Long Live the 13th Annual Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival and the Eastside Arts Alliance of Oakland, California!

All,

For the past thirteen years since 2001 the East Side Arts Alliance (ESAA) a wonderfully dynamic community based multicultural/multiracial center of the arts, culture, and politics  located in the heart of Oakland, California  eastsideculturalcenter@gmail.com has been sponsoring an annual and now legendary day long public celebration of the life, work, and legacy of famed revolutionary icon Malcolm X (1925-1965) in Oakland's San Antonio Park on Malcolm's birthday.  Known officially as the Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival, this free festival brings together thousands of people from the entire SF Bay area to actively participate in, witness, and enjoy the extraordinary display of outstanding local and nationally acclaimed artists, poets, dancers, singers, community activists, and musicians who openly and joyously invoke the power, dignity, strength, and sheer creative depth of the the spirit of Malcolm, one of the most important and pivotal figures of the 20th century.

This past saturday May 18, 2013 (one day before Malcolm's official birthdate) the always tireless and heroic staff of ESAA delivered yet another incredible day of programming that featured an inspiring cast of major artists and activists (see detailed schedule of the participants below) who kept a massive and very enthusiastic crowd of people from the entire Bay area enthralled for eight straight hours of music, dance, poetry, speeches, and and an equally large and eclectic mix of vendors selling everything from food and drink to literature, T-shirts, clothing, CDs, DVDs, and other goods.  As we have for the entire 13 year old history of this annual event, my wife Chuleenan and I thoroughly enjoyed the incredible synthesis and expression of art, culture, politics, and community unity in glorious celebration of and deep gratitude for of one the most significant and inspiring African American human beings to grace this planet, and the profound legacy that his spiritual presence and visceral memory continues to invoke in our lives.  Thank you Eastside Arts Alliance for keeping that spirit and that ongoing reality alive and well via the Malcolm X Jazz Festival.  What follows is a wonderful compilation of onsite photos by Chuleenan of the event and the many people in Oakland and the East Bay who made it  all happen once again.  ENJOY...

Kofi

 13th Annual Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival!

Saturday, May 18th    11am-7pm   Free!
San Antonio Park  18th ave & Foothill

Limited edition prints and t-shirts of our beautiful festival poster will be available for sale at the EastSide Arts Alliance table - don't miss out!

Main Jazz Stage:
 
Samba Ngo
Merritt
Howard Wiley Trio
Tribute to John Coltrane & Wayne Shorter
The Pre Integration Jazz Band ft. the Magnificent 7
Faye Carol - Freddie Hughes - Johnny Tolbert - John Turk - Jules Broussard - Danny Armstrong - Chester Thompson
    
Mike Dream Courts:
 
Nu Dekades - Dimensions Dance Company - Mighty High Dreamers - The Clique - Queens D. Light & Themhellas - The Turf Fienz - MoonCandy - Alien Art Gang - DJ Wonway & The Latin Soul Brothers Bike Valet by the Bikery

Katherine Dunham Dance Stage:
 
Tribute by Dr. Albirda Rose's Village Dancers & I.F.D.T.C. - Stemela and Baba Achebe's South African Boot Dance - Diamano Coura West African Dance Company

Javad Jahi Stage:
 
Oakland and Bay Area Community Leaders Speak Out!  Live Painting by EastSide Visiting Omiiroo

Plus our Graf Court by Visual Element, Children's Area by Rice and Beans Family Cooperative, & Food Courts & activities!
 

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHULEENAN  (c) 2013

We Must Organize To Oppose and Defeat California Anti-Immigration Legislative Campaign Sponsored by State Tea Party

http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2010/11/calif-petition-drive-can-start.html

All,

Needless to say not only must California voters and citizens do everything in our collective power to thoroughly oppose and defeat this openly racist and repressive petition campaign and proposed legislative measure dead in its xenophobic tracks, but we all especially need to organize and unite nationally against these insidious state initiatives sponsored and backed by local and national Republican and Tea Party affiliates as well as other various independent rightwing groups who are virulently anti-Latino and Asian immigrant like the heinous California based Tea Party group described in the article below.

In the meantime: Please respond and let me know what you think of these and related issues with respect to your own local circumstances throughout the country...

Kofi




LATEST ON CALIFORNIA POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

November 23, 2010

California petition drive cleared for Arizona-style immigration law

The California Secretary of State's office today authorized a signature drive to place an Arizona-style immigration law before California voters.

Called the "Support Federal Immigration Law Act," the proposal was submitted to state authorities in September by Michael Erickson, a Tea Party activist in in the Bay Area city of Belmont and former chair of the Sonoma County Republican Party.

Erickson, speaking at a videotaped rally on his initiative's website, said he worked with a legal team to draft a version of Arizona's Senate Bill 1070, which requires that police investigate a person's legal status if an office has reasonable suspicion of that status.

"Since we're never going to get something like this passed through the Democrat-controlled Legislature, it's going to be we the people who are going to make it happen," Erickson said at the rally.

Erickson told the Bee Tuesday that he's tried to draft his proposal -- which also makes it a state crime to hire illegal immigrants -- to avoid constitutional pitfalls. The Arizona law now faces challenges that it is unconstitutional and an overreaching of state law into federal responsibility for immigration enforcement.

Initiative supporters must gather at least 433,971 signatures of registered voters by April 21, 2011, to qualify for an election. Erickson said he'd aim to put the measure before voters during the 2012 election cycle.

The effort will rely largely on volunteers from California's Tea Party network, Erickson said.

