage, tell the truth, discipline officers, cooperate with independent oversight, and stop the cycle of OPD killing people and then asking the public to trust them.

JR Valrey: What are your thoughts on OPD being let off federal oversight, which they had been under since the Riders case in 2003?

Lance Wilson: It is dangerous and premature. OPD was placed under federal oversight because of the Riders scandal, where officers were accused of beating, kidnapping, and planting drugs on West Oakland residents. The resulting 2003 Negotiated Settlement Agreement required reforms around use of force, discipline, reporting, and racial disparities, among other issues.

For more than 20 years, OPD has had scandal after scandal, chief after chief, reform promise after reform promise. The department has been unable to police itself with a federal monitor watching. So we have no reason to believe it will suddenly police itself once that monitor is gone.

We are also deeply concerned that federal oversight may end at the exact moment OPD has killed three people in one year. From 2015 to 2025, OPD killed three people. This year alone, OPD has already killed three people. That should stop every city leader in their tracks. This is not the time to loosen oversight. This is the time to strengthen civilian accountability, fully fund the Police Commission, CPRA, and the Office of Inspector General, and make sure OPD is not left to investigate and excuse itself.

JR Valrey: In your opinion, has the possible end of federal oversight and the hiring of a new police chief made Black residents of Oakland safer?

Lance Wilson: No. Black Oaklanders are not safer because OPD has a new chief. Black Oaklanders are not safer because a federal judge may end oversight. Safety is not a press release. Safety is not a personnel announcement. Safety is not OPD telling us they have complied with a checklist.

Safety means our people are not killed when they are in crisis. Safety means families do not have to fight for months or years to get basic answers. Safety means police do not get to shift their stories after killing someone.

Safety means our communities have housing, healthcare, mental health support, violence prevention, youth programs, and crisis response that does not begin with a gun and a badge.

Black Oaklanders have lived through the Riders scandal, the Celeste Guap scandal, repeated misconduct scandals, racial profiling, excessive force, and decades of OPD violence. A new chief does not erase that history. Ending federal oversight does not erase that history. The only thing that will make Black residents safer is reducing our contact with police and investing in community-led systems of care.

JR Valrey: How has Barbara Lee’s administration dealt with people in homeless encampments versus the last mayor’s administration? Has there been a difference?

Lance Wilson: There has been some difference in rhetoric. Mayor Lee has talked about wanting fewer sweeps and more city workers cleaning up trash and waste around encampments, which is a different tone from the more punitive approaches we have seen across the region. Reporting in February said she was considering a shift toward fewer sweeps and paying unhoused residents to help with cleanup.

But rhetoric is not enough. The lived experience of unhoused people is what matters. Oakland still passed a controversial policy easing restrictions on encampment sweeps, and advocates warned that it would criminalize homelessness and displace people without creating real housing solutions. KQED reported that encampment closures skyrocketed from 240 closures in 2024 to 1,212 closures in 2025 after the Grants Pass decision, and advocates raised concerns that there were not enough shelter options available.

So the question we are asking is simple: Are unhoused people actually safer, housed, and cared for, or are they just being moved from block to block? If people are still being swept, displaced, surveilled, and exposed to police contact without permanent housing, then we are still criminalizing poverty.

From an abolitionist perspective, homelessness is not a police problem. It is a housing problem. It is a healthcare problem. It is an economic justice problem. And no administration should treat people living outside as a nuisance to be managed instead of human beings who deserve dignity, resources, and a real place to live.

JR Valrey: In your opinion, how are Black homeless people viewed in Oakland by the police and local government?

Lance Wilson: Black unhoused people in Oakland are too often treated as problems to be managed, moved, surveilled or disappeared from public view instead of as human beings who deserve housing, care, dignity and safety. That is the heart of the issue. When local government talks about encampments, the conversation is usually about “abatement,” “clean up,” “enforcement” or “public nuisance.” Very rarely is the conversation rooted in the fact that these are our neighbors, our elders, our young people, our disabled folks, our veterans, our families, and our community members who have been failed by every system that was supposed to protect them.

For Black unhoused people, that criminalization is even more dangerous because they are already overpoliced simply for existing in public. Police often see Black homelessness through the lens of suspicion and control. Instead of asking, “What does this person need?” the system asks, “How do we remove them?” That leads to sweeps, citations, arrests, stolen belongings, surveillance and violent encounters with law enforcement. From an abolitionist perspective, homelessness is not a crime. Poverty is not a crime. Mental health crisis is not a crime.

Being Black and unhoused in Oakland should not make you a target for police contact.

And what we saw with this recent killing raises exactly those concerns. Why were CHP and OPD interacting with someone near an unhoused encampment? Was this person in crisis? Was any non-police crisis response called? Was MACRO called? Was there any attempt to meet this person with care instead of force? Those are the questions we need answered because when the state responds to poverty, crisis and homelessness with armed police, people die.

JR Valrey: If people would like to stay informed on police murders and terrorism in Oakland, how could they do that?

Lance Wilson: People should stay connected to the organizations that are doing this work on the ground every day. Follow the Anti-Police Terror Project on social media, sign up for our email list, come to our general meetings, and pay attention when we issue action alerts, statements, press conferences and calls to show up. We organize around police killings, state violence, surveillance, budget fights, mental health crisis response, and the broader fight to build real public safety beyond policing.

People can also support directly impacted families by showing up when families call for community support, attending rallies and press conferences, making public comment, contacting elected officials, and refusing to let police departments control the narrative after they kill someone. Police rely on silence. They rely on confusion. They rely on the public moving on before the truth comes out. Our job is to stay organized, stay informed, and stay in the streets when our people are harmed.

The best way to stay connected is to follow @antipoliceterrorproject, visit antipoliceterrorproject.org and join our organizing spaces. This work requires all of us. If we want to end police terror in Oakland, we cannot just watch the news. We have to build power, demand answers, and fight for care, not cops.

SF Bay View Editor-in-Chief JR Valrey is a veteran journalist His work can also be heard on www. blockreportradioworld.com. He can be reached at jr@sfbayview.com.

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Surprise. Two surveillance data centers are planned to be built in “the industrial area” within Bayview Hunters Point.

In terms of the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood, which contains the largest concentration of Black residents in San Francisco, residents have been fighting for the Navy to clean up the radioactive pollution that they buried under the community in the late ‘40s and ‘50s, after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in World War II.

Radioactive waste from the ships, the equipment, the labs, the lab animals, are still buried near where people survive and raise their families, because that Black community is still being used as lab rats by the US government, so that the effects of people living in a radioactive environment can be studied on a long-term basis, as well as generationally.

“We are seeing data centers pop up near residential communities all across the United States, and we have seen the impacts, from polluting the water supply, to the noise these facilities bring to the neighborhoods closest to them. We are aware of the two (surveillance data centers) coming to the Bayview and Vis Valley border, and there was no community input on either one,” said San Francisco’s District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton.

Many regions are winning moratoriums against surveillance data centers being built near their communities, because of the light pollution, noise pollution, thermal pollution, water pollution and air pollution, among other hazards that they create.

It also has been heavily reported that the pollution caused by surveillance data centers completely disrupts eco-systems, causing insects, birds, and other wildlife to leave and avoid the areas that surveillance data centers inhabit.

Surveillance data centers produce artificial EMF fields that scientists report are disrupting the magnetic navigation system of bees.

Furthermore, surveillance data centers create artificial heat, creating heat stress in bees. in which a fractionally small increase in heat reduces sperm viability in male bees. What will it do in the young men living in close proximity to these surveillance data centers?

The constant hum of low frequencies, originating from the operation of surveillance data centers, is inaudible to the human ear but can be heard by animals.

Farmers are reporting that the stress created from the sounds of nearby surveillance data facilities have caused cattle to lose 30% of their weight and created an astronomical number of stillbirths in livestock. While Western science depends so heavily on tests carried out on animals before a questionable product can be put on the market, shouldn’t these be considered animal trials?

Additionally, according to reports, AI surveillance data centers are projected to use up more fresh water than what every human on earth drinks, by 2027.

“The Novva data center at 400 Paul Ave. went through Planning (The Planning Commission) back in 2016, long before most residents even knew it was happening. And the proposal at the Cow Palace sits in Daly City, under the control of the 1-A District Agricultural Association, a state board appointed by the governor,” explained Supervisor Walton.

Half of the surveillance data centers being proposed nationally have been delayed or canceled. In Maine, the state legislature passed a moratorium on building surveillance data centers, and Gov. Janet Mills vetoed it.

It has also been reported that in Henrico County, Virginia, tech companies have built 37 surveillance data centers, and are scheduled to build more. On June 26, 2026, the county manager emailed thousands of employees, including the staff at schools. His memo read that the electricity rate is jumping by 25%, costing residents $5 million more by July 1, days after the memo was written.

“These two centers raise serious concerns for our neighborhoods. District 10 has carried more than its share of industrial burden for this city, and I am looking into legislation on this issue. My office has reached out to officials in Daly City and San Mateo County about the Cow Palace proposal, since that decision sits outside our jurisdiction but still affects our neighbors directly,” said Supervisor Walton.

For more information, please watch: “We Went to the Town Elon Musk Is Poisoning,” at

SF Bay View Editor-in-Chief JR Valrey is a veteran journalist His work can also be heard on www.blockreportradioworld.com. He can be reached at jr@sfbayview.com

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by Carol Harvey and James Pepper

It is widely believed that Treasure Island was built for a world’s fair. This is a misguided idea advanced by San Francisco that illustrates the city’s supreme skill at self-promotion and the Navy’s skill at concealing the truth.

San Francisco is great at comebacks. In previous years, the city suffered two cataclysmic shocks. At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, the deadliest earthquake in U.S. history, nearly 8.0 on the Richter scale, struck the city. An estimated 3,000 people died. As buildings collapsed, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that left the city in ruins. Rapid rebuilding was followed by a victorious 1915 world’s fair. The Panama-Pacific Exposition memorialized the city’s speedy recovery from the quake.

The City pulled off a second glorious return. During the 1929 stock market crash, banks failed right and left, but not one of San Francisco’s banks collapsed. The City solidified its reputation as a national financial center at the very height of the Great Depression. It was decided to celebrate by building two bridges. They would be the largest in the world. Bay Bridge construction began July 8, 1933, and the bridge opened three years later on Nov. 12, 1936. Golden Gate Bridge construction started Jan. 5, 1933, and it opened four years later on May 27, 1937.

In the 1930s, before the concept of another world’s fair was a gleam in anyone’s eye, because the city was known as a major West Coast hub, the federal government decided to build an artificial island for a federal airport in San Francisco Bay. In 1933, the government requested that the Army Corps of Engineers begin construction. This Works Progress Administration (WPA) undertaking was intended to provide employment during the Great Depression.

The United States government paid for Treasure Island. On May 27, 1943, a hearing about Treasure Island was held by the Committee on Naval Affairs in the Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. According to a statement by Rear Admiral Ben Moreell, Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, now known as Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC), a key branch of the United States Navy, the island was paid for with federal funds furnished by the Public Works Administration and the WPA. The document at the accompanying link describes the decision to build Treasure Island as an airport, and it specifies how much the federal government would pay.

Later, the state of California and San Francisco tried to lay claim to Treasure Island, but the federal government said, “No, we paid for it. It belongs to us, and, in addition, the Bay is federal waters.”

After Treasure Island slowly emerged from San Francisco Bay, the Navy constructed Buildings One, Two, and Three for use as hangars. The photograph below shows the three hangars in place in 1938 before the Golden Gate International Exposition structures were erected. Building One’s echoing rotunda has a terminal’s vaulted ceiling. Building Two on Clipper Cove was the landing place for Pan American Airways China Clipper seaplanes, the “flying boats” popular at the time. Building Three housed aircraft.

The new island was located centrally in the Bay Area, making it perfect for an administrative naval base and an air station for China Clippers.

Before the Navy laid claim to Treasure Island, the city opened the Golden Gate International Exposition to great fanfare on Feb. 18, 1939.

GGIE was the advertisement juggernaut of the century. It was a glitzy carnival that lasted 372 days throughout 1939 and 1940. Richard Reinhardt, in his book “Treasure Island: San Francisco’s Exposition Years,” called it “a bower of bliss,” the “capsule of my dreams.” As a boy, he was continually drawn to the island by its exciting events. It attracted strange and familiar notables like the Maharajah of Kapurthala, Presidents Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, and entertainers like Esther Williams and Edgar Bergen with his puppet, Charlie McCarthy, in hand.

After the spectacle ended, the U.S. Navy followed through with the original plan to take Treasure Island for an airport.

During this time, the United States was being drawn into the Second World War. In preparation for the conflict, on Dec. 29, 1939, the Navy purchased Hunters Point Shipyard and turned it into a naval base. The U.S. officially entered World War II on Dec. 8, 1941. On April 17, 1942, the former site of the Golden Gate International Exposition officially became Naval Station Treasure Island.

Three years later, in 1945, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The Navy decided to use Treasure Island for schools to teach sailors how to handle the new nuclear firepower. Between 1944 and 1997, the Navy cycled an estimated 400,000 sailors through Treasure Island. Many attended “academies” the Navy set up for instruction in how to handle the new, incredibly powerful radioactive and chemical weapons. As a result, deadly toxins stored in these schools were dumped into the soil and groundwater and remain there, continuing to move up and outward into the air.

Before the war, the Navy built a runway diagonally across Treasure Island. It ran from the southwest shore opposite Angel Island in a northeasterly direction toward a pier on the Berkeley side of the island facing the Bay Bridge. The Navy conducted chemical, biological and radiological (CBR) warfare training along the airstrip.

In time, the Navy suggested that San Francisco make Treasure Island its civilian airport. This never came to fruition. In 1944, a seaplane (perhaps one of Pan Am’s Clipper ships) that was trying to land on the runway collided with a ship on the south side of the Bay Bridge. This caused concern that planes would hit the bridge. Therefore, it was decided that Treasure Island was not large enough for an airport.

In 1947, a congressional hearing conducted in San Francisco officially vetoed the proposal. The Navy wanted Treasure Island for a base. So, the military airport at Mills Field, 12 miles away in San Mateo County, was exchanged for Treasure Island and given to the City and County of San Francisco. It was named San Francisco International Airport (SFO). (SF means San Francisco. The signifier “O” is the last letter in Francisco.) SFO was meant to serve the entire Bay Area.

Not only did the Navy dump radioactive material and chemical weapons into Treasure Island soil, but from 1941 to 1965, the Navy deposited its garbage as far as possible from Navy headquarters, which was located at the southeast end of the island. On the northwest end, facing the Golden Gate Bridge, refuse and incinerated solid waste were spread over 93 acres in an enormous open field. In burn pits and a huge beehive incinerator, everything imaginable was set on fire — wires, machinery parts, even radioactive objects. Burning reduced this trash to its lethal chemical components. During the 1940s, San Franciscans complained about thick black smoke wafting over from Treasure Island and blanketing the city. In response, the incinerator was taken down.

In 1965, the Navy hired Actus Sundt Construction Co. to build 150 townhouses on the polluted soil for a residential community of 2,000 sailors and their families. Instead of first cleaning the radioactive and chemical contaminants out of the dirt, Navy Seabee tractors graded the soil, pushing the chemicalized garbage around this enormous dump. Then townhouses were built on concrete slabs. Perhaps the Navy thought a layer of cement would shield the residents from radioactive objects and waste beneath their homes. It is unlikely. The most common radioisotope polluting Treasure Island soil is radium-226, and it has a half-life of 1,600 years.

Despite all this, the views from Treasure Island townhouses were (and still are) spectacular.

In the late 1980s, Congress decided naval bases were too expensive and began shutting them down.

At that time, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandated cleanup of all bases. The U.S. Navy’s remediation of radiation and chemicals from Treasure Island began in 1999, yet remains uncompleted after 27 years.

In 1997, the Navy decommissioned its Treasure Island base. The decision was made to solve San Francisco’s never-ending homeless problem by transporting people from the City’s mean streets to subsidized former Navy townhouses with programs for people with mental health issues and drug addictions. Not one of these poor white — but mostly melanated — mothers with children (like Sammy Johnson, who died of brain cancer) was informed that Treasure Island was radioactive and chemically contaminated and that the base was a chemical warfare training center where the Navy stored and used weapons like mustard and sarin nerve gas. These chemical weapons are the most dangerous toxins in existence and far more damaging than radiation to human health.

The Navy told the residents it was safe for them to live five or 10 feet from radiation cleanup zones. When a series of investigative news reports proved otherwise, the residents became angry and upset and demanded the Navy come clean about the danger.

How history repeats itself! Just as in the past with the 400,000 sailors and low-market-rate and homeless San Franciscans, not one of the prospective residents currently buying into Treasure and Yerba Buena Islands’ glitzy high-rises and condos on the redeveloped islands is informed about the radioactive and chemical contamination the Navy can never completely clean out of the soil, groundwater and air.

But that’s a story for another day.

Credit: Thanks to researcher James Pepper, whose contributions to this article are invaluable.

