2/27 Oscar Grant Birthday Party + More!

[nattyreb]

Friday, Feb. 27, 10 p.m.: Community Birthday Party for Oscar Grant III at the Black Dot Café, 1195 Pine St. in West Oakland, hosted by MOI JR and featuring DJ X1 of KPOO and rappers Beeda Weeda and J. Stalin, who recorded the anthem of the rebellions. All money raised goes to Oscar’s 4-year-old daughter, Tatiana.Boycott BART on Oscar’s birthday and on every court date for the cop who murdered Oscar and every court date dealing with the Oakland 100 (arrested protesters). Pressure DA Tom Orloff to prosecute all the BART cops involved in lynching Oscar.

Saturday, Feb. 28, 2:30 p.m.: Black Repertory Theatre (3201 Adeline St.,Berkeley) benefit for the SF Bay View, a performance of Ntozake Shange’s Black women’s liberation classic, “For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf.” Please come out and support; we need the funds to put out the monthly paper! With this stellar production, “Colored girls,” first performed in Berkeley in 1975, returns to its roots. It moved to Broadway in 1977 and became a movie in 1982, featuring Alfre Woodard. A New Yorker reviewer wrote in 2007 of the play’s power: “[A]ll sorts of people who might never have set foot in a Broadway house – black nationalists, feminist separatists – came to experience Shange’s firebomb of a poem. ... [T]he disenfranchised heard a voice they could recognize, one that combined the trickster spirit of Richard Pryor with a kind of mournful blues.” “Colored girls” is a choreopoem, a series of 20 poems performed by nine actresses dealing with love, abandonment, rape, and abortion. It concludes with one of the women saying, “I found God in myself/ and I loved her/ I loved her fiercely.” It’s my favorite play.

LAST CALL FOR THE MARCH BAY VIEW IN PRINT! Ads, announcements, stories – anything you’d like to submit is due asap. We’re due at the printer Wednesday evening.

Now for the latest stories at San Francisco Bay View

Two by popular columnist J. Douglas Allen-Taylor on the Oscar Grant Movement and reprisals, specifically discussing MOI JR:
· Regarding rioting “Those policies of either marginalizing or outright demonizing of the city’s dark-skinned youth lie buried under Oakland like so many kegs of explosive, primed to blow,” writes J. Douglas Allen-Taylor. Hear audios from the last Town Bizness Townhall on Oscar Grant and Police Terrorism.
· DA moving ahead with charges in BART shooting protests While charges have been dropped for many of those arrested in recent Oaklandprotests over the BART police shooting of Oscar Grant, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office is moving forward with six or seven cases, at least three of them felonies.

Two terrific stories to commemorate the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X:
· The day the music died “On the afternoon of Feb. 21, 1965, I went to the Audubon Ballroom to hear Malcolm X speak. It was the saddest day of my life,” writes Roland Sheppard in this eye-witness account.
· Malcolm X, Barack Obama and Oginga Odinga El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) was assassinated 44 years ago, on Feb. 21, 1965, because of his attempt to internationalize the African American struggle for self-determination.

And two thoughtful commentaries on the NY Post cartoon:
· New York Post cartoon crosses the line For a degrading, violent, racist cartoon against President Obama, the New York Post wins the prize for reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism.
· On the New York Post simulation of the murder of the president of the United States Naturally we are outraged by Rupert Murdoch’s low rag The New York Post’s depicting Barack Obama as a monkey. That cartoon is actually calling for the assassination of the president of the United States!

White recession, Black depression: Let’s make racial inequality a piece of Black history
As the United States delves further into a serious long-term recession, African Americans are facing the challenge of coming from a seven-year silent recession into a depression. What the national economy is going through could decrease the Black middle class by a staggering 33 percent.

Guadeloupe and Martinique workers call general strikes to protest economic racism
A general strike against rising living costs much higher than those in France has been in progress on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe since Jan. 20 and on Martinique since Feb. 5.

