https://youtu.be/yJnkED4LNz0 ONN – Conservative Pat Robertson Says Derek Chauvin Should Be Put Under Jail For Killing George Floyd – vlog by Zennie62 YouTube Conservative Pat Robertson Says Derek Chauvin Should Be Put Under Jail For Killing George Floyd The 700 Club’s Pat Robertson said, today, that while he is pro police, he is not sticking … Read more
Oakland Has Tradition Of Riots After Racist Crimes – George Floyd Derek Chauvin Murder Case Is Nigh ONN – Oakland Has Tradition Of Riots After Racist Crimes – George Floyd Derek Chauvin Murder Case Is Nigh – vlog by Zennie62 YouTube Watch the vlog Oakland Has Tradition Of Riots After Racist Crimes – George Floyd … Read more
Imagine driving along Oakland’s Broadway Avenue, headed toward Jack London Square and in the objective of having great Everett & Jones Barbeque. As you stop at the traffic light at 14th and Broadway, some dude runs out in front of your car, points a gun at you, and yells “GET OUT OF THE CAR!” That’s … Read more
The murders of Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Stephon Clark, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and the latest reported name of Daniel Prude, all have one story in common: their lives were ended by police officers. Moreover, there’s story after story, after story, of commonly … Read more
McClymonds High School Serves as Backdrop for City of Oakland’s Swearing in Ceremony for new Police Chief, LeRonne Armstrong, McClymonds Alumnus Oakland, CA — A sunny Monday morning at McClymonds High School looked very different than it has for the past eleven months. A crowd had gathered for a special event in which the school … Read more
From OUSD Superintendent Dr. Kyla Johnson-Trammell Dear Oakland Unified Community, I am both proud to say we are now in Black History Month, and disheartened to know that in our world, it is quite clear that the forces that try to diminish Black voices and heritage have been emboldened. The past year has been wrought … Read more
OUSD Students and Staff Featured in New Documentary Homeroom Heading to 2021 Sundance Film Festival This Month Oakland – Starting in 2019, a documentary film crew worked in OUSD watching the educational process and seeing the lives of students, along with staff and families. The intent was to show urban education through the eyes of … Read more
The baseball great and his development partner wants to team with a tribal lands developer for the light-on-specifics proposal focusing tribal casino and hotel development on the Coliseum land. Livestream above at 4:20 PM EST December 26th 2020. A source who wished to remain anonymous sent to this vlogger a seven-page copy of a document … Read more
Berkeley Conversations: Critical Race Theory and the 2020 Election From YouTube Channel: October 19, 2020 at 02:22PM ONN – This roundtable discussion will consider how the racial uprising in the aftermath of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, on-going police violence and social unrest, a possible shift in race-consciousness among White voters, the … Read more
Ben Bartlett and the Berkeley City Council Introduces Legislation on Group Violence Intervention (GVI) Program – to address Gun Violence in the Community
Berkeley – Berkeley has been experiencing an alarming rise in shootings throughout the City. This year alone, there have been more than 30 shootings, including one occurring on the night of October 21, 2020 that tragically left a woman gravely injured in a drive-by shooting on Prince Street in South Berkeley.
“The recent heartbreaking gun violence must come to an end, and I am ready to work collaboratively with our community in developing an effective program to achieve that goal,” Mayor Jesse Arreguin said.
Today, Councilmember Bartlett introduced urgent legislation and is calling on the City to establish a Group Violence Intervention Program (GVI), or “Operation Ceasefire,” which will assemble an inter-jurisdictional working group of law enforcement agencies, community members, and support services providers to address the cascading cycles of gun violence.
Co-sponsored by Mayor Arreguin and Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani, the item will be discussed at today’s City Council meeting if approved to be agendized. “By looking at the success of similar programs in other cities and catering it towards the needs of Berkeley, we can develop safe communities together,” Mayor Arreguin said.
Specifically, the program will identify young adults (ages 18-30) who are at greatest risk of being involved in gun violence, develop an intervention team to communicate directly and respectfully to at-risk individuals, implement an intervention plan to provide wrap-around and support services, and create a public education campaign to promote these efforts.
In cities throughout the country, GVI has proven to be an effective tool for reducing homicides and strengthening trust between community members and law enforcement. The City has the power to act now to develop its own GVI program to address the tragic rise in shootings and homicides plaguing our city.
In recognition of the interlocking geographic nature of those committing gun crimes as well as their victims, the GVI program will be centered on Berkeley. However, it should also be connected to and work in concert with community workers in neighboring jurisdictions including Oakland, Richmond, Antioch, and San Francisco.
“GVI aligns with our goals of reimagining policing, and is a more robust version of the Specialized Care Unit envisioned in the George Floyd Community Safety Act,” Councilmember Bartlett said. “The program also paves the way for greater regional collaboration, protecting communities from gun violence in Berkeley and across the Bay Area. People have put in years of work developing this model. Let’s raise up the community’s efforts and create lasting peace in the streets. Our children deserve to be safe.”
On Wednesday, 19-year-old Sereinat’e Henderson (which sounds like Sereinity Henderson) was shockingly murdered – shot in a senseless drive-by shooting that’s marked an uptick in gun violence in Berkeley, California in 2020, over 2019.
On Thursday, Sereinat’e Henderson’s family held a vigil at the site in South Berkeley where Henderson was killed. Her family members and Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett gathered to mourn and to remember Sereinat’e and call for an end to the gun violence that has plagued that part of Berkeley this year.
As mentioned here at Oakland News Now, earlier, Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett (who authored a comprehensive police reform legislation called The George Floyd Community Safety Act) holds that The Pandemic is responsible for the uptick in gun violence in Berkeley. He and Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín are forming a regional task force to address the problem. The KRON take left out mention of the role of the Pandemic, and Councilmember Bartlett’s comments; the video-blog above has his thoughts on the Coronavirus and Berkeley gun violence.
Gun Violence Long A Problem In Berkeley City Council Districts 2 and 3
The location of the drive-by-killing of Sereinat’e Henderson, at Harper and Prince Streets near Malcolm X Elementary School, is in a part of Berkeley, South Berkeley, that has been haunted by gun violence for some time. That’s also true for Berkeley City Council District 2. Bartlett said that he and Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín aim to form a task force that includes East Bay Mayors of Oakland, Emeryville, and other cities.
In this story also covered by KRON TV’s Dan Thorn, Serenity Henderson (who’s spelling is Sereinat’e Henderson) is a 19-year-old mother of a 9-month-old child, and pregnant with her second baby, who was killed in a drive-by shooting on Wednesday. The drive-by shooting reportedly occured at Prince Street near Malcolm X Elementary School, at 1731 Prince St.. The suspect is still at large as of this writing.
On Thursday, Sereinat’e Henderson’s family held a vigil at the site in South Berkeley where the crime occurred. Family members and Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett gathered to remember Sereinat’e and call for an end to the gun violence.
Councilmember Ben Bartlett (who authored a comprehensive police reform legislation called The George Floyd Community Safety Act) holds that The Pandemic is responsible for the uptick in gun violence in Berkeley. He and Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín are forming a regional task force to address the problem. The KRON take left out mention of the role of the Pandemic, and Councilmember Bartlett’s comments; the video-blog above has his thoughts on the Coronavirus and Berkeley gun violence.