Carol Harvey and James Pepper are investigative journalists. Harvey, a San Francisco political journalist specializing in human rights and civil rights, can be reached at carolharvey1111@gmail.com.   

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by Pearci “PJ” Bastiany III

In August 2025, SF Bay View published “Rotting from the coast in: Sea Scouts displaced, waterfront in decline,” an article documenting how the Sea Scouts were pushed off their historic waterfront base and how visible deterioration along San Francisco’s shoreline was being met with delay, bureaucratic deflection, and piecemeal action. That article was never just about one dock. It was about a larger pattern: San Francisco keeps allowing working-waterfront infrastructure to decay until removal becomes easier than repair.

After that article was published, its findings were brought directly to the Port of San Francisco Commission during public comment. Some visible work did appear to follow elsewhere on the waterfront, including attention to dilapidated pilings near Chase Center and repair activity near Fisherman’s Wharf, but the broader set of deteriorating sites that had been documented were not fully addressed. The deeper issue remained untouched: the city still has not shown that it is serious about preserving public-serving maritime infrastructure before access is lost.

Now that same pattern is playing out at Gashouse Cove. What happened to the Sea Scouts at Aquatic Park and what is happening now at Gashouse Cove are connected parts of the same story: a working waterfront asset is treated as expendable even when youth programs, everyday boaters, emergency responders, and blue-collar maritime users still rely on it.

Captain Maggie Hallahan, a licensed Coast Guard captain and Sea Scout leader, has become one of the clearest public voices in the fight to preserve the cove as a public access site to the water and as an emergency response center. In a recent Latitude 38 podcast focused on Gashouse Cove, Hallahan joined youth Sea Scouts Wrenn Holloway and Pismono Mata-Lee to explain what is at stake there, what the Sea Scouts have been doing to fight for access, and why the site still matters to the broader boating community. Hallahan said the Sea Scouts have spoken before the California State Lands Commission, the Port of San Francisco, San Francisco Recreation and Park, the Board of Supervisors, the California Water Board, and the Harbor Safety Committee of the San Francisco Bay Region in an effort to preserve the site.

That matters because this is no longer a niche marina dispute. It is an ongoing public fight taking place across multiple agencies, with the Sea Scouts arguing that waterfront access, youth opportunity, emergency readiness, and public-trust maritime uses are all being pushed aside by a redesign that does not reflect how the cove is actually used.

The Sea Scouts’ case is not based on sentiment alone. In the podcast, Hallahan said the city is relying on a permit from 19 years ago to repair Gashouse Cove and is now using that same permit to justify decommissioning the fuel dock rather than repairing and preserving it. She also argued that the fuel dock can remain operational during cleanup because it sits about 167 meters from the active cleanup area and still has enough depth for many vessels to fuel there, even at low tide. Those are not emotional claims. They are substantive disputes about design, access, and whether city agencies are choosing removal over practical preservation.

The June 17, 2026 Harbor Safety Committee letter to BCDC strengthens that argument in a major way. The Committee said it supports environmental remediation within East Harbor, but stressed that environmental remediation and preservation of critical maritime infrastructure can occur at the same time. The letter warned that the proposed removal of the Gashouse Cove gasoline and diesel fuel dock raises concerns about emergency preparedness, navigation safety, maritime resiliency, and public access to San Francisco Bay, and said those concerns were supported by materials reviewed by the Committee and discussions with emergency responders, marina operators, San Francisco Bar Pilots, and maritime stakeholders.

That letter matters because it moves the issue beyond advocacy alone. It shows that a formal maritime safety body sees Gashouse Cove as infrastructure with real operational value, not a leftover waterfront feature. According to the Committee, the San Francisco Police Department Marine Unit confirmed that SFPD, the San Francisco Fire Department, and the United States Coast Guard all use the Gashouse Cove fuel dock for emergency response operations, vessel boardings, medical evacuations, and other public-safety missions on the Bay. The Committee also noted that the Bay Area continues to lose publicly accessible marine fuel facilities, especially gasoline fueling infrastructure.

The Harbor Safety Committee also makes clear that replacement options are not simple. The letter says the San Francisco Bar Pilots rely on marine fuel access near the Golden Gate Bridge to fulfill their statutory and regulatory responsibilities and maintain operational readiness. It explains that sedimentation and lack of dredging can make the Clipper Yacht Harbor fuel dock in Sausalito effectively unnavigable during low tides, while East Bay fuel facilities are too far away to support emergency response and operational needs in the Central Bay and Golden Gate Bridge area. In other words, Gashouse Cove is not easily replaceable by simply pointing to another dock on a map.

The Committee also directly addresses the likely argument that remediation and continued dock operations cannot safely coexist. It points to recent remediation work near SF Pier 41 1/2, where ferry operators continued service within approximately 10 meters of active remediation areas. According to the letter, that project demonstrated that environmental remediation and maritime operations can safely coexist when proper environmental and operational controls are used. The Committee specifically notes that projects commonly use perimeter float containment systems, turbidity barriers, and phased construction methods to maintain maritime operations during remediation.

That is a critical point because it shifts the public debate. The question is no longer whether cleanup should happen. The Committee itself supports cleanup. The question is whether Rec and Park is choosing the most restrictive and destructive version of the project instead of a balanced one that preserves working-waterfront functions.

The letter is also skeptical of the city’s cost and feasibility case. According to the Committee, members heard two primary concerns from San Francisco Recreation and Park Department staff about keeping the fuel dock operational during remediation: crowding within the work area and increased project costs. But the Committee also noted that SFRPD included approximately $25 million in its estimate for dredging a 145-foot-wide access channel to the fuel dock and engineered cap, even though the fuel dock currently operates without dredging and has remained functional for 38 years. The Committee concluded that SFRPD did not establish to its satisfaction that continued operation of the fuel dock during remediation would be infeasible, and added that information it reviewed, including discussions with Regional Water Quality Control Board staff, indicated the city could keep the existing dock operational during remediation while still meeting environmental protection requirements.

That is potentially the most important argument in the entire debate. If continued operation is possible, then closure is not simply an unavoidable side effect of cleanup. It is a policy choice.

The Harbor Safety Committee asked BCDC to exercise its oversight authority over waterfront redevelopment, marina modifications, changes to water-dependent uses, and Bay Plan policies by rejecting the San Francisco Marina plans in their current form. Its reason was direct: the current proposal does not preserve essential maritime infrastructure and public-trust maritime uses. The letter specifically says the proposal fails to preserve marine fuel access, continued operation of the only public boat lift in San Francisco, continued operation of the only touch-and-go dock in northern San Francisco, blue-collar boating access, and dedicated areas supporting maritime safety training and youth maritime education. That language should be at the center of this public debate, because it shows exactly what would be lost.

The Committee’s second-page request is just as important. It asked BCDC to carefully evaluate the maritime safety and resiliency impacts associated with permanently removing the Gashouse Cove fuel dock and to determine whether continued operation during portions of the remediation process, or preservation of equivalent centrally located fuel access, would better support the Bay’s public-trust and maritime uses. That is not an anti-cleanup position. It is a call for a real safety and resiliency analysis before a permanent loss is locked in.

The Sea Scouts have also raised a water-quality concern that deserves far more public attention. Hallahan and the youth advocates said the Laguna outfall sits adjacent to the site and drains into the area proposed for kayaking and paddleboarding, which raises obvious questions about whether the city’s recreation plan matches the actual conditions on the water. Public materials on the Laguna Street outfall and community letters opposing the redesign reinforce that the outfall is a real feature of the site and not a hypothetical talking point. If people are going to be encouraged to paddle there, then the city owes the public a direct and transparent answer about what exactly is entering that water and whether the site is truly fit for that kind of recreation.

The emergency-response case may be even more compelling. In the podcast, Hallahan and the Sea Scouts said police, sheriff, and fire vessels rely on the fuel dock and warned that there is no equivalent fuel point in San Francisco that can easily replace it. The show notes for the episode also describe the cove as the city’s last remaining marine fuel dock for recreational use, while noting its use by police, sheriff, and fire department vessels. The Harbor Safety Committee letter reinforces the same basic point from an institutional standpoint: the dock is used for emergency response, medical evacuations, and other public-safety missions, and its loss would affect maritime readiness.

That claim took on greater weight after the recent Alcatraz boating tragedy. During the July emergency, reports showed that Gashouse Cove served as a triage and evacuation point for rescued passengers, and other reporting indicated that the fuel dock played a role in supporting the emergency response. The proximity of Gashouse Cove to the tragedy made it ideal for emergency evacuation and rapid refueling of emergency vessels, which is exactly why treating the site as expendable is such a dangerous mistake. The Harbor Safety Committee’s warnings about emergency preparedness and centrally located fuel access look even more credible in light of that tragedy.

This is the point city decision-makers should not be allowed to dodge. Gashouse Cove is not spare waterfront real estate. It is part of the city’s marine response network, and recent events showed that clearly. Once a site like that is removed, its function is not easily recreated somewhere else, especially in a dense city with limited shoreline access and increasing strain on public infrastructure.

The podcast also makes another point that planning documents often miss: access to the Bay is already shrinking. Hallahan described a past waterfront culture in which public docks and informal boating communities made it easier for ordinary people to get on the water, while the youth voices in the podcast described Sea Scouts as one of the few affordable, welcoming ways left for young people to learn maritime skills in San Francisco. Wrenn Holloway described Sea Scouts as a place to build friendships and community, while the group discussed weekly outings, regattas, Delta cruises, whale reporting, and the SSS Viking’s recent national flagship award. That is not just nostalgia. It is evidence that Gashouse Cove and programs like Sea Scouts still create living public value.

That public value also matters because access to the Bay has become uneven. Yacht clubs and private slips remain available for those who can afford them, but the podcast makes clear that Sea Scouts and informal public boating access offer something different: a lower-cost, community-based path into maritime life. When the city removes places like Gashouse Cove without preserving their working public function, it is not expanding access. It is narrowing it.

San Francisco should not repeat with Gashouse Cove what it already allowed to happen with the Sea Scouts’ former dock. The city should preserve the site, clean what needs to be cleaned, repair what needs to be repaired, and keep Gashouse Cove functioning as a real public-serving maritime asset. If the city truly believes in resilience, access, environmental justice, and emergency preparedness, then saving Gashouse Cove is the test.

A working waterfront cannot be rebuilt by press release after it is gone. Gashouse Cove should remain open not just for boaters, but for the next emergency, the next evacuation, and the next young person who still deserves a real way onto the Bay.

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by Kiilu Nyasha

“As a slave, the social phenomenon that engages my consciousness is, of course, revolution.” – George L. Jackson

The revision of Black August

2013* marks the 43rd anniversary of Black August, first organized to honor our fallen freedom fighters, George and Jonathan Jackson, James McClain, William Christmas, Khatari Gaulden and sole survivor of the Aug. 7, 1970, Courthouse Slave Rebellion, Ruchell Cinque Magee.

During these four decades, we’ve witnessed a steady revision of the meaning of Black August and its inherent ideology, the undisputed leader of which was our martyred comrade, George Lester Jackson.

Sadly, lots of individuals – many of whom are straight-up Black capitalists and Black nationalists – have seized upon Black August as a means of profiteering and lime-lighting, self-aggrandizement and promotion of their own agendas. For those reasons, I want to make very clear the ideology espoused by George and Jonathan Jackson and their comrades.

First of all, George was unequivocally an internationalist and a socialist. He despised racism and, along with his brother, Jonathan, eschewed cultural nationalism.

For example, in George Jackson’s second book, “Blood in My Eye,” published posthumously in 1972, Jonathan Jackson, 17, was quoted a­­­­s follows:

“They say Gloves Davis – a Black pig – killed Fred Hampton, while he was asleep. I certainly don’t have to mention all the so-called defectors who are now [1970] appearing before government committees testifying for the state. They were infiltrators to begin with. The house-niggers who ran to the high sheriff as soon as someone whispered revolt. I think I hate them worse than I hate the sheriff, or the ‘owner.’

“I’m just a young slave … but every time I think of [Gloves] Davis, Jess B. Simple, Karenga and the rest of these murderous turncoat idiots, my trigger finger fairly itches! Non-persons like Karenga, LeRoi Jones [Amiri Baraka] and the other right-wing Blacks are intelligent enough to know what they are doing. We cannot excuse them with the ease that we can excuse the average brother who has had no opportunity or inclination to search.

“The mantle of ignorance doesn’t cover their behavior. They have to know that when they attack socialism, the communist ideal, and revolution that they are not logically … attacking all that is white, etc. They know that Ho Chi Minh isn’t white or Chairman Mao, or Nkrumah, Lumumba and Toure.

“They know that there isn’t but one fight going on across this planet, the one between the imperialist forces of capitalism and its victims. They know that it was for work that we were kidnapped – what else do you feed a slave for?

“These Black, Black, Black, Black men (if you can swallow their shallow shit) have had time to study, some have traveled, they ‘know’ that it was capitalist agricultural economics that first caused our pain, and that the only change since then is the decline of the agricultural elite and the rise of the modern bourgeoisie. A sweat-shop displaced the plantation. [In 2013, it’s the prison industrial complex and outsourcing.] Could it have escaped their notice that all the African states that really liberated themselves booted out the foreign businessmen and are now socialist states? [Unfortunately, the ‘foreign businessmen’ returned and there are no African states that remained socialist.]

“No, I think the strongest suggestion is that they are working for the government, the new house-niggers. And what better way is there for them to sell themselves to us than to scream Black, Black, Black, Black ….”

George Jackson wrote: “We find ourselves forced into a reexamination of the whole nature of Black revolutionary consciousness and its relative standing within a class society steeped in a form of racism so sensitized that it extends itself even to the slightest variation in skin tone.

“The great majority of Blacks reject racism. They have never found it expedient, wise or honorable to take on the characteristics of the enemy” (“Blood in My Eye”).

I wish that statement remained true. But I think Comrade is turning over in his grave at the anti-white hostility and white exclusion so common today. We are now witnessing Blacks embracing reactionary politicians, like Barack Obama, because of their skin tones.

In his first best seller of 1970, “Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson,” Comrade wrote: “The government buys and trains these running dogs very carefully, and sends them scrambling, tails and all, outward to represent the establishment. Whole kennels are sent to the African nations … on the supposition that the people of these nations will be able to relate better to a Black face.” George goes on to say that they throw up “one more barrier to the communion that we must establish with the other oppressed peoples of the world.”

In a letter written to a comrade, published in “Blood in My Eye,” George wrote: “We have finally arrived at scientific revolutionary socialism … I was hoping that you wouldn’t get trapped in the riot stage like a great many other very sincere brothers … They think they don’t need ideology, strategy or tactics. They think being a warrior is enough.”

“You must teach that socialism-communalism is as old as man; that its principles formed the basis of mostly all the East African cultures (there was no word to denote possession in the original East African tongues) …

“Any Black who would defend an African military dictatorship is as much a fascist as Hoover. Are you aware of how the people are living under these so-called Africanized fascist cultures? The Congo and the entire West Coast of Africa … are still slave states, dominated by Westernized Black right-wing puppets.

“I’m thoroughly sick of the old Jess B. Simples (young ones too). They’ll be your main source of opposition in communizing the Black colonies here. The ‘good white people’ who own things will always give them a few inches in their papers or other media. That’s how ‘fascism’ works, influencing the masses and institutions through elites.”

The origin of Black August

A time to embrace the principles of unity and resistance, Black August had its origins in the “Black Movement” behind California prison walls in the 1960s, led by George Jackson, W.L. Nolen, James Carr, Hugo Pinell, Kumasi, Howard Tole, Warren Wells and many other conscious, standup brothers who ultimately made it safe for Blacks to walk the yards of California’s racist gulags.

As the decades passed, the tradition of honoring our fallen freedom fighters – sparked by the August events described below – was expanded to include commemorating revolutionary wars of resistance and self-determination, such as Harriett Tubman’s Underground Railroad and the Haitian Revolution of August 1791, culminating in the first Black republic of the world.

Aug. 7, 1970, the spectacular Courthouse Slave Rebellion hit the front pages of newspapers around the world. Pictures of four young Black freedom fighters emerging from the Marin County Courthouse with guns and hostages provoked panic among white supremacists. But most Black folks took great pride and inspiration from the sight of such courageous resistance to the ongoing brutality and murder of Blacks inside and outside of prison.

“Freeze!” shouted 17-year-old Jonathan Jackson, “We’re taking over,” as he tossed guns to McClain, Christmas and Magee. With courage and calm they ushered their hostages to a waiting van, planning to go to a radio station to broadcast the atrocities being committed behind the walls against Blacks and demand the immediate release of the Soledad Brothers – George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette.

What Jonathan failed to anticipate was the state’s willingness to sacrifice one of its judges and the lives of everyone else to stop that escape. As Jonathan tried to leave the parking lot, the San Quentin guards arrived and opened fire, leaving Jackson, Christmas, McClain and Judge Harold Haley dead, state prosecutor Gary Thomas and Ruchell Magee seriously wounded, and one juror with a minor injury.

