Live life through art. A black arts event source.

Wanda's Picks

web, print, radio

By

Wanda’s Picks June 2021

This mechanical device uses electrical power, a system of sheaves and pulleys and sturdy chain to get your lifting job done easily and simply with this device is because it will never disappoint you and secondly it comes with broad range of difficulties along with hardships in wedded life; the other conditions consist viagra levitra of deprival of beneficial night-time sleep because of sleep apnea, societal in addition to mental difficulties, and risk of. There aren’t too many rules and regulations when it comes to consuming the viagra professional generic. Until we reach that utopian Xanadu, remember to use the exact wholesale viagra from canada http://robertrobb.com/to-what-extent-is-ducey-the-boss-of-us/ search engine safety valve. Use Punarnava as it reduces toxicity from body, boosts metabolism fire and reduces kapha dosha in body. tadalafil prices

Congrats to all the graduates! Happy Birthday to the Geminis and Cancers! Don’t miss the Virtual Global Libations and Prayers for African Ancestors of the Middle Passage, 8:30-11:30 AM PT. Visit FB@remembertheancestors and FB@maafabayarea and YouTube@ADASI Ancestors

Gosh, it is getting more difficult to keep up. I know a lot more than makes it to the page—we are “opening up” yet the consequences of this opening are untested. Keep on your masks folks and keep at a safe (6 ft.) distance.  I am still Zooming a lot and have no desire to sit in a closed space with strangers or people I know either. I find myself breaking out in hives when people hug me once I leave my office or work space.

I am hella anxious. Nothing personal, do not touch.

I had a great conversation with Dana King, artist, whom I call the ancestor woman. She just channels the energy so well into bronze, stone, iron, steel, vinyl tubing.  We spoke on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show on Malcolm X’s Birthday, May 19. I was gushing and so I hope the recording makes sense. Invited to visit her studio in the Fruitvale, I said yes and was wowed by the fortress space that looks inconspicuous from the busy street corner. It is better to not draw unnecessary attention to one’s work nowadays when so many are suffering.

Inside women artists assembled ancestor bodies while others assembled the heads. We walked around the corner where a friend with a studio offered to host the ancestors until Golden Gate park staff picked up the first 100 or so completed works. Dana is a slender woman who is moved by spirit. It is good she can channel her fire into steel. The former award-winning journalist is passionate about African people and our history. These African ancestors are her gift to a collective soul we embody yet can no longer name.

In King’s bronze memorials energy is transferred and transformed. African Ancestral spirit lives is all one can say who has been in the presence of a King tribute whether this is in her first commission, “A Man for the People,” Berkeley, California 2016 which honors the Honorable William Byron Rumford who was the first African American elected to the California State Legislature from Northern California in 1948. He wrote the Fair Housing Act which was rolled into the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Imagine that, the Civil Rights Act which changed everything for everyone except Black people—well we benefitted a little, was a piece of important legislation written here.

When the National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened in Montgomery in 2018, there on the grounds of the lynching memorial in bronze were three generations of Black women, an elder, a younger woman and a pregnant woman walking during the Montgomery Bus Boycott— Dana King’s commemorative work: “Guided by Justice.”

We often speak of the ancestors as if they are an imagined presence rather than a real energy we can tap into at will. I have been practicing this with spirit guidance shared at Acorn Center for Restoration and Freedom in Atlanta and Afrikan Healing and Wisdom at InsightLA, both virtual Black spaces.  gina Breedlove’s sound medicine is the tool used to traverse various chakra and InsightLA’s African wom(b)en centered healing, centers various practices: mindfulness and Ifa.  And of course we continue to meet bi-monthly as Black Wom(b)en at the Wombfulness Gatherings (FB@wombfulnest). We had a great session May 22. The next gathering is July 17, 10-12 noon PT.

I was speaking to a person who shared with me insight gained through Isabel Wilkerson’s book, “Caste.” He hadn’t known America’s treatment of its African or Black residents modeled for Zionists in Germany, Israel and the Apartheid regime in occupied Azania or South Africa. I told him he had no need to know as he benefited from systemic racism. It is this ignorance of the cyclical nature of history under Eurocentric rule that demands what Dana King calls a “Monumental Reckoning.”

Isabel Wilkerson’s book, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent” is the story of the people she describes in “The Warmth of Other Suns.” Caste or legislated exclusion is the continuation of the saga once these people, Black people, denied every right or privilege except the right to die for this nation—move away from the south in the largest mass exodus in US history. Some Black folks left in the ‘40s to work in the war industry, others left in the early ‘60s, just before Dr. King and El Hajj Malik were killed. Now people are returning to the homeland to try it again. Up-south was good for a time, but home is home—ya know? Land and trees and the ancestors.

America is the prototype for Zionism or white privilege worldwide whether this is Israel’s establishment in 1948 or as a model government for repressive regimes throughout the western world from Germany under Adolf Hitler in 1933-‘41 to Hendrik Verwoerd, Architect of Apartheid (1958-1966). It’s great what’s happening in Namibia.  German soldiers killed the Herero and the Nama 100 years ago because they resisted the theft of their land 1904-’08. It was Germany’s “practice” Holocaust, yet the 10,000s Africans were not remembered, even though this genocide was not a secret.  If this story interests you, read John Edgar Wideman’s “The Cattle Killing.” Oh another book I just read which is a fascinating story about ancestral memories is “Makeda” by Randall Robinson.

Enslavement of African people was a model experiment. The parley of the industry into other forms of legal captivity captivated other leaders worldwide—still does. George Wallace, Bull Connor, Bill Clinton and others up to the recent President Trump, modeled policies, that sanction murder by the state with no consequences.  People want to hold hands and act like the problem affects everyone. . . yes there are hate crimes against other people too; however, the true victims remain African American.

Everyone except us benefit from civil liberties or laws that make certain behaviors illegal. For my people, even with legislation, we do not benefit consistently.  If laws are not enforced, they are useless. El Hajj Malik El Shabazz speaks to this in an interview at UC Berkeley, October 11, 1963.  He says America pretends Black people are citizens when if we were there would be no need for civil rights. The laws that already exist would apply to us.

There was no reason for George Floyd’s death. There are laws that protect citizens from such abuse from law enforcement.  At most, what Floyd was guilty of was a misdemeanor. Brave New Film’s: Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem shows how misdemeanor citations are law enforcements’ excuse to harass vulnerable people. Writing a bad check, which is what Floyd was accused of, is not a felony charge and the city could have given him a ticket.  Other recent stops that resulted in death or maiming like a broken tail light is not an offense that involves arrest either; the city could just mail the owner a fix-it ticket.

Carrots and Copper

With more years behind me than in front of me, I am taking time to reflect on what is past that continues to serve my good and what needs to go. I am reminded as June rolls onto the horizon of a unique sorority I am privileged to belong to. One of five Gemini sisters, I am the last one left. Sister Nida (June 1), Sister Laiqa Louise (June 14), Sister Dorothy Ummus Salaama and Sister Sadaqa are ancestors now. I remember going to Sojourner Truth Manor where Sister Sadaqa would cook a duck for our shared birthday meal.

Sojourner Truth is on Martin Luther King Jr. Way (old Grove Street). It’s across the BART tracks from old Merritt College now Children’s Hospital Annex.