Wanda’s Picks for Feb. 14
Be sure to listen to the archived Wanda’s Picks Radio for Feb. 11, when the guests are Cynthia McKinney in the first hour and Guy Patrice Lumumba and Lisa F. Jackson, director of the film, “The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo,” in the second. Extraordinary radio! Superb mix of arts and politics! Editor’s note: With the deadline looming for the print edition, I didn’t have time to post Wanda’s Picks for this week. Please go to her website and blog at wandaspicks for some wonderful reviews and all the news on Black arts.

Foreclosed owners should squat in their own homes
If you’re poor and the bank is coming for your home, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur has a plan for you. Just squat, she says.

Critic of murderous Kagame regime in Rwanda killed in crash of Continental Flight 3407
The evening before Human Rights Watch expert on Rwanda Alison Des Forges’ critical quote on the secret deal worked out between Rwanda’s murderous U.S.-backed President Paul Kagame and Congolese President Joseph Kabila appeared in the Washington Post, Des Forges died in a the fiery crash of Continental Flight 3407.

Attorney General Eric Holder: ‘A nation of cowards’
We need to confront our racial past - and our racial present. In things racial, we have always been and continue to be essentially a nation of cowards. This Department of Justice, as long as I am here, must - and will - lead the nation to the “new birth of freedom.”

Why they fear Eric Holder, why we need him
There are those who fear this warrior for justice. They are afraid of the accountability that must be applied to the transgressors, no matter who they are.

Fighting for school crumbs
For years the WCCUSD has been bitterly embattled in a monetary fight. This has resulted in a never-ending cry from students and families begging for schools to stay open in their communities.

New NYPD data shows record number of stop-and-frisks in 12-month period
New data from the New York City Police Department shows the final total of stop-and-frisks for 2008 to be a record 531,159. Over 80 percent of them were of Black and Latino New Yorkers.

‘The Whole Woo Wop’: an interview wit’ Kmaxx of KPOO’s Ghetto Gumbo
Definitely it has been a long time coming for one-time Coup bass player Kmaxx to drop his latest release, “The Whole Woo Wop,” which is in stores now.

San Francisco at a crossroads: City budget crisis 2009
Despite the city’s considerable wealth, our local economy is suffering. Ten thousand more San Franciscans are unemployed than a year ago, 1,000 families have lost their homes to foreclosure and more people are waiting in lines for free food than anyone has seen in a generation.

Will ‘San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom Face of Israel’ be the next governor of California?
In March 2008, the Jewish Community Federation arranged San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s all-expense paid junket to Israel, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel.

Budget fat at San Francisco City Hall
As city departments cut vital health and tenant protection programs, one might conclude that the obvious targets for cost savings have already been hit. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

The Obama-Nation
Will the Obama-Nation become an abomination if it fails to
stop the bombing of nations? From Gaza to Afghanistan, the
American people must take a stand and tell Obama to forge
a better plan to free the land.

National Public Radio, how can you get rid of News & Notes?
National Public Radio (NPR), hit by the global economic crisis, is preparing to lay off in March 2009 more than 60 staff and eliminating two major programs, one being News & Notes.

Music over the Mall
What moved me most at the presidential inauguration was the quartet - Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma sounding a mournful dirge, shattered by Anthony McGill’s light, airy clarinet, which was as triumphant as the coming of spring.

Executive Order: Establishment of the White House Office of Urban Affairs
The economic health and social vitality of our urban communities are critically important to the prosperity and quality of life for Americans.

Check out the videos too. And don’t forget the Prisoners of Conscience One Prisoner, One Contact Campaign; find your pen pals at Pen Pals | San Francisco Bay View. Come home to the Bay View often – several new stories are posted nearly every day. Digg ‘em, post ‘em to Facebook and send ‘em to your friends. Bay View readers are the best! Thank you!

Mary Ratcliff, editor@sfbayview.com