Dance all Day for Ten Dalla!

You ain't gotta tell me twice!

Sat. Nov 19 Catch Us If You Can

We will be at this awesome event TODAY. Stop by and say hello, and get some awesome gifts.

It’s here! The Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy Holiday Design Bazaar is SATURDAY, November 19, 2011, noon-6pm.

Join us at Harvey Milk for some excellent and unique gift ideas by local artisans and designers. You’ll find something for every budget and in a wide range of styles, AND you’ll be benefiting the arts programs at our school while you shop!

WHAT IT IS: Local artists and designers sell their wares and donate 25% of their sales for the day. (We will also have a ‘Harvey Milk’s Own’ table, with Spike’s Coffee, HMCRA t-shirts, and more)
PLUS: a booth on the value of arts education, DJs throughout the day, silent art auction, live drawing/sketch artists, activities for the kids (face painting, art projects, etc.), childcare, and yummy food!

WHY: The proceeds of the bazaar will go towards our developing visual and performing arts program. This event was created last year to provide Arts Education in every classroom. This year, a Visual Artist will provide 10 art classes to all 11 classrooms through SFArtsEd Artist in Residence program starting in January (http://sfartsed.squarespace.com/artists-in-residence/). Our dream is to raise enough money to not only fund our artist in residence, but also to bring back Performing Arts Workshop for creative movement and capoiera classes in the Spring.

Marissa Arterberry: Superhero Style Goddess

This is major cool! My friend Marissa Arterbery who really lives up to her name got featured in nymag's look book. She's one of few people whom my first time meeting them is very memorable. I remember she came up to ask me if I'd be interested in doing something for a zine she was working on at the time and I was thrilled. She also one of few people who really inspire me as a black woman to stay strong pursuing my various artistic endeavors. It's a bummer that she's in NY now (again!) but I guess that just means I have to go visit. :) Check out her tumblr.

Peace!

The Afro-Urban Dance Experience: First Class Down: Nov 1: Track List & Video Post

 For folks who don't know. I started teaching a workshop for Adults & Teens in San Francisco. I will be documenting and writing about some aspects of it. Join the fun!

The Afro-Urban Dance Experience: First Class Down: Nov 1: Track List & Video Post: I had the best time of my life teaching and dancing at the first class of the Afro-Urban Street & Club Dance workshop . I couldn't have ask...

How to MOVE your Money To a Local Credit Union & Not Die Trying

By now everyone in the world knows that Oakland law enforcement went crazy with the tear gas, sand bags and baton smashing on non-violent citizens who were expressing their right to assemble and speak freely.   Two posts ago, I wrote about some action items that the regular average joe like me can take to make some change (or at least be part of making some change). If you know anything about me, I'm an action bunny. I can do my own share of talking any day but a lot of times, I feel helpless if there aren't any action items. I'm still working on my ten things we can do to make change in the 99% #Occupy Movement.   But I wanted to focus on one that folks are talking about and that is coming up pretty soon:

Change from a reg corporate Bank to a Credit Union and TWEET about it...

Now most folks (me included) have been trying to figure out how, where, when, can I make this happen. The facebook page BANK TRANSFER DAY has some resources and talking points around this. FYI Bank Transfer Day is coming up Saturday November 5th.

Here's the message from the Event page for November 5th with some steps you can take.

Together we can ensure that these banking institutions will ALWAYS remember the 5th of November!! If the 99% removes our funds from the major banking institutions to non-profit credit unions on or by this date, we will send a clear message to the 1% that conscious consumers won't support companies with unethical business practices.

• Research your local credit union options
• Open an account with the one that best suits your needs
• Cancel all automatic withdrawals & deposits
• Transfer your funds to the new account
• Follow your bank's procedures to close your account before 11/05

FIND A CREDIT UNION
USA: http://www.findacreditunion.com/
CANADA: http://locator.cucentral.com/
UK: http://www.findyourcreditunion.co.uk/

Peace!!

How Can the 99% Occupation Movement Actually Change Things?

Yesterday I was at an amazing action.  The Foreclose on Wall Street West/ Shutdown of Wells Fargo Headquarters in SF (business at that site was paralyzed by protesters for the day). This was organized by a coalition of organizations in the Bay Area including but not limited to Causa Justa Just Cause, Chinese Progressive Association and East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy,
Groups and personalities like Naomi Klein, SF Supervisor and Mayoral Candidate John Avalos,  Brass Liberation Orchestra and Homoeconomixx were around to help fire up the movement with speeches, live music and remixed renditions of Shaggy's 'It wasn't me' with lyrics like "(the) Federal Reserve... were all buck naked banging on the trading room floor".