Link Between The Pandemic And Gun Violence In Berkeley And Nationwide
That there’s a link between The Pandemic and gun violence is now well-documented. Everytown Research and Policy reports:
As of June 4, 2020, there have been over 1.8 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US. While over 485,000 Americans have recovered from the coronavirus, nearly 108,000 have died.1 Since the onset of COVID-19, the country has seen a rise in gun violence: The number of gun deaths trended higher during the peak coronavirus outbreak period of March through the Memorial Day weekend in May than during the comparable time frame in 2019. This resulted in 354 additional firearm deaths.
Unprecedented increases in gun sales, combined with economic distress and social isolation due to COVID-19, are intensifying the country’s long-standing gun violence crisis. The pandemic highlights the deadliness of weak gun purchase and access laws that allow firearms to fall into the wrong hands, and also sheds light on existing structural inequity. The coronavirus puts vulnerable populations, including women, children, and communities of color, at heightened risk. The lethal impact of these crises, though devastating, helps point the way to laws, policies, and programs that can keep people safe and healthy—now and on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic. The collision of these two public health crises offers possibility amidst great loss.
Stay tuned.
Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland News Now: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media video-blogging system network that was launched June 2018. This is a major part of Zennie62Media , Inc.’s new and innovative approach to the production of news media. What we call “The Third Wave of Media”. The uploaded video is from a YouTube channel. When the video is “liked” by Zennie62 YouTube, then it is automatically uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-created and owned social media pages. The overall objective here, on top of our is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours – is the use of the existing YouTube social graph on any subject in the World. Now, news is reported with a smartphone and also by promoting current content on YouTube: no heavy and expensive cameras or even a laptop are necessary, or having a camera crew to shoot what is already on YouTube. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media content news production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and seeks interested content and media technology partners.
That Berkeley City Councilmember Ben Bartlett should face challengers in the 2020 Election is wild to me. When one considers the many accomplishments Bartlett has done for Berkeley, and what work he’s started and that’s left to be done, and then look at his opponents and what they offer, that Bartlett’s re-election should be a point of debate is, well, unusual, for several reasons.
First, consider that each and every member of the Berkeley City Council has endorsed Ben for re-election. That means this:
Jesse Arreguín, Berkeley Mayor
Sophie Hahn, Berkeley Vice Mayor & City Councilmember
Rashi Kesarwani, Berkeley City Councilmember
Cheryl Davila, Berkeley City Councilmember
Kate Harrison, Berkeley City Councilmember
Susan Wengraf, Berkeley City Councilmember
Rigel Robinson, Berkeley City Councilmember
Lori Droste, Berkeley City Councilmember
Tom Bates, Former Berkeley Mayor
Max Anderson, Former Berkeley Councilmember, District 3
.. all of those Berkeley representatives not only want Ben Bartlett to retain his seat, but that they pay attention to him regarding policy formation. Not one of Councilmember Bartlett’s opponents can make that claim. It also means that, again, unlike his opponents, Berkeley residents don’t have to concern themselves with Bartlett’s ability to gain votes for his initiatives representing them.
Second, having all of the Berkeley City Council backing him also means Councilmember Bartlett understands something else his challengers don’t: governance. Governance, simply put, means how the business of government works.
Ben Bartlett’s Constant Focus For South Berkeley Has Been Extremely Affordable Housing
In addition to governance, Councilmember Bartlett’s main focus from the start of his first term has been the development of extremely affordable housing. For example, Mr. Bartlett’s office wrote the grant that allowed Resources for Community Development to gain $40 Million Dollars in affordable housing for South Berkeley. He has also backed a number of initiatives to advance the development of more extremely affordable housing that deserve a book unto themselves.
By contrast, one of Councilmember Bartlett’s challengers is a realtor who’s in favor of pro-market-rate and expensive housing in the middle of the worst homeless crisis in modern history, and The COVID-19 Pandemic.
In addition, she is not even supporting the passage of State Proposition 16. That means she’s not in favor of the re-installation of much-needed affirmative action laws designed to cause social equity.
Councilmember Bartlett Backs Police Spending Reformation In The Wake Of George Floyd
In addition to housing advocacy, Councilmember Bartlett advanced and assisted in the passage of a number of items of legislation designed to focus police spending on alternative crime fighting practices. Thanks to his leadership, and relationships with fellow Berkeley City Councilmembers, Berkeley became a national leader in police reform.
I could go on and on, but I’ll cut to the chase: re-elect Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett.
ONN – Oaklandside’s Attack On Derreck Johnson In The Oakland City Council Race Was Racist
The Oaklandside, a new online publication by the person who owns Berkeleyside and that has a $3 million grant from Google, owes Derreck Johnson, a candidate in the Oakland City Council race for the At-Large Seat occupied by Rebecca Kaplan (who I endorsed), an apology (and just maybe a chunk of that 3 million). It’s recent post attacking him for filing bankruptcy was nothing short of racist in my view as an Oakland black media entrepreneur in the time of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
In this case, some who are white, just could not accept that my actions were out of anger for the racist Oaklandside post, and first assumed that I was backing Derreck Johnson, when I openly said I was supporting Rebecca Kaplan, and then, on their own, guessed that Derreck, Mayor Schaaf, and I all went to Skyline High School together.
When a friend of mine who’s white texted me with that question about Skyline High School (where I am Class of 80 and Libby is Class of 1981), I called and let him know how upset with him I was. I said “You can’t accept the fact that my concern for what was written about him was purely because I perceived it as racist, huh? Do you realize that’s racist?”
As my friend is prone to do, he laughs nervously and tries to change the subject, but this time I kept focus. The problem was the Oaklandside post was truly institutionally racist, and it doesn’t matter what a person thinks to the contrary, even if they’re black. In Oakland, too many of us black folks are too willing to put down someone else black anyway – it’s a crabbarrel problem of massive proportions that helps no one.
The fact is that, according to Derreck himself, he went to Bishop O’Dowd High School, not Skyline High School. And so that leads back to my point: the desire to not see a racist act and deflect eyes from view keeps it as justifiable. That’s what my friend was trying to do, and he needs to stop doing it. As I said to him “We can’t allow a point of view like yours to fester because, little by little, these racist stories build up, until we get George Floyd all over again.”
No more racial profiling in media. If Derreck’s run has done anything, it’s shown a spotlight on that problem. It has to stop.
Donald Trump’s Businesses Have Filed For Bankruptcy Many Time Yet He’s Considered Successful
The Washington Post reported that Donald Trump’s businesses filed for bankruptcy six times. In all of the media coverage, no reporter or columnist ever blasted Donald Trump for bragging about his success. By contrast, Derreck Johnson’s business filed for bankrupcy and here is the Oaklandside’s Darwin BondGraham (and its editors hiding behind him) to say he’s not successful. Johnson is black. Trump is white. There should be one standard of fact: both started and ran businesses that employed people. And in Johnson’s case, he gave black men and women out of prison another chance at life. That’s successful.