We’d shop for the bird at Housewives Market. Later, I met Arnold White, the artist, there with my daughters. I remember my excitement when Housewives was going to be the site of a shared community co-operative living space and then membership priced out all the people in West Oakland at that time.  Community development was not the goal; gentrification was—our presence swept away. I missed the writing on the walls. I guess I wasn’t tall enough to scale it.

We sat around talking as the duck did it thing in the oven. Smelling delicious. When the duck was ready, I’d take a polite slice once it had cooled. I brought vegetables and bread, others brought desert and beverages.  

I don’t remember the details of their lives. I was just encouraged. In the midst of the lives we were swimming. . . these women did not drown. In fact, they put on bathing suits and carved out time to lie on the beach and relax. 

4 generations of beauty queens.

Sister Nida rode camels in Egypt and took vacations in Hawaii; she knew how to have fun. She did not allow worry to clutter her life. An entrepreneur – her shop Merrakesh an oasis in Berkeley for the weary—we would sit in her swivel chair and big mirror and imagine ourselves as we could be and she would make it happen. Photo albums fell over themselves for attention—her travels documented in these picture books she would tell us stories about. A film buff, we’d also travel cinematically via popular and classical Black cinema.

I might enter with questions, however, I always left feeling unquestionably more beautiful than when I entered. Black women need spaces like Merrakesh and tour guides like Sister Nida Ali.
She helped where she could and allowed the adults in her life to live with the consequences of their choices. She did not micromanage anyone else’s life. 

Sister Nida Ali is my angel, watching out for me. When I called her before she died, she told me “call me whenever you like Wanda.” It was the company, this grown Black woman, Black Muslim women company, that I treasured. That I miss.

I was the youngest in the party at Sister Sadaqa’s. I didn’t have children and then I did. I didn’t have a husband. And then I did. Sister Laiqa Louise, school secretary at Muhammad University when I attended, could hear then and later she couldn’t. Sister Sadaqa could still dance. Old didn’t have a number, it was just grace and a knowing. Was she 70 or 80? Who knows. Sister Nida and Sister Ummus Salaama were probably in there 50s and Sister Laiqa in her 60s, while Sister Sadaqa was ageless. No one knew her age and I don’t think she was telling.

She was independent and lived in what we thought a supportive facility until she no longer could take care of herself.  She fell and was moved to a convalescent home. She hated it. I had another child and could not support her as she deserved though I advocated for her wishes.  She got pneumonia at the place on Fairmount Street near Kaiser and died. Before she passed she gave me a copper bracelet and told me to wear copper and drink carrot juice.

I didn’t know Osun then, I do now. Sister Sadaqa gave me her Champion juicer too. I kept it for its name even when I stopped juicing.

I am eating carrots again. The juicer was green like algae, kelp. . . green like the tops of trees in the forest when the sun washes them with her kisses. I loaned the juicer to a friend when she was pregnant. I hope it has nourished other homes where souls sit and meditate on grace and wholeness and infinite connections. Happy Birthday Geminis.

Dana King, artist, with 350 Ancestors photocredit: Wanda Sabir


Monumental Reckoning 402 Year Later

On the first year anniversary of the toppling of the Francis Scott Key monument in Golden Gate Park, 350 Ancestors are preparing to shake things up in a town known for earthquakes. Artist Dana King, a woman who channels African ancestor energy into bronze has re-peopled the 350 ancestors stolen from home Spring, 1619 on the San Juan Bautista, a Spanish slave ship, which left Luanda, Angola with 350 kidnapped Africans set for the new world.

Along the journey to the Gulf of Mexico, two English ships – the Treasurer and the White Lion, captured some of the African cargo, later trading the 20 or so Africans for a meal and other provisions at Old Ft. Comfort in what is now Ft. Monroe National Monument in Hampton, Virginia, thus beginning the slave trade (https://historicjamestowne.org/history/the-first-africans/).

350 is close to the number of years Africans were enslaved here too in 1535 when Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés first colonized Baja, California, utilizing 300 enslaved Pan Africans (MAAFA 2019 Proclamation).

Why is this nation still singing a song that promotes violence, gun violence at that?  Francis Scott Key like so many other dead white male criminals took up public space. These monuments represent what this nation honors—bloodshed.  Dead white men are coming down all across America and the San Francisco Commission on Historic Buildings has to address this changing landscape.

Why not take down all the public art that does violence to the psyches of citizenry whether that is on a plinth in Golden Gate park, a mountainside even on currency – “from sea to shining sea”?

The Monumental Reckoning interrupts.  These ancestors are a visceral wrecking ball intended to break up, smash, disrupt notions that do not belong in a free society.  With the legislation on the books to eliminate slavery from California’s constitution and a bill to pay reparations to enslaved or imprisoned women in California prisons forcibly sterilized, what Monumental Reckoning does is challenge us to imagine what it means to truly live as a free people.

BLM is a slogan. The Monumental Reckoning demands change in how we run the city, county nation.

These black on black figurative statues’ oval faces attached to bodies made from coiled tubing wrapped around a steel core. Their hair swings in plaits, a bit playful – seeped in wonder at the gathering of so many sisters after such a long time apart.

Instead of distinct heritage symbols Dana King, artist, allows each patron an opportunity to project our lineage forward as these ancestors embrace us as well—they are the family we have been missing. The 350 can carry us home literally as the moonlight catches a likeness in oval worlds. The ancestors can help us remember a place where we had language and land and family. The 350 are the chain that remains unbroken, even if it often feels that way. The brokenness is what binds us to one another, Bryan Stevenson, founder, Equal Justice Institute, says. So true. What is broken mends stronger.

This Juneteenth in Golden Gate Park Dana King says “we will honor the enduring spirit of these 350 ancestors.”  It is even more fitting that the place where slave owner and racist government official Key was ensconced that the Hon. James Weldon Johnson’s Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing lights a literal consciousness.

However, there is a problem—the ancestors are ready to go. In fact, more than 100 4-5 feet tall, Black female ancestors are already on site in the Green Room. However, SF Historic Preservation Commission has taken the item off the Wed., June 2, agenda to vote whether or not to approve the installation of the words.

What is there to think about? On the sesquicentennial or 150th anniversary of James Weldon Johnson’s birth June 19, 2021, the song he composed, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” which is proposed as a national hymn by Rep. James Clyburn would “bring this country together.”

A nation which almost buckled under a pandemic and a coup, not to mention multiple state sanctioned acts of violence towards Black citizens which has municipalities across the country looking at dismantling the police needs a rallying cry. A call for San Francisco to “Lift” its voice in peace and justice, harmony and liberty would mend a riff that is growing wider and wider. What did James Baldwin say about the “Fire Next Time”?

The words will be displayed across the Temple of Music in the Golden Gate Park Music Concourse for June 18, 2021-June 20, 2023.  Send a letter to the Commission: https://www.monumentalreckoning.org/letter-to-hpc

Dana King is looking for 350 Black Woman in White with their families for the inaugural event. If you’d like to be a part of the growing constellation, show up, June 18, 5 p.m. Sign up in advance so we can be in touch.  MAAFA SF Bay Area is proud to be a supporter and participant in Monumental Reckoning: https://www.monumentalreckoning.org/constellation

A nation which almost buckled under a pandemic and a coup, not to mention multiple state sanctioned acts of violence towards Black citizens which has municipalities across the country looking at dismantling the police needs a rallying cry. A call for San Francisco to “Lift” its voice in peace and justice, harmony and liberty would mend a riff that is growing wider and wider. What did James Baldwin say about the “Fire Next Time”?

