Police Terrorize Black KPFA Programmer in the station

[XXPANTHAXX]

by Minister of Information JR

On August 20th 2008, between 1-2pm Nadra Foster, a Black female programmer and single mother was beaten to the ground by the Berkeley police, arrested, hog-tied and taken to jail, after the management of KPFA radio station and the Pacifica Foundation, had called the police on her, falsely accusing her of being "banned" from the station.


The incident started when Nadra Foster entered the radio station to work on some radio with the KPFA jazz radio show "Transitions on Traditions".
She was let into the Ujima studio, by Michael Yoshida, KPFA's chief engineer and member of KPFA's management team, who was not aware of "the ban" on her.
Vini Beecham, another member of management, contacted Lois Withers, the KPFA business manager aka accountant, telling her that Nadra was in the building using station resources for her personal benefit. Lois, another member of KPFA's management team, contacted Michael Yoshida to escort her while she kicked Nadra out of the station. When the two arrived at the door of Ujima, Nadra stated that she refused to leave because Lois does not have the power to kick her out.
According to Yoshida, Lois called Dominga Estrada, the Human Resource Director of the Pacifica Foundation, to see how to deal with the situation. Dominga authorized Lois to call the police.


According to what Nadra told me, Lois told the police that she was the general manager of the station, and that Nadra was a fired employee who refused to leave. In reality, Lois is the business manager, and Nadra is a volunteer at the station, and member of the unpaid staff organization. Two male police officers slammed Nadra to the ground, kneeing her in the groin in the process, as well as severely spraining her arm.
A number of KPFA broadcasters saw what had happened, including Anita Johnson of Hard Knock Radio who was in tears pleading with the management and other people at the station to get involved and help Nadra, to no avail.
Weyland Southon of Hard Knock Radio taped Nadra's chilling screams as the police were slamming her to the ground and twisting her arm.
He also taped Nicole Sawaya, the Executive Director of the Pacifica Foundation, slapping his camera out of his hand, on the scene.
Interim Program Director Sasha Lilley was also an eye witness to this act of management initiated police terrorism, and did nothing in defense of Nadra's human rights. After 2 days in jail, now Nadra is facing 5 misdemeanors, including trespassing, 2 assault on a police officer charges, and two charges of resisting arrest.


The Prisoners of Conscience Committee, along with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the Black New World, and producers from the Voices of the Middle East radio show are organizing in the Black and Brown communities of the Bay Area, and throughout the media to expose this grave injustice.
A town-hall meeting is planned for Sunday, September 7th, at the Black New World (836 Pine St, West Oakland at 3pm) so that the community can have an opportunity to get the facts about what happened to Nadra Foster and the current status of her case, as well as can get a glimpse into the shady workings of the corrupt administration running KPFA currently.


We invite everyone to express themselves about this outrageous act of police terrorism in our community, and get involved in the organizing to get the charges against Nadra Foster dropped, get KPFA to pay for all medical and legal bills, demand that they acknowledge that they didn't follow any due-process or protocol as laid out in the handbook in relation to "banning" somebody, demand that the Unpaid Staff is reinstated and that there is a transparent grievance process, among other things.
People should also start to think about organizing to get this interim administration at KPFA removed from power, and a Black public affairs show on the airwaves of KPFA, which talks about the domestic affairs of Black people in the country considering that KPFA, and the broader Pacifica network of radio stations uses Black voices like James Baldwin, Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the Black Panthers to raise money, but the reality is if these people were alive today they would not have a show on the KPFA airwaves that is dedicated to the people they were organizing. Although most people would have thought that KPFA would have done this decades ago after the Civil Right Movement, today this still does not exist.


After the Block Report broke the story on KPFA airwaves Thursday, and followed it up with Block Report coverage on Friday August 22, Interim Program Director Sasha Lilley and Vini Beecham recently went on vacation for 2 weeks.
On August 22, Lem Lem Rijio, the interim General Manager of KPFA issued a statement on the incident.
In part it reads "It is important for you to know that the Berkeley Police acted independent of direction from KPFA". Considering that she is African, what Black person that is connected to the community calls the police, and thinks that after the police come they have control over the police's actions? This incident and the writing of the press release, exemplifies the incompetence of this current KPFA administration led by Lem Lem Rijio, as well as the current Pacifica administration led by Nicole Sawaya.


Aileen Alfandary, the white news director of KPFA told me personally that this was not newsworthy, and that is why the news did not cover the issue on Thursday.
Also the handicapped white executive producer of the Morning Show at KPFA, Mitch Jeserich, also told me that this incident was not newsworthy on Thursday, a day after the tragic incident.
And Andrea Ali, the manager of Guerrilla Cafe, told me, when asked if we could have a community meeting regarding the incident, that she was on a spiritual quest and did not want to deal with KPFA's negativity at Guerrilla Cafe. Community, support those that support you and don't support people that don't support you.


