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12-1pm

Grounding meditation

Workshop Introduction

Video:  MoAD Reading Daniel Summerhill

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Writing Prompt: What is a story that’s been told that you want to rewrite?

1-3pm
Facilitated by Pendarvis

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Londrelle - Honor Yourself (Solar Plexus Meditation)

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Londrelle - Honor Yourself (Solar Plexus Meditation)

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Daniel Summerhill

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Open Mic April 8, 2021, Featuring Daniel B. Summerhill

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by Daniel B. Summerhill

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Book Release: Divine, Divine, Divine by Daniel B. Summerhill

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Food is a protest that has community care and radical self-preservation at its core. And now, during an uprising in the midst of a pandemic, we must dig deep into our history and present resources to honor and elevate the relationship that food and protest have always shared.

Each day we get reports of more deaths in our community: The violence of white supremacy and the racialized impact of COVID-19 takes our breath away, literally and figuratively. As we initiate our mutual aid support systems, our instincts and cultural traditions are clear: prioritizing tending to the communities at the greatest risk of being overlooked or harmed, meaning the disabled, trans, elders, and houseless; increasing food accessibility; holding space for collective grieving, prayer, and joy; adapting protest actions to meet the needs of physical distancing; creatively expressing resistance in ways that include song, art, and unlearning; and showing up for each other because our liberation is intertwined.

But at a time when it's not possible for large groups to gather inside, what shifts are required to heal, and to protect our community?

This question is on my heart every day. As a co-founder of People's Kitchen Collective (PKC) and founder of JUSTUS Kitchen, two social justice food projects based in Oakland, California, much of my work focuses on bringing people together. I steward projects that contribute radical hospitality and beloved community to the social justice movement - and in doing so, hold a safer and braver space for folks of color to have healing food experiences that incorporate cultural and spiritual significance.

As a Black woman in a racist and sexist world, I make two distinct choices on an ongoing basis: one is what I believe; the other is how I feel about those beliefs. As someone whose lineage after Africa reaches back to Mississippi and Kentucky, my family stories include the DNA of survival, and I choose to believe that my ancestors planned my presence for this very moment. Each time I get to feed my community, I feel the sacredness of this path I've chosen, one of social justice food projects bent on collective liberation.

In her dissertation, "Soul Food as Healing: A Restorying of African American Food Systems and Foodways," the sustainable food systems scholar Lindsey Lunsford asks, "How does food reveal the vulnerabilities and strengths of African Americans?" She also poses a question to the Black elders she interviews: "What does cultural and spiritual health mean to you?" In so many ways, her conclusion and the responses from her interviewees were that soul food offers freedom to claim autonomy from, as she writes, "the white supremacist demonization of soul food" as unhealthy and inferior. "The 'first soul food,'" she adds, "was a Black woman's breast milk." So this protest is one of the longest you can imagine.

In each generation, the movement has tended to the question of food. On the one hand, there is food as a form of mutual aid distributed to sustain activists; on the other, there is food as the actual mode of protest. From generation to generation, the legacy of food as protest is filled with stories of Black women who were of service in one, or often both, of these spheres.

As the daughter of Frances and granddaughter of Aquilla and Viola Mae, the largest lesson I've learned is that if you want to experience liberation, Black women must be at the table. So to answer the question of what must be done to gather, heal, and protect our community, I decided to use my imagination to host a time-bending For Us By Us council of Black woman food activists from the past and present. Each one of them used their love of the community to activate their passion for civil rights, cooking, farming, cooperative economics, historical stewardship, sustainable food systems, and food access.

Sitting at this figurative table of multidisciplinary food activists are ancestors Georgia Gilmore, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Ruth Beckford, along with contemporaries Adrian Lipscombe, Thérèse Nelson, Lindsey Lunsford, and Adrionna Fike. Some of these women you may already be familiar with, but my hope is that if you don't know them, this story will send you in their direction and beyond.

In my mother's family we have the tradition of singing before our meals to bless the food. I've continued this tradition with both People's Kitchen Collective and JUSTUS Kitchen. A sung blessing has the power to settle one's heart and make you fully present in preparation for the power of a shared meal.

So now, I'd like to invite you to this table with the refrain from "Ella's Song" by Sweet Honey in the Rock:
We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Georgia Gilmore was born in 1920. A cafeteria worker, midwife, and single mom, she started fundraising for the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) in 1956 by selling food and organizing other cooks under the cover of the name Club from Nowhere. Together, they raised essential funds to support the Montgomery bus boycott that began on December 5, 1955, and lasted for 381 days. Although the boycott was catalyzed by the arrest of Rosa Parks, many people, including Georgia, had started their own bus boycotts months earlier to protest abusive and unequal treatment. During the Montgomery boycott, Georgia would often sing a song as she distributed the hundreds of dollars in jangling coins and folded bills into the collection plate at the weekly MIA community rallies.

After being fired from the National Lunch Company because of her outspoken activism during the boycott, Georgia ran a restaurant out of her home to feed protesters and other organizers, including Martin Luther King, Jr., who was one of her benefactors. It was a place where they knew the food was going to be delicious - but more importantly, safe.

Georgia died in 1990, on the 25th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery March. The food she prepared before she passed away that morning fed the protesters at the commemorative march that day.