One year later, on Aug. 21, 1971, in what has been well established as a setup, George Jackson was murdered on the yard of San Quentin by prison guards.

During this orchestrated attempted escape, however, three guards were also killed, along with two inmate “trustees.” This set the prison officials on fire and they’ve been exacting revenge ever since upon Hugo Pinell (known affectionately as Yogi) whom they can’t seem to torture enough – even though he was not convicted of murder in the case, as was Johnny Spain, who was released in 1988.

Yogi, now 69 years old, is suffering his 49th year of incarceration, most in solitary confinement, the last 23 in Pelican Bay’s SHU (Security Housing Unit), locked down at least 23 hours a day in a torture chamber – no-contact limited visits, no phone calls, no windows, restricted property. Fortunately, Magee’s legal expertise got him out of the SHU in 1994.

Yogi’s current attorney, Keith Wattley of Uncommon Law, is trying to preclude a 15-year hit at Yogi’s next board hearing Oct. 22 and needs all the help he can get to proceed in Yogi’s behalf. For more information, go to www.hugopinell.org.

Ruchell Magee is enduring his 50th year in Corcoran’s maximum security prison – a classic case of this country’s racist repression of Black men.

At 16, Magee was arrested, tried as an adult and incarcerated in the infamous Angola State Prison in his home state of Louisiana – basically for associating with a white girl. Released after eight years but banished from the state, Magee lasted only six months in Los Angeles before suffering an egregious and brutal encounter with L.A. police – over a $10 bag of weed – that put him back in prison in 1963.

An astute jailhouse lawyer, Magee continued to fight his case through the courts for seven years to no avail or until he seized the hour and joined the guerrillas on Aug. 7, 1970. Seriously wounded but still alive, Magee was subsequently tortured and charged with everything they could throw at him. He continues to fight his case to this day. He said to me decades ago, “As long as you remain in the fight, you never know who’s going to win.”

“So what is to be done after a revolution has failed?” asks George. After our enemies have created a conservative mass society based on meaningless electoral politics, spectator sports and a 3 percent annual rise in purchasing power strictly regulated to negate itself with a corresponding rise in the cost of living, what can we do with a people who have gone through the authoritarian process and come out sick to the core?

“Our overall task is to separate the people from the hated state. They must be made to realize that the interests of the state and the ruling class are one and the same. They must be taught to realize that the present political regime exists only to balance the productive forces within the society in favor of the ruling class. It is at the ruling class and the governing elites, including those of labor, that we must aim our bolts” (“Blood in My Eye”).

“We must accept the spirit of the true internationalism called for by Comrade Che Guevara … We need allies, we have a powerful enemy who cannot be defeated without an allied effort! The enemy at present is the capitalist system and its supporters. Our prime interest is to destroy them. Anyone else with this same interest must be embraced, we must work with, beside, through, over, under anyone, regardless of his or her external physical features, whose aim is the same as ours in this” (“Soledad Brother”).

“Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done; discover your humanity and your love in revolution” (“Blood in My Eye”).

*This story was originally published on July 31, 2013, at https://sfbayview.com/2013/07/the-revision-and-origin-of-black-august/.

Kiilu Nyasha, Black Panther veteran and revolutionary journalist, joined the ancestors April 10, 2018, at age 78. A tiny woman with mighty influence, every day she practiced the activism she preached. She’d hear of a protest too late to schedule a ride on Paratransit and simply take off in her motorized wheelchair, weaving from her Chinatown apartment through the snarls of San Francisco traffic, composing her speech on the fly. Bold and brave, she feared nothing and no one, daring the powerful to debate her and leaving them exhausted in the dust. Kiilu’s face and voice are all over the internet. Visit her often, starting here: The Official Website of Kiilu Nyasha.

The post The revision and origin of Black August appeared first on San Francisco Bay View.

When Tulsi Gabbard stepped down as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence on June 18, 2026, she made it clear that she did not intend to fade quietly into the background.

Her skepticism about COVID-19 was evident when she served in the White House. With that at the forefront, she planned a mic-drop moment as a departure: At her directive, officials released roughly 400 pages of intelligence documents, including internal records concerning COVID-19’s origins, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence simultaneously released a video in which Gabbard summarized her conclusions. Elon Musk and Rand Paul were among those publicly applauding her courage. Mainstream media made a concerted effort to ignore her altogether.

Asking Fauci

Wednesday, July 28th, Paul and others had their long-awaited day in court with the famous doctor. With Fauci’s private diary in hand, they fired over 100 questions at a composed and smiling Fauci. In response, Dr. Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights over 100 times. It was theater, of course, lest we forget Joe Biden ​preemptively pardoned Fauci on Jan. 19, 2025, to guard against “unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions” for allegations related to COVID-19, or his role in the response.

Independent thinkers may wonder what it is all for, if not disclosure and justice?

2020

Flash back to 2020, to an epic battle between blue and red. Some trusted science; others deemed the science unresolved.

Then there were Black folks like myself.

I’m talking about those of us who were uncomfortable jumping blindly into a targeted program created to inject government-mandated “vaccines” into the arms of Black America just because a CEO dressed as a philanthropist said so.

Through our lens, it seemed pretty stupid to even consider a biotechnological “jab” pushed by agencies that had “disproportionately” approved or promoted cigarettes, alcohol, genetically modified organisms, aspartame, school lunches indistinguishable from prison lunches, and poisoned water in our “underserved” neighborhoods every day of our “underserved” lives.

Bill Gates put COVID testing pop-ups in every hood “disproportionately” affected by COVID. He could just as easily have dropped off computers in those same hoods, where COVID mandates “disproportionately” affected children’s learning. His actions did not scream care and concern to me.

Back in 2020, science believers met Black resistance with aggressive accusations, insults and gaslighting. Then came the infamous “cancellation” for thinking outside the approved narrative.

People who claimed to be our allies while marching with us against police terrorism lost their newly “woke” minds when we explained that the big system everyone was protesting was the same system they were rushing to for jabs.

How meaningful the anti-racism protests six years ago were has yet to be seen. The possibilities weaken, however, when the same people who oppose “systemic” racism cannot see the system.

Those who fund the police also fund the Army, the Capitol Police and the COVAX initiative, which involved pharmaceutical companies, Dr. Fauci, the NIH, the CDC, the WHO, the U.N., the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gavi and others. They all sit at the same table and walk through the same revolving door year after year. It does not matter what letters are assigned to the agency or sub-agency.

Despite all the attention liberal science believers gave in 2020 to amplify America’s overt injustices, especially the killing of unarmed Black people, they could not recognize that the COVID vaccine rollout in Black America might also be that — either inadvertently, through a lack of long-term testing, or purposefully, by tricking Black folks into becoming the long-term test.

All that cash

Our government had already committed similar deeds many times by the time the COVID vaccines were ripe and ready. With new power, these old players had corporate interests in medicine and were financially energizing modern motives to the point of disrespect. Spike Lee, Al Sharpton and Tyler Perry were vaccinated; go on and “Vax that thang up!”

Those agencies are who later paid rappers, church leaders and community activists from a $2 billion marketing budget created solely to “convince” us to take a shot.

Thanks for nothing

Tulsi’s dramatic reveal offered no more of a solution than the Epstein files, which were full of unspeakable crimes and met with exactly zero arrests. She offered no plan forward and no repair for people who were misled.

Her big conclusion was that the government and its agencies have a lying problem, at the least, and are actively trying to kill us, at the worst.

Who did not know that? Who needed more proof?

What they’re still ignoring

Here is what Tulsi left out: These government agencies have a medical history in Black communities that boasts an encyclopedic list of abuse.

After shock waves shut down the 40-year Tuskegee syphilis study, the Federal Office of Human Services — now known as the Department of Health and Human Services — also arrested no one. In fact, officials packed those doctors up to continue their work elsewhere.

Before that, there was J. Marion Sims, the so-called father of gynecology. The doctor, now honored with foundations and numerous monuments in his name and likeness, ran gynecological experiments on enslaved women and withheld pain medication to force compliance. He believed Black women did not feel pain the way white women did, so they did not need it.

Ironically, anyone who wants a commercial license for the infamous portrait of Sims and his colleagues contemplating an enslaved woman on her knees must ask Pfizer for permission.

Pfizer, the U.S. government’s co-collaborator. Pfizer, which has governmental immunity and cannot be held responsible for harms caused under contracts with that same government.

According to Violation Tracker, Pfizer has paid over $11 billion for violations ranging from kickbacks and bribery to environmental damage, election-law interference and whistleblower retaliation after an employee raised concerns about genetic engineering work. A pending lawsuit alleges that their drug and medical-device companies financed terrorism in Iraq.

Pfizer also conducted illegal drug testing in Nigeria, where 11 children died and others suffered blindness, deafness and brain damage. The company had no authorization to drug those children from either the government or their parents.

There are still hundreds of prestigious honors and awards in Marion Sims’ name. We can conclude that this is because the abuse of Black bodies means nothing to America. That history is not considered negative because the U.S. medical system gained from it — a system literally built from the blood of enslaved people to learn how to cure those deemed worthy of good medicine.

An earned mistrust

This is the same system whose NIH tested AIDS drugs on thousands of poor Black foster children without consent. Dr. Fauci himself had one hand on that project and the other on the HIV ladder he was climbing to success. This government impemented eugenics practices envied and duplicated by Nazi Germany. Its laws gave us 30 years of forced sterilization, biological weapon tests on uninformed citizens and diseased mosquitoes bred and released into Black communities. It created and promoted human zoos.

People should read the released files knowing this is only the latest abuse on a rap sheet hundreds of years in the making.

This is not just rebellion. The mistrust is well earned, caused by lies, sickness and murder by the same agencies we are told want us to be well.

Tulsi Gabbard’s belief in the significance of her findings feels a little like a white woman calling the police in a system that has always worked for her, without considering the effect cops have had on the people around her.

We have already been living in the land of medical mistreatment, unethical practices, careless research, lethal experiments, discrimination and neglect of essential medical needs

A simple conclusion

In 2020, Forbes reported that 1,000 Black men were killed every month by another Black man’s gun. Those numbers far surpassed COVID deaths in the Black community. Is that not a pandemic?

The CDC’s response to the murder rate in the Bay Area was that officials would have to get “tough on gun owners”. They can know when someone I met came in contact with COVID and text me the location of a test, followed by the location of a vaccine clinic — but we’re supposed to believe they do not have a clue who is running guns to kids in the hood?

No, thank you. Tulsi’s efforts are noted but not needed. Dr. Fauci can stay silent for all we care.

It does not have to be complicated. If those who govern in the name of the people’s greater good, health, and protection make it clear that they do not support the people’s greater good, health and protection, we will continue to take them at their word.

Leah Harmony is Manager of Production for the Bay View, a journalist, filmmaker and music video producer who has produced award-winning videos for artists such as Tyler, the Creator; Rihanna; Shakira; J.Lo; Drake; and many more. She can be reached at leah@sfbayview.com.

The post Dr. Fauci pleading the 5th and Tulsi Gabbard’s release of COVID files only confirms what Black America already knew appeared first on San Francisco Bay View.

by Laura Larkins

Denver – Plainclothes officers arrested Chantal Morales Rojas, a 27-year-old Ecuadorian woman, as she was boarding her Southwest Airlines flight from Denver to Oakland on the night of July 20.

Friends of Rojas, fellow passengers, and airline employees watched as immigration agents detained Rojas on the jetway before taking her by force to a Homeland Security van waiting on the tarmac.

The arrest comes amid a dramatic uptick in immigrant detentions, with ICE reporting some 43,000 arrests in June of this year. ICE’s presence at airports also appears to be increasing, with recent arrests at SFO and at LAX, where ICE agents reportedly left a Vietnamese man handcuffed.

Rojas was visiting friends and her former employer in Denver for an ultimate frisbee tournament. She went through the TSA Security checkpoint Monday evening without any issue.

Upon arrival at her gate for her flight to Oakland, a non-uniformed agent approached Rojas and asked if she could answer questions about her visa. Unaware that the man was an agent (he provided no identification), she said no.

Alicia Dantzker, along with an attorney, both from the Bay Area and friends of Rojas’ former employer who also attended the tournament, happened to be traveling on the same flight. Rojas explained to them that she felt threatened and had no idea who the man was or why he was asking her about her visa.

Within minutes, several other men, all in civilian clothing, arrived at the gate. The group stood by watching Rojas for the next 30 minutes. 

According to Dantzker, the men were visibly making Rojas feel uncomfortable. She suggested that they ask to board early; the Southwest gate agent agreed. The  attorney remained at the gate and waited to board the plane with her assigned group.

Dantzker says when she and Rojas scanned their boarding passes and stepped onto the jetway the scanning console sounded an alarm and the Southwest agent asked them to wait. It was then that the men who had been surveilling Rojas pushed both women into the jetway and the door slammed shut, effectively trapping them. It is unclear who shut the door. 

“They said, ‘We are going to be polite. We have a warrant for your arrest,” Dantzker recounted. “You have to come with us. We have a warrant. Do you want to see it?’”

Dantzker says she told the agents to show the warrant to her lawyer friend, by then standing on the other side of the door. That is also when she began to film the encounter. 

In the video, Rojas is seen being removed from the jetway and forced by several individuals out an exterior door. It is unclear if the individuals, including one woman, were agents, airport employees, or bystanders, though they appeared to be wearing all-access badges issued by airport authorities. 

A spokesperson for Denver Mayor Mike Johnson told a local news outlet after Rojas’ arrest that his office had not been informed of activity at the airport, adding the mayor does not have the legal authority to impede federal law enforcement at Denver International.

Officials with Denver International Airport released a statement noting that federal agents do have jurisdiction there and are “not required to inform the airport of their activity.”

Rojas was taken down the exterior stairway onto the tarmac and placed in a white van marked Homeland Security parked amongst the Southwest airlines baggage carts. The warrant was never shown to the attorney present, despite the request for agents to do so.

In the video, a federal agent confronts Dantzker, warning her not to interfere. Dantzker is later heard shouting epithets at the agents before she is approached by a Southwest employee. “I am just going to give you a heads up: If you’re on this flight and you speak to them [agents] like that, you will not board this flight,” he says. 

Dantzker, who was visibly upset and yelling, was ultimately not allowed to board the flight home.

In an emailed response, ICE stated, “On July 20, 2026, ICE arrested Chantal Alejandra Morales Rojas, an illegal alien from Ecuador. She entered the country on October 20, 2024, on a visa that would allow her to stay in the country until January 4, 2025. In violation of our nation’s laws, she overstayed her visa. She remains in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.”

Rojas’ attorney, Laura Lichter, disputes ICE’s account.

”Chantal came to the United States lawfully in early 2023 on a J-1 exchange visitor visa as an au pair,” said Lichter. “She followed the rules of her program and, before it ended, timely filed an application with U.S. immigration authorities that allowed her to remain in the country while her case has been pending.”

Lichter added, “For more than three years, she has continued to live here with federal authorization and has worked legally under employment authorization issued by the U.S. government.”

Rojas has been working as a software developer for an inclusive recycling app company in Oakland. She had never been issued a deportation order or been notified that she was on any list of people targeted for deportation. 

Rojas was taken to the Aurora ICE Processing Center, also referred to as the Denver Contract Detention Facility where she is currently being detained.

In a blog post, Austin Kocher, assistant research professor at Syracuse University who has spent nearly two decades mapping immigration enforcement, notes daily ICE arrests have spiked to over 1,300 in June. Some 65,765 people are also now in ICE detention.

“Of those people held in detention, the largest group continues to be immigrants with no criminal history whatsoever,” writes Kocher, “reinforcing the now longstanding observation that the agency is not targeting the worst of the worst.”

Colorado has a history of such arrests. On May 12, 2026, U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson found that federal immigration officers in the state had been arresting individuals without proper warrants in violation of their due process rights, and without checking to see if the person being arrested was likely to flee.

The court order required additional training for immigration officers in Colorado and laid out specific protocol for documentation of flight risk and identification of officers in warrantless arrests.

In 2018, Southwest Airlines joined a coalition of Texas businesses publicly backing immigrants by supporting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative.

“We do not wish to have involvement in the process of separating children from their parents,” the airline said in a statement at the time.

Southwest did not respond to requests for comment on Rojas’s arrest or its current policy regarding cooperation with immigration enforcement. 

The Transportation Safety Administration does share traveler information with ICE. Both agencies are under the Department of Homeland Security.

Rojas’ friends and family, meanwhile, are working with an attorney to ensure her safety and right to due process.

“I care for her like she is my daughter,” said Lauren Cahr, the mother for whom Rojas worked as an au pair. “She is a part of my family. She has never hurt anyone and just lives a quiet life. She came here legally and tried to do everything right.”

The post ‘She followed the rules,’ says lawyer for woman arrested by ICE at Denver International appeared first on San Francisco Bay View.

VIDEO GRAPHIC: ‘Gaza Has Ignited a Revolution’_ Albanese Addresses Anti-Zionist Jewish Congress – Palestine Chronicle link to YouTube 062626

by Romana Rubeo  

Addressing the Second Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress, Francesca Albanese argued that Palestine has exposed the world’s failures while inspiring global resistance. Watch the livestream on YouTube here.