Derreck Johnson Oakland City Council At Large 2020 Candidate Interview
And, as a momentary aside, I’m proud to report that Zennie62Media’s OaklandNewsNow.com that you’re reading is twice the size of Oaklandside in online traffic, and with a fraction of it’s budget. And it’s black owned and operated, whereas Oaklandside has a black editor, but is white owned, and the person who wrote the post is white and male.
Oaklandside’s Attack On Derreck Johnson Reflects A Classic Pattern Of Media Racism
Anyway, Oaklandside accused Derreck Johnson of being so proud as a black man to run television commercials saying he’s “successful”, that he needed to be taken down a notch by getting out “the truth”. The truth as Oaklandside saw it. The truth as Oaklandside was presented with by a source. I say that because I know where the information came from, and who gave it to Oaklandside, regardless of what it claims. Moreover, it’s no secret: bankruptcy information is publicly available, folks.
What Oaklandside did was simply make phone calls around town to form a story around the information it was given. If Oaklandside were truly interested in “the truth” it would have produced an article with information about the businesses of all of the candidates, without sensationalism. If Oaklandside was were truly interested in “the truth”, it would have worked with Mr. Johnson to run a positive story about what problems he experienced as a black man keeping his business going.
The story Oaklandside’s racist lens caused it to miss was one that needs to be told at a time when everyone from Facebook to Google has some kind of initiative focused on financing black businesses, in the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Think about it. As Marcus Burke put in for The World Economic Forum “Following the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and many other Black people at the hands of police, companies have started to take a stand against systemic racism.” Obviously, Oaklandside showed itself to be completely tone-deaf to the times.
In the paper “Media Representations and Impact on the Lives of Black Men and Boys”, by the Topos Partnership with The Opportunity Agenda, the authors observe:
A robust body of research documents how the overall presentation of black males in the media is distorted in a variety of ways, relative to the real-world facts. While individual studies tend to focus on a single genre or medium — such as TV fiction shows, magazine advertising, or video games — the research taken as a whole reveals broad patterns, including:
Negative associations exaggerated — particularly criminality, unemployment, and poverty. The idle black male on the street corner is not the “true face” of poverty in America, but he is the dominant one in the world as depicted by media.
Positive associations limited — particularly, sports, physical achievement in general, virility, and musicality. While the media’s version of America is populated by some black males intended to inspire, they tend to represent a relatively limited range of qualities to the exclusion of a variety of other everyday virtues.
The “problem” frame — Due to both distortions and also accurate and sympathetic discussion, black males tend to be overly associated with intractable problems.
Missing stories — Many important dimensions of black males’ lives, such as historical antecedents of black economic disadvantage and persistence of anti-black male bias, are largely ignored by the media.
In Derreck Johnson’s case, Oaklandside missed a great chance to have him tell his story of what led to the problems he experienced with his business. Moreover, Oaklandside worked to, as the authors wrote about media bias against black men, “Negative associations exaggerated — particularly criminality, unemployment, and poverty.” In other words, the Oaklandside’s seems to be upset that Johnson didn’t say he had been in financial trouble. Note, Johnson didn’t break any law, so that was the best it could do in attacking Derreck Johnson.
The Times Are Changing – The LA Times
In these times, America is beginning to wake up to the media racism that has worked to constantly paint blacks in a negative light. The kind of media racism that has been active in Oakland and San Francisco Bay Area media for far too long. And, let’s face it, the kind of media racism that was served up to feed the desires of some in Oakland who are white for the most part, and just don’t want to believe anything positive about anyone black who dares say they’re successful, or holds a title. Those persons want to push blacks into the familiar image of being poor, downtrodden, and criminally inclined. The kind of media The Oaklandside produced makes them oh so happy. Sad stuff that must stop.
In that, I must say it’s great The Los Angeles Times called out its own history of racism.
But, even then, The Los Angeles Times leaves out the racist lens that’s still applied today, and one that Oaklandside uses. Moreover, one would think that other mainstream media news publications would follow the Los Angeles Times’ lead, (like The San Francisco Chronicle, which has its own problems with racism as one can see here, and here, too.) but to this date, crickets. For many who are white, racism only exists when the n-word is used or a black person is physically harmed. But real racism is evident in all aspects of life, and in many ways, and in media, it’s expressed in how blacks are portrayed.
As I saw it, here’s the truth: Derreck Johnson did establish and run a business in Oakland that employed people, most notably black ex-prisoners who needed help. Stop it right there: that’s the success story that should be told, and that Derreck has the right to crow about. It’s clearly a story Oaklandside didn’t even think to try to tell, even though it was starring them in right in the face. Oaklandside was way too focused on putting a cyber-knee in Derreck Johnson’s online neck.
I got wind of this via a phone call from a friend. I called Derreck Johnson and we talked extensively. I told him that my first introduction to him was from an email from Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf. I said it wasn’t the first time my godsister advanced a candidate to challenge Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan. I also told him that, for those reasons, I thought of him as a Manchurian candidate. He laughed and understood and because I gave him a video platform to talk about running for office and about himself. I never sought to put him down. Blacks in America have had enough of media racism.
Unlike Oaklandside, I asked and gave Derreck Johnson a chance to tell his story:
Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland News Now: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media video-blogging system network that was launched June 2018. This is a major part of Zennie62Media , Inc.’s new and innovative approach to the production of news media. What we call “The Third Wave of Media”. The uploaded video is from a vlogger with the Zennie62 on YouTube Partner Channel, then uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-created and owned social media pages. The overall objective is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours. Now, news is reported with a smartphone: no heavy and expensive cameras or even a laptop are necessary. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media content news production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and seeks interested content and media technology partners.
ONN – Ben Bartlett Berkeley Councilmember On Domestic Violence Awareness Month
During Domestic Violence Month 2020, Berkeley Councilmember Ben Barlett (who introduced the Berkeley City Council’s George Floyd Community Safety Act) took time to express his support for all persons and organizations impacted by domestic violence.
In addition, Councilmember Bartlett scored the November 2020 Election backing of the legendary East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club as he runs for Council District 3 re-election.
The legendary organization sited Councilmember Bartlett’s first-term accomplishments like:
1) Passing tenant protection ordinances, streamlining affordable housing developments, and funding anti-displacement programs
2) Reallocating Berkeley police funding to the creation of an unarmed Specialized Care Unit
3) Fundingthe creation of a feasibility study for an African American Holistic Resource Center to help reduce healthinequities
4) Passing a Health Equity and Innovation Zone.
For The Bartlett Files.
Stay tuned.
Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland News Now: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media video-blogging system network that was launched June 2018. This is a major part of Zennie62Media , Inc.’s new and innovative approach to the production of news media. What we call “The Third Wave of Media”. The uploaded video is from a YouTube channel. When the video is “liked” by Zennie62 YouTube, then it is automatically uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-created and owned social media pages. The overall objective here, on top of our is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours – is the use of the existing YouTube social graph on any subject in the World. Now, news is reported with a smartphone and also by promoting current content on YouTube: no heavy and expensive cameras or even a laptop are necessary, or having a camera crew to shoot what is already on YouTube. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media content news production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and seeks interested content and media technology partners.