Some 25 years later, on the 50th anniversary of the march, Lindsey Lunsford found herself on the bridge to Selma at a pit stop, eating the most restorative soul food of her life as she nursed the blisters on her feet from the 40-mile walk.As I spoke to Lindsey about her connection to Georgia's legacy, what became clear is that she, like Georgia, knows that food is the basis of identity, healing, and liberation within the Black community. Lindsey's role as a Sustainable Food Systems Resource Specialist at Tuskegee University is what I imagine Georgia's role was to her community: innovating on the mission of resourcing and caretaking her people in the face of unchecked racism.

For Lindsey, that work includes facilitating public community dialogues where, she says, "residents of the Black Belt are able to share their food traditions and feel supported in reclaiming them." At each of these dialogues, Lindsey provides the soul food that is proven to uplift the social and cultural wellness of her community. Georgia would be proud.

Georgia's legacy has also influenced Thérèse Nelson, who this past February wrote the Southern Living article "The Story of Georgia Gilmore." In it, she stated that "hospitality professionals provided practices and strategies that became the most effective tools of resistance." Thérèse would know: Like Georgia, she is a caterer and private chef, and claimed that expression for her cooking skills because it gave her, she tells me, "the power to have full autonomy over [my] practice" in the food industry. "It is one of the most dexterous opportunities in business," she adds. "And we wouldn't have the network of food supporting protests if [we] didn't have the [catering] skill set."

As she navigated the sociopolitical realities of the food community, Thérèse felt strongly that there was more she needed to learn, or rather unlearn. That led her to begin researching and reclaiming our Black food stories with Black Culinary History, the organization she founded in 2008. Ever since, she's made the connections between past and present and cultivated networks around the food skills and technology necessary for Black liberation. Those she has worked with and learned from range from young ones with a burgeoning interest in food to cutting-edge chefs to land-based food projects like Soul Fire Farm, Black Urban Growers, and Black Church Food Security Network.

Today, Thérèse imagines a future where these projects are shared and thriving. "During the civil rights era, the leaders were so intentional and connected," she says. "I hope history sees our movement in the same way."

Although she remains much loved for her impassioned devotion to voting rights, Fannie Lou Hamer was also responsible for some of the last century's most successful food sovereignty work - initiatives that created the foundation for many of today's social justice food projects.

Born in 1917 in Mississippi, a state that has both weathered some of the country's most continuous eruptions of race-based violence and been the site of some of its most powerful expressions of Black liberation, Fannie Lou was tireless in her pursuit of justice and equality.

At a critical point in her activism, she turned toward collective land stewardship as a more viable alternative to directly combatting state-sanctioned systemic racism. In the late 1960s, she founded the Freedom Farms Cooperative (FFC), a 680-acre agriculture cooperative in the Mississippi Delta. Part of Fannie Lou's battle for land reacquisition, FFC used food as a means of self-empowerment: Fannie Lou knew that if she and her community could grow their own food, their freedom could be won more solidly on their terms.

During the nearly 10 years that the FFC thrived, it was home to many of Fannie Lou's supplementary initiatives. One of the most innovative was the pig bank: With financial backing from the National Council of Negro Women, Fannie Lou organized a system in which families would raise a piglet for two years and then return it to the bank to breed. Two of its offspring would remain in the bank to be given to other families in the cooperative; the others could be mated, sold, or slaughtered for food. In this instance, food was its own protest - a direct action to reclaim food traditions and access - and the message was self-determination.

Today, Adrian Lipscombe is actively taking on the mantle of land stewardship in La Crosse, Wisconsin. As the chef and owner of Uptowne Cafe and Bakery, she is intimately familiar with food as both a mode of protest and a form of mutual aid to sustain activists. In 2016, she knew she needed to leverage her skills on behalf of the Dakota Access Pipeline activists at Standing Rock. "With a community call to action," she says, "I was able to get the volunteers and supplies necessary to bake thousands of rolls of bread." Adrian sent those 5,000 rolls to the activists to serve at what some folks call the National Day of Mourning and others call Thanksgiving. Eight months pregnant at the time, she wasn't able to travel to Standing Rock herself, but felt it was still crucial to bear witness and respond to the desecration of sacred land and the violation of indigenous rights by both private and government entities.

Now, as Black folks across the world receive newfound support and uplift as individuals redistribute their wealth in response to the violent impacts of white supremacy and systemic racism, Adrian is using this attention to start fundraising for an ambitious and timely initiative called the 40 Acres and a Mule Project. Adrian, who is also a city planner and architect, and the granddaughter of a Black Texas landowner, conceived of it as a collective land project similar to the work of Fannie Lou Hamer; its purpose is to teach agricultural traditions, honor Black foodways, and develop strong cross-sectorial networks. With it, Adrian is channeling all of her experience to once again affirm the inalienable right to, and necessity of, land for food sovereignty and self-determination.

Radical self-determination was one of the touchstones of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, which was founded in 1966. Three years later, Ruth Beckford became the unaffiliated co-founder of its Free Breakfast Program for Children at St. Augustine's church in Oakland. One of the most highly regarded of the Black Panther Party's more than 40 Survival Programs, it manifested the organization's belief that empowering children with a nourishing, culturally relevant breakfast was essential to helping the Black community survive the brutalities of systemic racism. A nourished mind is one that is able to learn and celebrate one's culture and claim one's power.