Dublin – Addressing the Second Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress via video link from Palermo on June 26, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese argued that the genocide in Gaza has evolved into far more than Israel’s war against the Palestinian people. 

Instead, she said, it has become the clearest expression of a global political and ideological system that has normalized Palestinian dispossession while exposing the failures of international law, democratic institutions and the post-war international order itself.

The destruction of Palestinians

Describing Palestine as both “a revealer” and “a mirror,” Albanese urged participants to view the current moment not only through the lens of Israel’s actions but through the responses — or silence — of governments, institutions and societies across the world.

“We are now in the third year of the genocide,” Albanese said, arguing that the violence imposed on Palestinians could no longer be understood as the responsibility of Israel alone. 

Today, she contended, Israel operates with the ideological, political and military support of a broad international network that extends well beyond its traditional Western allies.

“There is hardly a corner of the world untouched by Zionism as a political ideology,” she said, pointing to the role played not only by Western governments and private institutions but also by several Arab states and religious organizations that have helped normalize and disseminate the ideology internationally.

While acknowledging that Zionism has carried different meanings throughout its history, Albanese argued that its contemporary political expression had become inseparable from the ongoing destruction of Palestinian life.

“I think we should all be able to agree on one point,” she said. “Today, more than ever, Zionism has become predicated upon the destruction of the Palestinian people and the seizure of what little remains of their homeland.”

For Albanese, the consequences extend well beyond Palestine itself. Zionism, she argued, has evolved into an ideology that increasingly destabilizes the broader region.

“Today, Zionism is no longer only about the destruction of Palestinians,” she said. “It has become an ideology contributing to the destruction of entire societies across West Asia.”

Palestine as the world’s mirror

Throughout her address, Albanese returned repeatedly to the idea that Palestine has fundamentally altered how the world understands itself.

“Palestine has become a revealer,” she said before listing what the Palestinian struggle has exposed: “the Nakba … the colonial nature of the Zionist project … apartheid … and genocide — which is still ongoing.”

Yet Palestine, she argued, has not merely revealed the structures underpinning Israeli policies. It has also become “a mirror,” reflecting the moral choices made by individuals, governments and international institutions.

“I have often said that Palestine has also become a mirror,” Albanese explained, “a mirror reflecting who we are — as individuals, as societies and as states.”

Drawing one of the speech’s most striking historical parallels, Albanese argued that comparisons with the Holocaust should not be understood as competitions over suffering but as a way of understanding how atrocities become internationalized through the participation — or acquiescence — of others.

“There is one comparison with the Holocaust that I believe can and must be made,” she said. “This genocide, like the Holocaust, possesses a transnational dimension. It is sustained not only by those who commit it directly but also by those who enable it.”

For Albanese, the tragedy of Gaza lies not only in the crimes themselves but in the fact that they are unfolding within an international legal system specifically designed to prevent such atrocities.

Instead of preventing genocide, she argued, many governments have chosen to facilitate it by rendering Palestinians invisible while normalizing their dehumanization.

Yet even amid that failure, Albanese insisted that Palestine has generated an unprecedented political awakening.

“A minority of humanity now sees what many others still refuse — or are unable — to see,” she said before rejecting the idea that meaningful political change requires majority support.

“Revolutions are never made by majorities,” Albanese argued. “They are usually made by 10 percent of society.”

Looking at the global solidarity movement that has emerged over the past two years, she concluded: “Today, we are more than 10 percent.”

For that reason, she said, “Palestine has ignited a global revolution.”

From international law to political action

While much of Albanese’s work has centered on international law, she cautioned against viewing legal mechanisms as sufficient on their own.

“International law provides us with a roadmap,” she said, emphasizing that it clearly requires Israel to end its occupation, dismantle apartheid, halt the genocide and hold accountable not only those directly responsible for these crimes but also those who have profited from them.

Yet law without ethics, she warned, remains powerless.

“Without ethics, it becomes powerless,” Albanese said, pointing to the growing gap between overwhelming legal evidence and the unwillingness of many governments to act.

That disconnect, she argued, explains why civil society has become indispensable in enforcing international norms that political leaders refuse to uphold.

For Albanese, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement represents one of the clearest examples of that principle in practice.

Rather than viewing BDS simply as a protest campaign, she described it as “a practical method for implementing international law through collective action” and “an expression of integrity.”

Her own work, she explained, has focused primarily on accountability, insisting that those responsible for crimes against Palestinians — as well as those enabling them — must ultimately face justice.

“The violations themselves must end,” she said, adding that the increasing attacks on investigators, judges, prosecutors and human rights defenders demonstrate how threatening accountability has become to those invested in maintaining impunity.

But Albanese also urged supporters of Palestine to engage more directly with electoral politics.

“For many, politics has become a business,” she observed. “For honest people, politics is a sacrifice.”

“We must reclaim it,” she continued. “We must restore democracy to its true purpose.”

At the same time, she warned against what she called “political purism,” arguing that movements often waste energy speaking only to those who already agree with them.

“We need to abandon political purism,” Albanese said. “Too often we speak only to those who already agree with us.”

Instead, she urged activists to reach those who remain undecided because “if they cannot see Palestine, they cannot act in its defense.”

As her remarks drew to a close, Albanese rejected the widespread feeling that public mobilization has failed to produce meaningful change.

Many people, she acknowledged, ask whether years of demonstrations have accomplished anything.

Her answer was unequivocal.

“If nothing were changing, there would not be so much repression,” Albanese said, arguing that the growing criminalization of activists, investigators and international legal institutions reflects precisely the effectiveness of the solidarity movement.

“Our pressure works,” she said. “It makes governments uncomfortable. It makes those profiting from genocide nervous.”

Concluding on a personal note, Albanese thanked anti-Zionist Israeli activist Ronnie Barkan for his persistence in ensuring she could participate remotely despite numerous obstacles.

“If everyone in this room possessed the perseverance that Ronnie Barkan showed in making sure I could participate in this Congress,” she said with a smile, “Palestine would already be free.”

“So be like Ronnie,” Albanese concluded. “Persevere.”

Romana Rubeo is an Italian writer and the managing editor of The Palestine Chronicle. Her articles have appeared in many online newspapers and academic journals. She holds a Master’s Degree in Foreign Languages and Literature and specializes in audio-visual and journalism translation.

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by Donald ‘C-Note’ Hooker

In April, a California Parole Board panel recognized no crime occurred in finding me, Donald “C-Note” Hooker, the Black August Artist, suitable for parole. “Commissioner Nwajei and I both find it very plausible that this crime did not happen,” stated Parole Board Commissioner Neil Schneider. “That does pose a question for any panel. If the panel finds it’s plausible, like you said, ‘Then why, why am I here in prison?’” 

I had submitted “MY LIFE CRIME as the original LAPD Rampart corruption whistleblower” as a means to confront and expose the Los Angeles County District Attorney (LACDA) for sitting on exculpatory evidence of my innocence for years. An attorney representing the LACDA was at this Parole Board hearing. Twenty years earlier, former federal Public Defender Ronald O. Kaye wrote to me, saying, “Your claims are very compelling. It appears that you have some solid evidence to challenge your prosecution – keep on fighting.” 

Black August began in 1979, by San Quentin prisoners as a month-long memorial to commemorate the lives lost in the struggle for prison reform, most notably, the August deaths of George and Jonathan Jackson. Nearly 50 years later, its practices of fasting, studying, activism and reflection have become internationally observed. Others have expanded this month-long reflective commemoration to observe other August events, such as the Haitian Revolution and the Watts and Nat Turner rebellions. 

“The Black August Artist,” so named after my self-portrait work of the same title, was a work inspired by the iconography of Emory Douglas, the Minister of Culture for the Black Panthers. As the world’s most prolific prison artist, I prominently feature women in my work, as all the prison reform energy is geared towards the men and not women prisoners. This artistic sentiment is strongly reflected in my first political work, “Black August – Los Angeles,” a work featured in the Wikipedia article, “Black August (commemoration).” I define the goal of the campaign this way: As Black August nears, and you need to tell a Black August story, tell this story. And when I come home in August, and you’re doing a Black August event, allow me to speak at your event. 

Note: C-Note enlisted many well known fellow prisoners and prisoner supporters in his fight for freedom. Mumia Abu-Jamal recorded a 15-minute video. Following is a report by Ricardo Alvarez of the organization P.E.A.C.E. (Parole Elder Abuse Concerns Everyone). Thanks to Minister King X for passing it along.

How C-Note won his freedom

We are awaiting the imminent liberation of Donald C-Note Hooker, who won his historic April 15th Parole Board hearings entirely on his terms: C-Note Challenges to the CA Parole Board. 

Allow me to share some reflections regarding the importance of holding the parole board accountable. We are in the process of recording this victory on the P.E.A.C.E website. 

Consider C-Note’s preparation for the Parole Board process:

• He refused to be seen by the Parole Board until they recognized that he was a non-violent Black elder who insisted that he will not engage in any demands for remorse as his claims of innocence have never wavered.
• He asserted that he had no intention of engaging in prison validated rehab programs as his life accomplishments stood on their own merits,
• He asserted that the parole boards were legally required to see him as eligible for “presumptive release” should be the standard of the proceedings and any action or statement that was prejudicial to his freedom would be scrutinized and held to the highest standard of legal and professional review.
• He coordinated communication through me as a 30-year trauma-informed physician the notification that he or I would be submitting a claim to the California Board of Psychology regarding the behavior of one Parole Board member and board certified psychologist who used language to suggest C-Note had “tangential thoughts” and “pressured speech” which is absolutely contraindicated by transcripts and witnesses.
• He is the first prisoner in the US known to commit a hunger strike exclusively for parole justice.
• He openly challenged the dangerous use of “confidential memos,” which are used against a prisoner’s release but are not subjected to a prisoner’s direct review,
• He specifically noted the perjury that resulted when the complicit and corrupt arresting sargeant denied under oath ever being investigated or interviewed and the LA DA Investigation Division stated under oath that he was investigated and interviewed. 
• C-Note made clear to the Parole Board that documented evidence of a bad case against him by the LA DA office, which was summarized in “My Life Crime” and which explicitly notes their legal and ethical responsibility to release him.

Consider the Parole Board outcome:

• C-Note was granted recommendation for freedom and will be free about 120 days from April 15th.
• The Parole Board recognized the legitimacy of his lifework as evidence of rehab. 
• The Parole Board explicitly states that they were required to honor all the court decisions before them but noted all the irregularities in the reporting and the deep discrepancies in the veracity of the case and stated that his innocence was “highly plausible.”
• The confidential memo was removed from consideration in his hearing as he made clear that he would engage legal counsel to examine the complete failure of the CDCr to take appropriate steps to protect other prisoners or investigate a plausible threat of harm.
• A representative of the LA DA dared to stand before the court and acknowledge that she did not read the entire case but stood against his freedom. C-Note has already sent a complaint to the California Bar Association for this behavior.

Send our brother C-Note some love and light – and congratulations: Donald “C-Note” Hooker, K94063, A2-150, P.O. Box 4430, Lancaster CA 93539.

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by JR Valrey, the People’s Minister of Information

Scid “Trap Nature” Howard is one of the jewels from Oakland when it comes to teaching Black people in the Bay and beyond about nature. As a child, he was an explorer who realized that he had the uncanny gift of being able to feel comfortable with and communicate with nature. After traveling the outbacks of the Bay Area and beyond, he now is on a trek to educate others “in the trap,” aka the hood, about what he has soaked up and learned from his stoop in Oakland, California.

JR Valrey: What is Trap Nature? Why did you name it that? And how did it start?

Scid “Trap Nature” Howard: Trap Nature is a nature-branded business surrounding nature and wildlife topics from a hood perspective. That includes education and experience.

JR Valrey: What interested you most about nature growing up?

Scid “Trap Nature” Howard: It was a passion that I always had. I just got distracted like so many others due to the lack of availability. That was really all I wanted to do as a child. Now that I’m older, I take full advantage.

JR Valrey: Where have you been in the wilderness of the Bay Area?

Scid “Trap Nature” Howard: Everywhere in almost every Bay Area city and county.

JR Valrey: Where have you hiked and camped outside of the Bay Area?

Scid “Trap Nature” Howard: Mount Shasta was my favorite, but I’ve been to different states as well. I’ve been to Arkansas documenting water moccasins. I’ve been to Texas catching speckled kingsnakes. I’ve been to a lot of places looking for wildlife, and that’s what I love about this. I can travel almost anywhere and do what I do.

JR Valrey: What kinds of animals have you encountered on your excursions? Which animals have you interacted with?

Scid “Trap Nature” Howard: I’ve damn near seen it all. Mountain lions, wolves, bobcats, badgers, tarantulas to countless reptiles and amphibians. I’ve encountered many, but my favorite is rattlesnakes. I’ve been interacting with and studying their behavior for over 15 years now. I also like to educate people about my findings because I feel they are very misunderstood animals.

JR Valrey: Can you explain why you feel comfortable interacting with wild wolves, snakes, etc.?

Scid “Trap Nature” Howard: Because everything is always about energy, understanding and, of course, knowing what you are doing. What I do is not for everyone, but there are some people out here who just have a certain gift with wildlife or even domesticated animals. I also have a gift with training strong-breed dogs. It takes a lot of energy and understanding to train certain breeds of dogs. When I had my wolf experience, that was when I realized how similar they behave to dogs.

JR Valrey: Who is your target audience with Trap Nature?

Scid “Trap Nature” Howard: Those who don’t have access to knowledge when it comes to the science of nature. I feel it’s important that everyone knows their roles in nature because ignorance can have negative impacts. I also highlight how we can be positive impacts just by becoming connected.

JR Valrey: How could people book you for speaking engagements or hiking tours?

Scid “Trap Nature” Howard: I have a website www.OfficialTrapNature.com and follow me on instagram @officialtrapnature

SF Bay View Editor-in-Chief JR Valrey is a veteran journalist who can be heard weekly on Wednesdays on 89.5FM KPOO or KPOO.com from noon to 3 p.m. His work can also be heard on www.blockreportradioworld.com. You can reach him at JR@sfbayview.com

The post Trap Nature: Oakland edition appeared first on San Francisco Bay View.

by Shaun King

America should not host the World Cup while banning the world

A man earned his way to the World Cup.

Not through favoritism. Not through politics. Not through privilege. He earned it through excellence, discipline, reputation and years of work in one of the most demanding jobs in global sports.

Then the United States blocked him at the border.

That is what happened to Omar Abdulkadir Artan, one of Africa’s top soccer referees, a Somali official selected to work at the 2026 FIFA World Cup. And it is completely, utterly shameful.

Family, this is exactly why independent journalism matters. Corporate media will often describe moments like this with the cold language of “visa complications” and “vetting concerns,” as if a man’s life, career, dignity and nation were not just humiliated in public.

According to Al Jazeera, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that Artan was denied entry after arriving in South Florida. A DHS spokesperson said he was “determined to be inadmissible due to vetting concerns,” but provided no public details explaining what those concerns actually were.

According to Reuters, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said a Somali national arrived at Miami International Airport from Istanbul, underwent additional inspection, and was deemed inadmissible. Reuters also reported that Artan had a valid visa, according to media reports. Al Jazeera made the same basic point in another way: The fact that he arrived in the United States suggests he had already been granted permission to travel.

Now, to be clear, a visa does not automatically guarantee admission into the United States. Customs officials can still deny entry at the port of arrival. But that legal technicality does not make this morally acceptable. It does not make it fair. It does not make it less ugly. And it certainly does not erase the obvious context: Omar Artan is Somali, and Somalia is on Donald Trump’s travel ban list.

The White House proclamation itself lists Somalia among the countries whose nationals face full entry restrictions. The government can wrap that policy in all the sterile national security language it wants, but what it produced here was a global humiliation of a man who had already been selected by the world governing body of soccer to help officiate the world’s biggest tournament.

And let’s not pretend this was some random local referee with a thin résumé.

According to Reuters, Artan was named Best Male Referee for 2025 by the Confederation of African Football, the governing body for soccer across Africa. According to The Guardian, he has been a FIFA referee since 2018, officiated at the Africa Cup of Nations, and was set to become the first Somali official ever to work a World Cup.

That is not a small thing.

The Africa Cup of Nations is one of the most important international tournaments in the world. The Confederation of African Football Champions League is the premier club competition on the African continent. FIFA, the world governing body for soccer, does not select referees for the World Cup as a courtesy. These are elite appointments. They are earned.

Artan earned his place.

America took it from him.

And what makes this even more enraging is the dignity of his response. Reuters reported that Artan thanked FIFA and the Confederation of African Football for their support and said, “I promise to keep my refereeing levels up.” That is a man refusing to be broken by a government that treated him as disposable.

But we should not allow his grace to soften our outrage.

Because this is not just about one referee. It is about the hypocrisy of the entire tournament.