If you did not get a chance to hear the audio accounts from people who eye-witnessed the police terrorism inflicted on Nadra Foster, you could go to www. blockreportradio. com, as well as to stay updated on the community organizing surrounding this topic. .



The Minister of Information JR
POCC Block Report Radio
www. blockreportradio. com

[XXPANTHAXX]

Editor’s note: The Aug. 20 brutalizing of longtime KPFA programmer Nadra Foster by police who were called to KPFA by station and network management has the Black community and all justice seekers seething. How could managers, including two Black women, of the radio station that proudly considers itself the most progressive in Northern California not know the dangers of calling the police on a young Black person? As KPFA programmer Weyland Southon exclaimed on the Block Report that broke the story on Flashpoints the next day, “Situations like this get us killed.”

The first priority now is for all charges against Nadra to be dropped and for KPFA to make her whole. The cost of justice isn’t cheap and should inspire some deep soul searching by KPFA and Pacifica management.

Rumors that Nadra had been “banned” because a white programmer said she felt “threatened” by this young Black woman who’d been trained at KPFA and has worked there as unpaid staff for over a decade are not unprecedented. Other young Blacks in recent years have been banned and locked out of KPFA merely because white programmers complained they felt threatened by the young people’s presence. Racism runs deep at KPFA.

Reparations must include revising KPFA’s program schedule to include a prime time public affairs show covering African American news and views. The one hour a week allocated to the esteemed show Africa Today is nowhere near enough time to cover the far flung African Diaspora.

News from the Black community inevitably features police terrorism because it is perpetrated every day in every hood in the U.S. That’s the “War at Home” – hidden in plain sight because powerful media, including KPFA with its 59,000 watts reaching a third of California, refuse to recognize and report on it.

The fact that the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper, which does report the news from Black communities across the country, is not currently in print makes coverage of that news by KPFA imperative. KPFA’s signal reaches most of the 100,000 people who used to read the printed Bay View every week – the majority unable to read it on the web because they can’t afford internet access or are locked behind enemy lines.

Be sure to attend and speak out at the town hall meeting Sunday, Sept. 7, 3 p.m., at the Black New World, 836 Pine St., West Oakland. Demand as reparations a prime time program on KPFA that’s of, for and by the Black community – a show that covers police terrorism unflinchingly so that listeners and KPFA and Pacifica management know the terrible consequences of calling the police on a young Black person. KPFA, where the memory of the Black Panther Party is revered, must remember that the purpose of the party was to defend the Black community against police terrorism!

The journalist best known for his coverage of police terrorism and other life and death Black news is POCC Minister of Information and Bay View Associate Editor JR, who wrote the story that follows and broke the story of the attack on his colleague at KPFA, Nadra Foster. He asked that word of another tragedy suffered by the Black community be included in this message to emphasize the unbreakable ties that bind KPFA to the Black community:

A member of the Sideshow collective whose program is broadcast on KPFA every last Friday at midnight, August “Fef Mitti” McCoy, was murdered in Vallejo on Saturday night. His funeral will be Friday, Sept. 5, 11 a.m., at Wilson & Kratzer Mortuary, 455 24th St. in Richmond. Please pay your respects by attending or by sending your condolences to the family via MOI JR at blockreportradio@gmail.com.

Meanwhile, watch for the impending relaunch of a redesigned website for the Bay View newspaper at Product Activation. Your support of the Bay View by advertising or contributing (tax deductibly if you wish) is badly needed and greatly appreciated, and your stories and comments sent to editor@sfbayview.com are always welcome.

[Godssoulja]

This is the kind of news that pisses me off completely. However it is no surprise being born and raised in Oakland and a alumni of the University Of California Berkeley it reminds me of how the holice consistently shot brothers in the back when they tried to flee from the holice and then say "oh its gang related."

It dont matter how many classes you give the holice on racial profilling and the like you cant change the fact they that are and forever will be afraid of black men and women.

[nattyreb]

OPEN LETTER TO THE KPFA STAFF (PAID & UNPAID)
AUGUST 25, 2008


IF THE SHOE FITS
Sis. Kiilu Nyasha


I was outraged to hear that my “daughter,” Nadra Foster, was attacked, brutalized, hogtied, arrested and charged with trespassing, resisting arrest, assaults on police, and other charges, with bail set at $81,000!!!

Most of you have already heard the “sound track” of this vicious assault on Nadra, a single Black mother of two daughters, graduate of the Apprentice Program, and ten-year volunteer staff at KPFA.

Thanks to Media Alliance, Nadra’s reduced bail was met ($500) and she was released in the wee hours of Saturday morning, August 24.