This Oakland Public Ethics Commission Complaint comes under the subhead-line of ‘bone-headed reports by fake news folks with racist agendas” and refers to an Oakland Public Ethics Commission Complaint that was filed against a firm called Lane Partners, represented by Andrew Haydel. The matter was before the Oakland Public Ethics Commission, and in it’s agenda for October 5th 2020.
What happened was that Lane Partners was encouraged to make a contribution to the Lynette Gibson-McElhaney Legal Defense Fund, and not by anyone directly connected to Lynette, but by, according to PEC records, my friend (at least I think we’re still friends, but in this town shit gets weird for weird reasons) Greg McConnell, the founder of the Oakland Jobs and Housing Coalition. A 2018 email reported McConnell’s plan to get donations for her 50th Birthday.
And Now This Aside…
Now, if you go an assume that Lynette herself established that plan, then you know less about Oakland politics than you think, and are contributing to the crab-barrel, game-playing that causes Oakland to lose out big on matters like retaining sports teams. Oakland has a major-league loser mentality that has to be addressed. Character assassination is sport in Oakland and I find that it’s a proxy for professional competence. But that aside, there are any number of political players in Oakland and San Francisco wiling to, what we call on the streets, “run a game” on someone. Some of them rest in the media.
Seriously, there are some media-types who live for documents that make black Oakland elected officials look bad, but when the elected official is white, they look the other way. Want evidence? Go back to 2013 and the claims of Oakland City Staff Tampering that were leveled against Oakland Councilmember Larry Reid of District 7 and Desley Brooks of District 6 – claims that, as former Oakland City Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente will tell you, apply to every Oakland City Councilmember in history. But when the white media got involved, they didn’t want to see that, and just saw a chance to paint black elected officials as bad, and so they did.
The trouble with a lot of black folks here in Oakland and in America is they complain about the white media types but are by inaction afraid to counter them, and don’t back black media. And so we get the social climate painting black folks so negatively that the result is George Floyd’s death.
Anyway Back To The Action, I Mean The Oakland PEC Complaint
The Oakland PEC Complaint about Lane Partners reads, in part, this way:
Respondents violated the Oakland Campaign Reform Act by contributing $1,000 to Lynette Gibson-McElhaney Legal Defense Fund in October2018 at a time when they were subject to the City’s ban on contributions from City contractors to candidates, in violation of Oakland Municipal Code section 3.12.140
And here’s the rest:
In June 2019, Commission Staff initiated a pro-active investigation after Andrew Haydel’s lawyer called to report that Haydel, a commercial real-estate investor and principal at Lane Partners LLC, “may have made a contribution” to an Oakland political candidate’s defense fund during a time when he and Lane Partners, a City contractor, was subject to the contractor campaign contribution ban.
Between 2016-2018, Lane Partners was involved with several different development projects with the City of Oakland. One such project was the Eastline project.
PROCEDURAL FACTS:
The Respondent and Staff reached a settlement agreement in February 2020. Staff prepared a Stipulation recommending that the Public Ethics Commission (PEC) impose a penalty of $2,000. In the Matter of Haydel was scheduled on the PEC’s March 2020, Agenda. At the PEC’s March meeting, the Commissioners rejected the recommended penalty of $2,000 and instead informed the Respondent that a $5,000 penalty was a more appropriate penalty based on the facts and experience of the Respondent. The PEC instructed Staff to renegotiate the Stipulation with a penalty of $5,000. Staff reached out to the Respondent who initially agreed to sign a revised Stipulation and pay the increased penalty of $5,000.
As a note, this is way not the first time Lane Partners has made a donation that was viewed as having violated Oakland’s Campaign Reform Act, but the simple fact the PEC caught this means good for the future. I must also report that there have been so many alleged violations of the type that Lane Partners is accused of, that it may be time to revisit the law from the perspective of laws that cause entrapment. Because one can replace Lynette Gibson-McElhaney with the Mayor or any other Oakland City Councilmember, and some idiot with a keyboard (who may be running a smear campaign on behalf of another Oakland City Councilmember) would jump to the conclusion that Libby did something wrong, when she had nothing to do with the action.
Anyway, it goes on to report via documents like this one that Lane Partners acted on the advice of their lawyer, Zack Wasserman (Another long-time friend of mine who now former Oakland City Attorney John Russo used to call “Zack-A-Potatos”). Wasserman is asking for the PEC to consider his error to his client, and also for the standard $5,000 fine to be reduced to $2,000, and Lane Partners would pay it.
And there’s the real story. A true mistake admitted to.
The point of all of this: it’s really important to look before one takes any leap and makes negative assumptions about someone else. Also, some electeds in Oakland should be real careful about passing information they deem negative about someone else. After a time, that crap will back fire. God does not like ugly.
This Ben Bartlett post called “Safety for All: George Floyd Community Safety Act” by Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett appears on Medium. Here’s an excerpt:
Ben Bartlett Berkeley Councilmember
In all 50 states and more than 145 cities, Americans are calling for legitimate police accountability, an end to police brutality, and the transformation of the police system itself. The killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis this May initiated this wave of demonstrations. But Mr. Floyd’s death is only the latest entry in a long history of human rights atrocities inflicted on Black individuals. The message is clear: enough is enough.
In response, Congress has introduced the George Floyd Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act of 2020, which aims to prevent police brutality and calls for national policing standards. For example, the bill reforms hiring practices of law enforcement agencies mandates studies of training procedures that codify a uniform set of procedures for Police Officer conduct and implements other provisions. While this is a step in the right direction, broad legislation at the federal level is fundamentally unable to address the specific issues and nuances of local municipalities’ law enforcement. In order to better respond to the communities they serve, it is critical that local governments and policymakers take action on police reform.
Historically, the City of Berkeley has played a critical role in developing law enforcement practices. August Vollmer, the city’s first police Chief, who among other things, first put officers in automobiles, is hailed as the Father of American policing. Likewise, Berkeley is home to the nation’s first civilian oversight board over the Police Department. Berkeley can continue its leading role by addressing today’s policing issues, namely unconstitutional behavior, racial abuse, and unsustainable expense. Though a gargantuan problem, policymakers in Berkeley and elsewhere can make headway by breaking the larger problem into its individual parts — data-driven budgeting, police accountability, the warrior mentality instilled in police academies, and the use of armed officers in non-criminal cases.
Here is the full post on Medium: Safety For All: The George Floyd Community Safety Act.
Filed under: ben bartlett berkeley, ben bartlett stanford, councilmember ben bartlett, ben bartlett forme life, ben bartlett email, ben bartlett age, ben bartlett composer, yelda bartlett, ben bartlett berkeley email
After watching NFL players representing both the Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans lock arms in what should have been a celebratory event, be marred by what many assumed to be Kansas City Chiefs fans booing, I resisted the impulse to make a reaction vlog, and considered the moment. During that period of time (which lasted the length of the game), I wondered if it really was Kansas City Chiefs out there booing the Chiefs and the Texans. Then, I wondered how one could determine if they really were fans?