The words will be displayed across the Temple of Music in the Golden Gate Park Music Concourse for June 18, 2021-June 20, 2023.  Send a letter to the Commission: https://www.monumentalreckoning.org/letter-to-hpc

Dana King is looking for 350 Black Woman in White with their families for the inaugural event. If you’d like to be a part of the growing constellation, show up, June 18, 5 p.m. Sign up in advance so we can be in touch.  MAAFA SF Bay Area is proud to be a supporter and participant in Monumental Reckoning: https://www.monumentalreckoning.org/constellation


On the Fly:
Performing Diaspora 2021: pateldanceworks and Byb Chanel Bibene/Kiandanda Dance Theater, Thu & Fri, Jun 3-4 & 10-11, 8pm PDT at CounterPulse. Sat, Jun 5 & 12, 2pm PDT Matinee at CounterPulse. Sat, Jun 12, 2pm PDT Livestream and Artist Q&A https://counterpulse.org/event/performingdiaspora2021/

Kheven LaGrone’s “Pillow Talk”, a virtual play, directed by Tanika Baptiste @ Theatre Rhinoceros. In 1990s Oakland, Baby Boy regularly waits for an older man, Chuck, to drive up. Baby Boy climbs into the car and gives Chuck what he needs. But can Chuck give Baby Boy what he needs? And will Baby Boy accept it? Find out in this exciting African-American queer play by local playwright Kheven LaGrone (The Rhino’s 2017 hit “The Legend of Pink”.)

The play opens June 11-20, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm; Sunday matinee June 20 at 3 pm; Sunday June 20th 5 pm – Midnight. Streaming on demand available too. Listen to an interview with the playwright and director on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show, May 28.


Oakland Theatre Project’s World Premiere of African American pioneering filmmaker and playwright, Kathleen Collins’ Begin the Beguine: A Quartet of One Acts, co-directed by Dawn L. Troupe. This OTP is in collaboration with BAMPFA where patrons can watch Collins’ film as well as participate in a virtual panel discussion. Listen to an interview with Ms. Troupe on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show, May 28. Visit: https://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2021/05/28/wandas-picks-radio-show

AfroSolo Arts Festival
AfroSolo Arts Festival presents its 26th Annual Season of Black Voices: Our Stories, Our Lives during Juneteenth celebrations in a two program format — Program One: June 9-13 and Program Two: June 17-June 20, 2021. Created and produced by Thomas Robert Simpson, the Festival’s mission is to nurture, promote, and present facets of the African American experience through solo performances and the visual arts.

Program One features the journeys of four formerly incarcerated Black men on their road to recovery and their return to society. Program Two features AfroSolo’s founder, Thomas Robert Simpson, as he recounts how his father overcame many struggles as a Black man raising a family in the Jim Crow South.

This year’s festival takes place On-Demand via AfroSolo’s YouTube Channel (programs to be posted in June). To make the performances available to a wide audience, the online droppable-1621268677293event is free of charge. No RSVPs are required. Listen to an interview with Thomas Simpson and the cast for week 1 on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show, May 26.


SFIndie’s Doc Fest, June 3-20, kicks off with a wonderful in person film and party:

OPENING NIGHT PARTY: SUMMER OF SOUL ROLLER DISCO features SUMMER OF SOUL
dir. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson

In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary—part music film, part historical record—created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Marcus Garvey Park. The footage was never seen and largely forgotten – until now. SUMMER OF SOUL shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being and stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past and present. The feature includes never-before-seen concert performances by B.B. King, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Stevie Wonder and more.

The Roller Skate party is at Church of 8 Wheels, 554 Fillmore Street (@ Fell), Thursday, June 3rd, 8-10pm. Signal the reopening of the city and the return of live events by strapping on some skates. Jam to SUMMER OF SOUL tunes at the roller disco with other film festival goers and documentary fans after watching the award-winning opening night film. This event is open to the public.
 
Film+Party tickets are $30 and available at sfindie.com. Party Only tickets are $15 and may be purchased at the venue until sold out. Skates will also be available for rent for $5/pair. I haven’t been to an Doc Fest Roller Skate party in too many years!

SF DocFest will screen 40 features and 38 shorts across 6 different short programs. All films will be available to view on demand anytime during the festival, and 36 of the films will also be shown at the Roxie Theater. The majority of the in-person screenings held at the Roxie Theater.

Listen to a Wanda’s Picks Radio interview (5/28) with Kheven LaGrone, playwright and Tanika Baptiste. For tickets visit: theRhino

  • Kimberly Daniels (left) as The Woman and Dawn L. Troupe (right) as Marguerite Simpson in Oakland Theater Project‘s production of Begin the Beguine: A Quartet of One-Acts by Kathleen Collins. Photo credit: Carson French. Listen to a Wanda’s Picks Radio interview with Dawn L. Troupe, co-director, May 28, 2021.
 Dr. Gina Paige, Co-founder & President, African Ancestry, Inc. appears on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show, June 11, 2021, with Shazel Muhammad-Neain founder, Eunoia Global, a leadership training and coaching firm, to talk about the recent Sierra Leone Citizenship for 59 Black People whose roots trace to this West African country April 29, 2021.

By

Wanda’s Picks May 2021

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers and motherkind who nurture and take care of our future citizens! As the pandemic continues to rage through our communities we hope everyone stays safe and for those who have transcended this world: Aṣe, Aṣe, Aṣe –o. FYI: Libations for Prayers for African Ancestors of the Middle Passage is June 12, 9 AM PT at FB@maafabayarea

We also want to share Wombfulness Gatherings, a place for Black Wom(b)en to nurture each other into wellness by tapping into ancestral wom(b)ways that still work. Follow us FB@wombfulnest Register for the Virtual Meeting at: Wombfulness Gatherings (https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIvcOuorD4vG93axcURrIO1j5KnZADv3Xe1)

Jerri Lange, Ase!
Our condolences to Jerri Lange’s family. Jerri was a phenomenal woman, one of the first African American journalists and television talk show hosts in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was an advocate, mother and mentor. She lived her truth unconditionally. It is to our benefit that she documented her work in her best seller “Jerri Lange: A Black Woman in the Media.” Jerri is survived by her two sons, James Cowan, a print media businessman, and Ted Lange, an actor best known for his stellar performance as Isaac on the hit television series, The Love Boat, along with Ted’s two sons/Jerri’s grandsons, Ted IV and Turner. Jerri joins her son, the late Michael Lange, former playwright, actor, professor in heaven. There will be a memorial for Sister Jerri in late this year, maybe October, her son Ted told me via email. The family does not want to risk a super spreader Covid-19 event.

April was the 20th Anniversary to end Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). Here is the National Hotline 800-656-HOPE (4673) https://www.rainn.org/resources


  • April was Sexual Violence Awareness Month (SAAM); however, we need to continue to keep Black Wom(b)en and Girls safe.


Reflecting on Motherhood

When I was about to turn 60, I asked friends who were already on the other side of this abyss, bridge, path, river. . . I like river – “I’ve known rivers” Hughes says—what to expect. Friends who’d already crossed over were asked for patterns and cloth, threaded garments– stories to wear on this continuum – a passage into yet another. . . storied time

I asked . . . then blew into these spaces that awaited me on the other shore. Beached or marooned, yet not too worried, I remembered other sandy junctures. . . .  Once again, there were no lifeguards, just the occasional moonlit street.

