"Concerned Listeners" Staffers Plays Games and Limit Programming On Anniversary Of BPP

http://www.sfbayview.com/20071017506/News/Panel/Open_letter_to_management_Honor_the_Black_Panther_Party_on_KPFA.html




Open letter to management: Honor the Black Panther Party on KPFA
by Minister of Information JR
Wednesday, 17 October 2007

On Oct. 15, the birthday of the Black Panther Party, KPFA Interim Program Director Sasha Lilly gave the Block Report Radio producers only one hour on the air to discuss the 41st anniversary of the Black Panther Party, an organization born in the Oakland. For the second year in a row 94.1 FM KPFA has been slow to approve the Panther special.

When the proposal was submitted five weeks ago, we asked for the special program to air on a Tuesday. Instead, they gave us a Sunday, and we're still waiting for a time slot.

The Power to the Peaceful Festival a few weeks ago in San Francisco was given six hours of live coverage even though the proposal had been turned in only five days earlier. After five weeks' consideration of our proposal, we were given one hour. We're told the show must be recorded on a cd, not broadcast live, to cover the internationally known and celebrated Black Panther Party.

We are asking all concerned community members and listeners to voice their disappointment with the decision of Black KPFA Interim General Manager Lemlem Rijio and white Interim Program Director Sasha Lilly to put the program on a Sunday for only one hour.

Due to this drastic move to disenfranchise the already disenfranchised Black community from the KPFA airwaves, considering that we don't have a show anywhere on the KPFA program grid that addresses domestic Black people's concerns, we are asking that listeners make KPFA understand that we will not support a station that doesn't support our history and our movements - period.

Call or email Lemlem Rijio at (510) 848-6767, ext. 203, or igm [at] kpga.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and Sasha Lilley at (510) 848-6767, ext. 209, or ipd [at] kpfa.org.