The California proposal would make it a state crime for undocumented persons to seek work while hiding their immigration status, and a state crime for employers to "intentionally or negligently" hire an illegal immigrant.

The measure would also require all highway patrol, police, sheriff's deputies and other officers to investigate a person's immigration status if they are "reasonably suspicious" that a person who they stopped is in the country illegally.

The difference with Arizona's law, Erickson said, is that officers would have to contact federal immigration authorities and conduct such a check within a "timely manner" and could not hold a person for a long period of time.

Like the Arizona law, the proposal would also seek to allow legal residents to sue officials or agencies if they refuse to carry out this type of immigration enforcement.

Posted by Susan Ferriss

LOOK OUT! Here Comes Condi Da Skeeza And Her Corporate Criminal Sidekick Murderous Meg Whitman!

All,

There goes that deadly political skank Condeleeza again who, like ALWAYS, is still a 'Skeeza' (which in hiphop street parlance is one of the most despicable things one could possibly be). In the time honored tradition of being Old School I would also like to cross reference traditional signifying terms of disparagement when discussing truly boneheaded rightwing KneeGrows like Condi. For example: some clueless people actually think that the term "Uncle Tom" (or if you prefer "Aunt Thomasina") has no place or relevance in today's so-called "sophisticated" political discourse. They're DEAD WRONG. Ever heard of Clarence Thomas, Tommy Sowell, Shelby Steele, Debra Dickerson, Larry Elder, Armstrong Williams, Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, etc., etc. just for starters? Yeah--I thought so...

Kofi

P.S. Meg Whitman was National Campaign Chairman for the McCain-Palin ticket in 2008 and has now spent nearly $200 million dollars of her "own money"--which is to say part of the massive fortune she ripped off from being the former CEO of EBay. The amount she has thus far spent is also the largest any individual candidate has spent in an election bid in AMERICAN HISTORY! This brazen attempt to literally buy the upcoming Gubernatorial election here in California in November speaks loud and clear for itself...To say Murderous Meg is the enemy of us all is a huge understatement...'Nuff said...


CARLA MARINUCCI Chronicle Politics Weblog MICHAEL J. MISHAK in the Los Angeles Times -- 9/22/10

A confident Meg Whitman, fundraising with Condi Rice, says she'll win young Obama voters, women -- and Latinos -- Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman raised $350,000 at a toney fundraiser with help from former Secretary of State Condolleeza Rice Tuesday, even as noisy protesters -- including teachers, nurses and firefighters -- gathered outside against a candidate they called "Wall Street Whitman."

California: Disaster (and Hope?) Ahead

by Chuleenan Natambu

Today I passed by four homeless men during the seven blocks I walked to Walgreen's drugstore to buy the latest issue of Rolling Stone -- the new one featuring Matt Taibbi's health care article. After I walked one block, a young man standing about 20 feet to my left, called out "Do you have a dollar?" "Sorry," I replied. Then he asked if I had a cigarette and I told him I don't smoke. He muttered something else but I kept walking. About three blocks later another young man asked me if I had five cents. A few blocks later I saw still another man who looked to be in his 40s, approach two older women coming out of a local bar. I passed by them as they stopped and one opened her purse to give him something.

When I got to the Walgreen's there was a middle-aged man selling Street Sheets. He's a regular at Walgreen's, always neatly dressed and polite. Sometimes I give him something on my way out or I at least say, "Sorry" or something but today I just hurried into the store. I was feeling a bit depressed by how many panhandlers I'd passed during my short walk. And I just didn't want to face another request for money.

While I live in a neighborhood that has been undergoing extensive gentrification over the past few years my short walk offers a brief glimpse of how bad things are in California and how much worse it will get. As most people know, unless you've been living in a cave and have no access to any media whatsoever, California is in the midst of a horrendous budget crisis. (The deficit was reported at $26.3 billion last month.)

In this week's New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg sums it up nicely: "California, it turns out, is ungovernable. Its public schools, once the nation’s best, are now among the worst. Its transportation and water systems are deteriorating. Its prisons are so overcrowded that it has to turn tens of thousands of felons loose." Yep. The situation is so bad that a panel of federal judges recently ordered that the state must reduce its prison population by 27 percent. Inmates are stacked up in triple bunk beds. You can read all about the recent court order in this New York Times article. The budget crisis has made it more likely that inmates will be released early, but of course Attorney General Jerry Brown will appeal the ruling.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to release 27,000 inmates early, is opposed by Republicans. Law enforcement and victims' rights groups aren't so keen on the idea either. But what will happen to the folks who are released early? California's unemployment rate reached a high of 12.1 percent in July. How can former inmates possibly get a job interview in this economy? At the rate we're going, you won't be able to walk one block without encountering homeless people every step of the way.

Is there a glimmer of hope? Well, Hertzberg's article mentions that California could have a constitutional convention and start over again. There has been a lot of discussion about it over that past year and with the budget crisis, there is a possibility that it may actually happen. The initial impetus was this San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece by Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council.

A constitutional convention would wipe the slate clean and delegates would write a new state constitution. The current state constitution is an unwieldly document with hundreds of amendments courtesy of our initiative process. Repair California is working on getting an initiative for a constitutional amendment on the ballot for 2010. If that happens, the goal is to hold the constitutional convention in 2011 and then have citizens vote on it in the 2012 election. Perhaps the one good thing that has resulted from this budget fiasco is that people can no longer deny that California's state government is truly broken. And come November 2012, we may indeed be voting for true reform.