Ruth, who became an ancestor just last year, was a dancer and a social worker who exchanged all her social currency to ensure the free breakfast program's viability. Much loved by her dance students and their families, she turned to them to volunteer to cook and clean for the program, and to donate food. Partly as a result of her efforts, the program grew from feeding a dozen children on its first day to more than 20,000 nationwide at its height. In this case, the children were the protesters who were being fed, and the food they ate was its own protest against the federal government's continued mistreatment of the Black community. With this food protest, the Black Panther Party shamed the government into starting a long-overdue nationwide school food program.

Today, my own People's Kitchen Collective is honored to continue a small part of the Black Panther Party's and Ruth's important legacy: For more than a decade, we've hosted a free breakfast every year at West Oakland's Life is Living Festival, serving hot, organic, and locally grown meals.Elsewhere in West Oakland, that legacy influences the work that Adrionna Fike, a worker-owner at the Mandela Grocery cooperative, does in caring for activists and community, especially during this pandemic and social unrest. In the eight years that Adrionna has been with Mandela Grocery, the cooperative's commitment to mutual aid has flourished in the form of cooking classes, partnerships with community resource groups, and mentoring worker-owners at a neighboring coop. "Mutual aid is mutual," she emphasizes. "By caring for others we are also cared for."

When asked why she was called to do this work, Adrionna acknowledges the presence of spirit in her decision, which she made as she worked in a Harlem community garden after college. Her studies of anthropology and modes of community consumption also turned her in the direction of Black cooperative ownership structures and economics. "The legacy is proven," she says. "We own our business, we have the ability to create wealth among ourselves and our community, and have better quality of life and clearer food politics. We are fulfilling that need."

At the end of this For Us By Us council, I imagine that all eight of us are at the table holding hands as we recommit to this powerful legacy of feeding our community and supporting Black autonomy. And then Ruth gets the entire table of beautiful Black women to stand up and begin to dance, because what's a revolution without celebration?
Jocelyn Jackson is the founder of JUSTUS Kitchen (), a project that creates healing food experiences that inspire people to reconnect with themselves, the earth, and one another, with the goal of collective liberation. She is also a co-founder of People's Kitchen Collective (), an Oakland-based large-scale community dining project that uses food and art to address the critical issues of our time while centering the lived experiences of Black and brown folks.
I believe Black women have historically taken on this work of food and protest because we are the original caregivers and leaders. We know that our survival is found in our relationships to one another and the land. Our lived experience teaches us that we must develop many different kinds of intelligence to be prepared for a world that often descends into chaos, brutality, and inequity.

We stand on a very specific threshold of healing from the inequities of racism, sexism, and classism. Broader communities of people are prepared to hear and receive what is needed to make a collective shift toward liberation. Black women have taken the responsibility of building many of the liberated systems that will replace the ones currently festering with these social ills. All the work our Black woman ancestors in the food community have done on our behalf is a forever legacy of liberation. We will follow the path they've laid out for us, one of protest that is seeded with the nourishment of their wisdom.

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'If You Want to Experience Liberation, Black Women Must Be at the Table'

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Food is a protest that has community care and radical self-preservation at its core. And now, during an uprising in the midst of a pandemic, we must dig deep into our history and present resources to honor and elevate the relationship that food and protest have always shared.

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The sex industry is all around us, but there's a lot of grey area when it comes to understanding the different types of involvement. Involvement can include everything from people who dance on poles, to people who dominate others with whips and chains, to people selling sex on the streets.

And in understanding this spectrum, it should be made clear that there can be a big difference between sex trafficking and consensual sex work. Sex trafficking is coercing someone (sometimes an underaged person) to have sex for money. Consensual sex work is when people choose to participate in the exchange.

But not everyone knows that.

Luckily, there are people like Dr. Connie Wun, founder of the AAPI Women Lead organization and is an adjunct professor at Mills College in Oakland. Dr. Wun wants to deepen the public's understanding of the sex industry. On top of that, she wants to address how schools relate to the sex industry. She says while schools are often seen as some sort of safe space, they can also be oppressive, punitive and hurtful to young people.

Dr. Wun's work is based in research, as well as her personal experience as a former counselor and a former consensual sex worker.

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Politicizing Sex Work with Connie Wun | KQED

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The sex industry is all around us, but there's a lot of grey area when it comes to understanding the different types of involvement. Involvement can include everything from people who dance on poles, to people who dominate others with whips and chains, to people selling sex on the streets.

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The Power of Taking Up Space: Marshawn Lynch's Oakland Rideout

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The Power of Taking Up Space: Marshawn Lynch's Oakland Rideout

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But really, the ride was about the young people.

While waiting for the ride to start, one young brother rode in my direction, standing with one foot on his seat and the other on his handlebars, as he "surfed" his bike past the "For Lease" sign at the base of a newly constructed building full of overpriced apartments.

Moments later, NFL star Marshawn Lynch, Beastmode himself, pulled up and hopped out of the passenger seat of what looked to be a late-'90s-early-2000s four-door Honda Civic; "an under bucket" would probably be the best local colloquialism I'd use to describe the vehicle. A crowd of teenagers flocked around him as he and his cousin, NFL Quarterback Josh Johnson, prepared to ride out.

A couple minutes after noon, the platoon took to the streets; I fell inline. First commandeering Broadway, headed north to 11th street, where we made a right and headed east. We went through the tunnel by the museum and around the southern fringe of Lake Merritt, before banging a right on East 14th Street.