I went to this action filled with an arm-load of criticism that I will not go into in this post, and a feeling of 'here we go again'.. oh I also had my good ol' camera with me

I left with tears in my eyes, butterflies in my stomach and a bounce in my feet.

Check out the photos I took and please keep reading, because I have a question I need answered

So maybe I'm not as plugged in as I could, and haven't done my research. Although I think what is going on right now in the US is powerful I've been also having this feeling that is typical for me... that of being overwhelmed. stuck. hopeless. What next?

These days I shy away from waxing politics/activism that much and frankly my rhetoric is not sophisticated when it comes to political and social discourse, so I typically save my thoughts to conversations with close friends and my various alter-egos.

What I do mildly well though is try to walk part of the walk.  So that's what I'm asking for.

What do we do? How can we play a part in making ACTUAL change. What are the action items? What are the small and big things we can do? Short & Long term goals. The occupy movement as it stands is not sustainable (in my opinion) so I would like to see some sort of 10 commandment list.... what the 99% can do now to walk the walk.

I've started the list...I need help

1. Take it to the streets and pose for pictures while looking and acting rad. Make sure the News talks about it. Check!
2. Change from a reg corporate Bank to a Credit Union and TWEET about it... getting ready to do that 
3.  ?? 
4. ??
5. ??
6. ??
7. ??
8. ??
9. ??
10. ??

I'm calling all all my organizers, youth, parents, teachers, writers, workers. Let's get this going!

The Murmur of Oakland...A Place to Be

First Friday of the month just went by and I can't believe it has been a month since I went on my first First Friday Red Bike & Green ride.  This post could be very long but I'm not able to do that these days, but I just want to say that some of my thoughts and feelings that color this post are very well written by Chinaka Hodge in this blog post. Where she talks about Red Bike and Green and some of the things it opens up for her.

Well last night I went out on my first Oakland Art Murmur stroll (*collective gasp* from the people). I love living in Oakland and for the past few years have been internally passionate about creating a social connection here mostly in the form of trying to get my SF friends to come out this side of town to party, and hosting parties and other events in Oakland. I still am not up to par as far as really being immersed in the political, youth development, and art world that is unique to Oakland. I wish I was...but as a lot of my work and connections are in SF right now...well that's the way it is.

Artwork by Scott La Rockwell from the Smashbox Contemporary 1st Year Anniversary

ANYWAY so I went to Art Murmur because ms Tossie called and made me aware that it's possible to actually get dressed and go out and be involved, and see, and talk. Gosh. Sometimes I forget that. I am really such a homebody it's ridiculous.

 Oakland is changing y'all...or trying at least. And I'm still in the 'I don't know how I feel about it' phase. I'm not a native, nor have I lived here long enough to say 'I am Oakland'. But for the past four going on five years I've paid rent here, partied, thrown parties, have a lot of friends and 'community members' that also live here, and more recently ride my bike to the BART station. The look and feel of it has radically changed even in just the past 2 years.

Can't wait to get my Los Rakas Cd!

 Art Murmur was awesome, the persuasion being the inclusion or increase in display of Art from Black people and other people of color, hence increase of color in the stroll.

I went late (haha), and I'm still so shy with taking pics so there are not a lot of photos but I connected with some old and newly acquainted folks doing 'things'.
Anyka of www.bettiono.com celebrated the one year anniversary of Smashbox

Tossie and I ran into Alanna of www.uptownrunway.com who is hosting an event at Mosswood Park on Monday Sep 5.

 All in all it was a lovely time out. I didn't do the First Friday ride but I did bike to the Art Murmur...
Check out the rest of the photos on good ol' fb

Red, Bike & Green First Friday (August 2011)

I adore my bike. I do I do.

Oh gosh. I can't believe I'm writing a freaking blog post about my bike. This may be worse than posting pictures of food (lol I'll need to check with my sister).

Anyway back to my bike. One thing I love more than my bike.
Oakland.
One thing I love more than Oakland
Black folks.
One thing I love more than Black folks
My friends.

So...
My Bike + Oakland + Black Folks + My Friends = Hella Love!

So I just want to give a shout out to Red Bike & Green and myself and my friends for finally doing our first ride with that crew!

Red, Bike and Green is a community-building collective of Black urban cyclists seeking to improve the physical and mental health, economy and local environment of African Americans by creating a relevant and sustainable Black bike culture. (Learn more)

Almost 11miles in Oakland. It was so delicious. Took some photos throughout the ride (look ma no hands). There were a few hiccups in my ride...i.e. my gears being messed up so that 1st gear the easy gear is as hard as my 3rd gear, and my bike is the heaviest bike on the planet, so when I tried to go up that steep uphill freeway overpass...it was a wrap. But thanks to the guy who was sweet enough to trade bikes so I could make it over...lol even though that was a disaster because then I was so used to riding on this hard gear that his easy gear was like flipping me out...

all in all it was the best time ever. check out the rest of the photos on good ol' facebook.