The reason I thought this was because here we had another moment that, many times this year, had to do with Black Lives Matter, a large crowd or gathering, and television. In each of these cases, something happened that seemed to communicate the idea that America was divided, law enforcement was needed, and Black Lives Matter was an extremist movement, undesirable to Americans.
The linchpin example was the week when President Trump ordered federal troops into cities he said were ran by Democrats, and in his speech in the Rose Garden of The White House on Monday, July 20th, Trump said he was going to send troops to Oakland. In fact, as I pointed out, Trump tossed out Oakland after a delay in his delivery – as if to say “Oh, I forgot to mention Oakland”.
That was the 20th of July. But July 26th, Trump, via his fake federal troop call. (“Fake” in that there was no real trouble with protestors, and I asserted the people who attacked Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s house were, themselves, fake protest actors who’s services were purchased for a public relations stunt – all to give the impression Oakland was, as Trump said, “lawless.” It’s called “astroturfing”: the practice of manufacturing the appearance of grass-roots support.)
As the Google Trends image shows, President Trump has succeeded in de-coupling protest activities from Black Lives Matter. During that week, the “law and order” campaign message emerged as Trump’s counter to Black Lives Matter.
Trump’s Federal Troup Fake News Decouples White Protestors From Black Lives Matter
Now, why did I come to that conclusion? One name: Brad Parscale.
Brad Parscale (Photo courtesy Wall Street Journal)
Brad Parscale was the Trump 2020 campaign manager, and one who was hired, according toNews One, he…
..began working for the Trump organization seven years ago as a website designer and media strategist. He was hired to head social media for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. That’s when he utilized dark posts on Facebook to diminish Black voter turnout for Hillary Clinton. “He has our family’s complete trust and is the perfect person to be at the helm of the campaign,” Eric Trump, the president’s son, said in a statement, according to CNN. He added that Parscale was “pivotal to our success in 2016.”
Dark posts don’t appear in the sender’s Facebook news feed. Only the targeted Facebook users can see the message. Consequently, the posts can be tailored to specific recipients without getting blasting to everyone. It can easily silo scores of people with one click and without any accountability.
In one message during the 2016 campaign, Parscale disseminated dark posts to certain Black voters to remind them about Clinton’s “super predator” comment in 1996, in which she used the phrase to describe young Black males who were gang banging and selling crack cocaine. Twenty years later, Clinton apologized for the term and her role in ushering in the wave of mass incarceration of Black people in the 1990s.
Back in 2016, it was unclear if dark posts for political messaging would work. However, Parscale was certain that his tactic would “dramatically affect” turnout for Clinton. He’s probably already hard at work devising a scheme to diminish the Black vote in 2020.
Then, in theSan Antonio Express-News on July 17th, Gilbert Garcia wrote:
Trump rewarded Parscale by picking him to serve as his 2020 campaign manager.
Over the past four months, however, the Trump-Parscale bond has been battered by Category 5 political headwinds: a COVID-19 pandemic which has taken the lives of 138,000 Americans; a resulting economic shutdown; and nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in response to the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. (My emphasis.)
Trump has failed to get a handle on any of these crises and now finds himself trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden by double digits in almost every major national poll.
So, it was quite apparent that Black Lives Matter was a problem for the Trump campaign. But rather than outright terminate Parscale, Trump demoted him, and hired Matt Oczkowski, an alum from Cambridge Analytica, to direct him.
Matt Oczkowski’
Given Matt Oczkowski’s noted and documented love for tracking electorate response to just what Trump tweets, once saying this:
We knew going into it that we had to build a really dynamic data program that could keep up with the candidate — because depending on the week, Trump could tweet one thing and it would change the entire view of the electorate on that week.
So our data program had to be very elastic — which means any time a stone was thrown into the water, we had to be able to track the ripples and see [where] different parts of the electorate were actually moving in a particular direction.
I believe the Trump Campaign has advanced their approach and used part of their $1 billion campaign budget to purchase protestors via firms like Crowds On Demand, and as part of an effort that Trump was encouraged to push along from the power of the presidential bully pulpit.
Have doubts?
Consider that, in forming the campaign attack, Brad said “In 2016, we had 700,000 volunteers help us. In 2020, we’re gonna have 1.6 million volunteers. I had 3,000 team leaders across the United States. This time we’ll have 90,000 team leaders.” Now, you can’t do door-to-door political campaigning during The Pandemic, so I believe the Trump campaign shifted its focus to more staged events for television and for social media.
And it’s for all of those reason that I believed something was up for Thursday Night Football.
Kansas City Star Reported That Tickets Were Available For The Texans at Chiefs NFL Kickoff Opener
Then, I decided to check and see if, indeed, tickets were available for the Texans at Chiefs NFL Kickoff Opener. A Google search revealed this article in the Kansas City Star, which had this title: “Want to go to tonight’s Chiefs season opener at Arrowhead? Tickets remain for the game”, and the author Jeff Rosen, wrote:
The Chiefs kick off their season in less than two hours. And if you want to go to the game, even with the limited seating the Chiefs had announced due to the pandemic, you’re in luck.
StubHub shows many tickets available, starting as low as $120 but mostly in the $150 range. Capacity for the game was being capped at about 16,000 inside Arrowhead Stadium, which usually holds about 76,000 for a full house.
So, as far as I was concerned, the stage was set for yet another fake protest on national TV, and one to counter the NFL Player “Black Lives Matter” events planned for NFL Kickoff and for the rest of the year.
From my perspective, the NFL and its players should either not have fans in the stands at all, or buy tickets for their own politically-supportive supporters in cities where fans will be allowed in. As I think about it, stopping fans from seeing the game altogether would give Trump a public relations win; buying fans sympathetic to the NFL Players would be just fighting fire with fire.
Stay tuned.
Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland News Now: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media video-blogging system network that was launched June 2018. This is a major part of Zennie62Media , Inc.’s new and innovative approach to the production of news media. What we call “The Third Wave of Media”. The uploaded video is from a vlogger with the Zennie62 on YouTube Partner Channel, then uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-created and owned social media pages. The overall objective is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours. Now, news is reported with a smartphone: no heavy and expensive cameras or even a laptop are necessary. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media content news production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and seeks interested content and media technology partners.
While not my first choice for the Oakland City Council At-Large Seat occupied by Rebecca Kaplan (whom I endorsed) Derreck Johnson is a new face on the Oakland Political Scene, even though he is a third-generation black Oaklander. I told him that because my first introduction to him was via an email from Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, I considered him a Manchurian candidate caught up in the 10-year-war between my godsister the Mayor and Councilmember Kaplan.
Derreck Johnson should be congratulated for his Chicken and Waffles business, which was successful in that he managed to employ black ex-prisoners. Sadly, he had to file for bankruptcy, then later and during the campaign, suffer from institutional racism on the part of the website Oaklandside, which seemed to delight in asserting that he wasn’t successful only because he filed for bankruptcy! That was both racial profiling and nasty, considering we have a POTUS who’s filed many bankruptcies and yet is considered very successful. But, there again, is the signal that it’s OK to have a blemish on your business record and still allow yourself to say you’re successful if you’re white, but not if you’re black. Not cool, man. Not right. Not cool.