The first neighborhood we hit is commonly referred to as Funktown. There, Asian storeowners and residents stood curbside, cameras in hand as they recorded the stream of what had easily grown to over 1,000 cyclists.

All shades of black, brown and white people were in motion through East Oakland-mostly boys and men, but plenty of women scattered in the pack too. All ages, too: I saw some artists who are OGs in the graffiti world, and cheered on the push of an elementary-aged kid as he rode a bike that looked like its training wheels had just been taken off.

All the while, my daughter was comfy in her seat, waving at people; she didn't appear to be thinking about that nap, and probably wouldn't have been able to sleep through the music anyway. There were people with Bluetooth speakers, a couple folks with three-wheel bikes allowing them to carry larger speakers, and even one guy who had a studio monitor-sized speaker strapped to his back.

These mobile sound systems blasted well-known hits from local artists, folks like Mac Dre, Kamaiyah and ALLBLACK, and the people on the streets couldn't help but watch in amazement. The young black sister on the corner with the short skirt and tall heels who smiled as we passed. The older Latino brother in the 10-gallon hat who waved as he stepped outside of the Iglesia. The little Filipino kids on their apartment stairs who pointed in awe as the fleet flew by.

This procession might sound chaotic, but it wasn't. The professional BMX riders and others working the event paused at each intersection to make sure traffic didn't cross our path. They were also vocal toward the cyclists, demanding we all stay to the right, so as to not block oncoming traffic.

We dodged potholes and kept pedaling as we came around the corner near Rainbow Recreational Center, where the scene was parade-like. People stood on their porches cheering for us and asking us where we were going. We traveled up Seminary, in the direction of where a man had been killed on the Friday night prior to the ride, but turned a left on Foothill before reaching the crime scene. Some people cut through the parking lot of the newly constructed Seminary Point shopping center, hitting wheelies and doing bunny hops over the curbs.

We biked through the smell of weed being smoked and BBQ grills getting lit. We passed the Muslim Brothers in suits in front of the mosque, past Fremont High, then past the Mac Dre mural and the "We Buy Ugly Homes" advertisement. People in cars stuck their arms out the window for high-fives.

We eventually ended up at San Antonio Park for our first real rest. It was enough time for my daughter to have a snack, run through the grass and play on the swings. (Nap? What nap?) An impromptu bike sideshow started in the middle of the street, as someone on a dirt bike swang donuts and people gathered around to watch; Marshawn and Josh included.

After the smokers got their tokes and the sippers wet their lips, people were back on the road: Lake Merritt bound.

As we descended on the Lakeshore side of Lake Merritt, I thought about all that's transpired in that area over the past few weeks: the stories of "BBQ Becky" and "Jogger Joe," and how those cases were largely about power, privilege and policing the lives of people of color. Even the story from a day prior to the bike ride, across the Bay, where a white woman called the police on a little black girl for selling water-the "Permit Patty" incident.

Whether it's the selling of water, sleeping in a makeshift dwelling or preparing food with family, these stories are about people of color simply existing, and people with perceived power policing their existence.

But on Sunday afternoon, the bikers weren't having that. They were existing to the fullest; living their best life, as the kids say.

I saw the late June sun bounce off of so many gold grills that day.

I mean, I also saw a half-dozen minor bike accidents; people falling after trying to stunt on wheelies or ride with no hands. One young man on a double-decker scraper bike without brakes rear-ended someone else. But I didn't see any injuries, nor any major conflicts between bikers or drivers. Everyone who fell got back up and kept riding.

And even that aspect of the ride is important. These kids were free to make mistakes, which all too often isn't the case for young people of color in America. Mistakes? Hell, for some, simply existing is its own consequence.

And no, Marshawn and Josh, the sponsors and the BMX riders-they weren't organizing a protest. They weren't politicizing the people of Oakland. They were just giving folks a chance to get out, exist in public, and claim their space. That's worth a lot these days.

As the seemingly never-ending trail of bikes wrapped around the northern portion of Lake Merritt, flowing from Lakeshore to Grand, eventually back downtown and then toward Marshawn and Josh's alma mater, Oakland Tech, my daughter and I spun off. It was well past her nap time, and almost time for mine.

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The Power of Taking Up Space: Marshawn Lynch's Oakland Rideout | KQED

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But really, the ride was about the young people. While waiting for the ride to start, one young brother rode in my direction, standing with one foot on his seat and the other on his handlebars, as he "surfed" his bike past the "For Lease" sign at the base of a newly constructed building full of overpriced apartments.

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SOS BAND '1980' - Take Your Time (Do It Right)

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Magic is our Main Ingredient! Sip Slow...WIth Meaning

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In addition to family, she soaked up culture from the community. " SoulBeat was a lifeline," Smith says, audibly clapping against a hard surface in the background as she references the old music videos and small-business commercials the Black-owned television station used to air. "It was A. Life. Line."

A music fanatic since the time she saw the Jackson Five perform at the Circle Star Theatre in San Carlos as a kid, Smith eventually gravitated toward hip-hop, which was coming of age just as she was.

While San Francisco's KMEL was pivoting from being an "album oriented rock" radio station to an "urban" station, Smith found culture in the margins: on late-night pirate radio stations and at clubs like the Stargaze in Fremont.