FIFA has spent years branding soccer as a force for unity. Its own campaign, “Football Unites the World,” says the game brings people together “all over the world.” FIFA’s “Unite for Inclusion” campaign says “football is for everyone” and commits to fighting discrimination at all levels.

Beautiful words.

But what do those words mean when one of the best referees in Africa can be selected for the World Cup, fly to the host country, and be turned away because he comes from a banned nation?

What does “football unites the world” mean if the host country gets to decide that some of the world is not welcome?

What does “football is for everyone” mean if “everyone” does not include a Somali Muslim referee who earned his place on the field?

This is where FIFA’s cowardice matters. According to The Guardian, FIFA confirmed Artan “will be unable to train and officiate” at the World Cup and said it was not involved in host country immigration processes. In plain English, FIFA is saying: this is not our problem.

But it is their problem.

If FIFA awards the World Cup to a country whose government can block qualified officials from participating because of nationality, religion, race or origin, then FIFA cannot hide behind paperwork. FIFA chose the host. FIFA accepted the risk. FIFA made the deal. FIFA gets the money, the prestige, the broadcast revenue, the corporate sponsors, and the global stage. It does not also get to wash its hands when the host country humiliates a referee who belongs at the tournament.

That is not neutrality.

That is cowardice.

And the problem is already bigger than Omar Artan. The Guardian reported that the 2026 World Cup has been caught up in Trump’s aggressive border restrictions, with visa and entry problems affecting Artan, Iranian team officials and staff, an Iraqi player and team photographer, a Swiss player, and even some Scottish fans.

That is the bigger scandal.

The United States wants the honor of hosting the world while building systems to exclude the world. It wants the ceremony, the flags, the anthems, the tourism, the revenue, the stadiums, the television spectacle, and the global prestige. But when people from certain countries actually arrive, suddenly they are treated like threats.

This is not the spirit of the World Cup.

It is the betrayal of it.

The World Cup is supposed to be one of the few places where the whole world is visible at once. Rich nations and poor nations. Powerful nations and occupied nations. Nations that are celebrated and nations that are constantly stereotyped. Players, referees, coaches, journalists, workers, and fans from every corner of the earth come together around the same game. That is the point.

And yet here we are, watching the United States tell one of the best referees in the world that his excellence still was not enough to overcome his nationality.

That is the message.

You can be one of the best in Africa.

You can be selected by FIFA.

You can have the credentials.

You can have the visa.

You can have the spotless public record.

You can have the honor of representing your people on a stage they have never reached before.

And still, at the border, America can look at your passport and say no.

One of the things Islam teaches, and something I want my non-Muslim readers to understand, is that human beings are not honored or disgraced by nationality, tribe, race or passport. In the Qur’an, Allah teaches that humanity was made into nations and tribes so that we may know one another, not despise one another. The verse says the most honored people are not those with the most powerful country, but those with the most righteousness and consciousness of God. You can read that teaching in Qur’an 49:13.

That moral teaching is directly relevant here.

Because the United States did not treat Omar Artan like a man to be known. It treated him like a category. Somali. Banned nation. Vetting concern. Inadmissible.

That is how discrimination often works. It turns a full human being into a label, then punishes him for the label.

And that is why this story is so infuriating. Not because soccer is more important than life and death. It is not. But because sports often reveal the truth about the societies that host them. The World Cup is supposed to be a mirror of global possibility. Here, it is becoming a mirror of American exclusion.

Omar Artan should be preparing to officiate at the World Cup.

He should be walking onto the field as the first Somali referee ever to do so.

He should be a source of pride for Somalia, for Africa, for Muslims, and for every person who believes merit should matter more than bigotry.

Instead, he was turned away in Miami.

And FIFA shrugged.

No. That is not good enough.

If the United States cannot welcome the world, it should not host the world. If FIFA cannot protect qualified participants from discriminatory exclusion, it should stop pretending its slogans mean anything. And if “Football Unites the World” is going to be more than a marketing campaign, then FIFA must act like the world actually includes Somalia.

Because Omar Artan did not fail the World Cup.

The World Cup failed him.

And so did America.

This story first appeared on The North Star with Shaun King. 

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by JR Valrey, The People’s Minister of Information

Mindfulness, exercising and wellness are three major pillars to practicing preventative medicine. In a society where almost everything is poison, and pharmaceutical drugs are seen as the panacea for every ailment, we are encouraging our people to live and heal in the most holistic ways possible. 

This summer we want to teach and remind our readers to be conscious of their overall health on a regular basis, because health is wealth. We talked with yoga instructor CJ Spears about her philosophy, practices and the classes that she offers. She is a young Black woman who is selflessly teaching others how to deal with this highly stressful environment known as Black life in Amerikkka, in a constructive way. 

JR Valrey: What is yoga? Can you talk a little bit about its history?

CJ Spears: Yoga is an ancient practice of presence. It is so much more than just stretching; it is also being honest with yourself and others. It is body listening and mind opening and everlasting equanimity in the palm of your hand. It is a process meant to enlighten our spirit as it journeys through this human experience. Yoga practices have been traced back to India and Egypt over 5,000 years ago. Ancestors whose names we may never know sat in the same postures to maintain their connection to the Earth and each other. How beautiful is that?

JR Valrey: When and how did you become interested in yoga?

CJ Spears: I have always experienced huge emotions. I was the crybaby of the family, who could break down in tears just from watching someone die in a movie. Around the age of 14, I started reading buddhist literature and learned that meditation can help us to learn from our emotions and accept them, without allowing them to control my mind. That helped me a lot through high school, and I continued practicing yoga/meditation off and on throughout college. Detox yoga especially. I graduated in the pandemic, on zoom, and my yoga mat was the only place where I truly felt peace during that time in my life. I wanted desperately to be able to carry that peace off the mat and into the rest of my life. So I began my 200-hour yoga teacher training!

JR Valrey: What was the process from you becoming a practitioner to a yoga teacher like?

CJ Spears: Shifting from practitioner to teacher felt like breaking out of a cocoon. For years, this practice had held me together in the moments when I most felt like falling apart. My first year of teaching I did my best to offer the wisdom and subtle movements that I gained through a deeply personal, darkened transformation. I connected with my community in a new way, as I learned that care can look like sitting with someone as they feel their feelings.

JR Valrey: Why do you include journaling in your yoga classes? What is the connection between yoga and journaling?

CJ Spears: I love writing; it is a form of therapy for me. Combining yoga with journaling prompts based on the themes of the class really helps students to archive their healing and reflect on their inner environment. Yoga helps us move out of our thinking minds and into our feeling bodies. That is the perfect place to journal from, because the words that flow out of your pen are connected to your soul rather than your ego. 

I have a few essays about this on Substack (@cjamswriting) called, “Poetry Is Really Just Yoga for Words” and “Handwriting Is Sacred.” You can check them out to learn more.

JR Valrey: What are some of the physical and psychological benefits of yoga?

CJ Spears: There are countless benefits, so I’ll just share my favorite three. First, yoga expands the space between life’s events and your responses to them. Second, you are able to relax your fascia and release emotions stuck in the body. And last but definitely not least, yoga is a practice of pure liberation for all beings on earth. It radicalizes you by grounding you in unconditional awareness.

JR Valrey: Where will you be offering classes in July and August?

CJ Spears: In June, I have five beautiful events in Oakland. They all will incorporate some aspect of journaling and restorative yoga.

The first two are FREE: 

Yoga & Journaling at the Lake with Marley’s Mangoes and Lvrgrlsocial (Saturday, June 13, at 10 a.m.); West Oakland Library Friends Community Seated Yoga (June 13 from 12-4 p.m.)

The last three events are hosted at Black- and Indigenous-owned spaces; refreshments and mats provided if needed:

Flow & Write Through It at Obsidian Healing Camp (Journaling and Yoga, June 24 at 7 p.m.)

Slow down Saturday: Sade Yoga and Journaling at Choc’late Mama Boutique in Emeryville (June 27 at 6 p.m.) Lunar Healing Circle (June 29 at 7 p.m.)

JR Valrey: How could people participate if they are interested? How could people stay up to date with your class schedule? 

CJ Spears: RSVP for any of these events to participate; all body types and levels are welcome! You can connect with me on Instagram (@cjamswriting) for updates on events or email me cjamswriting3@gmail.com if you would like me at your next event or a 1:1 session!

SF Bay View Editor-in-Chief JR Valrey is a veteran journalist who can be heard weekly on Wednesdays on 89.5FM KPOO or KPOO.com from noon to 3 p.m. His work can also be heard on www.blockreportradioworld.com. 

The post Stretch out your issues appeared first on San Francisco Bay View.

Editor in Chief JR Valrey, Manager of Production Leah Harmony and Managing Editor Tabari Morris are guiding the Bay View into its 50th anniversary year with a shared commitment to Black community journalism, strong production and truthful storytelling.

by Tabari Morris

As SF Bay View moves into its 50th anniversary year, a new editorial team is stepping forward to help lead one of the Bay’s longest-running Black newspapers into its next chapter. Editor in Chief JR Valrey, Production Manager Leah Harmony and Managing Editor Tabari Morris bring different life experiences, different professional tools and one shared commitment: accountability to Black community, political clarity and journalism that speaks from the ground up, not down from above.

That matters because the Bay View is not just another newspaper. It is a Black community institution shaped by struggle, survival and the insistence that people on the front lines of injustice must be able to tell their own stories. As corporate media continues to narrate Black lives into crime blurbs, soundbites and stereotypes, the Bay View’s role has remained rooted in movement journalism, neighborhood memory and direct contact with the people it serves.

Valrey’s history with the Bay View helps explain that continuity. Over 26 years with the paper, he has served as a writer, associate editor, Oakland Bureau Chief, distribution manager, founder of the Mumia Abu Jamal Journalism Program for Black writers, and Editor in Chief before stepping back into the role again. He says it is “an honor to hold this position during the 50th anniversary of such a prestigious Black/Pan African newspaper with a local, national and international scope,” and he places the Bay View in the lineage of revolutionary Black journalism that refuses to answer first to advertisers, political officials or the white power structure.

For Valrey, the mission is historical and urgent at the same time. He has described the Bay View as “the literary descendant of The Black Panther newspaper,” and says the paper exists to keep “revolutionary community journalism alive.” He also argues that every issue should carry stories that mainstream media has failed to cover, because the Bay View is a platform where Black people can speak for themselves “uncensored,” from Hunters Point to Oakland to liberation struggles abroad.

Harmony brings a different but equally necessary background to the editorial team. She grew up from birth to age 12 at Haight and Ashbury, the daughter of a mother from upstate New York and a father from Philadelphia who came west with the spirit of music, freedom and movement politics that shaped the Bay Area in the late 1960s and beyond. She later lived in Berkeley, Oakland, Los Angeles and Hunters Point, and says that while she claims Oakland, “my heart can be found in San Francisco.”

Her family history also helps explain the politics and emotional texture she brings to the work. She describes her mother as a writer and copy editor with “zero tolerance for war, racism, and the evils of capitalism,” and her father as a guitarist shaped by the Summer of Love, antiwar culture and a belief that “women were people, perhaps better people than men, & love, damn it, was free.” That inheritance of music, writing, honesty and resistance runs through the way she talks about media, community and truth.

Harmony’s career in media began, by her own telling, when she read her husband’s record contract and saw how badly the system exploited artists. That moment pushed her into advocacy and entertainment work, beginning at HITS magazine and then at Edmonds Entertainment, where she moved from assistant to executive in four years and built experience across both the business and creative sides of production. She later produced and commissioned music videos for major labels and artists including Island Def Jam, Sony Music, Atlantic Records, Rihanna, Drake, Usher, JLo and Shakira, while also writing, supporting nonprofit campaigns and developing projects rooted in environmental justice, voter awareness and media accountability.

That is part of why Harmony approaches the Bay View as more than a production job. “A producer is someone who makes things happen,” she said in an earlier response, describing a role that includes story flow, visuals, deadlines and the thousands of details that make a paper worth printing. She has also said the Bay View matters because it proves “free speech, free thought and truthful media can exist, and be supported,” and because bringing “a voice and a face to Black media” can build readership, community and trust for the next generation.

Morris brings equally deep San Francisco roots and a community-grounded editorial sensibility. His grandmother was principal of George Washington Carver Elementary School. His great-aunt owned the Jazz Room on Third Street. Childhood memories of being in those neighborhood spaces, getting haircuts nearby and moving through the city with family are part of why, as he puts it, “my heart and soul is in San Francisco.” Those roots shape his belief that people are products of the same systems they are trying to survive, and that journalism has to listen for what is being said and what is not being said.

His path into the work came through an inquisitive childhood, formal journalism study and community-based health training, not elite institutions. Morris says he became frustrated watching people try to tell their stories only to be reduced to soundbites that fit somebody else’s narrative. He says his job as an editor is to be “facts driven,” to “research the researcher’s research” and validate “the source’s sources,” while making sure Bay View readers do not need a college degree to understand what is happening around them.

That outlook is strengthened by his Community Health Worker certification, and his ongoing Community Mental Health Worker training. He says those experiences help him communicate “so we can be talked to, and not at,” and bring cultural humility to reporting on health and mental health in Black communities.In a city where Black communities are overstudied, underserved and too often spoken about as problems instead of people, that kind of training sharpens the Bay View’s ability to report with accuracy, empathy and usefulness.

Together, the three editors offer more than a reshuffled masthead. They reflect three linked traditions inside Black media: movement journalism, cultural production and neighborhood truth-telling. Valrey’s role is to hold the political line and keep the paper accountable to the struggles that gave it life. Harmony’s role is to make the work sing on the page and beyond it, using images, design, production discipline and wider media forms to expand the paper’s reach. Morris’ role is to help turn all of that into a steady editorial practice grounded in facts, local knowledge, health literacy and community trust.

They also share a belief that the Bay View must evolve without losing itself. Valrey says the paper must become more of a multimedia organization as the digital age changes how people receive information. Harmony wants to restore sections lost over the years, expand coverage in health and technology, and continue building across podcasts, web work and visual storytelling. Morris sees digital publishing and video as tools that let readers not only read the news but “see and hear from the people that we’ve only been writing about and through.”

The political throughline is accountability. Valrey says that means being “accountable to our community first unlike other media organizations who are first responsive to their advertisers and political officials.” Harmony says accountability means showing up, correcting errors and staying connected enough to earn trust. Morris says the truth “has no adversaries,” and that the Bay View must use its platform to “inform, educate, advocate, demonstrate and show our people how we truly are instead of what’s being shown as ‘black culture.’”

As the Bay View heads toward its 50th anniversary, our editorial team is presenting a clear message to readers: the legacy is intact, the bench is deeper, and the paper is preparing to grow. With Valrey’s long institutional memory, Harmony’s production and creative range, and Morris’ San Francisco grounding and community-centered editorial approach, the Bay View is not stepping away from what made it matter. It is getting sharper about how to carry that mission forward.

SF Bay View Managing Editor Tabari Morris can be reached at tabari@sfbayview.com. 

Three voices, one band, one sound: SF Bay View’s new editorial team for the next 50 years

The post Three voices, one band, one sound: SF Bay View’s new editorial team for the next 50 years appeared first on San Francisco Bay View.

A culturally relevant space for children ages 0–5 in Oakland

by JR Valrey, The People’s Minister of Information

The late, great, legendary songstress Whitney Houston once sang, “The children are our future[ teach them well, and let them lead the way…” The words were sung majestically, but more importantly they are chillingly true. I’ve shortened what I took from the message of the song, which is that you only get out of a child what has been put into them.

Afro-Play is an organized play space dedicated to the development of Black children from ages 0–5 years old that occurs in East and West Oakland on a regular basis. I grew up with the co-founding director Ellen Hamilton, who was always artistically inclined and driven, and years later I found out about her work from a younger cousin with a daughter, who raved to me that her daughter was attending a phenomenal youth program. It just so happened that it was Afro-Play, and I later found out, upon further research, it was founded by Ellen Hamilton and her partner Ajhana DeRamous.

As a single father, who didn’t grow up with a father, had limited family support, and who helped to raise my children, I had a lot of unanswered questions about rearing them. Afro-Play is the kind of community of Black parents and children that I wish I’d had. Hopefully the parents of today can take advantage of the services of Afro-Play, as well as the knowledge of its co-founders, for the benefit of the children and community as a whole.

JR Valrey: What is Afro-Play? When did it start? Why?

Ellen Hamilton: Afro-Play is an affinity family playgroup for families with Black children ages birth to 5 years old. The best way to describe the setting of a “playgroup” is a space set up similarly to a preschool, with a short structured play-based schedule and where parents and caregivers are present to engage in activities alongside their child(ren). Next we have to further describe what a playgroup is, as some people are unfamiliar with the concept. Often people hear the term and assume it’s something that’s just for moms or just a “thing” for women to “sit around” while their children play. No, Afro-Play’s playgroups are not that at all. 

First, Afro-Play is not just for women. Parents, grandparents, caregivers and other family members of all genders are welcome. We are an intergenerational program. Second, Afro-Play’s playgroups are far more intentionally involved, designed to foster meaningful parent-child and community engagement. The experience goes far beyond simply supervising children at play. It’s a place where parents can build their village, find community and access essential community resources that support them in navigating parenthood. For example, various workshops, free diapers and wipes, or free produce and pantry items.