I spoke to her late Saturday morning and again on Sunday. Her description of what happened right there in the studio is simply incredible.

First, it’s disgusting that KPFA staff would call the police to solve a simple problem that could have been handled by other staff. Any KPFA staff who would even consider such a move in the present-day context of a very racist police state (about which Pacifica often reports) should never again refer to themselves as a progressive. In fact, KPFA should drop that word from its vocabulary since its practice puts it in the same category as Fox or ABC – an establishment radio network.

Further proof lies in the grossly disproportionate and extremely long coverage of the fascist parties’ conventions. But I digress.

Nadra told me that she was calling for a ride when two (White) police officers arrived in the small first-floor studio. When she calmly told them that the person who told her to leave the station had no authority to do so, one of the pigs “body-slammed” her, knocking her from a chair to the floor. She then got up; protesting the assault (verbally) and the other pig started beating her. At that point, Anita Johnson tried to some to her aide and was forced out of the room, at which point the two pigs called for backup. Shortly thereafter, six more pigs joined the fray and began beating Nadra again, kicking her all over her body and in her face. When she was handcuffed and asked if she wanted to be hogtied, she proclaimed, “I’m a human being…” and they proceeded to beat her again and wrap her in this contraption that was like a full-length straight jacket (from her description) – leaving her horizontally facing the ceiling as they carried her out of the station.

It was first reported that Nadra suffered a broken arm. I'm sure it felt like it, but X-rays showed her forearm was "severely sprained." Since falling goes with my medical territory, I can testify that sprains and bruises can feel like fractures. In fact, I spent six weeks in hospital (1998) unable to stand, bear weight, behind a bad bruise I thought at originally to be a fracture.

I specifically asked Nadra if she had cussed at the pigs (knowing from experience that I would have called them everything but a child of god). She said, “No.” and I was amazed. But Nadra is not Kiilu; she has a very calm, easy disposition and is not given to cursing. All the more reason they had no business assaulting her; they had no provocation whatsoever.

Now, I know that JR was NOT in the station because he would have been in jail for resisting arrest, no doubt. (He already got arrested once before for aiding Rashida when she was attacked by police on assignment – another story).

But to all those who were present, I want to know how you could passively watch your colleague and my dear friend (who has been so good to me she’s like a daughter), a mild-mannered, soft-spoken, dedicated person (who else volunteers their time for ten years to serve their community?) be beat down several times by a gang of pigs and do nothing? In short, I want to know why none of you was arrested for resisting arrest?

But then, there’s no “all of us or none” kinda thing going on at KPFA, is there?

So since at least some of you are cowards and bullies (same thing), and some of you are just passively liberal, here’s what you can do if you have any humanity at all:

REPARATIONS IMMEDIATELY OR POST- HASTE!

Just to be clear, reparations means to “repair the damage” that has already been done.

In this case, collective responsibility by the staff at KPFA should be assumed for the harm done to our sister, Nadra H. Foster.

1. Charges should be dropped and/or Nadra’s defense should be undertaken (paid for) by KPFA.


2. Medical expenses should be covered by KPFA’s insurance or by whatever means is available for such.


3. New bylaws should be established that preclude such a thing from ever reoccurring; esp. specific guidelines re conflict resolution and the banning of paid or unpaid staff.


4. Police should never be called in to settle a non-violent dispute – period.


5. Nadra should be reinstated or unbanned as an unpaid staff member and given an official apology (hardly sufficient but the least thing to do to begin to repair the damage done to relationships and the social environment at KPFA.)


6. Unpaid staff should receive the same consideration, respect, and accommodation that paid staff gets, however that is to be institutionalized

.
As a former unpaid staff (1983 – 1995), I refused to apply for a new program after being dissed in 1995. I left feeling like “I’m not going to volunteer to be disrespected!” I feel strongly that those who spend long hours producing, editing, board oping, hosting, etc., FOR FREE should get MORE RESPECT not less. Think about it. Moreover, if it were not for the majority staff that is unpaid, KPFA and nearly all listener-sponsored media would not survive.

Finally, if the management staff is unwilling or uncooperative with regard to making amends for this egregious incident, KPFA will surely lose standing and respect in the Black community – and in all communities wherein human beings live. And it should lose funding as well. In any case, it would certainly demonstrate clearly its hypocrisy.

Check out "the sound track" of this ugly assault on Nadra, thanks to JR & Flashpoints.
Flashpoints for Thursday, August 21st, 2008




-----------------
Be my friend. MySpace.com - Official Kiilu Nyasha - 69 - Female - SAN FRANCISCO, US - www.myspace.com/official_kiilu

[nattyreb]

Check out the video, those people have lost their minds over there:

YouTube - Beaten and Arrested by KPFA/Pacifica...