Former KPFA broadcaster Nadra Foster facing trial Feb. 5
On Aug. 20, 2008, Nadra Foster was beaten mercilessly by Berkeley police inside of “progressive” radio station KPFA after being accused of trespassing at the station where she had volunteered for over 10 years. Pack the courtroom for her trial on Friday, Feb. 5, 9 a.m., 7th & Washington, 4th floor, Dept. 111, Oakland.
KPFA, a wolf in sheep’s clothing: an interview with Nora Barrows Friedman of Flashpoints
KPFA has been actively trying to restrain Flashpoints’ success for years now, but most of all during Rijio’s tenure as general manager. We take on the stories that make the establishment nervous, whether it’s police beatings and injustice inside the station – Nadra Foster – or outside the station. We report from the ground, whether it’s from Haiti or the West Bank or at the frontlines of the Native American struggle. Our Palestine coverage in particular has garnered intense scrutiny, to use a euphemism, from the pro-Zionist crowd.
The deconstruction of KPFA: Apartheid radio and tokenism
Recently, a white KPFA supporter asked me do I really think that KPFA as a station is racist and deserves to be categorized as apartheid radio? The answer was yes, because still in 2009 KPFA does not have a Black show that speaks to the issues of the Black community in the U.S. KPFA does have shows for the white community, like The Morning Show, Democracy Now and Against the Grain, and for other communities, like the Asians with APEX Express, the Latinos with La Onda and La Raza Chronicles, disabled people with Pushing Limits and so on, but Black people living in the United States are supposed to beg other programmers to air what is important to our community.
Skip, Nadra and the Philadelphia grand jury
As the contretemps surrounding Dr. Henry Louis Gates and the Cambridge Police Department recedes into the roiling news flood to become fodder for the late night comedians, we learn, if anything, that even a president has limits when it comes to a “teachable moment.” For, as any schoolteacher could have taught him, learning is a two-way street. When the student is closed to the lesson, ain’t nothing getting in. (And America ain’t trying to hear nothing about its racist present!)
Cynthia McKinney at the Grand Lake Theater
On the first night of her Aug. 20-24 Triumph Tour, our sister Cynthia McKinney put a face on Gaza, Palestine, I don’t think many in the audience had seen before – I’m speaking of African Americans who are not usually the target population of such media focus. McKinney was speaking at Oakland’s landmark Grand Lake Theater, kicking off her Gaza Solidarity Triumph Tour, a series of fundraisers for the struggling SF Bay View newspaper.
SF 8 victory dance: Prosecution admits evidence is insufficient
What was amazing about the hearing Monday was the prosecution’s admission that it didn’t have enough evidence to convict these men. As attorney Daro Inouye said of Jalil Muntaqim, who pled no contest to the prosecution’s charge of conspiracy, his client picked up a loaded grenade to save his brothers, his friends, his fellow defendants, and he didn’t plead guilty. That language did not pass his lips.
Legal updates on Nadra Foster and Minister of Information JR
Support both of these cases. In both cases of the police and courts have no evidence. These are bogus charges to waste the defendants’ time and resources. We as the community must stand behind these two warriors as they are attacked individually and the community is attacked through them. What’s the call? Free ‘em all!
Subscribe and vote to reclaim KPFA
If enough listeners become subscribers, and vote in the election, it’s possible that “people power” will overcome “money power” and elect an LSB majority that isn’t wedded to the status quo. The Bay Area deserves a KPFA that innovates. For example, isn’t it about time for a program for the Black community, a program for the LGBT community and a program about California’s injustice system? And KPFA workers, paid and unpaid, deserve management that respects them and the listener community.
The Black Hole at KPFA
Is the Black community supposed to be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of KPFA when our community is not deemed important enough to be given a public affairs show? “Shut up and keep dancing” is what KPFA’s management team is telling the Black community.
The smothering of the Oscar Grant movement
Young people risked their freedom to rebel in the streets. Let me remind you that it was the rebellion and threat of another one that got the cop arrested.
Wanda’s Picks for Jan. 16
Theme for the week: “Martin King to Barack Obama, from ‘I Have a Dream’ to ‘Yes, We Can.’”
The KPFA that can’t say yes
Important communities such as African-Americans still do not have dedicated programs. By engaging with the communities that merit more attention and by adding fresh programs, KPFA could help alleviate its financial crunch – by attracting more listeners and more subscribers without expanding the payroll.
Nadra Foster and the resignation of KPFA Business Manager Lois Withers
On Nov. 10, KPFA General Manager Lemlem Rijio announced through email that Lois Withers, KPFA’s business manager, was resigning. Lois is the white woman who called the police on Black programmer Nadra Foster, falsely accusing her of being banned, on Aug. 20.
Staff, listeners struggle for justice inside KPFA
We’re leading off the relaunch of SFBayView.com with an array of news and views about the foment at KPFA since police brutalized Nadra Foster, a 12-year unpaid programmer and Black single mom, inside the station after they were called by management and about KPFA’s retaliation against Minister of Information and Bay View Associate Editor JR Valrey for covering it.
Arrest of KPFA programmer Nadra Foster by KPFA/Pacifica management
This video was taken by KPFA programmer Weyland Southon of Hard Knock Radio on Aug. 20, 2008, as Nadra Foster was being brutalized by Berkeley police who had been called by station and network management. Staff, listeners struggle for justice inside KPFA lists the 12 SF Bay View stories on this issue. Go to www.blockreportradio.com [...]
The need for a Black public affairs show at KPFA
Recently KPFA has been making headlines for a number of reasons, most notably the Aug. 20 police beat down of Black programmer of 12 years Nadra Foster after a member of the KPFA management team called the police on her with approval from Pacifica management after Foster was accused of using a KPFA telephone for a personal call. So whose job is it to report on issues such as these in the Black community in and around KPFA or nationally? A daily or weekly Black public affairs show.
KPFA staffers release no-confidence statement
We, the undersigned paid and unpaid KPFA staff, do not have confidence in the management of KPFA’s Interim General Manager Lemlem Rijio. Rijio’s actions during the past two years have caused the alienation of a large number of staff members, have created turmoil within the station and have resulted in her losing credibility with many staff members. Her shift of KPFA’s culture away from one of collaboration and mutual support helped create the climate leading to the tragic and unnecessary police arrest of unpaid staff member Nadra Foster.
Lame-duck appointment of embattled KPFA manager
At 4 p.m. on her very last day of employment as the executive director of the Pacifica Foundation, Nicole Sawaya permanently appointed Lemlem Rijio as the general manager at KPFA-FM, a position Rijio has been occupying on an interim basis for two years. Rijio has been under fire as of late, with Berkeley police violently arresting a station programmer who had allegedly been banned in a dispute over copier usage. Seventy-four of 215 station staffers have signed a statement of no-confidence in her leadership.
From Amy Goodman to Nadra Foster: Implementing alternatives to police terror
The officers were waiting, loaded firearms dangling from their waists, steel filled chests puffed out, glassy stares behind helmets. She was one woman alone. She was a reporter doing her job. She was attacked by the police for no reason at all. Her only crime was being a media producer in a hostile location.
On the question of Pacifica and racism
A new KPFA policy essentially bans all listeners from the station except those that management deems “authorized” and it permits police to remove anyone not authorized. KPFA recently called the police on an unpaid staff person, Nadra Foster. The calling of police by any progressive organization or institution is a racist act by definition. If anyone should be banned from the station, it should be the present management, which needs to be replaced immediately.
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