Too $hort’s Up All Nite Long

Too $hort with Oakland Post Events Manager Loius King and D’Wayne Wiggins.  Photo by Gene Hazzard  

Rapper comes up big on giving back to youth

By Paul Cobb
     Too Short, Oakland’s legendary indigenous rapper knows that the music and entertainment industry is not just about the money one can make. He now knows it’s what one knows, and when they know it, that counts the most.

     In short, Too Short’s now long on experience.

As a student who’s graduated from the University of the Streets, where he started his career at 14, he’s now teaching youth that they should stay in school and graduate and make a plan for a university education too.

     He’s had to learn the entertainment business the hard way by taking his knocks on the road to some of his successes. He’s stayed up all night long, many a night, composing his songs. Sometimes he came up on the short side of sales but many more times he came up with some long coin to show for his sweat and ingenuity. Too Short, born Todd Anthony Shaw, April 28, 1966 now has a lot to show.

     Too Short has just opened a recording studio aptly named “Up All Night” on the uptown side of downtown Oakland at 1924 Franklin Street.
     Remembering the days when it was in vogue for some young rapper’s to shun school to chase the big bucks, by even selling homemade CD’s out of the trunks of cars, Too Short wants Oakland’s youth to have opportunity to “make some quality songs. And to show our youth how to get involved with records and the entertainment industry the right way,” he said. He wants them to understand that the real “street credibility” comes from the ability to think and act properly, not from reacting to some of the opinions of one’s peer group.

     D’Wayne Wiggins of Tone, Tony, Toni fame, visited Too Short’s new digs last week with the Post and echoed the rapper’s new soulful message of “giving something back to the community”. Too Short will be joining Wiggins’ upcoming MUSIQ 4 HUNGER concert and he has pledged to work with Wiggins and the Post to encourage 100% school attendance.
[Read more]

Faces Around the Bay: Barbara Brown

Barbara Brown is retired from her job as Administrator at Lawton Alternative School in San Francisco.  She’s enjoying retirement, and loves to travel, having visited South Africa most recently.  Brown is a member of Temple United Methodist Church.
Reflecting on the current problems in the schools, Brown is glad to be retired. She smiles and says,  “I’d probably be going out of my mind today.”

Photo and text by Barbara Fluhrer.

Belva Davis Inducted in Journalist Hall of Fame

Honored for her pioneering work locally and nationally

By Wade Woods

The National Association of Black Journalist (NABJ) will induct four pioneers in journalism and civil rights into its Hall of Fame at a ceremony to be held Thursday, July 24, at the 2008 UNITY: Journalists of Color Convention in Chicago.
“Black journalist owe so much to these trailblazers who made it possible for journalists of color to have a voice in today’s newsrooms,” said NABJ president Barbara Ciara, “We are grateful for their tremendous impact on journalism and service to the black community. Their induction into the NABJ hall of Fame is our homage to their legendary contribution,” added Ciara,
Belva Davis began her career as a freelance writer for JET magazine and a reporter for the Sun Reporter and later became the first African American woman news reporter/broadcaster on the West Coast at KPIX-TV in 1966.  While there, she created and hosted “All Together Now,” one of the country’s first primetime public affairs TV programs.  In 1977, she joined PBS affiliate KQED-TV Channel 9 in San Francisco where she anchored and produced news programs. From 1981 until 1999, she worked for KRON-TV as a special projects reporter.  She currently hosts This Week in Northern California on KQED. [Read more]

Congresswoman Barbara Lee Leads Panel Discussion on HIV/AIDS

Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-9) on Friday, May 9 hosted a panel discussion – titled “From Prevention to Policy: Responses to HIV/AIDS in the African-American Community” – at the West Oakland Senior Center to assess the expanding the reach of HIV prevention services and programs, increasing opportunities for HIV diagnosis and treatment, developing new and effective interventions and mobilizing the community to combat this epidemic in the 9th Congressional District and the Bay Area.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), served as the guest speaker, discussing ongoing efforts by the CDC to address the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 9th Congressional District. Dr. Gerberding is a physician and an expert in infectious diseases. For over 60 years, the Atlanta-based CDC has been dedicated to protecting health and promoting quality of life through the prevention and control of disease, injury and disability. [Read more]

Stress is Killing People in BayView/Hunter’s Point

New Program to work on reducing stress and increasing physical activity

By Carol McGruder

Enough with stressed out people, poor health indicators, and the ever-widening canyon of health disparities!  It is time for residents of the Southeast Sector of San Francisco (Bayview, Hunters Point, Hunters View, Sunnydale, Potrero Hill, Visitation Valley, Double Rock/Alice Griffith) to take matters into their own hands, get off their butts and shake it like a salt shaker (ask the kids what that means)!  From two to ninety-two it is time for us a community to get up and “move it move it, before we lose it lose it.”
Folks, we are dying at faster rates and in greater numbers than any other section of the city.  From obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and strokes we’ve got it bad and that isn’t good.  How we arrived at this point in time is complex.  But one thing is clear; if we want to live we must change!  I once heard motivational speaker Les Brown say that people change when the pain of not changing becomes greater than the pain of remaining the same.  [Read more]

Michael Chukes Exhibit Opens

Michael Chukes, center, with wife, (r) and admirer, (l), at opening reception.