Now that I am closer to retirement age than the guppy I was at the first crossing—I want to share with others who are still looking at the water, but have no desire to get in, how it feels to be alive with the fishes and crustaceans and sea anemones.

Put your hand on the rock. Touch something that can hold your weight and lean into it. Let go of the gravity that keeps us stuck in circumstances when the unknown would be some much more liberating.

No one told me about the potential anxiety and depression that accompanies estrogen loss or that one’s equipment might cease to work or that no one would look at you with lust ever again. 

The scent is gone.

Lust is good girls, especially now that everyone sees you as a saint. Try on Saint for a title – forgive me St. Wanda for I have sinned. Sin is where the fun is. Finally, no kids to worry about and well STDs—wear a condom and check medical reports and take some penicillin—and then equipment lining turns to tissue paper?!

The thrill is going fast. Who likes pain?

I learned about a noninvasive treatment called: The Mona Lisa. No it is not a painting, rather a laser treatment that rebuilds the collagen in the vagina.  Bone broth doesn’t seem to reach this part of the body.

Back to lust for the soul. This coupling fantasy is all before Covid-19 though. Now, intimacy is a cerebral affair until you are exclusive and even then, the flesh keeps calling even without estrogen, even without penetration—hugs are still nice and the ideas that float behind the intense gaze of a beloved, even flirtation and well at 60, you don’t need to pretend and settle and hope for someone to rescue you. At 60 you own the boat and have enough for gas—Hell you are a valued member of AAA; AARP has your back. You know how to change the oil and transmission fluid, check tire pressure and replace fuses — boat or flotilla analogy aside. You own a cell phone and again you keep your roadside service current.

This goddess is never stranded. She never leaves home without her Life jacket.

Any merman needs to have his act together or the encounter will be one short conversation. Mami Wata don’t play. She is where she is because she knows a few things, but back to lessons learned. The biggest lesson I have learned at 62-63 is to not throw away people. Live in your body, feel and honor all your emotional intelligence – speak your mind and be honest with oneself. I get angry a lot because the fairytale is not real. Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” is true. There are monsters everywhere: closet, under the bed and even in the bed sometimes.

My cervix is not only shut, it is bolted, skin surfaces so smooth, one wonders how two healthy children were conceived. I often wonder too at the miracle that is life—I didn’t say yes to all of it, but somehow I thought if I could leave, get away from my father’s house, I might find sanctuary, no, peace. I found more suffering, but the girls brought me joy and then I had to once again escape because I did not want the seeds of discontent to sow such in their hearts.

Suffering must be my birthright and so this legacy, this unbidden inheritance gets passed on and passed on and passed on– I sit in the middle thinking about this a lot. Anyone know a good spell? Send me a link.

Locked shut, this retired cervix, a retired general, a retired company wom(b)an who was told at a recent Ultrasound exam, there is an egg still in her ovaries– “estrogen,” the magic potion that enables the journey through the rabbit hole– gone.

We are bleeding again . . . what is it?

At 60, we no longer settle; we see the good as we imagine loneliness and well, stop expecting perfection and give the guy an opportunity to live into his potential as we continue to grow into our own. If he needs a mama, well suggest transcendental meditation and step back. Do not give away your life to another person at a time when you are finally free. There are parasites who look to jump on bones, into bodies who are not fully occupied or contained.

62-3 does not mean we are finished with evolution. Nope, the pools connect and once we reach the shore, we get to catch our breaths and look yonder at bigger horizons as we prepare to cross another body of water and with a running leap, jump in. Right in front of me is surgery—unknown territory. Also in front of me is a new grandson. Lastly, in front of me is graduate school admission to USF. It will be my second time there, first time for a Masters in Writing (’97), this time for a Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry (’24). I start in the fall with no money. I accept gifts. Right now I need $700 this month to hold my space in the class.


A Tale of Two Mothers in Toni Morrison’s “The Blues Eye,” radio play at Aurora Theatre, adapted by Lydia R. Diamond directed by Dawn Monique Williams with an all-Black cast and creative team

In the tale of two moms, Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Bluest Eye,” adapted for stage by Lydia R. Diamond—we meet Mrs. Breedlove and Mama. Cathleen Riddley, actor, occupies both personas in Aurora Theatre’s current radio play.  Perhaps the actor’s success lies in the potential inherent in each of us to do the same if given certain experiences within fixed structural policies or historic mapping.

What does a Black geography look like? 

Mrs. Breedlove sees herself as beautiful until she believes the lie. Her melanin too much for a world without color. She frightens her neighbors, even other Black people who are trying to get along and so she stifles her fire; covers her flame until it is little more than a spark, just enough to throw her legs over the side of the bed, put feet into wore, yet comfortably familiar shoes until the weight of her Blackness settles like a cloud upon her once proud shoulders . . . and so, into this world Pecola is born– a beautiful brown baby girl.

Mrs. Breedlove was so looking forward to this new life. Her marriage to Cholly a sweet love story– Cholly an orphan, rescued from a garbage heap. The newlyweds head north leaving behind loved ones, a community reminder to the newlyweds that they mattered, this sense of self-worth absent in the bare northern region Lorrain, Ohio.

All Pecola wants is for the people in her life– Mrs. Breedlove, her mom and Cholly, her dad, is to love her. Constantly wishing to disappear from the violence and unhappiness furnishing all the rooms in her life, the child notices how in the absenced body– her eyes are always left. Her nafs or soul refuses to shut its eyes. Perhaps the windows remain open as witness. Pecola wants to be gone completely– she does not want to take anything forward into this life, a fairytale captured in films with blonde, blue-eyed heroines or the pretty “light-skinned” girls at school who get all the attention.

Mama, on the other hand, is Frieda and Darlene’s mother, two girls who are Pecola’s friends. After a fire, Pecola stays with the girls’ family while their home is being repaired. Pecola has an opportunity to see and perhaps imagine another version of her story. Frieda and Claudia’s mother and father are so different from her own. The story takes place over a season beginning in Autumn.

Dawn Monique Williams, director, says the Aurora production is for all the Black girls and women who couldn’t find a space to be free, beauty and liberation synonymous. “The Bluest Eye” is an adult story, even if the narrator is a child. There is rape, physical violence and death. It is what one might call a tragedy, so take care of yourself and listen with loved ones. You will want to talk with others afterward. One can feel the love shared among the cast, director and creative production team. The sound design is marvelous and you will probably never forget this story. We need to be gentle with each other. We literally do not know who is on the other side of the mask, but we can still hold each other in love and light as we recognize their humanity as we look in their eyes as we pass.

As I spoke to cast members over a week in a series of radio conversation, my suggestion is to listen to all the perspectives. Each is singularly enlightening. We speak on the air with director, Dawn Monique Williams and Michael J. Asberry (Daddy, Cholly, Soaphead) on Friday, 4/9; with Cathleen Riddley (Mama/Mrs. Breedlove) with Sam Jackson (Frieda/Darlene) on Wed., 4/14); concluding with Jasmine Milan Williams (Pecola/Maureen) on Friday, 4/16). The director has the cast playing characters who are antagonists to one another. It is pretty amazing to watch the actors slip in and out so seamlessly. between personas. There is also laughter and lightness within this story as in life. In its 29th Season, it is to its credit that Aurora Theatre allowed Williams, Associate Director, to take it on a creative journey unlike any before. We hope such excursions continue. Toni Morrison’s work, “The Bluest Eye” is among the classics in the Western canon.

