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Wanda’s Picks for April 2015
April 4, 2015
Over a 25 year period, 200 women in South LA went missing. Of these missing women, 100 were found dead. All of the women are Black and most were prostitutes. The refusal to let these women’s lives go unacknowledged is due to the work of Black Coalition Fighting Back Against Serial Murders. HBO will broadcast “Tales of the Grim Sleeper” on April 27.
Wanda’s Picks for October 2014
October 7, 2014
Sunday, Oct. 12, marks our 19th Annual Maafa Commemoration. This is a time when we gather to remember our African ancestors, especially those who endured the transatlantic slave trade or the Middle Passage, the Black Holocaust. It is a time for Pan Africans to gather and celebrate life and recommit ourselves to the work of liberation: spiritual, psychological, economic and political.
Wanda’s Picks for December 2013
December 2, 2013
This season we have lost two pillars of our San Francisco Bay Area community, Samuel Fredericks and Upesi Mtambuzi. Cedar Walton, pianist, also made his transition this year, along with Donald Duck Bailey, drummer, both men beautiful human beings. Upesi, Samuel, Cedar and Donald all brightened our world. Their unique hues and shapes and sounds will be missed … that last live jam.
Speaking to UN Meeting on Palestine, Cynthia McKinney calls for public debate on pro-Israel lobby
April 29, 2013
Pro-Israel forces inside the U.S. are willing to use their money to buy political influence and protection for Israel across the political spectrum. I do believe that much of the suffering could be alleviated if we would put sufficient energy and resources behind putting out in public view how the pro-Israel lobby misdirects U.S. and European policies and prevents pro-peace and justice politicians from ever having the opportunity to put those values, along with our basic human dignity, permanently on the table for public debate. – Cynthia McKinney
Wanda’s Picks for January 2013
January 5, 2013
This year, on the 150 anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, we all need to heed the words of Sister Jayne Cortez: “And if we don’t fight / if we don’t resist / if we don’t organize and unify and / get the power to control our own lives / Then we will wear / the exaggerated look of captivity …” And don’t miss Wanda’s excellent, no holds barred reviews of “Django Unchained,” “Lincoln and “Red Hook Summer,” plus Dr. King birthday events listing and much more
Wanda’s Picks for October 2012
October 5, 2012
Judith Jamison looked regal on stage with Farai Chideya last month in The Forum Conversations at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Her message seemed to be one of preparedness and presence – being, as our sister Ayana Vanzant says, in spirit. Muslims call this the sirata-l-mustaqim or the path of the rightly guided.
Benghazi attack: Libya’s Green Resistance did it … and NATO powers are covering up
September 26, 2012
The NATO powers and the bureaucrats they installed in Libya want you to think that all 5.6 million Libyans are happy that NATO and its proxy terrorists destroyed Libya, a country which under Qaddafi had the highest standard of living in Africa. They want you to think that there is no Green Resistance to the NATO imperialists or NATO’s Islamist allies in Benghazi. Because of this denial, the internet is filled with blind guesses regarding the Benghazi incident Sept. 11 in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and at least three other American personnel were killed.
‘Placas: The Most Dangerous Tattoo’ by Paul S. Flores at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Sept. 6-16
September 10, 2012
Paul S. Flores’ new play, “Placas: The Most Dangerous Tattoo,” is riveting. I was sitting on the edge of my seat all through intermission; the drama was that intense and unsettling. Fausto, Edgar’s father, spends nine years in prison and upon release decides to have his tattoos removed for his son, whom he doesn’t want to follow in his footsteps.
Swedes revive ridicule of Black beauty Hottentot Venus
May 7, 2012
Swedish Minister of Culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, a self-proclaimed “anti-racist,” declared the party officially started by slicing a piece of a cake depicting a stereotypical African woman – in the area of the genitalia. Shocking photos that went viral on the net show the Stockholm cultural elite watching and laughing as Minister Liljeroth slices the cake.
The mass incarceration of the Black community: an interview with Michelle Alexander, author of ‘The New Jim Crow’
April 4, 2012
Professor Michelle Alexander’s new book “The New Jim Crow” is a monumental, well researched piece of work that presents documented facts in down to earth English about the mass incarceration of Black people within the United States’ national concentration camp system. At one point in “The New Jim Crow,” Professor Alexander presents evidence that more Black people are enslaved behind bars today than were enslaved on the plantations in 1850, before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
Wanda’s Picks for February 2012
February 4, 2012
This is the month we wear our Blackness with pride – so walk on, walk on. I want to thank Rhodessa Jones, Shaka Jamal, Pat Jamison, Elaine Lee, Walter Turner, Vera Nobles and Elouise Burrell for your leads and references for South Africa.
Wanda’s Picks for January 2012
January 5, 2012
Life isn’t fair: Too many kids and not enough food, fat cats bringing in all the money and government services like free hospitals and free education is not free for those who need it because, like everywhere, bureaucracy breeds corruption, whether we are in Madagascar or the United States.
Should Africa be an ally of the West or China? The case of Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire
December 27, 2011
The past 12 months were very intense on the African continent. Some important elections stirred up a whole lot of interests. Shared zones of influence are being renegotiated between the old powers of the world, the Western powers, and the new power, China.
Imperialism will be buried in Africa
September 20, 2011
The North Atlantic tribes, under the banner of NATO, and their Arab flunkies are lining up for a showdown in Sirte. Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolutionary forces remain defiant and have issued statements saying that they will never surrender.
Prison Literature Project: Help them help prisoners hungry for knowledge
August 8, 2011
The Prison Literature Project has been sending free books to prisoners all over the country since the 1980s. The prisoners are sophisticated readers. They read philosophy, history and anthropology. They study the Black Panthers and foreign languages. There is a hunger for knowledge.
In Miami, 12 officers shoot Haitian man over 100 times
August 5, 2011
Not one word has yet been published by the international press agencies, which are so prone to broadcasting the minor incidents that happen in countries who confront the American imperial power, about the execution in Miami of a 22-year-old-Haitian man by 12 police officers who fired on him 100 times while he was unarmed in his car.
‘I Twirl in the Smoke’: an interview with independent author Meres-Sia Gabriel
June 20, 2011
“I Twirl in the Smoke” is a new collection of writings by Meres-Sia Gabriel, the daughter of two Black Panthers, most notably former Minister of Culture and internationally known artist Emory Douglas.
Oakland gang injunction is deceptive and wrong
June 8, 2011
At the heart of a gang injunction is usually an overreaching district attorney. Say No to John Russo! Pack the courtroom Friday, June 24, 2 p.m., Department 20, Rene C. Davidson Courthouse, 1225 Fallon St., Oakland.
Living on this earth 95 years!
June 6, 2011
I was born on June 11, 1916, in Lake Charles, Louisiana. My parents were Mr. Thomas Alfred Nisby (born August 1886) and Ms. Lillian Lumpkin Nisby (born June 1892). To this union, there came a family of six girls and two boys, 10 all together when we would sit at the table.
Chernobyl: Consequences of the catastrophe 25 years later
April 27, 2011
Nuclear fallout knows no state or national boundaries and will contribute to increase in illnesses, decrease in intelligence and in instability throughout the world. No country can maintain itself if its citizens are economically, intellectually, politically and socially impoverished. Given the continuing and known problems caused by the Chernobyl catastrophe, we must ask ourselves: Before we commit ourselves to economic and technological support of nuclear energy, who, what and where are we willing to sacrifice and for how long?
