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”
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
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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