For tickets visit https://www.auroratheatre.org/thebluesteye or call (510) 843-4822



On the Fly:
Livable Planet Film Festival at SFIndie through May 2. The lineup is amazing, from a Black girl comic hero – in “Becoming Ruby,” who is a mountain biker—the hero’s creator takes inspiration from her creation to simulating life on Mars on earth in “Red Heaven.” These lucky humans live together in the desert as if they were on a tight spaceship with others for a year. Will they drive each other crazy? There is something for everyone. Listen to the Wanda’s Picks Interview (http://tobtr.com/11928673) with co-founder of Livable, Chris Metzler.

Local films of interest are “Landfall” and “Red Heaven.” “Women Hold Up the Sky” shows you the power and resilience of Black women who don’t give up despite land theft by refineries or developers from abroad supported by corrupt governments. Can you imagine, some foreigner coming to your property and telling you to prove you own the land or they are taking it and then taking it? Women are killed, raped and run off while the government does nothing. The mothers have no means to support themselves or their families. However, they don’t give up and slowly in certain areas we see the women getting their land back, in others the government makes promises to build relocation villages with plumbing and electricity and schools for the children.

Other films from Africa include: Stolen Fish, Tengefu: Church Forests of Ethiopia and The Burning Field. I really liked the Church Forests which looked at the shrinking forests in the vast land. The churches are the only places with forests. This is one man, Dr. Tengefu’s story to turn this around before all the trees are gone.

Destiny Arts Center programs: May 19, 5-6:30 PM; May 23, 1-2 PM. Theatre Radio Play: Br’er Peach at Alter Theater Fundraiser– donate before May 9 for all three segments. Listen to an interview with the playwright and members of the cast on Wanda’s Picks Radio, 4/9/2021. Bay Area Book Festival Opens May 1; Virtual Quest for Democracy Advocacy Day, Tuesday, May 4, 10 AM to 2 PM. To register https://whova.com/portal/registration/quest1_202105


May Day, People’s Strike—Car caravan, Lake Merritt BART Station, 8th and Madison, 2:30-6 p.m.

2021 is the Year of the US Political Prisoner and we will continue efforts to free Mumia Abu Jamal and all political prisoners fighting against the US empire.

On May Day 2021 in Oakland, we celebrate the fighters, the builders, and everyone who found creative ways to stand together here on Turtle Island and in solidarity with oppressed people worldwide fighting US occupation and oppression.

Gather at 2:30pm for a car caravan starting 3pm at Lake Merritt BART station & ending with a rally at a to-be-disclosed location at 5pm. Bring your full heart, your tears, your rage, & your joy. Come alone or come as a contingent. Rep your vision, your folks, your struggles and campaigns, as we celebrate International Workers Day 2021 in Oakland, CA, and continue the fight for a world without borders, billionaires, police or prisons. Visit Facebook @People’s Strike

Listen to an interview on Wanda’s Picks Radio, Friday, April 30, with Nell Myhand and Judy Greenspan.

Register for the free event here.
Image - faces of panelists
Join The Commonwealth Club at 5 PM PT for an in-depth dialogue about race relations and turning words into action.
Our panelists will explore changing the narratives about critical issues in the deeper layers of race relations. What does “stand together” mean and what are some of the roadblocks? How can communities preach beyond the choir and impact interactions in our daily lives?
This timely deep-dive discussion promises to be thought provoking—don’t miss it.

NOTES
This is a free, online-only program; you must pre-register to receive a link to the live-stream event.
Presented in association with the APA Heritage Foundation.
21AC12B6-640C-4A4A-9999-1E075D3B3BD1 4 5005 c 

Afro Roots Tuesdays presents: Kamau Kokayi, M.D. on “Pandemic, Immunity, and The Path Forward,”
Tuesday, May 4th, 7:30–9 pm (NYC time) with special guest musicians (to be announced)
Via Zoom REGISTER HERE

Join Afro Roots Tuesdays on May 4th at 7:30pm for a special edition as we invite
Dr Kamau Kokayi back to discuss: Pandemic, Immunity and The Path Forward

There has been a rapid unfolding of events over the last two months that are drastically affecting our communities. The whole concept of immunity has been brought into question as some institutions seek to redefine it. All over the world, we are all now grappling with the question of what is immunity and what is the path forward. How can we walk into a future where we have the best possible chance for a healthy and balanced existence, on an individual basis as well as for humanity itself, not because we are vaxxed repeatedly, but because we have a created a strong and dynamic immune system, in an ecosystem we are trying to restore. We need to create another narrative about the coronavirus, one consistent with science, but also consistent with the larger truth about our interdependence with all the life forms on this planet. We will need to be asking how do we “Get Right Within”?

Join Dr Kokayi has he takes another look at a functional, bio energetic immune system, to see what is possible and where we can have the most beneficial impact. Let’s take another look at the concept of herd immunity. The questions every person should be asking themselves, given this country’s agreement with certain unelected global public health officials to do a mass inoculation of millions of people with an experimental gene therapy is, “Can we do better than this?” and “How will our choices now impact our future?”This is a special focus edition of Afro Roots Tuesdays to bring urgent information to the community. We invite you to bring your friends, family, and community to this event. This event will be free to join, however we ask that you kindly donate to the initiative to distribute Vitamin D3 and life-saving information to communities “Get Right Within”.

68CE0331-BE83-48D7-A8EE-3950C146D61B 1 201 a 
©2021 Kevin Nathaniel Hylton | Kevin Mbira Productions
The best part of this treatment is that there are no additional international shipping rates or duties when you shop for meds online, you not only save robertrobb.com free sample of viagra upon the time but also upon the money. Always refer internet to sildenafil españa read the reviews about particular sex pill. The problem of impotence is no more order prescription viagra secrets. viagra sildenafil canada Previously, employee training programs were cumbersome tasks.


Check back throughout the month for updates or better yet, follow us.

Lunar Eclispe Wed., May 26, 1:30-6 AM PT

By

April 2021

Wishing everyone a blessed Resurrection Day and to those participating a blessed Ramadan fast this 2021 season.

How does one stay connected given the elimination of illusionary landmarks? Were we rehearsing: (-1) minus one, (+1) plus 1? Empty space with masks that cover everything except the windows to a soul living temporarily in flesh and this presents a dilemma.

I am struggling with sanity, reality questionable except those things I can still touch like earth and water. What I see is not to be trusted. Images appear manipulated. We doctor our faces so that in Zoom we look our best or choose to show up silenced or on mute, camera off.  It is easy to lose oneself in such normalized environments. It is easy to lose others. We check the participants listed and can’t see everyone’s name. Who’s in the chat? Is the chat enabled? Can I save the chat? Why would I want to chat?

Reminds me of undergraduate lecture halls at UC Berkeley when I was a student there. The speaker doesn’t know who was in the room or to my knowledge care. However, in the more intimate virtual spaces we do want to know, which is why we enable everything and if possible have transcribing so no one is left out of the conversation which is as rich as it is to accessibility to all thoughts and feelings.

