October 10, 2017 9:38 AM CDT BY MARILYN BECHTEL

OAKLAND, Calif.—For the seventh year in a row, poets, artists, musicians, writers, and playwrights from around the globe have joined together in 100,000 Poets for Change – events of many types, all celebrating artists who are working for a sustainable and peaceful world. Many, but not all, take place on the last weekend in September, and many are shared around the world via livestreaming and video.

One of several such events in the San Francisco Bay area took place on Sept. 29, at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library. Highlighting the program were area poets, singers, instrumentalists, and artists who shared their visions of a better world with community members.

Opening the program, Cassandra López, affectionately known in the community as Mama Cassie, spoke of the very difficult times people are experiencing throughout the U.S. and around the world with a president “guided by hatred for the community and for the planet.”

Despite the extra burden this is imposing on communities and families, López declared, “We will never give up. We will be seen, heard, and respected, and we will do it in unity – when things change in this country, the world changes. So we have a big responsibility. But tonight we are going to have a celebration of love, in unity, and in concern and freedom.”

Poet Roxanne Jones followed with a heartfelt tribute to the library as “Mama Cassie and Papa Cassie’s village of international history, culture, and library of love,” and invited all present to share in an abundant potluck feast put together by many community members.

“Papa Cassie” – library board president and Cassandra López’ husband, Juan Carlos López – continued the thought: “There’s food and sustenance for life in the struggle for jobs, against poverty and for the environment. But more than food for the belly, there’s sustenance for the mind and food for the soul… The kind of America we want to bring back is the kind of America pioneered by Dr. Martin Luther King, who is to my mind, the greatest leader we have had in this country.”

Contributing to the celebration and its rededication to positive change were musicians including well-known area Gospel singer Leonard Smyer, a women’s choir of University of California students brought together by Akberet Hagos, and renowned Caribbean percussionist Val Serrant.

Poet Das Saswati protested the soaring inequality experienced by people today, and the ravishing of the earth itself, while Lupe Copendah’s ode to Prince was a tribute to the late artist’s lasting legacy and the sorrow his audiences experienced with his untimely death.

Cassandra López, herself a retired high school teacher, emphasized teachers’ roles in preparing students for life in far more ways than just academic pursuits, and gave a special tribute to teachers and former teachers in the audience, including artist Eldica Miller – several of whose works were displayed in the hall, and poet Kharyshi Wiginton.

As the program ended, everyone joined in singing the spiritual, “It’s a freedom train a’ comin’ – get on board, get on board!”

Via People’s World

By Marilyn Bechtel

OAKLAND, Calif. – Poetry, music and film came together Sept. 30 as artists and community gathered at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library to join in 100,000 Poets for Change, a celebration of artists around the world who are working for peace, economic and social justice.

The celebration was one of many in the San Francisco Bay Area, with hundreds more held in many countries during late September.

The program featured celebrated Caribbean percussionist and singer Val Serrant, who opened the program and performed several times during the evening.

Serrant was joined by area poets, whose works dramatize the issues facing working and poor people today.

Roxanne Jones’ poem told of the troubles of growing up with an impoverished single mother: “Have you seen it? Three days later, we faced syrup sandwiches because my mother hadn’t received the welfare check. I’d hear her say Hi to the mailman, and ask me to look in the mailbox to see if the welfare check had arrived. No, shit!”

Lupe Copendah wrote of the young cab driver she met while volunteering with Oakland’s Senior Companion Program. “Your eyes are like midnight, and your heart is like gold. You are my treasure to behold, and I shall call you, Midnight Gold … You are Muslim, I’m a Christian, but we bonded as two friends…We have kept each other just as we are…”

In her poem, Courtney shared her story of living with drug addiction: “… my world is twirling, so I shoot you into my veins. Now, life is art, a living painting …” She now has a non-profit in San Francisco where she works to help homeless youth find “other avenues like art and media and social justice and change in our community, other than drug use.”

Film held a central place in the program. The evening’s MC, Cassandra Lόpez, “Mama Cassie” to the community, introduced the collective producing the film work-in-progress, “We Tell Our Stories: This Side of Oakland,” led by writer and activist Lyndsey Ellis. A short clip featured Layloni Marshall, a young single mother of three, who, with help from the community, was recently able to graduate from San Francisco State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology.

“… be true to yourself,” Marshall says in the film. “That’s something I had to learn. I had to learn that no matter what people say, it doesn’t matter if you know who you are, and why you’re here. No matter what anybody says, if you want to do something, do it! This is your life, you are going to have to live this life.”

Also featured was a short clip from Alsenosi Adam’s film, Losing Oakland, an award-winning exploration of gentrification Adam made while a journalism grad student at UC Berkeley.

The clip begins with Adam telling host Kenny Choi of CBS TV’s Bay Sunday that his film seeks to look at what’s happening in West Oakland, “from a different angle, so we can really have a healthy discussion about gentrification, which is happening all over the world.”

Adam said that as he interviewed local people for a reporting class, he kept hearing, “Oakland is changing, Oakland is not what it used to be…and I set out to make a film about housing, a lot of people losing homes, and it was more than that – it was a community that is breaking down, that’s in fear of losing their homes. I wanted to tell it so it makes a difference, and that’s how I came to do Losing Oakland.”