Speaking of Bikes

This is FREAKIN Hilarious. Because it's SOOOOO True. This may be only funny to people really familiar with SF or from the Bay Area...but I'm dying laughing here.

Lol @ the Haight and the Castro. Financial District is sooo on point because I always see them fools with their fold up bikes getting on the Bart, and I curse the fact that Bart hasn't somehow considered bikes and commuting... *sigh*

And damn why did they have to play Tenderloin like that?

Ana Goes to School

Rioting in London: Police vs. Black Man

 This is basically a bit of a stream of consciousness surrounding the recent London riot after police shot a Black man (London riot you say? What pray tell is it?) Colorlines has a "short and sweet" report about it.

Photo from Colorlines

I'm way past sick of this police vs. black man; colonist vs. black lands phenomenon. It makes me want to throw up and I feel I'm simply so over this human 'race'. And the news around the after-effects drives me crazy, aren't people tired of sick of just narrowing it down to something done by those savage-black-gang-involved-tennis-shoe-stealing youth? We're such a lazy group of people who never will actually fight for change because our lives are really just great, so we pass the blame. And so the media goes ahead and puts up their template news and we go deeper into our discrimination. But sometimes I wonder maybe that's just what we need, for everything to really go to complete shit, and for people to become REALLY uncomfortable so they can pay attention.

Here's one article that begins some exploration of the causes and effect of blaming the youth, it's not that deep (neither is this blog post) but a lot of this is very emotional for me, the comments to the article make me angry and illustrate what is messed up about our societies and how far we have to go in terms of regard for humanity.

This article is particularly interesting to me. I've been intrigued out how much the blackberry is a huge thing especially from the point of Nigerians in Nigeria and the Diaspora. If you know the half of it, you know that blackberries are now getting something akin to a human right.

Because these days twitter and facebook can get you in big shit, and BBMs are less traceable by the authorities (for now), Blackberry is saying that they would give information to the police about people's BBM messages to help aid the arrest of folks who are passing on info about the London riots. So these hackers threaten Blackberry... i.e.

"You Will _NOT_ assist the UK Police because if u do innocent members of the public who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and owned a blackberry will get charged for no reason at all,"

"If you make the wrong choice your database will be made public, save yourself the embarrassment and make the right choice. Don't be a puppet," 

(read the article for more)

Like I said most or all even of the people I know who have Blackberries are Nigerian/African/Caribbean. We support Blackberry, one (too many) of us gets killed, we up-rise, the company that we fish over our moola to fecks us in the ass.

dog eat dog sucka.

the Pencil vs. the Gun

On this past weekend the SOS Rally/March happened in Washington D.C. Lots of things were said. Lots of things happened. Below are two videos I've selected to highlight.

Okay see now the problem is. Goodness! Okay I'm glad that the people in this video are the ones who are doing it, because if that was me, there would have been some weave pulling and butt kicking. I know I know, not a good example for the kids. sigh. woosah. meditate. visualize.
If you know half of anything about me, you know that I don't joke with providing the best and equal opportunities for all! But I'll just let you watch the video.



Jose Vilson (click to visit his blog) who is one of my favorite educators and activist that keep me going from afar had this to say:



p.s. Jose you need a "Teacher  Don't Teach Me Nonsense" tee

Art + Social Change: Turf Feinz for Oscar Grant

When people ask me what we (one3snapshot.com) are about; I can show them this video. Sometimes I get crippled with feeling like I can't do anything about the fkd up state of the world we live in. This is the kind of thing that keeps me going...

Off The Clock: Restuarant Worker's Appreciation Day

I hadn't been in the Mission Neighborhood in SF in a while and I happened there last Friday and out of a lot of things that were annoying one thing made me smile. Saw this in a store window. I think it's so dope a thing to do! I'm posting it past the fact but I think it's so dope. Gotta give props to MCCLA and Young Workers United... makes me happy to see work like this in the community!

Monday, September 27, from 12-5:00pm FREE EVENT
Calling all servers, cooks, dishwashers, bussers and barbacks: This day’s for you! The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts has teamed up with Young Workers United, Latin Dance Grooves, and many local restaurants to offer an afternoon of FREE massage, dance classes, yoga and other activities to relax your body and mind…plus complimentary food and drinks from your favorite local hot spots.