Editor’s note: The Aug. 20 brutalizing of longtime KPFA
programmer Nadra Foster by police who were called to KPFA by station and
network management has the Black community and all justice seekers seething.
How could managers, including two Black women, of the radio station that
proudly considers itself the most progressive in Northern California not know
the dangers of calling the police on a young Black person? As KPFA programmer
Weyland Southon exclaimed on the Block Report that broke the story on Flashpoints
the next day, “Situations like this get us killed.”
The first priority now is for all charges against Nadra to
be dropped and for KPFA to make her whole. The cost of justice isn’t cheap and
should inspire some deep soul searching by KPFA and Pacifica management.
Rumors that Nadra had been “banned” because a white
programmer said she felt “threatened” by this young Black woman who’d been
trained at KPFA and has worked there as unpaid staff for over a decade are not
unprecedented. Other young Blacks in recent years have been banned and locked
out of KPFA merely because white programmers complained they felt threatened by
the young people’s presence. Racism runs deep at KPFA.
Reparations must include revising KPFA’s program schedule to
include a prime time public affairs show covering African American news and
views. The one hour a week allocated to the esteemed show Africa Today is
nowhere near enough time to cover the far flung African Diaspora.
News from the Black community inevitably features police
terrorism because it is perpetrated every day in every hood in the U.S. That’s
the “War at Home” – hidden in plain sight because powerful media, including
KPFA with its 59,000 watts reaching a third of California, refuse to recognize
and report on it.
The fact that the San Francisco Bay View National Black
Newspaper, which does report the news from Black communities across the
country, is not currently in print makes coverage of that news by KPFA
imperative. KPFA’s signal reaches most of the 100,000 people who used to read
the printed Bay View every week – the majority unable to read it on the web
because they can’t afford internet access or are locked behind enemy lines.
Be sure to attend and speak out at the town hall meeting
Sunday, Sept. 7, **3 p.m.**, at the Black **New World**, **836 Pine St., West**
**Oakland**. Demand as reparations a prime time program on KPFA that’s of, for
and by the Black community – a show that covers police terrorism unflinchingly
so that listeners and KPFA and **Pacifica** management know the terrible
consequences of calling the police on a young Black person. KPFA, where the
memory of the Black Panther Party is revered, must remember that the purpose of
the party was to defend the Black community against police terrorism!*
The journalist best known for his coverage of police
terrorism and other life and death Black news is POCC Minister of Information
and Bay View Associate Editor JR, who wrote the story that follows and broke
the story of the attack on his colleague at KPFA, Nadra Foster. He asked that
word of another tragedy suffered by the Black community be included in this
message to emphasize the unbreakable ties that bind KPFA to the Black
community:
A member of the Sideshow collective whose program is broadcast
on KPFA every last Friday at midnight, August “Fef Mitti” McCoy, was murdered
in Vallejo on Saturday night. His funeral will be Friday, Sept. 5, 11 a.m., at
Wilson & Kratzer Mortuary, 455 24^th St. in Richmond. Please pay your
respects by attending or by sending your condolences to the family via MOI JR
at blockreportradio@gmail.com <mailto:blockreportradio@gmail.com>.
Meanwhile, watch for the impending relaunch of a redesigned
website for the Bay View newspaper at www.sfbayview.com.
Your support of the Bay View by advertising or contributing (tax deductibly if
you wish) is badly needed and greatly appreciated, and your stories and
comments sent to editor@sfbayview.com
are always welcome.
Police terrorize Black KPFA programmer in the station*
Speak out at the town hall meeting Sunday, Sept. 7, 3 p.m.,
at the Black New World, 836 Pine St., West Oakland*
by Minister of Information JR
On Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, between 1 and 2 p.m., Nadra
Foster, a young Black woman programmer and single mother, was beaten to the
ground by the Berkeley police, arrested, hog-tied and taken to jail, after the
management of KPFA radio and the Pacifica Foundation had called the police on
her, falsely accusing her of being “banned” from the station.
The incident started when Nadra, a graduate of the KPFA
apprenticeship program who hosted the program Elemental Roots for several years
at KPFA and often works with other programmers, came to the radio station to
work on the KPFA jazz radio show Transitions on Traditions. She was working in
the studio called Ujima, which means collective work and responsibility in
Swahili – a studio that signifies racial justice. Michael Yoshida, KPFA’s chief
engineer and a member of KPFA’s management team, had personally let her into
that studio the previous Friday.
Vini Beecham, a member of the paid staff, contacted Lois
Withers, the KPFA business manager, aka accountant, telling her that Nadra was
in the building using station resources for her personal benefit. Lois, another
member of KPFA’s management team, contacted Michael Yoshida to escort her while
she kicked Nadra out of the station.
When the two arrived at the door of Ujima, Nadra stated that
she refused to leave because Lois does not have the power to kick her out.