I have been attending a series of Our Freedom Sanctuary meetings hosted by the Acorn Center for Restoration and Freedom. gina Breedlove, Medicine Women, Sacred Sound Healer has been facilitating these free (donation based), workshops for BIPOC (no one turned away), with primacy to Black women. We are sounding through the chakras, the last two weeks heart and throat. To get to the throat we breathed through the pelvis. Had to figure out where that was for a moment and then gina suggested the kegel exercise. I remembered from womb work after and before childbirth to prepare the uterus and then to tone it thereafter. Birthing a rigorous exercise. And for those who did not have a uterus, they could also participate in visioning that space.

I think about Michelle Browder’s “Mothers of Gynecology” project honoring the lives of enslaved women, Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey whose bodies did not belong to herselves, so their white owners leased them to J. Marion Sims to experiment on them, supposedly to cure them of fistula. Instead these Black wom(b)en endured horrific torture without anesthesia. The myth, Black wom(b)en (Black people) feel no pain despite the visible and audible evidence to the contrary present with every slice, cut, intrusive instrument. Think about these wom(b)en when you think speculum, forceps, Black maternal health. Sims’s ghost lives on in the high rates of Black wom(b)en child maternal mortality despite social economic educational level of the mother or family. Blackness still trumps race and gender equity.

Right now, Browder is working with artisan Dana Albany at her Box Shop studio in San Francisco to complete these three monumental statues. May 9 the foundation will be laid in Montgomery where Sims’s offices stood/stand. I saw his office building and in another location at City Hall his stature glorified with that of other criminals. I believe the confederate flag also flew. My visit, for Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Institute’s opening reception for the National Memorial for Peace and Justice (lynching memorial) and the Legacy Museum, from Slavery to Mass Incarceration, was just after Memorial Day where the City of Montgomery honored both outcomes of the Civil War. I wondered what the Black children visiting the capital thought when they realized this alternative celebration was about their freedom. I wonder what the white children thought when imagining what it would feel like to have that kind of power over another human being?

Browder’s “Mothers of Gynecology” centers the focus. The ideology is not lost in abstraction. Black women as breeders kept the slave system supplied with workers. More babies were born in captivity than imported from Africa once this form of capture was outlawed Jan.1,1808. This meant the manufacture of human beings specific to a particular kind of life was a particular kind of demonic enterprise, these three wom(b)en emblematic of the worse capitalism imaginable, presented a problem if the leased “womb” did not function.

In a Wanda’s Picks podcast interview (3/10) with Michelle Browder and J.C. Holman, writer, researcher who is writing a book about Anarcha, the woman whose history is more easily traced and documented than the other “Mothers,” states that what he learned that from the barbaric medical practices on Black women emerged a system of care developed in response, where these women took care of each other. This kind of caregiving continues today.

While the Mothers of Gynecology story is not as well-known until recently, the story of Henrietta Lacks, whom I call the Mother of Modern Medicine, is, her centennial birth, August 1, 2020. Her immortal HeLa cells are still curing disease.

Wombfulness Gatherings™ and MAAFA San Francisco Bay Area is curating the Libations and Prayers Ceremony for Mothers of Gynecology Easter Sunday

On Sunday, April 4, 2021, 10-11 a.m. there will be Libations and Prayers for the Mothers of Gynecology at The Box Shop, 951 Hudson Avenue, San Francisco, 94124. All are welcome, esp. BIPOC. For information Facebook @anarchalucybetsey and anarchalucybetsey.org and Facebook @maafabayarea

Michelle Browder was one of the Gaia Wom(b)an presenters at the first bi-monthly, “Wombfulness Gathering” for Black wom(b)en. The next Gathering is May 22, 10-12 noon. For more information: wombfulnest@gmail.com; FB@wombfulnest or call 510-255-5579.

“Honor the wombs that bore you,” Allah says in the Qur’an (4:1). The root of the word for womb (RHM) is the same as Ar-rahman, Ar-rahim—beneficence, mercy, grace and compassion. At this point in time, all human life comes through a womb. It doesn’t matter if you like it or not, the point is, if this wom(b)an decided not to bear young, there would be no life – yours or mine.  My young mother said she had no prenatal care, that after nine months she went to the hospital and they yanked me out with forceps. Mama said if you complained the white nurses would slap the patients, so she kept her mouth shut.  Hers was such a rare case, the attending physician brought in an entire class to watch her give birth. (Charity was a teaching hospital and in the charity ward, I don’t think the patients were asked for consent probably signed away at admission.)

There was no acknowledgement of the beauty of life and giving birth and the inherently beautiful Black mother- she vessel, she chamber, she force of life.

There was no conversation, no anesthesia. After they pulled me out her young body and stitched her up, they gave me to her, “a living baby doll,” she said. I was born with a string of flesh in my mouth and the doctor took a hot iron and seared it off. Again, no medicine for pain—babies don’t feel pain either.  Could these assumptions be based on the fact that we have no voice? Audible, the absence of power mutes the sound and negates the vibration, an affirmation communication prompts between living beings. The Black wom(b)an (girl child) does not exist—she, inhuman. She, not worthy of contemplation.

Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in collaboration with SF Playhouse, Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s [hieroglyph]

The play currently available on demand at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in collaboration with SF Playhouse, Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s [hieroglyph], asks a similar question—When will Black wom(b)en and girls voices be amplified publically and behind closed doors? And I include here gender nonconforming Black wom(b)en, all of us together, because we are all included in the silencing. We practice allyship for protect. Allyship is a form of accompaniment— witnessing from the inside.  “I see you,” is a start. Agreement is not a prerequisite for belonging. We will find a place where we agree and build on that premise. We need all our people.

We see this practiced in Dickerson-Despenza’s play. There are so many relationships explicated here between these pages danced on the stage. Margo Hall, new Artistic Director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre (LHT), is a magician in her elegant navigation of an alternative theatre space – film.  The cast, equally gifted in their ability to capture and translate this wonderful work on the stage via screen gives the urgency of this story primacy: Black girls, Black women are at risk for sexual violence. Black girls and Black women are being violated. There is a direct correlation between a people’s violation especially the women and girls and the earth’s violation in the Great Storm where the levees broke contaminating water and land and killing so many living beings.

In the play, young protagonist davis despenza hayes (13) portrayed brilliantly by actor Jamella Cross, tells her story through her drawings. Her artwork provides a road map none but her astute art teacher, ms. t (actor Safiya Fredericks) can decipher.

davis’s loving father, ernest hayes (actor Khary L. Moye) is trapped in his own demons and worries. NOLA post-Katrina, transplant in Chicago, the father-daughter are still swimming with dead bodies two months later. The mother is not there which further complicates the story.

ms. t establishes a bond with the child right off. There is something about “davis,” who joins the class mid-semester, whose craft and skill she admires. There is even what one could call a soul connection evident in a linked synergy to a shared if unnamed trauma neither can articulate initially. davis has nightmares which are staged really well. Sometimes she is up all night and then drags herself to art class where even on a bad day, she still answers all the questions posed by ms. t.

Art is so powerful; one wonders what davis would have used to articulate so beautifully through those nightmares which woke her from sleep had she not had her drawing pad and pens. What stories is davis sharing? ms. t suggests to “ernest,” davis’s dad, at a parent teacher meeting that he look at the drawings and talk to his daughter about them. davis is failing all her classes except Art.  ms. t suggests her father think about why davis is doing so well in art.  ernest looks at his daughter’s portfolio filled with the faces of people met at the Superdome who died.