Adam told how Lόpez – who is featured in the film – came from Detroit to San Francisco, and then to Oakland, in the late 1960s. “She loves Oakland; to her Oakland used to be a black community hub. And as she taught in the schools, she saw in time how our community is getting pushed out and broken down. Now,” he said, “she runs a library in West Oakland where she holds round-table discussions with African American community members, where they talk about the issues facing the community, like how they can stay in this ever-changing city.”

In the film, Lόpez says, “My biggest fear is that Oakland will lose its diversity and its class composition, that it will become like San Francisco. I like Oakland.”

The film also highlights the new people – largely white and younger – who are moving into Oakland as housing costs soar around the region, and who see the city as a good place to settle and build a new life.

Adam says he felt people going through gentrification are “talking at each other, not with each other…You set a table for an intelligent conversation when they meet somewhere.”

Lifelong Oaklander Swakemyua Mohammad followed his poem with a plea for fundamental changes in today’s society. “When we become older, we become wiser, and we see the way this (corporate) system is set up, it is doing exactly what it is meant to do. … Until we put a face on the true enemy in our society, day in and day out, we will never defeat that enemy. It’s not a race thing – it’s a human thing, a human condition, who we are as human beings.”

The evening ended with the audience viewing a video, Why We Vote, prepared by a group of young people as a call for audience members to not only vote themselves, but to make sure family and friends are registered and go to the polls on Nov. 8.

May 27 2016

march 9 2016

OAKLAND, CA — The rains poured down on us and the winds howled as we made our way to the Niebyl-Proctor Community Library last Saturday to honor our history.

This year’s celebration would be a roundtable discussion of the presidential election and its significance to our future as a people. Like most events, the organizers watched nervously through the windows to see who may be joining us.

In the kitchen, chickens were frying, corn soup was heating up and barbequed organic sausages were simmering in the oven. Oh my Lord, we sure like to cook! Tables were set with our traditional red, black and green colors. Soulful rhythms filled the air and for that moment all was right with the world.

A few people arrived and then the door blew open wide! Like a gust of wind, young people entered with their children and babies in tow. Quite magically in an instant we had the roundtable fully assembled.

The first hour was spent eating and socializing. Then it was time to begin the discussion. Everyone, including children ranging in ages from 11 months to 19, remained at the table.  I supposed some of us thought the children might not stay put, but they did.

Lyndsey Ellis, from the We Tell Our Stories Film Collective, chaired the gathering. Her first question:  “Who do you like best between Bernie and Hillary and why?”

Amazingly the young children’s hands went up first. Lil Antoine – nine years of age – blurted out, “Hillary…because my grandpa likes her and he says she’s the best and I believe my grandpa.” Then he gave the two thumbs up.

Nineteen year old college student Kwame Lewis also spoke in favor of Hillary. “Hillary has the big support and the big dollars, so I figure she can’t be beat. Also she’s a woman, and women want their turn in the White House.”

However, some of the young adults were of a different mind. They felt that Bernie, out of all of the candidates, spoke to our issues. Toussaint Stewart, who teaches in the public schools, said that Hillary has too much big money baggage. “How can she truly represent us when she is so tied to Wall Street?” He also spoke about her role in the welfare reform act of the 1990s that put poor people, especially women and people of color, off welfare rolls. “This deepened the poverty that already existed.”

There were those who were not sure who they would support. Symone Bradley, 13 years of age, articulated her point of view very well. “I believe that people need to do their research about the candidates before they decide.  Too many people just listen to the news, but don’t read to get the truth about these people and who is behind them. I have not yet decided, and maybe I am guilty of being a little lazy about all of this myself. But what I do believe is that Donald Trump won’t have a chance if people do their homework.”

Brotha Val Serrant, a world famous steel drum musician, had a different take. He said, “I believe the presidential election is a farce. Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin. We need to focus on the local elections where we can have some impact on what is going on right here in Oakland.”

From that point on the discussion got a little heated. Sistah Fischer, a retired educator, and Shannon, a student of Chinese medicine, both spoke passionately about the need for more resources in the black community. The need for good paying union jobs and great schools to prepare our next generation were highlighted. Racial discrimination in hiring also came to the forefront. “Even when more jobs are created, we – black folks – are last to be hired, if hired at all,” I said vehemently.

As master of ceremonies, I expounded on the notion by some folks that the vote is a waste: “If our vote is worthless, why are they working overtime to suppress it?”

I underscored the need for us to use the power of the vote along with other organizing tools in our communities: “We have to use the vote, because it can be a deciding factor in electing someone who will stand with us, helping to unleash some of the much needed resources that our communities desperately need.”

There was consensus among most in attendance that having Bernie or Hillary become president is our best shot.

At the end of the roundtable discussion, Lil Antoine helped bring the meeting to a close by asking people to give a thumb vote for their favorite candidate. Thumbs up for Hillary, thumbs to the side for Bernie and thumbs down against Trump.

The vote was pretty much split, but for Trump it was all thumbs down!

Photo: Touissant & son Dinari, Antoine & Lil Twan

Via People’s World