Afro-Play began in 2018 as a response to a community call. But before we get into that, it’s important to understand how we met and grew into our current roles as Afro-Play Oakland’s co-founding directors.

In 2016, we (Ellen Hamilton and Ajhana DeRamous) were participating in a multicultural playgroup at Allendale Elementary through Lotus Bloom in Oakland. I (Ellen) was attending with my third child and had been involved in multicultural playgroups within Lotus Bloom’s network for many years. Ajhana was attending with her first child, newly postpartum and new to both parenthood and playgroups. We each consistently attended the twice-weekly Allendale playgroup with our infants and toddlers, Aziyah and Ezra.

We were two of only a few Black families who regularly participated. Our children brought us together first. As two of the few consistent Black children in the group, they naturally gravitated toward one another and became friends. Their friendship organically introduced us as mothers and moved us beyond the familiar cultural head nod we’d exchanged as the only other Black (and “Oakland-Bay Area” Black) person in the room.

About a year later, we were both invited by staff to become “Parent Leaders,” assisting with tasks such as preparing snacks, welcoming new families, and helping families feel connected. Those responsibilities gradually expanded to leading art activities, reading stories, facilitating songs during circle time, and eventually serving as lead support for Black History Month programming, which was something new for that program to implement. That became one of our proudest accomplishments and made a lasting impact.

That’s where the magic between us as co-leaders began. What started as volunteer leadership evolved into something much more impactful. Although we were in a multicultural setting, Afro-culture often had little to no representation. Too often, Black culture gets lost in the multicultural mix. For example, Lunar New Year might be acknowledged in February while Black History Month gets overlooked, or Christmas and Hanukkah are celebrated in December while Kwanzaa went unrecognized.

In our experience, Black people need to be present in these spaces to authentically implement and share our culture. Otherwise, there is often no representation at all, or a version that lacks depth and impact. At the time (2016–2017), and historically, across many community play spaces, there was very little consistent Black family participation. Playgroups were not a familiar concept within Black culture, so Black cultural presence was often absent. As a result, Black parents who did attend frequently could feel isolated and disconnected from the play experience with their children.

From Parent Leaders, we became Substitute Playgroup Teachers, filling in at Lotus Bloom sites throughout Oakland, including Garfield Elementary, their main site in downtown, Allendale Elementary, and Room to Bloom. That brings us back to the community call mentioned earlier.

Staff at the Room to Bloom site approached us with an opportunity to lead a parent-driven project: creating an affinity group specifically for African American families. They had struggled to maintain consistent participation and wanted to increase awareness of playgroup services in the Castlemont neighborhood, a historically Black community in Deep East Oakland. The opportunity was to launch a nine-week pilot playgroup for Black families, funded by First 5 Alameda County, through Lotus Bloom. This opportunity also came as Ellen was beginning her fourth pregnancy.

On March 20, 2018, Afro-Play debuted and the community showed up and kept coming! Every week we reached capacity. Our success came from simply providing what had been missing: Black culture and a space where parents of Black children felt welcomed, connected, celebrated and supported with resources for their families, and led by Black parents.

Because of the pilot’s success, Lotus Bloom adopted the program “Afro-Play” under its fiscal sponsorship and added it to its regular rotation of weekly playgroups for the 2019–2020 year. Then the pandemic hit … and we had to figure out how to continue without gathering in person. We paused for about a month.

By then, we had already built a strong community of participating families. These were parents with young children who suddenly lost an important part of their routine. Families reached out just to say hello and let their children hear familiar voices. Others asked for ideas to help fill the long days at home. One parent texted, “I’m at home with a toddler and I don’t know what to do!” Another asked, “Can y’all just read an Afrocentric book online or something?”

That request sparked an idea. We realized we could stay connected through YouTube. We launched a channel and created Afro-Play Virtual Circles: weekly prerecorded videos featuring circle time songs, story reading, and art activities. We paired those videos with monthly art supply bags that families could pick up through drive-by distribution at Room to Bloom or at our booth during Black Cultural Zone’s Akoma Market. Each bag contained supplies for the month’s themed projects, helping families stay engaged and connected during a time when isolation was deeply felt.

During that same period, we formed Afro-Play Family Consulting as a General Partnership to support our growing work as other organizations and businesses began contracting our services. We sold Afro-Play Kwanzaa craft bags during the holiday season and Afro-Play Black Legacy Month craft bags, both equipped with a personalized link to demos for the curated bag of supplies. We continued adapting while navigating the uncertainty of statewide shelter-in-place and shutdown orders.

After a period of small outdoor gatherings, we fully returned to in-person programming for the 2021–2022 school year with our weekly East Oakland playgroups. Participation was vibrant. Families were excited to be together again. Some returned with new “pandemic babies,” including Ajhana, who was pregnant with her second child. Others joined us for the first time after only knowing Afro-Play through YouTube and social media. Our community continued to grow and thrive.

We maintained consistent programming in East Oakland and, in Fall 2023, expanded to West Oakland through a monthly Afro-Play pop-up at Mandela Family Resource Center through Lincoln Families. In 2024, Afro-Play Oakland officially became a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization.

JR Valrey: When and where exactly is Afro-Play?

Ellen Hamilton: Currently, Afro-Play operates out of two locations through community partnerships. Weekly on Tuesdays in East Oakland at Room to Bloom Family Resource Center and once a month in West Oakland at Mandela Family Resource Center. It is a value of ours to remain deeply rooted in East Oakland, where we began, and to one day be able to afford to operate out of our own storefront space as a community hub for Black families.

JR Valrey: What is the importance of playing?

Ellen Hamilton: Play is everything! What is life without play? What kind of life can someone have without a little imagination? Play is joy, and joy is a necessity in life.

We firmly believe that all children, especially Black children, deserve joyful play experiences. We can’t be serious all the time. Black people need more opportunities to play, exercise creativity, and simply enjoy being present in the moment. There is power in embracing the freedom of play, something many of our ancestors were not afforded. Black Joy is Revolutionary!

At Afro-Play, we encourage parents and caregivers to leave their Sunday best at home, get a little messy, be present, and fully engage in play alongside their children. It’s okay! In fact, many of our parent participants tell us they enjoy the program just as much as their children. Through sensory activities, dramatic make-believe play, hands-on art, interactive music, and movement, they often reconnect with parts of their own childhood that were limited by cultural expectations. 

We frequently hear familiar childhood stories about being told not to get dirty, mess up their clothes, or take up too much space. While often well-intentioned, those messages can create fear and anxiety where courage and confidence should be growing. Play encourages exploration, curiosity and discovery. The early years of childhood are often considered the “explorer years,” when children learn most by following their curiosity, whether that’s climbing a slide, mixing paint colors, building with blocks, or playing with someone new. Afro-Play creates an environment where families can play freely and without judgment. Get silly, get a little dirty, and keep exploring.

From a developmental perspective, play is essential in early childhood. It supports physical development by strengthening growing muscles, fine motor skills, and gross motor skills, while parent-engaged play helps build language/vocabulary, communication, and social-emotional skills.

A large part of our playgroup schedule is dedicated to “Free Play,” and it is exactly what it sounds like. We provide developmentally appropriate play stations for children and their parents or caregivers to explore at their own pace within a supportive community setting. During free play, children practice sharing, problem-solving, negotiation, communication, and emotional regulation. These are all foundational skills that infants and toddlers develop through social play experiences. Play is how children learn, how families connect, and how play-based communities like Afro-Play thrive.

JR Valrey: Who exactly is your target audience?

Ellen Hamilton: Our primary service population is Black children ages birth to 5 years old and their Black parents/caregivers. We also welcome parents and caregivers of Black children who may not identify as Black themselves; these can be biological, foster, and adoptive parents. 

Afro-Play is centered on the experiences and needs of Black children and families, so we ask all participants to be mindful of and respect the purpose of this sacred affinity space that we built with a lot of caution and care. While those parents are welcome to participate, some resources and discussions may be specifically intended for Black parents and caregivers.

JR Valrey: What is your biggest achievement with Afro-Play? Why?

Ellen Hamilton: Afro-Play Oakland is a two-time award-winning program.

Honorable Judge Benjamin Travis Community Service Award: Awarded by the Charles Houston Bar Association in December 2025.

“Congratulations! On behalf of the Charles Houston Bar Association (CHBA), the oldest association of Black judges, attorneys and law students in California, I am proud to inform you that after careful consideration of the meaningful and measurable difference Afro-Play Oakland has made in the lives of Oakland’s Black community by providing an affirming and supportive space for Black children and families, we have selected Afro-Play Oakland to receive CHBA’s most prestigious honor that we bestow on a community organization that has demonstrated a commitment to advocating for Black children and families, the Benjamin Travis Community Service Award, at CHBA’s 70th Annual Scholarship Awards Gala.” – Vincent L. Brown, (former) President

Community Award: Awarded by Our Family Coalition in May 2023.

“The work you did to identify a large gap for Black families in the Bay Area is remarkable. Your commitment to supporting the healthy social and emotional development of our Black youth is incredible and commendable. When others would shy away, feeling discouraged from the current state of anti-Blackness and the continued systematic oppression and dismantling of Black families, you two stood up to create an oasis of hope and transformation for our community. What’s more, your programming has also lifted and affirmed Black Queer families. Thank you for your partnership and tenacity. Your work truly raises awareness in bringing our families into greater public view and provides a role model of courage and commitment on what we can accomplish when we come together.” – Mimi Demissew, Our Family Coalition Executive Director

Receiving this level of recognition from two distinct organizations is especially meaningful because it affirms that Afro-Play’s impact is being felt far beyond our immediate community. While the gratitude and trust of the families we serve each week remains our greatest source of motivation, these honors validate the importance of creating spaces where Black children and families can thrive. They also reflect the growing reach of our work and the universal need for the affirming, community-centered programming that Afro-Play provides. Afro-Play is simply our heartwork, and that will forever be our greatest accomplishment.

JR Valrey: What has been your biggest struggle?

Ellen Hamilton: Our biggest challenge has been securing consistent, multi-year funding that would allow Afro-Play Oakland to expand our capacity and establish a permanent community space. While we’ve been fortunate to receive some grants and build strong partnerships with organizations and community members who believe in our work, the value of affinity spaces can sometimes be misunderstood. Some people view affinity groups as exclusionary or even racist, when in reality they exist to create belonging, healing and connection for communities that have historically been marginalized. Afro-Play is rooted in teaching self-love, cultural pride, and Harambee! A community that pulls together for Black children and families in a society that too often sends the opposite message. It’s difficult to fully capture that impact on paper. Afro-Play is something you have to experience. IYKYK! We remain confident that the right opportunities and resources will continue to find us as more people witness the transformative power of this work.

In that same spirit, we are encouraged by the growing support for Afro-Play. In March 2027, we will host our 3rd Annual Game Night in Red, Black, and Green fundraiser, bringing together public officials, community leaders and supporters who believe in our mission. This year’s event was a success and reinforced that people recognize the value of Afro-Play and want to help ensure it thrives for generations to come. We are excited to build on that momentum and believe next year’s fundraiser will be even more impactful.

JR Valrey: How can people keep up with Afro-Play? How can they contact you? 

Ellen Hamilton: Afro-Play is reachable through our website: www.AfroPlayOakland.org. That’s where we encourage people to sign up to receive our weekly newsletters if they want to keep up with Afro-Play’s programming or contact us for general inquiries or community partnership requests.

@AfroPlayOakland on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. Upcoming Afro-Play programming:

*End of July we will have Outdoor Summer Pop-Ups *Aug. 11 back to regular weekly playgroups in Oakland. Sign up to keep up and tell a friend to tell a friend

SF Bay View Editor-in-Chief JR Valrey is a veteran journalist who can be heard weekly on Wednesdays on 89.5FM KPOO or KPOO.com from noon to 3 p.m. His work can also be heard on www. blockreportradioworld.com.

The post Afro Play appeared first on San Francisco Bay View.

by JR Valrey, The People’s Minister of Information

Mindfulness, exercising and wellness are three major pillars to practicing preventative medicine. In a society where almost everything is poison, and pharmaceutical drugs are seen as the panacea for every ailment, we are encouraging our people to live and heal in the most holistic ways possible. 

This summer we want to teach and remind our readers to be conscious of their overall health on a regular basis, because health is wealth. We talked with yoga instructor CJ Spears about her philosophy, practices and the classes that she offers. She is a young Black woman who is selflessly teaching others how to deal with this highly stressful environment known as Black life in Amerikkka, in a constructive way. 

JR Valrey: What is yoga? Can you talk a little bit about its history?

CJ Spears: Yoga is an ancient practice of presence. It is so much more than just stretching; it is also being honest with yourself and others. It is body listening and mind opening and everlasting equanimity in the palm of your hand. It is a process meant to enlighten our spirit as it journeys through this human experience. Yoga practices have been traced back to India and Egypt over 5,000 years ago. Ancestors whose names we may never know sat in the same postures to maintain their connection to the Earth and each other. How beautiful is that?

JR Valrey: When and how did you become interested in yoga?

CJ Spears: I have always experienced huge emotions. I was the crybaby of the family, who could break down in tears just from watching someone die in a movie. Around the age of 14, I started reading buddhist literature and learned that meditation can help us to learn from our emotions and accept them, without allowing them to control my mind. That helped me a lot through high school, and I continued practicing yoga/meditation off and on throughout college. Detox yoga especially. I graduated in the pandemic, on zoom, and my yoga mat was the only place where I truly felt peace during that time in my life. I wanted desperately to be able to carry that peace off the mat and into the rest of my life. So I began my 200-hour yoga teacher training!

JR Valrey: What was the process from you becoming a practitioner to a yoga teacher like?

CJ Spears: Shifting from practitioner to teacher felt like breaking out of a cocoon. For years, this practice had held me together in the moments when I most felt like falling apart. My first year of teaching I did my best to offer the wisdom and subtle movements that I gained through a deeply personal, darkened transformation. I connected with my community in a new way, as I learned that care can look like sitting with someone as they feel their feelings.

JR Valrey: Why do you include journaling in your yoga classes? What is the connection between yoga and journaling?

CJ Spears: I love writing; it is a form of therapy for me. Combining yoga with journaling prompts based on the themes of the class really helps students to archive their healing and reflect on their inner environment. Yoga helps us move out of our thinking minds and into our feeling bodies. That is the perfect place to journal from, because the words that flow out of your pen are connected to your soul rather than your ego. 

I have a few essays about this on Substack (@cjamswriting) called, “Poetry Is Really Just Yoga for Words” and “Handwriting Is Sacred.” You can check them out to learn more.

JR Valrey: What are some of the physical and psychological benefits of yoga?

CJ Spears: There are countless benefits, so I’ll just share my favorite three. First, yoga expands the space between life’s events and your responses to them. Second, you are able to relax your fascia and release emotions stuck in the body. And last but definitely not least, yoga is a practice of pure liberation for all beings on earth. It radicalizes you by grounding you in unconditional awareness.

JR Valrey: Where will you be offering classes in July and August?

CJ Spears: In June, I have five beautiful events in Oakland. They all will incorporate some aspect of journaling and restorative yoga.

The first two are FREE: 

Yoga & Journaling at the Lake with Marley’s Mangoes and Lvrgrlsocial (Saturday, June 13, at 10 a.m.); West Oakland Library Friends Community Seated Yoga (June 13 from 12-4 p.m.)

The last three events are hosted at Black- and Indigenous-owned spaces; refreshments and mats provided if needed:

Flow & Write Through It at Obsidian Healing Camp (Journaling and Yoga, June 24 at 7 p.m.)

Slow down Saturday: Sade Yoga and Journaling at Choc’late Mama Boutique in Emeryville (June 27 at 6 p.m.) Lunar Healing Circle (June 29 at 7 p.m.)

JR Valrey: How could people participate if they are interested? How could people stay up to date with your class schedule? 

CJ Spears: RSVP for any of these events to participate; all body types and levels are welcome! You can connect with me on Instagram (@cjamswriting) for updates on events or email me cjamswriting3@gmail.com if you would like me at your next event or a 1:1 session!

SF Bay View Editor-in-Chief JR Valrey is a veteran journalist who can be heard weekly on Wednesdays on 89.5FM KPOO or KPOO.com from noon to 3 p.m. His work can also be heard on www.blockreportradioworld.com. 

The post Stretch out your issues appeared first on San Francisco Bay View.

by JR Valrey, Editor in Chief

Currently in the Bay Area, there is no other space that I have been to that can compare to Obsidian Healing Camp in West Oakland. It is one of those places where the words in this article can’t do it justice; they can’t truly describe what the creators and participants have been able to capture. Writers call it “capturing lightning in a bottle,” but in Obsidian Healing Camp’s case, their activities are culturally and spiritually in tune with nature and the natural order, rather than in line with Western science and pharmaceutical companies. 