In closing, there must be a truly aggressive black-ran media that points out racism in media. The media practice done to Derreck feeds an ugly desire among some, and not just white, in America, who refuse to see and present a black person in a positive light, and literally hunger for bad news about us.
In this case, some who are white, just could not accept that my actions were out of anger for the racist Oaklandside post, and first assumed that I was backing Derreck Johnson, when I openly said I was supporting Rebecca Kaplan and did not know Derreck prior to my interview with him, and then, on their own, guessed that Derreck, Mayor Schaaf, and I all went to Skyline High School together.
When a friend of mine who’s white texted me with that question about Skyline High School (where I am Class of 80 and Libby is Class of 1981), I called and let him know how upset with him I was. I said “You can’t accept the fact that my concern for what was written about him was purely because I perceived it as racist, huh? Do you realize that’s racist?”
As my friend is prone to do, he laughs nervously and tries to change the subject, but this time I kept focus. The problem was the Oaklandside post was truly institutionally racist, and it doesn’t matter what a person thinks to the contrary, even if they’re black. In Oakland, too many of us black folks are too willing to put down someone else black anyway – it’s a crabbarrel problem of massive proportions that helps no one.
The fact is that, according to Derreck himself, he went to Bishop O’Dowd High School, not Skyline High School. And so that leads back to my point: the desire to not see a racist act and deflect eyes from view keeps it as justifiable. That’s what my friend was trying to do, and he needs to stop doing it. As I said to him “We can’t allow a point of view like yours to fester because, little by little, these racist stories build up, until we get George Floyd all over again.”
No more racial profiling in media. If Derreck’s run has done anything, it’s shown a spotlight on that problem. It has to stop.
Stay tuned.
Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland News Now: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media video-blogging system network that was launched June 2018. This is a major part of Zennie62Media , Inc.’s new and innovative approach to the production of news media. What we call “The Third Wave of Media”. The uploaded video is from a vlogger with the Zennie62 on YouTube Partner Channel, then uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-created and owned social media pages. The overall objective is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours. Now, news is reported with a smartphone: no heavy and expensive cameras or even a laptop are necessary. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media content news production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and seeks interested content and media technology partners.
Susan Manheimer Interim Chief Covers For Oakland Police Officer Wearing Boogaloo Boys Hawaiian Shirt
Two days ago, I wrote the following account:
Do Oakland Police Have Racist Boogaloo Boys As Cops? Some Think So After This Officer Photo
The Boogaloo Boys are a group described as in Refinery 29 as “mostly white, heavily armed men who claim they have a “libertarian” bent, and have shown up to protests against police violence in recent weeks armed to the teeth and looking to start a race war.” One man, Air Force Sgt. Steven Carrillo, was charged in the shooting of Dave Patrick Underwood, a federal officer in Oakland during a George Floyd protest.
They are also known for wearing Hawaiian shirts.
This vlog is based on a Facebook post made 9 hours ago. It reads (by one resident) “If you are not familiar with the Boogaloo Bois, you should be. They are one of the scarier far right militia/racist types. Wearing Hawaiian type shirts is their thing. Here, we see one of them in the Oakland police department.”
The person who took and posted the video wrote “I’m watching a team of at least 15 OPD serve a warrant on a black family with small child in West Oakland right now, with assault rifles out.
One of the cops is wearing a Hawaiian shirt under his plate carrier. I called out “hey Boogaloo boy! Since when does OPD dress like Nazis?” They know what it is. (It’s all over now, cops have left)”
I am in the process of reaching out to the Oakland Police, and to Oakland elected officials, for answers to this.
Stay tuned.
After posting the content, I sent it to the Mayor of Oakland, the Oakland Police Media, and several Oakland City Councilmembers. The Oakland Police Public Information Officer said she would follow-up with me on the matter. I am still waiting.
On Facebook, an Oaklander posted an email from Susan Manheimer, the Oakland Interim Police Chief. It’s words, as you can see, were shocking. Rather than say she was investigating the matter, and leaving it at that, Manheimer bypassed OPD Media, and wrote that there was no connection between Hawaiian shirts and any extremist group. That, even though she admitted reading my blog post.
Why the Interim Police Chief would risk being seen as defending an officer who might be a member of the racist Boogaloo Boys is alarming, and could lead to her fast ouster. I think it should, personally.
There is only one answer here, and it’s not a good one. The Oakland Police Commission and Mayor of Oakland must step in. And we know where that can lead.
This is the email Manheimer wrote:
Thank you for your email inquiry questioning whether an officer wearing a Hawaiian shirt is an extremist who should be investigated.
While Hawaiian shirts or palm trees may be worn by members of different groups they’re also worn and sold universally – in fact there was a big sale today at Macy’s as I was shopping and saw many diverse individuals purchasing and wearing the Hawaiian
attire made famous by Tommy Bahama – including my dress today that I just noticed had a Hawaiian palm tree pattern – although it could be a Floridian shirt as I purchased it in Key West on a recent trip.
I can assure you that Hawaiian attire or the palm tree insignia is no more significant of alignment of a certain extremist group than it is of appreciating colorful attire, having a license plate from certain states, or even visiting Hawaii where you will
find thousands of vacationers sporting them.
Here is the picture I took of the sale at Macy’s today after seeing that blog post suggesting that somehow wearing Hawaiian shirts are now an extremist indicator.
Oakland Police Chief’s Photo
I should have photographed the cashier line in which I saw many racially diverse individuals waiting to purchase these shirts. I just thought it would be intrusive.
I will copy this email myself to our Police Commission so that they can be aware of this issue and that there is universal appeal of Hawaiian attire and it has not been colored by one specifically
I’ve noticed a really annoying trend in the San Francisco Bay Area of late, more specifically the last six years, and more intensely over the last four years (which happens to coincide with the election of Donald Trump as POTUS). It’s white folks telling black folks what racism is.
W.Kamal Bell
The most bothersome examples pop-up in news publications, and in social media, again, related to something a news reporter thinks or someone who dares write a “letter to the editor”.
Let’s take one piece written by Richard Keats II that I happened to see in Berkeleyside, and related to what happened to local comedian W.Kamal Bell at the closed Elmwood Café, now called Baker & Commons.
If you remember, what happened that eventually launched W.Kamal Bell into national view thanks to CNN, was that he was walking up to meet his wife and a friend, when a worker rushed out and ordered him to leave area. The worker believed that Mr. Bell was a homeless black man and in the worker’s mind, it was just fine to treat him as undesirable. The worker’s prejudice was so deep, the person did not even stop to consider that the “ homeless black man” was actually a black man who knew the white folks he was talking to, let alone married to one of them!
What happened to W.Kamal Bell is all too common in the San Francisco Bay Area, and in America: someone white thinks someone else who’s black, basically, just doesn’t belong. The many ways this staple of institutional racism is expressed are legion:
• A white student at Berkeley thinks a black student got in only because of affirmative action, and says so.
• White San Francisco Bay Area news reporters constantly couch something a black person does that they don’t like as criminal or illegal, whereas a white person is called “clever” or pioneering, or some equivalent. (Media and technology are the last bastions of white supremacist thought in America. Just count the micro-small number of media and tech organizations owned by blacks – like Zennie62Media, Inc.)