During her first stint in college at UC Berkeley, Smith tells me, she'd sweat out the entirety of her hairdo while dancing at parties where a guy named DJ Davey D was on the ones and twos. "All of (Davey D's) community work over the years is legendary," says Smith of KPFA's Hard Knock Radio host Davey D. "But let's not forget that he really did have a reputation in the '80s for DJing the best parties in all of the Bay Area."

Smith knows about partying. "Back then, I was running around with Digital Underground... I was in these streets," says Smith, laughing after stressing streets and bringing back that joyous-yet-serious tone. "People are always like, 'You were friends with 2Pac?' I'm like, 'I was actually friends with Tupac Shakur.'"

As a self-described creative Black girl with hustle, Smith worked at a copy store on Oakland's Piedmont Avenue when she was younger, and later at a more posh position at Saks Fifth Avenue in San Francisco. But writing was calling her.

"I got into journalism because of the murder rate in Oakland," says Smith, speaking candidly about what was happening around her in 1992-the drugs and violence-and how that year became known for the highest number of homicides Oakland has ever tallied. "I was so tired of the local news counting murders like people were animals," says Smith.

With the assistance of former San Francisco Bay Guardian Arts Editor Tommy Tompkins and former SF Weekly Music Editor Ann K. Powers, she got into the game. "This was when the alternative weeklies of the Bay Area were very helpful," says Smith, also shouting out LA Weekly and New York's Village Voice. "In many cases, they extended a hand to people of color to get them started writing. I miss those days."

Smith's call up to the major leagues came through Bill Adler, founding member of Def Jam, longtime journalist and namesake of the Adler Hip-Hop Archive at Cornell University. He informed Smith of an opening for the R&B Editor at Billboard. Smith says she went to Oakland's MacArthur-Broadway Mall (where Kaiser now stands) and got a suit that couldn't have cost more than $40. "I made up my mind that I was going to get that job," Smith recalls. "And that's all she wrote."

In all actuality, she was just getting started writing.

Smith landed big-name interviews with figures like Wesley Snipes, and was one of the earliest reporters to investigate what eventually proved to be sex crimes committed by R. Kelly.

While Smith held her own, she admits she was "unpolished." She took notes on how other women carried themselves and dressed, while at the same time, "I brought Oakland with me to every meeting. Good, bad, or otherwise."

Smith tells me about a time an unnamed male boss told her he'd thought she was going to be too hood for the job. "But it seems like you're doing OK," Smith recalls him saying. It motivated Smith to dive deeper into her work. She credits a number of women, mentors, who took her under their wing and told her "not to drink out of the finger bowl at Mr. Chow's."

Because I'm looking clueless while hearing the story, Smith tells me a "finger bowl" is a little fancy container full of warm water for washing your hands at the table. Cassandra Mills, the highly regarded manager, higher-up at Giant Records and force behind the success of the New Jack City soundtrack, had to give Smith a gentle touch on the wrist to tell her not to drink it. "It had a lemon in it," says Smith. "I was like, 'Oh, lemon tea for me!'"

Years later, she's not embarrassed about the interaction. "There's no shame in not coming up around stuff like that," says Smith, who knows others who've had to acclimate to the different world of Manhattan. "I married a guy, Ell, he's from the projects in Queens. We'll get through this together."

Ell-or Elliott Wilson, often referred to as the "GOAT" of hip-hop journalism-is the founder of Rap Radar and Chief Content Officer at Tidal.

Smith is transparent about their relationship: Wilson is her second husband, and their bond is a product of her taking time to heal from past relationships, Smith says, as well her being intentional about the things she truly wanted in life.

In her mid-30s, Smith took time away from work, went back to school and earned her undergraduate and masters degrees and also published a novel, More Like Wrestling, which is set in Oakland. She says one day she was at a friend's birthday party and saw someone she'd known for a while, but had never looked at in that way.

Smith and Wilson have now been married for 16 years.

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From Oakland to 'Black Girl Songbook,' Danyel Smith Stays True to the Town | KQED

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In addition to family, she soaked up culture from the community. " SoulBeat was a lifeline," Smith says, audibly clapping against a hard surface in the background as she references the old music videos and small-business commercials the Black-owned television station used to air. "It was A. Life. Line."

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TDK: The Dream Kontinues by Pendarvis Harshaw

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TDK: The Dream Kontinues by Pendarvis Harshaw

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TDK: The Dream Kontinues by Pendarvis Harshaw

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I gigged to Lil Kayla's " Clone Me" featuring East Oakland's Su'lan. And I bobbed my head to the bars that Frak The Person kicked over the Bakary beat challenge, which went so stupid Kehlani had to comment.

I read about La Doña in the New York Times, and just watched her latest video for " Setas y Ceros"-she's singing and she's spittin'. I gave that new Show Banga and IAMSU! song, " Lonely" a spin. I added Dregs One's new track " Fog Mode" (featuring Andre Nickatina), City P's " Top Down" and Lil Yee's " Steppin' On Steppers" to my playlist.

Ahead of an upcoming episode of my Rightnowish podcast I read Rocky Rivera's book and reviewed her entire musical catalog. And through a recently published interview with Cereal for The Kids and Baghead, I found out about the Old Soul Kollective, as well as so many other artists.

