The People’s Voice Townhall Friday at the Eastside Cultural Center in Oakland drew a full house of young people and veteran activists to discuss the future of KPFA and other independent media, such as the Bay View, which had this young man’s full attention before the meeting began. Few media beside the Bay View report on the life and death struggles in Black and Brown hoods under siege by the police, redevelopment and other gentrifying forces. Coming out of the townhall was the call for a public affairs show on KPFA covering those issues. Photo: Apollonia Jordan

The meeting, held Friday at Eastside Cultural Center in Oakland and sponsored by POCC: Block Report Radio and the First Voice Apprenticeship Program, was also supposed to have been broadcast live on the apprenticeship program's weekly show Full Circle, but was yanked off the air by the "powers that be" at KPFA.

"But the unpaid staff is not currently recognized" by the management, a "move to consolidate power at the radio station, taking it away from staff and listeners," said MOI JR.

While panelists discussed new media and the dire need for community access to tell the stories that go untold in the mainstream media, the elephant in the room was the oppressive state of the so-called

"Listener Sponsored Free Speech Radio" station KPFA.

Minister of Information JR of POCC Block Report Radio hosted the People’s Voice Townhall Meeting. Photo: Scott Braley

In 2001, the board of Pacifica, the national network founded at KPFA in 1947, was pressured into signing a settlement democratizing the network. Listeners and subscribers won the right to vote for representatives on their local station board, according to KPFA's website.

But it seems as if there is a lack of democracy now as management recently "derecognized" the Unpaid Staff Organization (USO), the political body within KPFA that represents unpaid staff and volunteers. Currently, members of the USO produce three-fourths of the station's content, according to panelist Sharam Aghamir from the KPFA show Voices of the Middle East and North Africa.

A few of the panelists were unable to speak about the issue as they are bound by a "confidential" gag order, but that didn't restrict MOI JR, who moderated the forum. He noted that historically people of color have been excluded from accessing the airwaves and other media that could be used to raise the consciousness of the people.

"The drum was one of our first forms of media," said MOI JR. "We used it to communicate with each other, so it became illegal. The war against Black people accessing media has been on since we were brought here."

"The powers that be know the problems that will come when you can access a forum and insert your politics into the public debate," he added.

As an alternative to relying on the traditional forms of media, some panelists suggesting focusing on innovative use of emerging technologies and closing the digital divide.

"The internet offers this expansive opportunity," said Eloise Lee of Media Alliance. "We are living in this digital age. People can upload their own words and pictures to document things that would go unseen or unheard." She emphasized the need for "net neutrality," or equal access to the Internet for all people.
"Comcast has a three-pronged stranglehold on media," said Lee of the monopoly by media giants of telecommunications, Internet and television in many markets. "We need to create an ‘Internet infrastructure' to not only give people access to information but a consistent and structured way of disseminating important information in the community," she added.

"Too often you hear narrators telling our story," said Renitta Pitts of Tempo. Pitts' group of low-income women recently completed a 30-minute documentary entitled "HipHop: The Beats are Tight, but the Words Ain't Right."

"Too often we're silenced and don't know we have a voice," she added.

"We use media as a tool in the tool chest to fight oppression," said Tiny of Poor News Network. As a poverty scholar who works with low-income and no income people, she said, "We are working every day to get those voices heard." Tiny discussed the difficulties of empowering poor people when enslaved to grants from pimp-like philanthropic organizations. Her program currently needs new computers to fulfill its purpose of increasing media literacy and access among the disenfranchised.

Poor's monthly segment of KPFA's Morning Show was originally launched out of the uprising of 2001 to balance what was otherwise nearly all white middle class programming. Originally Poor was offered a weekly show but turned it down for lack of resources.

In 2006, overwhelmed with critical stories and voices heard nowhere else - way too many to fit into 24 minutes a month - "we approached KPFA management for a twice-monthly show," Tiny explained. "They said our show was not up to par. Over three months in 2006, we achieved all their benchmarks. Even then, they said no.

"Finally, after we pushed and pushed, they said we could do the second show with our own editor. It was on for three months, with voices that had never been heard, and they pulled it."

The panel was soon joined by San Francisco Bay View Publisher Willie Ratcliff, who explained the difference between his independent paper, which deals with issues of relevance to communities of color in the Bay Area, and mainstream papers, which reflect the views of the so-called "educated" and upwardly mobile class. He encouraged those in attendance to submit stories to the Bay View; "If it has substance, we'll print it," said Ratliff.

He also talked about the struggles of being an independent publisher and battling the powers that be by using the media as a weapon of truth against oppressors and their well-paid underlings.

When "I didn't support (San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown) for re-election," Ratcliff said, "he pressured all the churches to take away their ads." Brown is no longer in office and the Bay View is still published weekly.

Speaking to the recent campaign in the Bay View community to stop the Lennar Corp. from "robbing and killing" the community, residents were able to gather enough signatures to put Proposition F on the June ballot. Lennar put up Proposition G in opposition.

MOI JR emphasized the need for a Black oriented show that wasn't focused on music, dealing with the issues affecting the Black communities in San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond and the world. Ratcliff echoed the sentiment that a Black public affairs show is long overdue on KPFA.

Tiny encouraged people to speak up and have their voices heard and not be silenced by what she called "the myth of objectivity." Speaking to the fallacy that all news must be reported objectively, she encouraged people to tell their stories without the need to attend an "expensive journalism school" to feel confident expressing their respective truth.

"Flip the objectivity; revolution begins with ‘I'," said Tiny.

Listeners who want relevant radio programming that reflects the community are encouraged to contact KPFA Interim General Manager Lemlem Rijio (ext. 203) and Interim Program Director Sasha Lilley (ext. 209) at (510) 848-6767. A follow-up forum, "Crisis at KPFA & Pacifica," will be held April 6, 2-6 p.m., at the Berkeley Senior Center, located across from KPFA. For more information, keep reading your newspaper, the SF Bay View.

Reginald James is the editor-in-chief of the Tower newspaper at Laney College in Oakland. Email him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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