Sculpture and Wood Carver shows off  lifetime of work

By Wade Woods

Last week, the Sargent Johnson Gallery hosted a reception to kick-off the exhibition of the work of Bay Area Artist Michael Chukes.  The exhibit entitled My, Legacy: A Survey of Chukes’ Work will run from until  July 27, 2008.  This exhibition is the first comprehensive exhibition of Bay area native Michael Chukes’ sculptures and wood carvings. Producing art for over twenty-five years,  the exhibition features pieces that Chukes’  created when he was just five years old to more current sculptures.
Born in Vallejo and raised in San Jose Chukes began creating artworks at a very young age.  Although he attended California College for the Arts and Claremont Graduate University, he considers himself to be a self taught artist.
Chukes works with a number of mediums including clay, bronze, wood and other materials to create exaggerated expressions of the human form.  “I concentrate on capturing emotional sensations of the body rather than its physical presence.  Females play a strong role in m creation. I believe there is a magnificent sensitivity in women unlike anything I know and capturing this sensation give my work meaning.” [Read more]

Tucker Seeks Cobb’s School Board Seat

Conchita Tucker is running for a seat on the Alameda Board of Education Trustee representing Area 2. The Alameda Board of Education along with the Alameda County Office of Education oversees the local school districts, the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center Schools, and the Alameda County Community schools.
Conchita is an Oakland native and resident. She is a graduate of St. John’s University with a degree in Business. For the past 5 years she has been employed as the Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of a multi-million-dollar Oakland based company with over 200 employees. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.; and serves as the local chapter’s Financial Secretary.
Conchita’s campaign has been endorsed by the incumbent, Gay Plair Cobb; Alameda County Supervisors Keith Carson and Nate Miley; Oakland City Council Members Desley Brooks and Larry Reid; the Alameda County Democratic Party; the East Bay Small Business Alliance PAC; the John George Democratic Club; and a host of residents in the District. [Read more]

Tucker Seeks Cobb’s School Board Seat

Candidate seeks greater public access and fiscal transparency

Conchita Tucker is running for a seat on the Alameda Board of Education Trustee representing Area 2.  The Alameda Board of Education along with the Alameda County Office of Education oversees the local school districts, the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center Schools, and the Alameda County Community schools.
Conchita is an Oakland native and resident.  She is a graduate of St. John’s University with a degree in Business.  For the past 5 years she has been employed as the Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of a multi-million-dollar Oakland based company with over 200 employees.  She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.; and serves as the local chapter’s Financial Secretary.
Conchita’s campaign has been endorsed by the incumbent, Gay Plair Cobb; Alameda County Supervisors Keith Carson and Nate Miley; Oakland City Council Members Desley Brooks and Larry Reid; the Alameda County Democratic Party; the East Bay Small Business Alliance PAC; the John George Democratic Club; and a host of residents in the District. [Read more]

Blacks Must Get Colon Cancer Test

By Geoffrey Watson
American Cancer Society (ACS) has launched an aggressive, multi-pronged statewide initiative to heighten awareness about the importance of early cancer testing with a focus on colon cancer.
The ACS says approximately 16,400 African American Californians will be diagnosed with colon cancer in 2008, and nearly half this number will die from the disease. African Americans have the highest death rate from colon cancer of any racial or ethnic group in the country. Therefore, American Cancer Society guidelines recommend that both men and women who are at average risk be screened beginning at age 50. [Read more]

Brutal Texas Hate Crime Remembered

James Byrd, Jr. chained to truck and dragged 3 miles

The family of James Byrd, Jr., who was chained to a pick up truck and dragged three miles to his death by three white supremacists, will travel from Texas to San Francisco for a Tribute to James Byrd., on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his death.
The San Francisco-based James Byrd Jr. Racism Oral History Project announces that tickets are available for the 10th Year Anniversary Tribute to James Byrd, Jr., of Jasper, Texas, Working Together to Reduce Racism, which will take place on Sunday June 22nd at 2:00 p.m. at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco.
Tickets are $10, $20, & $35 and can be ordered at City Box Office (415) 392-4400 or www.cityboxoffice.com
According to the Project’s Director, Lani Silver, the tribute will acknowledge “how far we have come and how far we have to go in race relations in this country.”
The oral history project is a project of the Houston-based Byrd Foundation for Racial Healing. Over a dozen well known Bay Area authors, politicians, and civic leaders, including Tribune Editor Martin Reynolds, will lead the audience in a discussion about how racism has impacted every individual in society. [Read more]

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