Yung Lott's " How To Survive" has that classic west coast kick. Galaxy Atoms' just-dropped " MVP" sounds like newer west coast flavor. I know that Richie Cunning is entertaining on Twitter, as well as on the track. And I know that Adam Raps, a.k.a. A-1, just celebrated a birthday and is about to release new music.

Gunna Goes Global is headlining a 415 Day show, alongside StunnaMan02 (aka Jordan Gomes)-and both Gunna and Gomes are also thespians, featured in the film The Last Black Man in San Francisco, amongst other projects.

I revisited Bby Laana's "2018 Freestyle" and the " Lose Control Freestyle" that she dropped the following year. I listened to Troy LLF's Free Play 4 and a few of the projects he dropped before that. I got put on to So Vicious and Drew Beez.

I talked to Young Bari, ZayBang and Lil Bean, who all, in one way or another, told me the City's rap scene is definitely having a moment. I read about the recent passing of 11-5's Maine-O, and I also re-read the circumstances around Lil Yase's death; a sad loss of so much potential.

I even went back, and called Hugh E.M.C., the artist behind the early '90s song " H N*gga Groove (Keep a B*tch Broke)."

Hugh, following his ""This is a Hip Hop Manifesto," is now encouraging artists to put out one conscious song per project. In regards to the current rap scene in San Francisco, he says, type of moment, but when I compare it to the past, San Francisco artists were having multi-regional, almost national moments... I would love to see it jump to another level."

I called up another Frisco vet, Equipto, who also got his start in the '90s, and is steeped in community activism. He helped launch the anti-police hunger strike by the Frisco Five and currently works with Frisco Cop Watch-in addition to advocating for the unsheltered community through Poor Magazine.

Equipto, who recently dropped a new project with The Watershed, says, "Frisco ain't never really had that highlight-the Bay Area might've-but Frisco never really had that run. And that's what's cultivating right now. There's more eyes are on San Francisco."

Equipto tells me that SF always had that "underground, solid, rawness of what the industry needed." But despite the notoriety of artists like Rappin' 4-Tay and the late Cougnut, "We were just kind of always overlooked in the economics of it," says Equipto.

Ask D.E.O, founder of the Trackdout app and half of the Evenodds production team, and he'll tell you that he believes there's something good happening in his city too. But he's weary of pitfalls that have come about in the past-namely the "politics," in addition to the economics.

"The street politics of the City has been the curse of Frisco," says D.E.O. "It goes back to RBL. One of the greatest hip-hop groups of all time was dismantled because of street beef." D.E.O believes the murders of the RBL Posse's Hitman and Mr. Cee played a significant role in labels turning their backs on San Francisco.

He tells me that the divisions amongst communities, and the propensity for rappers to keep one foot in the streets while trying to run a legitimate business, have proven to be a major hurdle.

"A lot of Frisco artists," says D.E.O, "don't look at themselves as a commodity, they look at themselves as the savior of the hood-when it's bigger than the hood. It's fine to want to save the hood and everything, but you've got to think more about the corporate structure. How do real corporations work?"

Richard " Big Rich " Bougere is a well-known San Francisco rapper who has some knowledge of how both the rap game and big corporations work.

In 2012, Big Rich parlayed his name recognition from music into an arts-based nonprofit for young folks called Project Level, which he co-founded with his partner Danielle Banks. After an incident in the summer of 2019, where staff of the major fashion retailer Forever 21 mistakenly accused young folks from Project Level of stealing, the two groups met and developed a partnership.

"We turned tragedy into triumph," Big Rich tells me during a phone call. "It opened up doors, we have Black equity in a major corporation." It's a big 180° to the way big companies treated Big Rich's business when he was rapping.

Now he wants to see more investment from billion-dollar corporations into the careers of young artists of color. "This is the culture of the industry, this is where the money is generated from," says Big Rich of the young people he works with. "We have to reinvest into these communities."

Through Project Level, Big Rich has also seen how investing in the community can lead to striking gold.

On a rainy April 15th, at a 415 Day celebration in 2018, a young artist named 24K Goldn grabbed the microphone. "H e electrified the stage, but no one was really there," says Big Rich. "I was like, 'This kid is dope!'"

After learning that 24K Goldn was already en route to USC in the fall, Big Rich connected him to a manager in Southern California. Now 24K Goldn, who went "is arguably the hottest artist in the country right now," according to Big Rich-and the platinum last year and just dropped a new album, El Dorado, a month ago, Billboard charts.

Now the question is, how can more San Francisco artists shine like 24K Goldn?

It's a question that's not just about talent. It's about "politics," structure and business acumen. It's about navigating the high cost of living. And, for some, it's about being a member of the small percentage of working class Black and brown folks struggling to make ends meet in one the world's most expensive cities-and still make art.

How?

"Ghazi at Empire has a plan," Big Rich tells me. "He's investing in artists in the City, and I think it's going to pay off."

"I didn't realize we were having a moment," Ghazi says during a Zoom call earlier this week. "I was trying to create a moment."

Ghazi is the head of the major independent label Empire, and the A&R behind the newly released album, Zaytoven Presents: , which celebrates some of San Francisco's rawest talent.

The album is produced by San Francisco's own mega-producer Zaytoven, known for his collaborations with southern rappers like Gucci Mane. The album features members of Frisco's next wave of stars: Lil Bean, ZayBang, Prezi, Kxng Lamma and Lil Pete.