Later on when the father asks davis what the coded language in the pictures means, she does not want to share; however, her father “sees” something is wrong and agrees to find his daughter a therapist. davis, who is “grounded” until she picks up her grades, especially in math, invites a friend to help her. leah (actor Anna Marie Sharpe), davis’s friend from school, who likes her and is also good in math, helps her pass her test. For this, ernest, who is sad davis doesn’t want to spend time with him on her birthday—there is a show at the museum where he works he wants to take her too. He instead, lets davis spend the night with her friend. He doesn’t know the girls have other birthday plans.

The playwright paints adults who care about davis, adults who struggle with themselves yet are not so self-centered that they are unreliable. This is especially true for ms. t. Fredericks’s character champions and pays attention to the details and does not stop at unraveling the narrative davis is intentionally drawing. Perhaps this is the beauty of childhood, the kind of childhood davis had prior to Katrina and Superdome experiences and their indelible impact on her life.

Can a man protect and still honor the agency of the girl-child he is protecting? Can he keep her life separate from his? Too often men act like they were raped, when it is their ego that is raped—how dare he harm “my” daughter?! He thinks. davis as possession blinds the protector to the true victim—

This Covid-19 pandemic has increased the danger women and girls are living with. I wonder where they are finding a safe bed. I wonder about homeless children, runaways, sexual exploitation— The playwright was influenced to write one of the characters based on the story of a child in Chicago gang raped whose body was thrown under a bridge.

Trauma is on the table, yet the father who is trying to keep his job and take care of his daughter while in limbo about his marriage—pushes it to the side. Parents need to pay attention; the signs are there. It is not often that we see a Black father play with his daughter like these two characters do. The characters Dickerson-Despenza writes are human and have experienced a tragedy most of us cannot conceive let alone contemplate when sexual violence is added to the cocktail.

[hieroglyph] ignites multiple explosions, like cluster bombs. davis’s friend, leah—book-smart is also traumatized. What [hieroglyph] suggests is we stop judging our children and their friends and pay closer attention.

[hieroglyph] is part of award-winning 10-play Katrina Cycle of plays Dickerson-Despenza is writing focused on the effects of Hurricane Katrina in and beyond New Orleans. [hieroglyph] is fully produced and filmed on stage at SF Playhouse, and is presented as an on-demand video stream through April 3rd, 2021. Patrons may support the organization of their choice by purchasing tickets ($15 – $100) from Lorraine Hansberry Theatre at lhtsf.org or from San Francisco Playhouse at sfplayhouse.org.  To listen or watch a Virtual Wanda’s Picks interview on Facebook with Margo Hall, Artistic Director of LHT: https://www.facebook.com/wanda.sabir/videos/10224972454289502

Visit wandaspicks.com for the full April Picks which is updated throughout the month, so keep sending fliers and posts about events. Also, listen to wandaspicks.com/radio broadcasts Follow the blog so you don’t miss any updates. The podcast airs from blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks Download the app.

 On the Fly:
Dr. Henry Louis Gates in Conversation, 12 noon to 1 p.m. PT, with Sarah Lidipo Manyika
 
Barnard College honors June Jordan in several programs: 

“And what shall we do, we who did not die?”: A Reckoning with June Jordan Thursday, April 1, 2021 from 3:30-5 PM (PST) (6:30 PM to 8 PM (EDT) featuring Asha Futterman, Conor Tomas Reed, Talia Shalev, Evie Shockley, and Mecca Jamilah Sullivan.   Other programs are on Monday, April 5, Scherezade Garcia and Nadir Souirgi (3:30-5 PM (PST) (6:30 PM to 8 PM (EDT) @46th Annual Art and Political Imagination Conference. Rhiannon Giddens’s concert closes the conference on Fri., April 16, (3:30-5:30 PM (PST) (6:30 PM to 8:30 PM (EDT) .


2021 San Francisco International Film Festival (April 9-18)

Digital Launch Party for Br’er Peach

BR’ER PEACH by Andrew Saito, a radio play in three podcast episodes
Inspired by Southern Black and Japanese folktales and playwright Andrew Saito’s multicultural family, BR’ER PEACH follows Momotaro, a magical Japanese boy born to an elderly Black couple after an encounter with a power-filled peach. While his mother Vonda fights to keep her home in the path of a capitalist technology-ogre,  Momo wanders the wilds of Georgia in search of the stolen peach, meeting animal friends and foes along the way. Can they reunite and thrive together as a family, against all odds?

This free event includes a live digital launch party with a presentation of episode one, followed by an artist discussion and music. Plus, anyone who makes a sliding scale donation to the Br’er Peach Fundraiser will also receive exclusive access to all three audio play episodes from April 18th through May 10th, before the podcast officially premieres in June.  Listen to a conversation on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show (April 9, 2021) with Andrew Saito, playwright, Michael Gene Sullivan and Resa Mishina (cast members).

April 17, 2021; Digitally, register at www.altertheater.org/peach <http://www.altertheater.org/peach> 

For More info: boxoffice@altertheater.org <mailto:boxoffice@altertheater.org> ; 415-454-2787
www.altertheater.org/peach <http://www.altertheater.org/peach>
www.theparsnipship.com/brer-peach <http://www.theparsnipship.com/brer-peach>

 

Director Dawn Monique Williams @The Bluest Eye  (Photography Jordyn Williams)
Actor, The Bluest Eye @ Aurora Theatre   (Stuart Locklear Photography)

The Bluest Eye@ Aurora Theatre

Wanda’s Picks Radio Show, April 9, 2021, also includes interviews with Dawn Monique Williams, Aurora Theatre Company Associate Artistic Director, who directs Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, adapted by Lydia R. Diamond, Apr. 9-May 21. For 50 percent off: BluestCNC50

 

“WORDS ACROSS THE WATERS” proudly presents the second in a series of events, Sun., April 18, 10-12 noon PT, designed to reunite us across the African Diaspora.

The “Words Across the Water” book party and performance series is hosted by Yeye Luisah Teish and Nana Abena Serwaa. Each party in the series consists of music, art, conversation and dramatic readings from Yeye Teish’s book “Jambalaya” and other selected writings. Yeye will elaborate with her wisdom and expertise as an Elegant Elder, which weaves together our common heritage and shared destiny as daughters and sons of Mother Africa. 

 


Mark your calendars for Friday, April 23! Destiny Arts Center and Pixar Animation Studios present a virtual movie screening of Soul and Q&A with film editor Robert Grahamjones. 

Soul tells the story of a New York jazz pianist who, after landing the gig of a lifetime, suddenly finds himself trapped in a strange land between Earth and the Great Before. Released in December 2020, Soul is Pixar’s first film to feature a Black protagonist.

The Q&A will begin at 6:30 PM and the film will be available for registrants to stream from 12 PM – 10 PM.
Once registered on eventbrite, you will receive follow-up communications prompting you to make a Disney Debut account to stream the film, and a Zoom webinar link to access the Q&A. This event is free of charge.


