October 30, 2024

Community News

Fight in Fillmore-Harlem of the West, "Straight Outta Compton" in Theaters & "Cops and Robbers"
August 17, 2015

Editor's update:  "It was a total eclipse of the sun so to speak as "Straight Outta Compton" came straight out of the box leading with $56.1 million "booyah!" The nearest competitor was "Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation," bringing in over $17 million in its third weekend of play in close to 4,000 theaters, over one thousand more theaters than "Straight Outta Compton" had for its opening weekend.

News Released Friday, August 14, 2013

From the "Fight in San Francisco's Fillmore" for affordable housing, to anthems of rage in "Straight Outta Compton" to life imitating art in Jinho "The Piper" Ferreira's "Cops and Robbers," the message is the same: "Stop the Violence" politically, physically and economically.

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Wright Enterprises-Community Spotlight
Wright Enterprises-Community Spotlight Press Release
 
Mayor Willie Brown & Community Leaders Lead Fight for Fillmore Heritage 
 
San Francisco-August 14, 2015-Former San Francisco Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr. was among community leaders and the public that came to voice concerns about the former Yoshi's complex and the effort to take the homes of 104 families in the Frederick Douglass Haynes Gardens Apartments.
 
Johnnie Burrell of www.internationalmediatv.com was the only broadcaster recording the important community conversation in a meeting called by President of the Board of Supervisors, London Breed.  No other media was present.  The community footage that independent broadcaster Burrell often captures in the Bay Area is rare as major events that affect communities of color such as Reverend Jesse Jackson's recent Tech 2020 Summit are often overlooked by corporate mainstream media.  Increasingly not living up to the standard of being fair and balanced, mainstream media focus predominantly on criminal stories.  Dr. Jerry Kang says the focus of television news on just criminal stories in communities of color produces racially bias thinking and real world consequences in "Trojan Horses of Race."
 
Here's Mayor Willie Brown's presentation at the meeting.
 
 
Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr. spoke succinctly about the use of the former Yoshi's Complex and the attempted sale of Frederick Douglass Haynes Gardens to make it a market rate complex with rents from $3,000 to $7,000 a month.
 

President London Breed and other city officials reported briefly about the Yoshi's Complex to initiate the meeting.  In this longer version of the meeting recorded by Burrell, a number of community leaders voiced their concerns, Carletta Jackson Lane, Christine Harris, African American Chamber of Commerce President Fred Jordan,Tim Simon, Jacquie Taliaferro, NAACP Communications Chairman, Reverend Arnold Townsend, Vice President NAACP, Mattie Scott, Adrian Williams, Reverend Ted Frazier, Michael Johnson, Todd Clayter, Mars Breslow and others.  
 
Mayor Willie Brown & Dr. Amos Brown the day following the Yoshi's Complex Meeting as they successfully filed an injunction to stop the sale of Frederick Douglass Haynes Affordable Housing. Click the Image to see the meeting called by San Francisco Board of Supervisors President London Breed.
   
"Straight Outta Compton" in Theaters Today in San Francisco and Across the Nation
 
"Straight Outta Compton" In Theaters Today. Click Image for Preview.

Connecting the dots... the conditions of Compton that NWA sang about in the '80's... is history repeating itself?  The lack of affordable housing, lack of economic inclusion, the lack of respect by law enforcement create societal tormoil.   "Straight Outta Compton" is a must see.  From Ferguson to South Carolina and all points in between will "Straight Outta Compton" give a glimpse of the fact that history may be repeating itself?"

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás

Listen up...

 
In the mid-1980s, the streets of Compton, California, were some of the most dangerous in the country.  When five young men translated their experiences growing up into brutally honest music that rebelled against abusive authority, they gave an explosive voice to a silenced generation.  Following the meteoric rise and fall of N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton tells the astonishing story of how these youngsters revolutionized music and pop culture forever the moment they told the world the truth about life in the hood and ignited a cultural war.
 
Starring O'Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell as Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and Eazy-E, Straight Outta Compton is directed by F. Gary Gray (Friday, Set It Off, The Italian Job).  The drama is produced by original N.W.A. members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, who are joined by fellow producers Matt Alvarez and Tomica Woods-Wright.  Will Packer serves as executive producer of the film alongside Gray.
                  
Genre: Drama                 
Cast: O'Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell
Directed by: F. Gary Gray
Writers: Jonathan Herman, Andrea Berloff
Produced by: Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Matt Alvarez, Tomica Woods-Wright
Executive Producers: Will Packer, F. Gary Gray, David Engel, Bill Strauss, Ronald G. Muhammad, Scott Bernstein, Adam Merims
                                                                                 ###
 Connecting the Dots... It was the Music of NWA... It's the Words of Jinho "The Piper" Ferreira of Flipsyde in "Cops and Robbers,"  a play written two years before Ferguson and directed by Ami Zins and Lew Levinson, that could have been a playbook in the life imitates art twist of the tragic death of Mike Brown August 9, 2014 in Missouri... a blast from the recent past worthy of replay in the Bay Area, nationally and internationally:"Cops and Robbers" by Jinho "The Piper" Ferreira.
 
"Cops and Robbers" was performed at the Marsh in Berkeley.  Ferreira and wife, Dr. Dawn Williams co-authored "Cops and Robbers: Past, Present and Future," the book.  Talented Ferreira also did all 16 characters in the audio version of "Cops and Robbers."  

Related Articles gives background of the phenomenal play.
Newsweek Magazine: Cops and Robbers
Contra Costa Time on Cops and Robbers
Mercury News: Cops and Robbers

Single from "Cops and Robbers" CD
 
Jinho "The Piper" Ferreira performs "Believe"
 
Congratulations to Thomas Simpson of AfroSolo for its 21st Annual Arts Festival that kicked off August First at Yerba Buena Gardens. Find out more about AfroSolo at http://www.afrosolo.org/
 
The Maison Revolution Announces Acoustic Soul Fest @McClaren Park-August 22 . Robin Bates and Constance Bryan when will the Maison Revolution have it's next trek to Paris?  Inquiring minds want to know.
 
 









Oh la la...some info that could be of assistance to those planning on going on the next trip  to Paris with the Maison Revolution!


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