Ghazi, who grew up listening to artists like I.M.P. and the Get Low Playaz, says, "A big part of putting this project together was to do for the next generation what those artists did for me, which is creating bigger and better things."

He says that in the past, a lot of the issues the City's rap scene faced were "due to lack of infrastructure, lack of proper mentorship, the political landscape that surrounds a lot of the neighborhoods, the socioeconomics," and a bunch of other things going on in the City. But now there's potential do things differently.

Ghazi makes a basketball comparison, saying that an artist putting up great individual stats isn't the same as the whole team putting up great stats, or having a coaching staff that can compete with the rest of the league. "We've always had the talented players," says Ghazi of San Francisco's artists. "But we never had the franchise, we never had the coaching staff, and we never ran an 82 game season."

"In my mind, San Francisco is not having a moment," Ghazi tells me over the video chat as he drives through East Oakland. "In my mind, the whole entire Bay Area has been dry for quite some time, and most people have no idea what the glory years were like in the Bay... There's a little bit of something happening, and I wouldn't call it a moment, but there's potential for a great moment if we stay on it. I wouldn't call it a moment, yet."

One of the primary hurdles the City faces is the issue with talent leaving-not just artists, but talented people who work behind the scenes in businesses that support the industry. That's why Ghazi's been mindful to keep his company in San Francisco and create space for culture to flourish.

"This album is proof of the factory existing," says Ghazi of the Fo15 project.

And now, in order to get to that true "moment"-or rather, a time period of extended success for San Francisco-Ghazi has a simple formula.

"We gotta tell our story," Ghazi tells me. He's firm in his beliefs that people should know and be proud of all of the talent that has come from San Francisco-from Andre Nickatina to Apple's Larry Jackson (who plays a significant role in making those Verzuz events happen) and back to every rapper named in this article.

"The more individual success stories you create, you raise the economy of the region," says Ghazi. "When you raise the overall economy of the region, people are less inclined to leave the region because they have something to do. And when people don't leave, you keep the talent in."

As a kid from Oakland who grew up listening to E-40 and Too $hort, as well as Messy Marv, JT the Bigga Figga, and San Quinn, I get it. We're a vast region with different cultures in each city, neighborhood and block. That said, when one section is going about their business correctly, the honorable thing to do is give them a salute.

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I gigged to Lil Kayla's " Clone Me" featuring East Oakland's Su'lan. And I bobbed my head to the bars that Frak The Person kicked over the Bakary beat challenge, which went so stupid Kehlani had to comment.

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Raise Your Voice:
Spring Showcase

May 8th
1-3pm

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RYV:Tell Your Story

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Pen  Harshaw: Q&A with Pendarvis Harshaw

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Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now... ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home. New to the show? Start here.

Thank you

Rightnowish is funded in part by a grant from Akonadi Foundation, supporting the development of powerful social change movements to eliminate structural racism.

Pendarvis Harshaw

Host / Producer

Pendarvis is a journalist from Oakland, California and the host of Rightnowish. He's a graduate of Howard University's School of Communications and UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. He is the director of the documentary film, TDK: The Dream Kontinues. And the author of OG Told Me, a coming of age memoir about Harshaw's upbringing in Oakland. He currently works as a freelance writer for a number of outlets, and contributes weekly columns to KQED Arts. @OGpenn

Marisol Medina-Cadena

Producer

Marisol is a fourth generation Californian with roots throughout the Bay Area and Los Angeles County. As the producer of Rightnowish she makes episodes sparkle with emotive tape, groovy music, and archival gems. She has also worked as a producer for 99% Invisible's According to Need, California Foodways, KALW public radio, and KQED favorites like The California Report, The Bay and Bay Curious. In 2017, she won an Emmy Award for her work on City Rising. When she's not reporting or producing, she's rehearsing improv comedy, reading memoirs, and making playlists for every occasion. @marisolreports

Jessica makes podcasts shine. At KQED she edits Rightnowish and produces Bay Curious. She also edits Uncuffed, a show made by men incarcerated in California State Prisons. In 2017, she co-hosted and produced a podcast for SFMOMA. She's a podcast consultant, teaches podcast workshops, and is newly obsessed with plants. @jessicazyp

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Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now... ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond.

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The Abolitionist Fighting Sex Trafficking with Words and Altars

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The Abolitionist Fighting Sex Trafficking with Words and Altars

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Regina Y. Evans works with a team of folks to assemble altars on Oakland's International Boulevard, a hub for adult sex workers as well as the sex trafficking of minors.

Regina says the goal of the work is to be present for the girls-or "Beloveds," as she calls them.

The altars are decorated with art, flowers, letters and fabrics, and since the start of the pandemic, she's been adding hand sanitizer, condoms and PPE. Regina says her team builds these altars as an offering, and that she doesn't directly approach the Beloveds. Instead, she allows the altars to be an opening for interactions.

For Regina, spirituality, social commentary and artistry all weave together in her mission to abolish the sex trafficking of minors.

You can see this in all her work: She's the founder of the vintage boutique, Regina's Door, which also serves as a safe haven for at-risk youth and survivors of human trafficking. And in addition to designing costumes for stage shows, she writes and performs her own plays, which are informed by her work in the streets of Oakland.
Below are lightly edited excerpts of my conversation with Regina Evans. PEN: After 52 Letters, one of your more recent plays... you mentioned that one of the attendees of the play said it was "A bit much." What was your response to them?
REGINA: It was a gentleman. When I got off stage and I went out to greet the audience, he said, "It's almost too much."

