As a note, I would just add, that one of my best decisions and hires came from KPFA. While Executive Director of the Office of Public Engagement for the San Francisco Unified School District with oversight of KALW FM Radio, I hired Nicole Sawaya to be General Manager of KALW in March 2000. She had been released from the station with the displeasure of 10,000 KPFA listeners who took to the streets in protest. KPFA's lost was certainly our gain at KALW, where Sawaya improved programming, increased the audience, increased fund raising and defeated an unfounded license challenge.
Is KPFA racist? People will be speaking out about their experience on April 11th. I do know KPFA did fire a valuable, insightful, person willing to speak truth to power (http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/FaceTime-Nicole-Sawaya-2909231.php). Does that pattern remain? Begin to find out for yourself by attending the Town Hall. Paying attention to media matters. Our basic freedoms are predicated on balanced, fair, and free media. There is no "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness" without "Freedom of the Press." Jackie Wright, President, Wright Enterprises
***Please feel free to spread far and wide***
Bring JR back to KPFA now! Town Hall 4/11 6pm Laney College Student Center Rm 401
KPFA is a piece of work. A very powerful radio station that draws only a fraction of its potential audience, out of one side of its mouth it preaches free speech and rooting out, exposing and ending oppression. And, especially during fund drives, it celebrates dead revolutionaries. KPFA invariably raises money off old recordings of Paul Robeson and the Black Panthers. What would they say if they knew that live Black revolutionaries are not welcome there?
At KPFA, the only good revolutionary is a dead revolutionary. Until his suspension a month ago, Bay View associate editor JR Valrey, known to freedom fighters around the Bay and around the world as the People's Minister of Information JR, was fomenting a delicious brand of revolution every Wednesday at 8-9 a.m., and thousands of people who tuned in to KPFA for the first time to get a taste became regular listeners - and, at pledge time, listener supporters.
In the short time JR has hosted his Block Report on the Morning Mix, he's drawn one of the largest audiences of any show on KPFA and, on the few days he's been allowed to host during fund drives, raised $50,000, often outraising such KPFA mainstays as Democracy Now! As a member of the unpaid staff, who carry over 80 percent of the workload at KPFA, he got not a cent of it; it paid the salaries of the little cadre of paid staff who, using their so-called union as a chastening rod, are doing their best to drive him off the air.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time. KPFA history is littered with great Black programmers who were forced off the air, including such pillars of the community as Kiilu Nyasha, Wanda Sabir, Leroy Moore and Donald Lacy. Nadra Foster was literally forced out - with bone-crushing police brutality ... as KPFA managers watched approvingly. JR broke that story with "Police terrorize Black KPFA programmer in the station." In an editor's note, I wrote, "The Aug. 20 brutalizing of longtime KPFA programmer Nadra Foster by police who were called to KPFA by station and network management has the Black community and all justice seekers seething. ... Racism runs deep at KPFA."
It's time to talk about racism at KPFA. Let's exercise the power of free speech to put the power of KPFA behind the voices who bring people together rather than divide and conquer. Let's pack Laney College Student Center Room 401 (fourth floor) on Thursday, April 11, at 6 p.m. for a town hall meeting on KPFA racism. Spread the word. Bring your friends. Bring your KPFA horror story, and bring your ideas about how to make KPFA Community Radio truly serve the community. Laney is located at 900 Fallon St. in Oakland.
In a world saturated with brainwashing corporate media, our people - all people - need and deserve a beacon of truth and justice. Can KPFA be that beacon? Come to Laney on Thursday and let's talk about it.
Cynthia McKinney is coming to California on a Bay View-sponsored tour! Recently returned from the funeral of Hugo Chavez, she'll speak from first-hand knowledge on the forces behind the news in Latin America, Africa and elsewhere. Meet this warm, wonderful great lady, this hero of our times, a real live beacon of truth and justice, at one of these events - more details as the time approaches:
· Sunday, April 21: The World Beat Center, 2100 Park Blvd, San Diego, 6 p.m.
· Monday, April 22: Chuco's Youth Justice Coalition, 1137 E. Redondo Blvd, Inglewood, 6:30 p.m.
· Tuesday, April 23: The Kaos Network, 4343 Leimert Blvd, Los Angeles, 6:30 p.m.
· Wednesday, April 24: Laney College Forum, 900 Fallon St., Oakland, 6:30 p.m.
· Thursday, April 25: Arlene Francis Center, 99 Sixth St., Santa Rosa, 6:30 p.m.
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* * * * *
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