• A white woman gets upset that a black man is singing “Grease” out loud with his white female friends, and so voices her displeasure. (That happened to me in Las Vegas two years ago at the Cosmopolitan LV.)
• A white woman comes upon black men setting up a barbecue at Lake Merritt, tells them she bought the Lake for $5 million (a good reason to immediately brand her as nuts), and harasses them for two hours before calling 9-11 on them because she says they’re not supposed to cook there. (That was BBQ Becky AKA Jennifer Schulte, in Oakland two years ago.)
As I wrote, I can go on and on and on. But here comes people like Richard Keats II who have the nerve to write that “The slight W. Kamau Bell experienced at the Elmwood Café does not rise to the level of racism. He just experienced several seconds of emotional agitation.” Seriously, he wrote that. He did.
Richard Keats II is not black – he’s white. In his letter, he does not stop to show any type of sympathy for what W. Kamau Bell experienced. He does what a giant number of white folks have done since 2016: witness a racist act done to someone black, or do it themselves, and then says what happened was not racist when the black victim dares speak up. This crap must stop. For someone who has not walked your shoes to tell you what to think and how to feel is, in itself, offensive. And its racist, on top of the racist actions such responses seek to defend.
In Richard Keats II’s mind, racism has to be something violent. Also, he thinks that if W. Kamau Bell was more communicative, there would not be a problem. That’s crazy. Mr. Keats doesn’t seem to get that what the worker did was wrong – period. Mr. Bell should not have had to explain anything to him.
What Mr. Keats and others who think like him seem to want is some door to be kept open that allows them to be mean to black folks. What cracked me up about what Mr. Keats wrote back in 2018 was that he came up with this typically Bay Area psuedo-scientific “let me show I can do research and cite articles to prove I’m smart” bullshit approach to justify that he, when it all breaks down, just doesn’t want to see how a black person perceives the world around them. And just wants to be racist toward that black person – but in a way that he, Keats, doesn’t think is racist. Wow.
Even worse, the “research” examples he provides have zero to do with blacks and racism. He refers to the LGBTQ community, as if that’s, well, the same. It is, only from a straight-white-male-centric point of view. Which, I might add, a person does not have to be straight, white, or male to have – one can be black and afflicted with the same problem. Think about that when a black person tells you “The white man’s ice is colder.”
Wake up, will ya?
Keats, and others like him, seem to forget is that if we as a society keep letting what he calls “slights” that “ don’t rise to the level of racism” go, eventually, we get the many racist encounters that have been captured on cell phone camera this year. All done by white people who did not get the message that they were being racist, and quite possibility had a habit of that kind of behavior before it was captured on camera. Amy Cooper, in New York’s Central Park, making a fake “help, a black man’s attacking me” call to the NYPD. I’ll bet that’s not the first time she’s done something like that.
In this post-George Floyd world, what anyone white must stop doing is discounting the complaints of someone black that they’re being racist. That white person must train themselves to ask one question of that black person: “How can I be better?” Then, they have to be prepared to listen.
We can’t have a society where only white women can say that we should hear them. Everyone has to listen to each other. If I say something you did was racist, don’t tell me it wasn’t and don’t try and find someone else black to cover for you. Humble yourself and ask how you can be a better person toward me. Ask me what it is to be treated in a racist way. Then, take a seat, and say nothing: just listen.
Stay tuned. Happy Star Trek Day! (Remember the IDIC?)
And watch W. Kamau Bell’s show United Shades on CNN. After all, it was basically born in Berkeley, at The Elmwood Café.
Do Oakland Police Have Racist Boogaloo Boys As Cops? Some Think So After This Officer Photo
The Boogaloo Boys are a group described as in Refinery 29 as “mostly white, heavily armed men who claim they have a “libertarian” bent, and have shown up to protests against police violence in recent weeks armed to the teeth and looking to start a race war.” One man, Air Force Sgt. Steven Carrillo, was charged in the shooting of Dave Patrick Underwood, a federal officer in Oakland during a George Floyd protest.
They are also known for wearing Hawaiian shirts.
This vlog is based on a Facebook post made 9 hours ago. It reads (by one resident) “If you are not familiar with the Boogaloo Bois, you should be. They are one of the scarier far right militia/racist types. Wearing Hawaiian type shirts is their thing. Here, we see one of them in the Oakland police department.”
The person who took and posted the video wrote “I’m watching a team of at least 15 OPD serve a warrant on a black family with small child in West Oakland right now, with assault rifles out. One of the cops is wearing a Hawaiian shirt under his plate carrier. I called out “hey Boogaloo boy! Since when does OPD dress like Nazis?” They know what it is. (It’s all over now, cops have left)”
I am in the process of reaching out to the Oakland Police, and to Oakland elected officials, for answers to this.
Oakland George Floyd Protest August 26 2020
From YouTube Channel: August 27, 2020 at 02:10PM
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Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland News Now: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media video-blogging system network that was launched June 2018. This is a major part of Zennie62Media , Inc.’s new and innovative approach to the production of news media. What we call “The Third Wave of Media”. The uploaded video is from a vlogger with the Zennie62 on YouTube Partner Channel, then uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-created and owned social media pages. The overall objective is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours. Now, news is reported with a smartphone: no heavy and expensive cameras or even a laptop are necessary. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media content news production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and seeks interested content and media technology partners.
ONN – Doc Rivers Blasts GOP Fear-Mongering During Post-Game Press Conference Mavericks Clippers Game 5
This started out as a routine-for-the-NBA-Bubble press conference with LA Clippers coach Doc Rivers. But he then took it all to a left-turn and brought out for public consumption what was on the mind of pretty much everyone who’s either black or has a good heart and knows wrong when they see it.
The shooting of Jacob Blake in the back seven times by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin this week and just three months to the day of the George Floyd murder, had many asking what more had to be done to stop this police killing of blacks in America. To date, nothing has been done, and as I say all the time, protesting is not working. Changing laws works. Here’s Coach Rivers:
Listen, um, just just watching the Republican Revenge uh convention and this this feeling this fear right by oh you hear Donald Trump and all of them talking about fear. We’re the ones getting killed! We’re the ones getting shot at! We’re the ones that we’ll deny to live in certain countries. We’ve been hung. We’ve been shot. And all you do is keep hearing about fear.
It’s, it’s amazing why we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back. And it’s just it’s really so sad, and how he can just be a coach and it’s so often reminded of my color, you know?
It’s just really sad. We got to do better. But we got to demand better. Like we got, you know, it’s just funny. We protest and they send riot guards, right? Uh they send people in riot outfits. They go to Michigan with guns and they’re spinning on cops and nothing happens.
The training has to change in the police force. The unions have to be taken down in the police force. My dad was a cop. I believe in good cops we’re not trying to defund the police and take all their money away we’re trying to get them to protect us just like they protect everybody else.