And my response to it was, well, you just got an hour of an idea of a young kid who's being traffic 24/7. You just got a glimpse of it. So give thanks. Give thanks for her pain. Give thanks for her tears. That you get to be a witness just by sitting on the other side of a fourth wall.

It's an interesting thing when you talk about trafficking because people often don't get it. It's almost like talking about past day slavery. People are like, yeah it was terrible, it was was really bad, but do we really think about it? Do you think about the day-to-day? Do you think about how your fingers felt picking the cotton? What about the cracks in the feet? We say that it's bad, it's inhumane, but we're not thinking about the day today, the minute of what a child is having to endure. That's what makes words and plays so powerful because you can bring that to the person. And so they can then feel it.
PEN: It's all in the details, and that's what you see eye to eye with the human experience, and I totally recognize that as a storyteller. There's so much power in details. How do you go about observing and bringing in these details? Where do you pull that from?
REGINA: You know, I use a lot of my own story, the feel of my own story, the feel of what it felt like when I was healing. I asked as a couple of other people if I could use bits of their story. And then spirit. So I mix it all together. It's not something that I'm writing or talking about that I don't know what that intensity or what the pain of it actually feels like.

Any survivors of an injustice holds a particular and intimate knowledge of that injustice. Just because we've been so close to it. We know how it moves. We know how it smells. We know the wink of the eye or how the eyes move. We know all of those little things. That's why survivors are important for any social justice movement because we know the intimacies of it.
PEN: Social justice as well as journalism: You want to get to the primary source. You want to get to the people who have experienced it. What does your abolition work look like right now in 2020?
REGINA: My work is historical and now, at the same time, because this is not a revisit, this is a continuation. The black female womb has been commodified since we hit these shores. Where has it stopped? There's a quote from Frederick Douglass and he says something like, 'Slavery has called itself many names and it will again call itself by many names.'

And you and I and all of us had better wake up and listen, so that we can see how this snake is going to rear its head again. And so here we are calling it a different name.
PEN: I went to the taco spot, shout out to Taco Sinaloa on 22nd and East 14th. They were just about to close the taco spot, it's like late night. And I was just amazed at the amount of people out there working. What's going on on East 14th right now?
REGINA: Woo! East 14th right now is lit. When the pandemic hit, like I thought I wouldn't see as many beloveds out, and that was not the case. It's just wild, not only the amount of young beloved, but the feel, the atmosphere. [sigh] And... you know, I never carry condoms with me... But the amount of young beloved who are like, do you have condoms? And I was, oh shoot. Yeah, I need to have condoms for them. Saraí Mazariegos from SHADE, she started bringing condoms and stuff and now we put condoms on the altars.
PEN: Paint the picture for me. What do these altars look like?
REGINA: You know, I put candy and stuff in there and make them really pretty. I always use a lot of fabric. I write them letters, and put them in there, and then I put up these signs that say, 'You are beloved, you are beautiful. signed the queendom.' I do that all up and down the track. I've been building altars on the track for a very, very long time. It was a thing that I could do without, you know, approaching the beloved. And as I was building them I'd be like, 'I love you. I see you. You're not forgotten. You're not alone.'

And then when the pandemic hit, I had a dream. and in the dream I saw the track. It was like a garden. And I woke up and I was like, oh, shoot, we're gonna build a garden on the track. And I called in all my friends and people came in strong.

So what they look like are lots of plants. Leafy plants and we also use succulents. And we also embed the altars with PPE, masks, hand sanitizers. People leave food and water. The main purpose is just to leave beauty and love.
PEN: You speak of, you know, visions come into dreams. You talk about this is the work you've been called to do. You're answering the call. What is the end goal?
REGINA: So the end goal is no trafficking. [sigh] I asked this question at the end of my play. When I do 52 Letters, I say, what would you do if you knew a child was being trafficked? And I let people think about it. And then I say, What would you do if your child was being trafficked? We don't see that these children are our children, so trying to make the connection that these are all of our children.

You know, I don't understand how we don't view them through the lens of our own heart. Or the eyes of our own souls. They deserve to be cradled. And they deserve to be held by us with all that we are.
Rightnowish is an arts and culture podcast produced at KQED. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts or click the play button at the top of this page and subscribe to the show on NPR One, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Abolitionist Fighting Sex Trafficking with Words and Altars | KQED

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Regina Y. Evans works with a team of folks to assemble altars on Oakland's International Boulevard, a hub for adult sex workers as well as the sex trafficking of minors. Regina says the goal of the work is to be present for the girls-or "Beloveds," as she calls them.

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KQED provides public radio, television, and independent reporting on issues that matter to the Bay Area. We're the NPR and PBS member station for Northern California.

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WRITE A PORTAL
May 1st // 12-3pm
Guest Facilitator:  Adrienne Oliver

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Please complete this form at the end of the workshop

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Raise Your Voice is a free monthly workshop exploring connection, healing, and empowerment through creative writing and expression. The goal is to illuminate stories of Black writers in the Bay Area and the dynamic power of writing. Authentically presenting our communities with additional tools to r…