There are different healing modalities taught by expert practitioners, such as yoga, writing, sound healing, sauna services, healing tea classes and more, that the public is invited to take part in to heal the mind, body and spirit, in a 420 cannabis friendly environment. Check out why the founders – Dre, Steven and Val of Obsidian Healing Camp  – created this place, and find out what goes on here. 

JR Valrey: What is Obsidian Healing Camp and how was it created?

Steven: Obsidian Healing Camp is a Black and Indigenous owned collective founded by Dre, Val and myself (Steven). We came together and had a vision to empower practitioners, healers, activists and other people in the community as a whole. As firm believers in the Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor, this is a way for us to help bring our community together and be a safe place in Oakland. After lots of planning, in 2024 Obsidian was cultivated as an alcohol and drug free space for the community to congregate and share healing works, knowledge, arts and music.

JR Valrey: Why did y’all decide to do it in Oakland?

Dre: Oakland has always represented a spirit of community organization and empowerment. Being from Oakland, it is a blessing to build a community center at home down the block from where the Black Panthers were founded, to show that it can be done and be a model for other communities; in showing the power we have in coming together.

JR Valrey: What does Obsidian Healing Camp offer?

Val:  We offer a wide variety of classes and activities such as

1. Yoga by CJ, Gibran and Barbara
2. Sound healing by Shantice
3. Body work and massage therapy by Sonia
4. Self defense by Leo
5. Tattoos by Tigre
6. Sewing classes by Chaz
7. Writing classes by CJ and Deli
8. Cypher by DJ Infinite Link 
9. Music lesson by Shefa
10. Dance classes by Roshonda

Check the calendar at Obsidianhealingcamp.org for updated times and dates.

JR Valrey: Besides classes, what are some of the other services that you offer the community?

Steven: Being over a quarter acre of space, we have lots of services that we offer to the community:

1. Movie nights by Salamander Productions
2. Sauna services by Sonia
3. Music studio by Josh Olds (RIP) and Alan
4. Gym
5. Library
6. Tea shop
7. Red market
8. Bike repair
9. Food bank
10. Meditation
11. Indigenous-led workshops

JR Valrey: How much do these classes and services cost? 

Dre: Most services and classes are free and we also allow community members to organize donation based classes and events. The membership here at Obsidian Healing Camp is also free, so with a gym, library and multiple lounge rooms on site, it’s a great tool available to the public. Tattoo services, sauna services, studio time, and certain workshops do cost as it pays the practitioners, artists and experts involved.

JR Valrey: What is the philosophy behind Obsidian Healing Camp?

Val: Everyone who is looking for a safe third space and likes being around art, plants and community is welcome. We believe in the Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor that calls for all people of the earth to come together in unity to heal each other and the planet. We have bredren and people from all walks of life here and we encourage that.

JR Valrey: What is Obsidian?

Steven: Obsidian is a valuable mineral in native communities that was traded between many tribes and symbolizes the connection between each other. Indigenous tribes often use camps to organize communities around a specific purpose. War camps and medicine camps are deeply entwined in indigenous traditions. 

The specific reason for our community to gather is to heal. Furthermore, myself being a member of the Obsidian Collective in LA that was founded at Standing Rock, with the purpose of environmental activism. We have been involved in many fights from lithium mines, pipelines, water protection, and social justice fights. 

We seek to provide refuge and healing for front line activists who are struggling to protect the Earth and everyday struggling community members here in Oakland. Many become addicted to drugs and alcohol and after years of uphill battles become defeated and deflated. We want to bring awareness, empower those bredren and sistren, and also give them a safe place to rest and grow at Obsidian Healing Camp.

JR Valrey: How could people find out more about Obsidian Healing Camp?

Dre: The best way is to stop by 1200 24th St., Oakland, CA 94607 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day. Otherwise we post regularly on IG @ObsidianHealingCamp and update our luma calendar monthly. Of course you can check out our website Obsidianhealingcamp.org or email us at Obsidianhealingcamp@gmail.com. You can also find the Obsidian Collective @Obsidian_Collective on IG. Peace and blessings to all.

SF Bay View Editor-in-Chief JR Valrey is a veteran journalist who can be heard weekly on Wednesdays on 89.5FM KPOO or KPOO.com from noon to 3 p.m. His work can also be heard on www.blockreportradioworld.com.

The post Obsidian Healing Camp is rejuvenating minds in deep West Oakland appeared first on San Francisco Bay View.

A talk with Master Artist Ayodele Nzinga about BAMAVERSARY

by JR Valrey, The People’s Minister of Information

The Black Arts Movement District is celebrating its 10th anniversary in Oakland this summer. Founder of the Thea Bowman Memorial Theater, Oakland Poet Laureate and master artist Ayodele Nzinga, who was directly mentored by practitioners from the first wave of the Black Arts Movement, has graciously granted us some time to give our readers a history lesson on Black theater in the U.S. and the Black Arts Movement, and she lets us know about theater events happening this summer.

JR Valrey: What do y’all have scheduled throughout the summer?

Ayodele Nzinga: In the summer, we will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Black Arts Movement District, where we’re in residence. We moved the Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater from the Lower Bottoms to BAM House at 1540 Broadway. We are celebrating the birthday of the district, declared in January 2016, and the 10-year anniversary of BAMBD CDC, established in July 2016. We are coupling these celebrations with the 60th anniversary of Black Arts West in an event called BAMAVERSARY, which takes place July 31-Aug. 3, 2026.

BAMAVERSARY will take place downtown. The event features a special edition of the open mic Winter in America, featuring Tongo Eisen-Martin; a concert with Red Lotus, Avotcja and Modupe, and Honey Gold Jasmine; a day of film screenings featuring films by 393 Film featuring the Lower Bottom Playaz; and a literary and educational salon with Marvin X Jackmon and other Black Arts Movement scholars, authors and creatives expounding on “Black Arts West” and its importance in the Black Arts Movement.

JR Valrey: What is the importance of the Black Arts Movement of the ’60s? What kinds of themes did the BAM artists’ work center around?

Ayodele Nzinga: There is a discussion of which came first: Was it the literary arm of the Black Arts Movement, or was it the social justice, the Black Power arm that preceded it? Well, as a literary person, I’m gonna go for the literary movement. I argue it set the scene and was the drum for the Black Power movement. It was how we received information. It was how groups communicated. It was how theory was shared, and the themes were Blackness in all its complexity, from the political to the personal. 

It was an aesthetic that disdained art for art’s sake and made art for the people. Art was intentionally crafted for cultural enrichment, giving us a sense of identity beyond what was offered by the pale of nightly news clips. The written and spoken word were mental groceries that opened new possibilities for being in the wilds of North America. The literary era known as the Black Arts Movement produced works designed to uplift, empower and inform. 

The Black Power Movement was a bang heard around the world, and its literary arm was America’s most prolific literary era. At its zenith, it spawned more than 60 journals. Many of them were distributed internationally. The Black Scholar is among these journals that circulated around the world, carrying themes throughout the diaspora. It was a time when Black people around the world were in close conversation about liberation, equity and equality.

The art created reflected our beauty, power, and the depth of our creative force. The literary movement aligned with the Black Power Movement and created a prolific push for freedom in the United States, centered on Black people.

There is a notion that the Black Arts Movement ended in the ’70s. You can look up when the Black Arts Movement ended, or you can listen to living people working in that continuum and training people who will come behind us who will also work in that continuum, and you will understand that movements do not die unless people stop pouring into them.

JR Valrey: Can you talk a little bit about your history with the Black Dot? What was the Black Dot?

Ayodele Nzinga: Places like the Black Dot, the brainchild of Marcell Diallo, drew on the aesthetic of the Black Arts Movement, creating a spot where Black could be the focus of the activities that took place inside.

The Black Dot was a space for gathering and celebrating Blackness. An amazing number of people from across the country came through that space and participated in those rituals. The Black Dot and the concepts engaged by Diallo were rehearsals for what cultural districts could look like. 

One of the most amazing concepts that came out of those social experiments was the resurgence of the social club, the revival of people getting together and socializing with one another. Community gatherings serve as political acts. When communities gather to debate ideas and processes for advancement, new, radical ideas for social activism emerge. It is important for Black communities to be physically present with one another.

JR Valrey: Why is theater an important part of Black society? What does it do for people?

Ayodele Nzinga: North American African theater pulls from traditions of ancient Egyptian rituals, West African folklore, and European theatrical practices. It combines storytelling, mythology, rituals, music, song and dance with ancestor worship from ancient times to the present. 

Black theater is not an imitation of European stage tradition. Since the days of chattel slavery, performance has embodied resistance; it’s been used as a means of storytelling, discussion of escape, empowerment, the exploration of concepts of freedom, and the fight for equality.

Live theater experience creates a space where Black audiences can contemplate new possibilities. Theater is a vehicle for healing and activism.

Theater allows for the creation of work that is counterculture in nature, or work that pushes intentionally against the dominant narrative that can invisibilize, diminish and erase color, defining what Blackness means on its own terms. The Black Arts Movement prompted Black artists to counter the marginalization of Black culture within white-hegemonic society by celebrating the profound and diverse contributions of the African diaspora. The Black theater aesthetic allows representations that explore the complexity of North American African American identity through a revolutionary lens.

Theater provides a catharsis; it opens a space not just in the mind but in the heart for people to consider the situations that unfold on stage. We engage in message theater; we are talking to you. We don’t try to hide it; if it’s not a conversation that we feel worthy to bring to the people who come to see our work, then we don’t do that work.

For North American Africans, live theater has never been merely entertainment. It has been a technology of survival — emotional, intellectual and social — used to remember who they are, teach what schools wouldn’t, gather where institutions excluded them, and demand what society withheld. The live stage, with a live Black audience in the same room, has always been something no other medium could replicate.

JR Valrey: What are the Lower Bottom Playaz up to?

Ayodele Nzinga: Lower Bottom Playaz flows in the slipstream of the Black Arts Movement continuum, based in its founders’ belief that theater is an important part of Black society.

The way we approach theater production is a communal ritual. It brings you into a sacred space that is as giving as the inside of a church, and the thing that you see on stage, that’s the sermon, so the ritual of theater is an integral part of the life of a progressive society.

We remain involved in advocating for adequate cultural funding for the city, and we are animating BAM House, Oakland’s newest Black Cultural Center in the Black Arts Movement District. We are in residence at 1540 Broadway. Lower Bottom Playaz turns 27 this year with our Season 27: WORK. We started off in the Bottoms at the theater built for us, the Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater. The Sister Thea is now installed inside BAM House. We only go forward.

JR Valrey: Can you talk about your paid summer youth intern program? When does it start? How can people apply?

Ayodele Nzinga: Our paid youth intern program is where we train our replacements. It starts in mid-July and engages youth throughout the year with paid opportunities. For more information, visit lowerbottomplayaz.com.

JR Valrey: How can people keep up with y’all?

Ayodele Nzinga: Our 27th season is called WORK. We will be presenting “Going to St. Ives” by Lee Blessing, starring Ayodele Nzinga and Teresa Foss, directed by Cat Brooks. It opens on July 9 and runs for four shows a week through July 26. Tickets are available now on lowerbottomplayaz.com.

We will also be presenting “GH456,” an original piece written and directed by Ayodele Nzinga. “GH456” is a continuation of the original series, “Government Housing I & II,” by Nzinga. It opens in November, and tickets are on sale now on the website.

Stay tuned to the website, lowerbottomplayaz.com. You can contact us to request to be added to our mailing list, and you will receive our newsletters and stay informed about our programming and current events.

SF Bay View Editor-in-Chief JR Valrey is a veteran journalist who can be heard weekly on Wednesdays on 89.5FM KPOO or KPOO.com from noon to 3 p.m. His work can also be heard on www.blockreportradioworld.com. You can reach him at JR@sfbayview.com.

The post The conjuring of liberation through theater appeared first on San Francisco Bay View.

by Tabari Morris

The promise on the hill

Glenridge sits high in Diamond Heights, in one of San Francisco’s most beautiful landscapes. The hillside setting and open sky helped residents believe they had found more than housing. They believed in a model meant to preserve affordability, community control and long-term stability for families already pushed out of the city.

That belief connects Glenridge to the broader “Broken Promises” series. Across San Francisco and beyond, HUD-subsidized and cooperative housing was presented as protection against the same corrupted system that has been responsible for devastating our communities like the Fillmore. But when buildings deteriorate, governance falters and residents are left to struggle among themselves, that promise begins to collapse.

At Glenridge, that collapse is visible on multiple fronts: severe deferred maintenance, questionable receivables, high vacancy, underused vouchers,  disputed elections, and unclear lines of control. The breakdown is not just financial. It is physical, legal, administrative and psychological.

A belief that outlived the paperwork

For residents, the issue is deeply personal. Many built their lives around the belief that Glenridge would protect them. Some still describe it as legacy, as something deeper than a lease. That is why the conflict feels larger than management disputes. It is about what happens when a promise outlasts the structures meant to uphold it.

That emotional reality is sharpened by Glenridge’s history. In interviews with the SF Bay View, co-founder Fred Butler said residents began organizing to buy the property in 1989, and closed on it as a cooperative in 1993 after years of resistance from HUD. Butler said Glenridge was created as a California corporation made up of shareholders who were also the occupants of the property, a structure meant to keep the residents themselves in control.

That distinction matters because Glenridge was sold not only as a legal arrangement but as a social and moral promise. When Burbank Housing COO Ben Wickham told the Bay View that many residents are under the “misapprehension” that they own their apartments, he was describing a legal technicality that collides with decades of lived belief. As Butler put it, “The shareholders are the corporation, the owners and the residents all at once, and the right to lease flows from that structure.”

Wickham described a broader structural issue: resident boards are often tasked with governing multimillion-dollar properties without expertise in finance, construction or asset management. The problem is not the residents. It is a system that assigns complex governance without adequate support.

But Butler pushes the critique further. He says “Glenridge’s deepest problem has not been resident inexperience but management companies that ‘dog the property,’ fail to follow through on repairs, overspend on weak improvements and then leave residents with the damage.” He also said HUD repeatedly supported management over residents, even when residents believed the management companies were not doing their jobs.

That is where Glenridge becomes more than one property story. Butler said he has seen the same pattern over and over: management neglect deepens, the property is declared too troubled to save under resident control, and investors appear offering rescue if the cooperative is dissolved. Whether officials describe it that way or not, the effect is the same. The people that the housing was meant to protect are moved closer to removal.

Butler said “Glenridge was designed to serve low, very low and moderate-income households, including working people who often earn too much for Section 8 but not enough to survive San Francisco’s market rents.” He described that mix as intentional: The property was meant to make room for schoolteachers, firefighters, grocery workers and other families who still needed stable, affordable housing.

Butler said, “Glenridge’s affordability agreement required the property to remain affordable for 50 years under terms first tied to the Redevelopment Agency and now administered through the Mayor’s Office of Housing.” Under that structure, he said, residents could pay no more than 30 percent of income for housing  costs, a distinction he saw as central to preserving a real foothold in the city.

That history matters because it shows Glenridge was not an accident and not a gift. It was built through resident organizing, political struggle and a deliberate attempt to defend community life against the same forces that had already displaced Black San Franciscans elsewhere.

The accountability maze

Glenridge operates within overlapping layers of authority. Burbank Housing manages the property. HUD oversees vouchers. The city regulates affordability. The board governs. Contractors handle repairs. Residents live with the consequences.

In theory, this structure ensures accountability. In practice, it often produces delay. Management points to the board, the board points to process and residents point to both. Meanwhile, conditions worsen for the people.

Butler described that same maze from the inside. “Board powers are limited by bylaws and state law, yet some boards behave as though shareholder voices  are secondary or irrelevant. Under the current leadership, residents have faced restricted participation, limited records access and meetings moved into formats that many cannot realistically use.”

At the Jan. 31 shareholder meeting, disputes over a forensic audit exposed deeper trust issues. An auditor clarified that standard audits are not forensic and noted prior findings tied to unverifiable receivables. Staff described a system of concessions, inaccurate charges and unresolved balances.

Even there, the record splits. Former board member Arnetta Brown said residents believed a forensic audit had been approved. Board leadership said only a preliminary review had been authorized. That gap undermines trust. In a cooperative, credibility is governance.

Butler was more direct. He said the board had approved deeper financial scrutiny and that the purpose was to trace years of spending, contracting and possible abuse across multiple management companies, not just the current one. He now believes resistance to that process reflects fear of what a fuller accounting could reveal about the property’s long decline.

The Feb. 28 board meeting revealed additional concerns. A waitlist appeared to date back to 2012, suggesting applicants may have waited more than a decade. Only three households reportedly moved in over roughly four years, pointing to stagnation in turnover and access.

Voucher utilization is another issue. Wickham stated that up to 209 units could be subsidized, but the system is not fully used, limiting revenue while repair needs grow.

Those needs are substantial. Estimates place required capital work between $15 million and $20 million or more. Roofs, siding, decks and walkways are aging simultaneously. At that stage, delay increases both cost and displacement risk.