According to Yoshida, Lois called Dominga Estrada, the human resources director
of the Pacifica Foundation – which is in charge of the Pacifica network of five
major radio stations and dozens of affiliate stations around the country – to
ask how to deal with the situation. Dominga authorized Lois to call the police.
According to what Nadra told me, Lois told the police that
she was the general manager of the station and that Nadra was a fired employee
who refused to leave. In reality, Lois is the business manager and Nadra is a
volunteer at the station and a member of the Unpaid Staff Organization.
Two male police officers slammed Nadra to the ground, kneeing
her in the groin in the process, as well as severely spraining her arm. A
number of KPFA broadcasters saw what happened, including Anita Johnson of Hard
Knock Radio, who was in tears pleading with the management and other people at
the station to get involved and help Nadra, to no avail.
Weyland Southon of Hard Knock Radio taped Nadra’s chilling
screams as the police were slamming her to the ground and twisting her arm. He
also taped Nicole Sawaya, the executive director of the Pacifica Foundation,
slapping his camera out of his hand on the scene.
Interim Program Director Sasha Lilley was also an eyewitness
to this act of management initiated police terrorism, yet did nothing in
defense of Nadra’s human rights. Initially charged with several felonies, her
bail set at $81,500, Nadra spent two days in jail and is now facing five
misdemeanors, including trespassing, two assault on a police officer charges
and two charges of resisting arrest.
The Prisoners of Conscience Committee, along with the Malcolm
X Grassroots Movement, the Black New World and producers from the Voices of the
Middle East radio show are organizing in the Black and Brown communities of the
Bay Area and throughout the media to expose this grave injustice.
A town hall meeting is planned for Sunday, Sept. 7, at the
Black New World – at 836 Pine St., West Oakland, at 3 p.m. – so that the
community can have an opportunity to get the facts about what happened to Nadra
Foster and the current status of her case and a glimpse into the shady workings
of the corrupt administration running KPFA currently. *
We invite everyone to express themselves about this
outrageous act of police terrorism in our community and get involved in
organizing to get the charges against Nadra Foster dropped, get KPFA to pay all
medical and legal bills, demand that they acknowledge that they didn’t follow
any due process or protocol as laid out in the handbook in relation to
“banning” somebody, demand that the Unpaid Staff Organization be reinstated and
a transparent grievance process be established, among other things.
People should also start to think about organizing to get
this interim administration at KPFA removed from power and a Black public
affairs show broadcast during prime time on the airwaves of KPFA that talks
about the domestic affairs of Black people in this country. Consider that KPFA
and the broader Pacifica network of radio stations uses Black voices like James
Baldwin, Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers to
raise money, but the reality is if these people were alive today they would not
have a show on the KPFA airwaves that is dedicated to the people they were
organizing. Although most people would expect KPFA to have done this decades
ago during the Civil Rights Movement, still today no such program exists on the
KPFA schedule.
After the Block Report broke this story on KPFA airwaves
Thursday, Aug. 21, and followed it up with Block Report coverage on Friday,
Aug. 22 – listen at www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?show=9 <http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?show=9>
– Interim Program Director Sasha Lilley, Lois Withers and Vini Beecham went on
vacation for two weeks. On Aug. 22, KPFA Interim General Manager Lemlem Rijio
issued a statement on the incident. It reads in part, “It is important for you
to know that the Berkeley Police acted independent of direction from KPFA.”
Considering that Rijio is an African woman, can you believe
that she or any Black person who is connected to the Black community would call
the police thinking that after the police arrive she can control their actions?
This incident and the writing of the press release exemplifies the incompetence
of this current KPFA administration led by Lemlem Rijio, as well as that of the
current Pacifica administration led by Nicole Sawaya.
Aileen Alfandary, the white news director of KPFA, told me
personally that what happened to Nadra was not newsworthy, and that is why KPFA
News did not cover the issue on Thursday. The disabled white executive producer
of the KPFA Morning Show, Mitch Jeserich, also told me on Thursday, a day after
the tragic incident, that it was not newsworthy. And Andrea Ali, the manager of
Guerrilla Cafe, told me, when asked if we could have a community meeting there
regarding the incident, that she was on a spiritual quest and did not want to
deal with KPFA’s negativity at Guerrilla Cafe.
Community, support those who support you and don’t support
people who don’t support you!
If you did not get a chance to hear the audio accounts from
people who eyewitnessed the police terrorism inflicted on Nadra Foster, you
could go to www.blockreportradio.com <http://www.blockreportradio.com/>
and stay updated on the community organizing surrounding this topic.
Email POCC Minister of Information JR at
blockreportradio@gmail.com <mailto:blockreportradio@gmail.com> and visit
www.blockreportradio.com <http://www.blockreportradio.com/>./