Rebuilding efforts in St. Bernard Parish, a small community just outside New Orleans, have recently gotten a major boost. One nonprofit focused on rebuilding in the area has received the endorsement of CNN, Alice Walker the touring production of the play “The Color Purple” and even President Obama. But an alliance of Gulf Coast and national organizations are now raising questions about the cause these high profile names are supporting.
Tags:
African Americans,
Al Jazeera,
Alice Walker,
Black families,
CNN,
Democracy Now,
FEMA trailers,
GritTV,
Jordan Flaherty,
Judge Leander Perez,
Lance Hill,
Liz McCartney,
Lynn Dean,
MayDay NOLA,
Moving Forward Gulf Coast,
National Economic and Social Rights Initiative,
New Orleans,
Oprah Winfrey,
President Obama,
racial discrimination,
Salvation Army,
St. Bernard Parish,
TeleSur,
the 1968 Fair Housing Act,
the Fair Housing Act,
The Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center,
the Greater New Orleans Foundation,
the New Orleans Times-Picayune,
the Southern Institute for Education and Research,
Tulane University,
U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan,
United Way,
Zack Rosenburg,
“The Color Purple”,
“The St. Bernard Project
On Thursday, Sept. 3, at their weekly town hall meeting, the leaders of SLAM (Stop Lennar Action Movement) reminded the audience of the kind of power they have in the battle to save Bayview Hunters Point. Minister Christopher Muhammad, Archbishop Franzo King and Francisco Da Costa shared the latest news of SLAM’s progress and urged the audience to understand that by staying focused and vigilant and not letting anything turn them around, they will win the war.
Tags:
African Americans,
Antioch,
Archbishop Franzo King,
Bayview Hunters Point,
Chowchilla Prison for Women,
East Palo Alto,
exploiting the poor and disadvantaged,
Francisco Da Costa,
greedy politicians,
Hurricane Katrina,
Lennar,
Lower 9th Ward,
Mayor Gavin Newsom,
Minister Christopher Muhammad,
New Orleans,
Oakland,
Pittsburg,
Rev. Andrew L. Bozeman,
Sacramento,
Sen. Mark Leno,
SLAM (Stop Lennar Action Movement),
the Bay Area,
the Pacific Heights Mafia,
the power of God,
the United States,
unscrupulous developers,
Vallejo
Ishmael Reed is one of the most read writers of his generation, along with Toni Morrison and Amiri Baraka, living in America. In 1962, Reed co-founded “East Village Other,” a well known underground publication at the time, and was a member of the Umbra Writers Workshop, which helped to give rise to the Black Arts Movement. He has published nine novels, four collections of poetry, six plays, four collections of essays and a libretto. He currently lives in Oakland, and I approached him one day while he was visiting KPFA’s studios to ask him what he thought about the state of affairs between the police and Oakland’s Black community, with the backdrop of the police murder of Oscar Grant and, in a separate incident, the police murder of Lovelle Mixon, after Mixon allegedly killed four Oakland police officers.
Tags:
African Americans,
Amiri Baraka,
anti-Chinese riots,
BART police officers,
California,
Chinese Exclusion Act,
Enoch Pardee,
Gaelic,
Gitmo,
Hispanics,
Japanese Exclusion Act,
Jerry Brown,
Lovelle Mixon,
Minister of Information JR,
non-violent crime,
Oakland,
Oscar Grant,
Police Chief Parker,
police state,
prison hospitals,
prisoners,
racial profiling,
Ramsey State Penitentiary,
rape,
Spanish,
Texas,
the Black Amazon Queen,
the Black Arts Movement,
the Bush administration,
the ghetto,
the Native American,
the Pell grants,
the public schools,
the Umbra Writers Workshop,
the Wall Street Journal,
Three Strikes,
Toni Morrison,
torture,
traffic profiling,
“Blues City: A Walk in Oakland”,
“Califia”,
“East Village Other”
Blacks and Latinos in the United States have long complained of police harassment and racial profiling, but no one paid much attention until July 16 this year, when the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police arrested Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates at his home on a “disorderly conduct” charge – read for being an uppity Negro or forgetting his place.
Tags:
African Americans,
Angola,
Black,
Cambridge,
Colfax,
FBI’s covert counter-intelligence program known as Cointelpro,
Guantanamo Bay,
Harold Phillips,
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates,
Kenny Zulu Whitmore,
Latino people,
Louisiana,
Louisiana State Prison,
Massachusetts,
President Obama,
Professor Gates,
racial profiling,
Sgt. James Crowley,
sleep deprivation,
“disorderly conduct”
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., wrapped up two days of hearings by the House Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, which she chairs, by focusing on the status and availability of affordable, quality public housing due to the near total demolition of the “Big Four” public housing developments in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. After the hearing, Congresswoman Waters, panelists and other guests participated in a bus tour of the Big Four sites – B.W. Cooper, C.J. Peete, Lafitte and St. Bernard – and visited the future site of a new public housing development in Iberville, which may be the next development to be demolished and redeveloped.
Tags:
African Americans,
B.W. Cooper,
C.J. Peete,
Congresswoman Maxine Waters,
developers,
Dillard University,
Hurricane Katrina,
Lafitte,
Louisiana,
New Orleans,
nonprofit community and advocacy organizations,
residents,
smaller mixed-income development,
St. Bernard,
state recovery authorities,
the federal government,
the Louisiana Road Home Program,
the NAACP,
universities,
Washington D.C.,
“Implementation of the Road Home Program Four Years after Hurricane Katrina”
Can Americans feel proud of the results of handing over their power of government to George W. Bush? Can Californians feel proud of handing state power over to a wealthy movie actor? In both these cases, citizens can clearly see now that the state and entire country has been robbed, raped and pillaged by these so-called political leaders and elected officials.
