Feature Archives

This Spring, Rick Delgado was fired from HOT 97 in New York for producing and airing an explicitly anti-Asian and racist song about tsunami victims. Now Clear Channel has hired Delgado to produce the morning show at local hip hop station Wild 94.9. He started work Monday July 11th. Media Alliance is calling to "Join with us in standing against hate in the Bay Area: Don't let Clear Channel import racism from around the country and push it on our community's airwaves!" Read More

5/26 Update: Hal Netkin identified as driver of minivan which struck four protesters.
5/25/2005: Two people protesting the "Minutemen" in Garden Grove, CA were hit by a car driven by someone presumed to be a Minuteman or one of their supporters. Local TV news reports are confirming the attack and reporting that the driver of the car was arrested. No information on the condition of those attacked is available. Meanwhile at least eight protesters were arrested. Photos | Report | LA Indymedia

Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist, who describes himself as a "conservative and a left-wing wacko," announced that he would address his followers at 7:30 p.m. on May 25th in Garden Grove, in what seems to be an attempt to expand his project to Southern California. In response, some pro-immigrant activists pledged to be there to voice their dissent inside and outside the meeting place at 6:30 p.m. Virtual Sit-In Against Minutemen | Previous coverage

Eddie Rickenbacker's is a bar in San Francisco's Financial District. While the bar has received good reviews, even by supposedly progressive newspapers, it is home to one of the most offensive and racially insensitive displays one can find in the city. Along with displays of guns used in the wars of extermination against the Native American population, there are what is claimed to be the teeth of Monasetah. A sign above the teeth claims that they were "knocked out of her mouth in a jealous pique" by General George Armstrong Custer. It has been claimed that, following the Battle of Washita, Custer invited officers "desiring to avail themselves of the services of a captured squaw to come to the squaw Round Up Corral, and select one." Custer took first choice, Monasetah, and lived with her during the winter and spring of 1868 and 1869. One would expect offense at the display of human remains of a woman kept as a sex slave by a former US general, but the display has been around for years with little complaint. If the display is real, than it could be in violation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act but even if it is fake and intended just to add atmosphere, it is a clear sign of an acceptance by the bar's owners and patrons of a form of racism and misogyny that would never be allowed if the remains were claimed to be those of any other ethnic group. The bar's owner, when questioned about why he has a Native woman's teeth on display, replied that concern for cultural sensitivity was "not living in reality."
Read More With Photos

3/13/2005: Two white anarchists, randomly selected a table at Muddy Waters coffeeshop on 16th and Valencia. While they planned to take some time to read for an upcoming study group, they quickly realized what was happening at the table next to them. A neo-Nazi and young woman had come together and it seemed that she was loosely affilited with right-wing political activity already. He explained to her that while he grew up in the Bay Area, he's been traveling to help build up chapters around the country. Back out in front of Muddy's, a group of friends, all white, mostly queer and majority women & genderqueer, gathered in front determined to "do something". After a brief discussion about the very real possibilities that he might react with violence the group agreed that two of the women would confront the neo-Nazi and tell him that he was not welcome in the communty. The two women went to the back of the cafe and confronted the neo-Nazis, telling him that they wouldn't allow them to continue a conversation about building white supremacist organizing, and to "get the hell out". "I'm just having a conversation and this is America and we have free speech" he replied. The two women replied, "We will judge you and this does relate to us, as white people in this society racism impacts us and we will not tolerate you organizing in this cafe. You can't do this in our city and you have to leave." After ten minutes, with no physical confrontation, the two antifascist women walked the neo-nazi and his recruit out the door. Word was spread to more people coming into the cafe about what had happened and several shared thank-yous with the women who refused to just stand by.

Explicit white supremacist grassroots groups like Neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan have long been key forces to maintain and advance right-wing politics in communities around the United States - the shock troops that allow the White Citizen's Council's and the White House to operate as 'moderates/conservatives'. Communities of color, Jewish people and the Left have long been both the primary targets of right wing violence and the communities from which sustained challenges to white supremacy have been based. Throughout the 90's and into today, Left/anarchist activist groups like Anti-Racist Action have led hundreds of successful efforts to confront these right-wing groups. From physically putting their bodies on the line to stop them to organizing white youth to connect their anger and alienation to the real systems of power in this country like capitalism and joining with communities of color in struggles for economic and racial justice.

Read More | Anti-Racist Action Network

In the wake of the police shooting in Ceres earlier this year that led to the deaths of one officer and Andres Raya, a Marine who did not want to return to duty, Ceres and Modesto Police have begun conducting an agressive campaign against perceived latino gang members. This is being done supposedely to "help Latinos", and also under the pretext that gangs are "terrorists" Reports from various sources are now reporting that young people are being profiled and stopped simply for being Latino or wearing certain colors, being stopped at gun point, being verbally harassed and threatened by police, and also having lone police officers raid homes without provocation. Read reports here, here, and here. Raya flyer here.

On February 20th, 2005, the Nihonmachi Outreach Committee (NOC) will presents the 2005 Day of Remembrance, “Democracy and Dissent,” at the San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin at 5:30pm Details The program will include: speakers, cultural performances, a candlelight procession, and a reception.

In the days following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded up thousands of Japanese immigrants who were detained without charges. Then, on February 19, 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, forcing 120,000 Japanese Americans into concentration camps. The Commission on the Wartime Relocation and Incarceration of Civilians concluded that the World War II concentration camps for Japanese Americans were a result of “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.”

The 2005 Day of Remembrance will be the 25th annual program to commemorate E.O. 9066. In the past year a best-selling book argued that the government was right to put Japanese Americans into concentration camps and defended the arrests and detentions of Arab Americans and American Muslims since September 11, 2001. The Nihonmachi Outreach Committee believes that Japanese Americans, as recipients of redress, must continue to seek the just treatment of all Americans. Flyer

"Actor and civil rights activist, Ossie Davis has died. He was found in a hotel room in Miami Beach Friday, where he was making a movie. He was 87 years old. For five decades, Ossie Davis had a distinguished career as an actor, playwright and director. Along with his wife, Ruby Dee, he was a renowned civil rights activist and an unforgettable figure in the African American struggle for equality. He performed in some 80 movies, including six with director Spike Lee. Two months ago, he and Ruby Dee, were honored at the Kennedy Center for their lifelong contributions to theater, television and film, as well as for being models of courage and grace in the long struggle for equality in the United States."
Davis was a staunch supporter of the activities of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS). "The progressive community in our country and the movement for peace, against racism, sexism, anti- Semitism and against exploitation and oppression throughout the world has lost a true hero, a person of tremendous talent, selfless dedication and commitment," said the Committee's National Co-Chair Charlene Mitchell. "His life, and that of Ruby, his lifelong companion and fellow-activist, will serve as a source of inspiration for generations to come."
Democracy Now Tribute | ZNet | Union Organizers Remember Ossie Davis | Ossie Davis Reading NION Pledge | Ossie Davis Eulogizes Malcolm X in 1965 | Ossie Davis Remembers Martin Luther King in 1968