I didn’t want to talk about it before the game because it’s so hard, like, to just keep watching that that video. If if you watch that video, you don’t need to be black to be outraged. The republicans talk about fear? We’re the ones that need to be scared. we’re the ones having to talk to every black child. One white father has to give his son a talk about being careful if you get pulled over. It’s, it’s just ridiculous. And it keeps getting it keeps going on. There’s no charges. No charges. Nothing.
All we’re asking is you live up to the Constitution. That’s all we’re asking for everybody, for everyone, thank you.
That was on TNT’s Inside The NBA and that was after the Clippers Mavericks. Actually, I put that on freeze. I want you to understand the significance of what you just saw, and i’m doing news commentary on this. That’s an NBA head coach making an unprecedented social commentary that needed to be said, that’s talked about in every household like this one. He basically turned what was an inside conversation more outside – we’ve held these conversations again and again and again but again he’s right this kind of psychotic behavior that you see keeps happening again and again
I’ve said racism as a mental illness – it is. It’s sick, and we have to cure the sickness. It’s evil – there’s nothing good that comes of it at all. And we’ve allowed it to infect this country and slow us down economically and socially. And no one who’s an American citizen should want that.
So god bless doc rivers for doing that.
Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland News Now: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media video-blogging system network that was launched June 2018. This is a major part of Zennie62Media , Inc.’s new and innovative approach to the production of news media. What we call “The Third Wave of Media”. The uploaded video is from a vlogger with the Zennie62 on YouTube Partner Channel, then uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-created and owned social media pages. The overall objective is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours. Now, news is reported with a smartphone: no heavy and expensive cameras or even a laptop are necessary. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media content news production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and seeks interested content and media technology partners.
Colorado State Offensive Lineman Barry Wesley took a summer job selling roofing never expecting that ot may cost him his life. Scott Gudmundsen, age 65, faces felony charges after holding Wesley and co-worker Kyle Farrell at gunpoint on June 11 and accusing them of being part of “antifa.” Gundmundsen also put his knee on the back of Wesley’s neck for about seven minutes, not dissimilar to how long George Floyd was pinned in the same position before he eventually died.
Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland News Now: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media video-blogging system network that was launched June 2018. This is a major part of Zennie62Media , Inc.’s new and innovative approach to the production of news media. What we call “The Third Wave of Media”. The uploaded video is from a vlogger with the Zennie62 on YouTube Partner Channel, then uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-created and owned social media pages. The overall objective is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours. Now, news is reported with a smartphone: no heavy and expensive cameras or even a laptop are necessary. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media content news production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and seeks interested content and media technology partners.
The Joshua Pawlik Shooting is the focus of the just released report by Robert Warshaw, the Thelton E. Henderson court-appointed monitor of the Oakland Police Department in the wake of the events of The Riders Case. Below, is a digitized version of the report. You can also download it here. You can also read former … Read more
Oakland – Tuesday night July 21, 2020, The Oakland City Council had the historic opportunity to address the decades-long budget inequity that has left police with the lion’s share of our tax dollars and many residents without healthcare, housing, and critical social services during the pandemic. Councilmembers Reid, McElhaney, Taylor, Gallo, and Mayor Schaaf chose … Read more
Ben Bartlett, Berkeley Councilmember, wrote this on Medium on Dec 4, 2019. He called it a “Framework for an Intrastate Regulatory Safe Harbor / Sandbox”. Councilmember Ben Bartlett: Technology is at its best when used to address fundamental human needs. While the internet represents a technological breakthrough of foundational significance, much of its potential to … Read more
On BerkDOT, Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett Says George Floyd Community Safety Act Curbs Racism ONN – On BerkDOT, Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett Says George Floyd Community Safety Act Curbs Racism BerkDOT, a proposal to off-load parking citations work from the Berkeley Police Department to a new Berkeley Department of Transportation, is up for consideration by … Read more
Oakland – Oakland’s Police Commission late Thursday night unanimously enacted the strongest language in the nation banning the use of neck holds and protecting individuals from asphyxia (when someone is deprived of oxygen) in encounters with police. The policy comes in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, who died of asphyxia … Read more
Lynette Gibson McElhaney, the incumbent, two-term, Oakland City Council District Three Councilmember has managed to draw six challengers as of this writing: Jesse Alexander, Carroll Fife, Brandi Haskins, Noel Pico, Meron Semedar, and Faye Taylor. Of course, the last time Councilmember McElhaney was in this position, it was 2016. In 2016, a field that once … Read more
NFL Commissioner Goodell, Mayor Of Chicago, Bears Sam Acho, Join Pro Athletes In West Chicago ONN – NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Lori Lightfoot, The Mayor Of Chicago, and Chicago Bears Sam Acho, join current Bears Michell Trubiski and other pro athletes from different sports In West Chicago. The mission: take down an abandoned liquor store … Read more
Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett’s Statement On The Berkeley City Council’s Police Defund Actions ONN – Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett’s Statement On The Berkeley City Council’s Police Defund Actions The Berkeley City Council voted to defund the Berkeley Police Department by $9.3 million. Ben Bartlett provided the following statement at Zennie62Media’s request. Councilmember Bartlett reports: On … Read more
Cam Newton Signs With New England Patriots In Deal Advanced By George Floyd, Black Lives Matter ONN – Cam Newton Signs With New England Patriots In Deal Advanced By George Floyd, Black Lives Matter Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland News Now: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version … Read more
Renaming the street names in Oakland – Bishop Bob Jackson ONN – Bishop Bob Jackson Wants To Rename Oakland Streets In Wake Of George Floyd Murder Listen as Bishop Bob Jackson speaks to KIPX 5 News reporter Da Lin regarding Racism and Renaming of the street names in Oakland, CA. Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland … Read more
Open air art museum will Oakland’s protest murals have a life beyond the ONN – Aireon Tavarres Works To Save Oakland’s Black Lives Matter Protest Murals In Downtown By Localish on YouTube, which reports: In Oakland, the boarded-up shop windows have been covered with the faces of George Floyd, Tony McDade and Breonna Taylor. If … Read more
Ben Bartlett Berkeley Councilmember Shows Oakland City Council How To Defund Police ONN – Ben Bartlett Berkeley Councilmember Shows Oakland City Council How To Defund Police Raw transcript from video: Hey, you know, I tell you something just really pisses me off. the City of Oakland just made this rush to stuff something in as … Read more
Ben Bartlett Berkeley Councilmember Says California Will Rollout #CalCoin “Soon” ONN – Ben Bartlett Berkeley Councilmember Says California Will Rollout #CalCoin “Soon” On Twitter, Bartlett writes “As Berkeley goes so goes the nation. At the state level we have been working up a version of the New York plan. It’s called #CalCoin We will be … Read more
Oakland School Board Votes To Eliminate OUSD Police Department: George Floyd Resolution ONN – Oakland School Board Votes To Eliminate OUSD Police Department: George Floyd Resolution Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland News Now: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media … Read more
Oakland youth march for police-free schools ONN – Oakland Youth Lead Black Organizing Project’s “Police Free Schools” March Chanting “no justice, no peace,” young protesters led a march through Oakland, California on Tuesday to demand police-free schools. Raw transcript: chancing no justice no peace young protesters led a march through Oakland California on Tuesday … Read more