When seven Black journalists are invited to fly on Air Force One with the president, you know there’s been a dramatic change in the White House. Moreover, the journalists had an exclusive roundtable interview with President Obama, and he was as accommodating as the commodious surroundings.
Tags:
Africa and the World,
African Americans,
Air Force One,
Andrews Air Force Base,
Black Enterprise,
Black journalists,
Blacks,
CNN,
Cynthia Gordy of Essence magazine,
Derek Dingle,
Ebony,
employer-based health care system,
Ghana,
HIV/AIDS,
Julian Bond,
Kennedy Airport,
Kevin Chappell,
Latinos,
Michael Steele,
New York,
Pamela Gentry,
Philadelphia,
President Obama,
Roland Martin,
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan,
the Amsterdam News,
the Ghanaian parliament,
the Hilton,
the NAACP’s centennial convention July 16,
the Republican National Committee,
the Republican Party,
The Small Business Administration (SBA),
the White House,
Valerie Garrett
The Public Defender’s Office will be forced to lay off seven attorneys and five staff members and eliminate the BMAGIC and Mo’ MAGIC programs if $1.6 million is cut from the office’s budget, as proposed by Mayor Gavin Newsom. Show the Board of Supervisors your support for the Public Defender’s Office on Tuesday, July 21, 2 p.m., City Hall Room 250. Give them a call today.
Tags:
African Americans,
Bayview,
BMAGIC,
BMAGIC Director Yvette Mari Robles,
California Rules of Court,
Caucasian,
Fillmore,
Hispanics,
Hunters Point,
Mayor Gavin Newsom,
Mo’ MAGIC,
Public Defender Jeff Adachi,
Supervisor Sophie Maxwell,
the Board of Supervisors,
the Department of Juvenile Justice,
the National Council on Crime and Delinquency,
the Public Defender’s Office,
Western Addition
As an African-American farmer, I am calling on the first African-American president of the United States to lead us quickly away from this deepening crisis. Demand, President Obama, that Congress and your own administration begin without delay the process of reforming our farm and food policies. Start now by correcting the omission in your economic stimulus and recovery act that prevented significant spending on creating new and sustainable jobs for the poor in our urban centers as well as rural farm communities.
Tags:
African Americans,
agro-chemical conglomerates,
Biosecurity Research Institute,
California,
Centers for Disease Control,
Centers for Urban Agriculture,
corn,
Departments of Agriculture and of Health and Human Services,
economic recession,
farmer,
farmland,
food distribution,
food production,
food system,
foodstuffs,
Growing Power Inc.,
health care,
industrial commodities,
industrialized,
job training,
Kansas State University,
malnourishment,
Michael Pollan,
Milwaukee,
National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility,
national food policy,
National Recovery Act,
President Obama,
preventive care research,
self-reliant,
self-sustaining,
soybeans,
undernourishment,
unsustainable practices,
Will Allen,
Wisconsin
Every single eligible citizen who is 18 years old on Election Day has the constitutional right to vote. A right that cannot be restricted because of tricks, wealth, property ownership, fiscal judgment, gender, national origin or race. That’s the law, but …
Tags:
866-OUR-VOTE,
African Americans,
Civil Rights Movement,
constitutional right to vote,
Election Day,
faulty voter rolls,
felon disfranchisement laws,
felon disfranchisement statutes,
Hurricane Katrina,
John Payton,
Macomb County Michigan,
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund,
photo identification rules,
poorly trained elections officials,
Prepared to Vote Campaign,
Republican Party,
voter ID requirements,
voter intimidation and suppression tactics,
voter purges,
voter registration,
Voting Rights Act
On Sept. 18, at the Civic Center Courthouse, two judges presided over hearings to determine if gang injunctions proposed earlier this summer by City Attorney Dennis Herrera would go into effect. The injunctions target two communities of color – the Mission and Fillmore districts – where, according to city officials, gang activity has created such a public nuisance that implementing injunctions has become necessary to restore the peace.
Tags:
African Americans,
Antonio Buitrago,
Bayview Hunters Point,
Dennis Herrera,
Fillmore district,
GED classes,
intervention programs,
job counseling,
Latinos,
Minister Christopher Muhammad,
Pacific Islanders,
Public Defender Jeff Adachi,
Rob Amparan,
San Francisco,
the Civic Center Courthouse,
The gang injunctions,
the Mission,
the Mission Neighborhood Center,
the Nation of Islam,
the Oakdale housing project,
the Western Addition,
the ‘Oakdale Mob",
Tracy Brown,
work referrals for youth
California’s adoption of mandatory minimums, drive for three-strikes laws and participation in the nationwide “War on Drugs” campaign of the 1980s has created a burgeoning prison system fractured along racial, humanitarian and economic lines.
Tags:
African Americans,
Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous,
America,
Assembly Bill 900,
big business,
California,
Chris Brizzard,
CIA,
Geo Group Inc.,
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Group 4 Falck,
Guantanamo Bay,
Hispanics,
job training programs,
Johnson vs. California (2005),
Justice Clarence Thomas,
Level Four cell in Calipatria State Prison,
mandatory minimums,
Medical and health care,
Mujaahid F. Haaris,
prison system,
prisoners,
privatization,
Republican Sen. Tom McClintock,
San Diego,
the California Department of Corrections,
the FBI,
the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction,
the Supreme Court,
the Wackenhut Corrections Corp.,
three-strikes laws,
Title 15 of the California Code of Regulations,
training programs,
work,
work incentive programs for lifers,
“Corrections Today”,
“Migrant Operations Center”,
“War on Drugs” campaign
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