Butler added a more immediate warning. He said Glenridge now has 17 vacancies, up from five when the current management company took over, and he believes the vacancies are not just a financial problem but a governance one. He also said residents no longer know which waiting list is controlling admissions, how names are being prioritized or whether the original first-come, first-served structure is still being followed.

Residents describe mold, exposed walls, possible hazardous material issues, unpermitted work and stalled repairs. They also describe meetings where participation feels restricted.

Brown summarized the stakes clearly: “This is my legacy.” Residents are defending more than housing. They are defending history and the right to remain.

Butler gave that same idea a longer history. He said Glenridge became a real community over time, with families, successors and long-term residents tied to the property through relationships as well as rules. In his telling, the present struggle is not only over repairs or procedure. It is over whether a community that built a model of survival will be allowed to keep it.

Governance concerns extend to elections and procedures. At the Feb. 28 meeting, members questioned election handling, committee independence and limits on shareholder input. 

These are not minor disputes. In a cooperative, trust in process determines trust in outcomes.

Butler said the problem has deepened through meeting practices that make participation harder, including virtual formats that many residents cannot access, missing records and what he described as efforts to reduce open discussion. He also said residents can be intimidated by fears that speaking up could affect repairs, subsidies or their broader standing in the community.

Not just Glenridge

This cannot be reduced to conflict among residents. Under pressure, communities can fracture. The larger question is who benefits when buildings decline and solidarity breaks down.

Similar patterns have been reported in other cities, including Arizona, Philadelphia and Buffalo. The details vary, but the structure is familiar: Housing promised as stability is allowed to deteriorate and gradually stripped of its original purpose.

Seen this way, Glenridge is not isolated. It reflects a broader struggle over whether Black, poor and working-class residents can remain in the cities they helped build.

Butler sees that struggle in concrete terms. He said he believes Glenridge is being weakened in ways that could later justify investor control, foreclosure pressure or some other restructuring that ends resident ownership in practice if not in name. For the SF Bay View, that is the larger public interest question now emerging: not just whether Glenridge is in trouble, but whether trouble itself is being used as a method.

Questions that still need answers

Key public-interest questions remain:

• What motion was passed regarding a forensic audit, and when?
• How many units are currently vacant, and what has turnover been since 2022?
• Why does the waitlist include names dating back to 2012, and when was it last updated?
• What is the current voucher utilization compared with capacity?
• How many work orders remain open, and for how long?
• What permits exist for major repairs discussed by residents?
• What training has the board received in governance and compliance?
• How many vacancies existed when current management began, and why do residents say the number has grown so sharply?
• What records document how waiting lists are being maintained and which categories of applicants are being prioritized?

Until those questions are answered, Glenridge remains a story of broken promises. Residents were promised stability and control. What they face is deterioration, uncertainty and a system where responsibility is diffused.

They did not design the financing, contracts, or decades of underinvestment. But they are living with the consequences.

Instead of serving as a lifeline after displacement, the system now appears to function as a pathway toward removal. Accountability has begun, and residents continue to demand what was promised.

What the SF Bay View continues to uncover is the “how” and the “what” of that removal. The how is neglect, opacity, vacancy, procedural confusion, investor logic and a structure in which each layer of power can point somewhere else. The “what” is the further erosion of Black presence in San Francisco through institutions that were supposed to preserve it.

Tabari Morris is a City College of San Francisco journalism major and a certified Community Health Worker who is set to complete his Community Mental Health certification in December. He blends community reporting, health justice, investigative journalism, criminal justice coverage and multimedia storytelling to help keep the SF Bay View accountable to Black readers in print, online and on video. He can be reached at tabari@sfbayview.com.  

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By JR Valrey

One of the best things about summer in the Bay Area is exploring the local restaurant scene. One of the crown jewels in Oakland’s Jack London Square is Souley Vegan, which recently reopened after a three-year hiatus. The doors did not just reopen, Souley Vegan has been reborn. It has always had mouth-watering original dishes, but now there will be a retail store so you can experiment with being a vegan chef in your own kitchen. 

Saturday, July 25, Souley Vegan will be having its rebirth party at its new location in Jack London Square. Everybody is invited to pull up.

JR Valrey: Can you talk about the rebirth of Souley Vegan? When are the parties?

Tamearra: The rebirth of Souley Vegan is about more than reopening a restaurant — it’s about resilience. Souley Vegan has always represented creativity and showing people what’s possible. After everything we’ve been through, to be able to open our doors again in Oakland feels incredibly meaningful.

We’re celebrating our return on Saturday, July 25. We’ll be open for our regular lunch service, and from 5:00–9:00 p.m. we’ll host our official Reopening Celebration with music, great food, cocktails, beer and wine, and the community that has supported us for nearly 20 years. We want people to come celebrate not just a restaurant, but what perseverance looks like.

JR Valrey: Why did Souley Vegan close down three years ago? What have you been doing between then and now?

Tamearra: Like many independent restaurants, we faced a combination of rising costs and challenges that made it impossible to continue operating in our original location. Closing was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make.

But I never stopped building. During that time, we continued catering, private chef services, product development, consulting, pop-ups and expanding our retail food line. We spent those years refining recipes, developing new products, and creating a vision that would allow Souley Vegan to become much more than just a restaurant. Now we’re returning stronger, with multiple ways to serve our community.

JR Valrey: Can you talk about the new Souley Vegan store? What will y’all be offering?

Tamearra: The new Souley Vegan is designed to be more than a place to eat. It’s a restaurant, an event venue, a retail marketplace, and a production space all under one roof.

Guests can enjoy our signature Louisiana Creole-inspired dishes along with beer, wine and handcrafted cocktails. We’ll also offer our retail products — including house-made vegan meats, cheeses, sauces, frozen meals, desserts and merchandise — so people can bring Souley Vegan home with them.

Everything we make continues to be handcrafted in-house. We don’t rely on store-bought vegan meats because quality and originality have always mattered to us.

JR Valrey: Can you talk about some of the other programs that you will be offering?

Tamearra: One of our biggest goals is to make Souley Vegan a community gathering place again.

We’ll host private events, corporate meetings, cooking demonstrations, special dinners, live entertainment and community programming throughout the year – one thing I’m super excited about is our local talent night! I’m excited about providing a platform where our incredible artists coming out of Oakland can express themselves and have exposure.

Our vision is to create a destination where people can celebrate, learn, connect and experience great food all in one place.

JR Valrey: Why do you think Souley Vegan has been so popular in Oakland? I know that your restaurant was a regular hangout for the late D’Wayne Wiggins of Tony! Toni! Toné!, and the last time I came, I saw Freeway Rick Ross enjoying his food.

Tamearra: I think people connect with authenticity.

From day one, we’ve never tried to imitate anyone else. We create our own recipes from scratch, and we’ve always believed vegan food should stand on its own instead of trying to convince people they’re missing something.

Oakland has embraced us because this city values originality, culture and perseverance. We’ve been fortunate to welcome everyone — from neighborhood families to artists, athletes, entrepreneurs and public figures — but every guest is treated the same. Whether you’re walking in for the first time or you’ve supported us for years, you’re family.

That’s something D’Wayne Wiggins embodied every time he came in. He loved bringing people together, and Souley Vegan has always been a place where people from every background can share a meal.

JR Valrey: Why is it important for Black people specifically to explore vegan soul food?

Tamearra: For me, vegan soul food isn’t about giving up culture — it’s about preserving it.

Soul food tells the story of our history, our resilience and our families. My goal has never been to erase those traditions, but to show that we can honor them while creating dishes that many people find to be lighter and more plant-forward.

I don’t believe everyone has to become vegan. I simply want people to know they have options. If Souley Vegan can introduce someone to a new way of eating while keeping the flavors, memories and love that make soul food special, then we’ve accomplished something meaningful.

At the end of the day, it’s about expanding choices while celebrating our culture — not replacing it.

Connect with us at https://www.instagram.com/souleyvegan/ and https://www.facebook.com/SouleyVegan/.  

SF Bay View Editor-in-Chief JR Valrey is a veteran journalist who can be heard weekly on Wednesdays on 89.5FM KPOO or KPOO.com from noon to 3 p.m. His work can also be heard on www. blockreportradioworld.com. 

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by Leah Harmony

In the Bay Area we are in the belly of the tech beast and as a part of our ongoing coverage of the good, the bad and the ugly in the age of AI, it’s time to take a realistic look at the surveillance arm as it’s becoming. The reality is that it’s shaping who gets watched, who gets protected, who gets profiled, and who gets free.

Being Black in America means surveillance isn’t just the plot of a movie or TV show. From slave patrols to redlining, from COINTELPRO to predictive policing, the state has a tricky way of using “safety” as a reason to monitor, control and contain us. More often than not, the citizens who feel they need protection approve these methods and even build the tools themselves. Today, the tools have changed. I’d argue that the logic has not. 

Artificial intelligence is being sold as one such tool, described as neutral, efficient and inevitable. Is there anyone who gets to move through the world without being tracked?

We are no longer simply using technology. We are living inside it. Cameras, sensors, databases, apps, license plate readers, school systems, phones, buses, drones and government platforms are becoming one connected layer of observation. The new surveillance state does not always arrive with flashing lights or armed officers. At least not at first. Quietly, it arrives through software updates, public-private partnerships, and those misleading promises to “keep us safe.”

This is why free speech, freedom of movement and liberation must be at the center of any conversation about AI. A people cannot organize freely if they are always being watched. A community cannot speak freely if its words, faces, cars and neighborhoods are constantly turned into data.

Here are five realities we must immediately confront: 

1. Your child’s school bus could become a roaming surveillance vehicle

Some of the most dangerous expansions of surveillance begin with the most sympathetic language: child safety.

BusPatrol, a company that equips school buses with AI-powered cameras, was originally promoted as a way to catch drivers who illegally pass stopped school buses. Cool. No one wants children to be in danger, right? 

The concern is what happens next. Reports and internal documents suggest that this technology could expand and become a mobile network of automatic license plate readers. That means school buses could scan and record the plates and locations of cars they pass, whether or not anyone has broken the law.

That changes the school bus from a vehicle of care into a vehicle of surveillance.

Civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate in his book “Three Felonies a Day,” estimates that the average American professional unknowingly commits about three felonies a day. For Black communities, this matters deeply. We already know what happens when “public safety” systems are built without public accountability. The same technology used to catch a reckless driver will also be used to track neighbors, protesters, workers and families committing felonies they don’t even know are felonies, or doing something the state doesn’t approve of, whatever that may be. 

The question is not whether children should be safe. Of course they should. The question is whether safety should be used as a Trojan horse to build surveillance systems that communities never truly consented to.

A liberated society protects children without turning neighborhoods into open-air databases.

2. The real power in AI is not the chatbot. It is the map behind it.

AI is more than just a cute bot, or an app, or even a tool that writes emails and answers questions. The power it holds is underneath all of that and lives in the structure behind the AI: the data map.

Companies like Palantir focus on something often called an “ontology.” This is a simple idea that holds a lot of weight. An ontology organizes real-world information into a digital model. It tells the system what things are, how they relate, and what actions can be taken. It creates a digital twin. Imagine what your twin is doing as we speak. 

Logistically, regular databases store names, dates, addresses or case numbers. An ontology turns those pieces into a living map of an organization, a city, a battlefield, a hospital or a population.

If you don’t think that’s dangerous, you’re not considering what that means. 

A chatbot without context is limited. But an AI system connected to a rich map of people, vehicles, agencies, records, locations and histories can produce decisions, recommendations and alerts at scale.

That is how raw footage becomes intelligence. That is how a license plate becomes a movement pattern. That is how a neighborhood becomes a target zone. This is why fighting back against the cameras we can see must continue but we must also have the clarity to fight the data architecture we cannot see. This is what all the civil unrest training is for in our police academies and on our military bases. 

The goal for us must be power over the systems that define us. 

3. The people building these systems aren’t your friend

Don’t let your personal or political views blind you from the truth. One of the most complicated figures in this landscape is Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir.

Karp does not fit the usual image of a defense-tech executive or the tech bros we see around the Bay Area. He is often described as “philosophical, eccentric and intellectually intense.” Social theory is his obsession and he speaks of democracy, civil liberties and the dangers of authoritarianism. Ha. Palantir is almost the exact opposite of that. 

The builders of surveillance technology will almost never present themselves as enemies of freedom. They’ll say their tools are necessary to defend freedom. They say democratic governments need better technology to defeat the bad people threatening such things. They say the right institutions must have the strongest systems. Often people go along with it, all the while not asking who decides which institutions are the right ones? 

Black people in America should remember. Law and Order … Urban renewal … National security … Public safety … Blah. Blah. Blah. Literally, every one of those terms has been used to justify policies that harmed Black communities.

The issue is not whether threats exist. They do. They will. They always have. The problem is fear, being their favorite excuse for chess moves to our detriment. This time around its permanent surveillance. It seems, before tech came to town, we knew much better how to take care of ourselves. 

A democracy that watches everyone under the “safety” claim is nothing more than your average lying government tool. 

4. AI companies are moving faster than public accountability

Major government and corporate technology contracts notoriously take months or years to solve a problem. There were proposals, hearings, procurement processes, reviews and public debate.

That process was slow, but slowness gave people time to show up and ask questions that led to protest that led to halting the “solution” being offered. Now companies are compressing the cycle. 

Palantir’s AIP Bootcamp model, for example, lets potential clients build AI workflows with their own data in a matter of days. Instead of waiting through a long sales process, agencies and corporations can quickly see the system in action. Once the platform is embedded, it becomes harder to remove.

That speed is part of the strategy.

By the time the public learns what has been adopted, the system may already be connected to workflows, budgets, databases and decision-making processes.

This should concern anyone who cares about free speech and democratic control. When surveillance infrastructure moves faster than public oversight, communities lose the ability to say no.

Liberation can’t happen if we can’t see the threats against it. Such an important thing requires transparency from the entities we’re co-existing alongside. We must demand full transparency of what is being built in our names and against their bodies.

No agency should be allowed to quietly install systems that track, sort or analyze the public without meaningful community review. Not one. 

5. The surveillance state did not arrive all at once

There was no single moment when the future turned against us. The boiling frog analogy is fitting here. First came networked computers. Then the internet. Then smartphones. Then social media. Then smart homes, smart cars, smart cameras, smart buses, smart schools, smart hospitals and smart cities. I’d argue the more they “fix” things, the more broken they become, yet each step was sold as convenience. Convenience is sold as freedom. But convenience, and especially freedom, has a cost.

We have moved from a world where people used machines, to a world where machines communicate with other machines about people. A camera sees a car. A sensor logs a movement. A database matches a record. An algorithm creates a risk score. A police system receives an alert.

The human being becomes a data point. This is real. The IOT or the Internet Of Things is a literal web, surrounding us, and feeding data about us to each other, to build an entire profile to be used by anyone who has the key. You’ve searched for something on one platform and had it pop up on another platform unprompted, I’m sure. Have you ever been THINKING about something and have it show up on your screen? If not, just wait. No it’s not reading your mind. The reality is more scary. It’s communicating with all the other devices you encounter, and predicting the path your mind will take. Who gave these people such authority? Who asked for this? 

Communities already marked as suspicious are filtered through biased data. Anyone who’s ever argued with a racist bot like Grok, or PG&E’s computer, knows how impossible it is to win. That’s why “smart city” language must be challenged. A city is not smart because it watches everything. A city is smart when its people are housed, educated, healthy, safe and free. 

That part. 

The price of the seeing stone

Palantir named itself after the “seeing stones” in J.R.R. Tolkien’s world: powerful objects that allowed users to see across great distances. But seeing is not the same as wisdom. And power without accountability can corrupt even those who claim to use it for good.

That is the danger of the new AI surveillance state.

Every car tracked from a school bus, every patient mapped in a hospital, every worker monitored on the job, every protester identified in a crowd, every neighborhood reduced to a risk profile — all of it begs the question whether the freedoms we have left, and especially the freedoms we’re fighting for, can survive total visibility. 

For us, the answer cannot be left to tech executives, police departments, defense contractors or city agencies alone. Absolutely not. Those entities have never shown that they care for us or those we love. 

We need community control over surveillance technology. We need public hearings before adoption, not after. We need strict limits on data collection, sharing and retention. We need protections for protest, journalism, organizing and dissent. We need the right to move, speak, gather, worship, learn and live without being constantly watched.

Free speech turns into a weapon. 

Liberation turns into recorded movement. 

Safety turns into policing. 

Future tech is full of questions. Who does it serve? Who does it harm? And most importantly, who gets to decide? 

The Bay Area has always been a place of invention. But it has also been a place of resistance. If this region is going to help build the future, then we must insist on freedom first. 

We already know these technologies can see us. What we need to know, not by experience, but by wisdom: What they will do with that sight. 

Stay in touch for more information on technology in the Bay and the world. Production Manager for the San Francisco Bay View, Leah Harmony, is a journalist, filmmaker, and music video producer who has produced award-winning videos for artists such as Tyler, the Creator; Rihanna; Shakira; J.Lo; Drake; and many more. She can be reached at leah@sfbayview.com. 

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