Registration Links:SFPL: 
https://sfpl.org/events/2021/04/15/author-donte-clark-close-caskets
FB event: 
https://fb.me/e/1soqqpcPA

Omar Sosa is in Concert, Sunday, April 18, 2021

 

Omar Sosa has a live stream is Sunday, April 18 at 4:30 PM Pacific from Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society in Half Moon Bay!  In Quartet, with Josh Jones on drums, Sheldon Brown on saxophones and bass clarinet, and Ernesto Mazar Kindelán on bass.  Omar will be playing a few of his signature pieces, as well as some newly created material.
It’s a ticketed event ($20), with tickets available from the venue’s website:  https://bachddsoc.org/concerts-2/

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/into-the-current-tickets-148462379975?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

 

Friday, April 2, 2021 at 10AM! 

Prison Closures, From Abolition to Administration:
An Honest Conversation

Please join Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and Root & Rebound for a training! CLE credit available!

Prison Closures - graphicThis will be a panel discussion on prison closures in the state of California and how advocacy groups, “abolitionists,” and administrative agencies perceive the role, purpose, and plan of prison closure in our state landscape. Registration is free, and MCLE credit is available to attorneys who attend.

“First Fridays” is a monthly educational series geared towards expanding political knowledge, advancing advocacy skills, and enhancing the professional development of the LSPC Elder Freeman Policy Fellows. The Ronald “Elder” Freeman Policy Fellowship is a project of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children with the goal of elevating the leadership of formerly incarcerated people in criminal justice reform.

WHAT: Prison Closures (Webinar)
WHEN: 10 A.M. – 12 P.M., Friday, April 2, 2021
WHERE:

http://bit.ly/LAACTraining

Moderator:
Joanna Billingy, Policy Manager, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC)

Speakers:
Anthony DiMartino, Government Affairs Director
Californians for Safety and Justice (CSJ)

Caitlin O’Neil, Senior Fiscal and Policy Analyst
California Legislative Analyst’s Office(LAO)

Amber Rose Howard, Executive Director
Californians United for a Responsible Budget(CURB)

Claudia J. Gonzalez, Policy Advocate & Economic Security Coach
Root & Rebound (R&R)

Tom Nolan, Counsel
Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld

Boyd’s writings are refreshing, stimulating and viagra cialis appalachianmagazine.com thought provoking – even humorous – and challenge the accepted norms in wide areas of conventional and alternative medicine. Candida-yeast overgrowth can injure the nervous, hormonal, and digestive systems as well as cause neuropathic pain to the inner organs, viagra sale appalachianmagazine.com i.e. your liver bile ducts. Usefulness for different men- The jelly cialis generic online contains similar efficiency for all underlying causes. And it should be noted that while most pains or twinges may be nothing to worry about, and you shouldn’t fear viagra france pharmacy it whatsoever.
SFJAZZ DIALOGUES

WATCH: SFJAZZ DIALOGUES

SFJAZZ Founder and Executive Artistic Director Randall Kline speaks to GRAMMY-winning bassist, producer, arranger, and composer Marcus Miller. In this 24 minute discussion, they talk about Miller’s method for assembling a band, the start of his journey in music, his inspirations, his iconic work with Miles Davis, and his incredible career as a session musician.

Marcus Miller and his powerhouse band’s performance at the SFJAZZ Center in June 2018 will be broadcast on SFJAZZ’s Fridays at Five streaming concert series Friday, April 2, at 5PM PT.

—THIS FRIDAY AT 5PM PT—
ELECTRIC BASS JAZZ GREAT

Marcus Miller › THIS FRIDAY AT 5PM PT

Marcus Miller

FRI, APR 2 · 5-6PM PT
7PM NEW ORLEANS • 8PM NYC

NEW — ENCORE REBROADCAST
SAT, APR 3
10AM SF · 1PM NYC · 6PM LONDON
7PM PARIS · 8PM JOHANNESBURG

FREE TO SFJAZZ MEMBERS & DIGITAL MEMBERS

This Friday, April 2 at 5PM PT, SFJAZZ presents one of the greatest electric bassists in jazz history in Marcus Miller. He was instrumental to Miles Davis’ resurgence in the 1980s, and collaborated with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie and McCoy Tyner to Paul Simon and Frank Sinatra. Filmed in June 2018, the multiple GRAMMY-winner leads his remarkable quintet featuring saxophonist Alex Han, trumpeter Marquis Hill, keyboardist Brett Williams, and drummer Alex Bailey. They brought a seamless blend of jazz, funk, and modern R&B captured on Miller’s GRAMMY-nominated 2018 Blue Note album, Laid Black.

Tune in by becoming an SFJAZZ Digital Member, starting at only $5 per month or $50 annually. Join over 13,000 Digital Members that have signed up over the past year!

Marcus Miller will be joining the real-time chat to provide fascinating insights about the music performed during the concert.

For this broadcast, 50/50 Fund donations will be be split evenly between the featured artists and SFJAZZ’s programs.

YBCA 100 graphic banner featuring portraits of honorees Ijeoma Oluo and Leticia Hernandez.Pictured: YBCA 100 Summit honorees Ijeoma Oluo and Leticia Hernandez.

JOIN US THIS SATURDAY FOR THE YBCA 100 SUMMIT!

 

Join us on Saturday, April 3, 2021 at 11:00am PT to celebrate our honorees at the YBCA 100 Summit, taking place this year as a virtual theatrical convening on a brand new virtual platform, OhYay. Immerse yourself in a joyous and communal experience featuring musical performances, stories, visual art, rituals from our honorees, a conversation between YBCA’s CEO Deborah Cullinan and the ever-inspiring Daveed Diggs, and more!

This “choose your own adventure” event offers every audience member opportunities to explore different rooms and the 75-minute Summit at their own pace. We will be providing an accessible digital experience with ASL, audio descriptions, captions, alt text, and image descriptions. Register today to join us on April 3rd.

 

By

March 2021

Wanda’s Picks March 2021

Cicely Tyson, Ase!

Women’s History Day, March 8, March now International Women’s History Month is a time to reflect on the folks who hold up Half the Sky. Imagine a world without women, the silent and silenced beings who make our worlds go round. There is no Malcolm X without Mrs. Louise Little, Grenada native who met her husband at a UNIA conference in Canada. She taught her children how to resist with dignity. In a recent book talk at the Schomburg Center for African American History, Monday, February 22, where every day is an opportunity to celebrate Black History, three authors were in discussion about the life and legacy of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, “Our Black Prince.” The program called “Mother Tongue: the Philosophy of Malcolm X”, featured: Anna Malaika Tubbs, Dr. Michael Sawyer, and moderator, Dr. Imani Perry.

This discussion focused on Louise Little’s influence on her son, whom he adored. As we listened to the scholars share their research, we learned that from his mother Brother Malcolm acquired the quiet dignity we witnessed in his carriage. No push over, Mrs. Little taught her children to stand their ground without fear. She and her eventual husband met at a UNIA conference in Canada. She covered these events for the Black press and so her work enabled the couple to travel.

Sunday, February 21, 1965 was the anniversary of that awful day– Brother Malcolm gunned down in a hail of bullets at the Audubon Ballroom in New York as he spoke. The date, once again falls on a Sunday and for those who like numbers,  56 years later – 56 the inverse of “65” and the “21” 02.21.21.

In the San Francisco Bay Area the day was lovely, sunny and warm, not at all like the weather in New York or Texas or Chicago and elsewhere Americans are experiencing cold weather with power outages and water and food shortage complicated by a pandemic and vaccine shortages.

So I am thinking about our prince—the brilliant Brother Malcolm who is central in Regina King’s (director), “One Night in Miami” (2020). The film takes the historic event February 25, 1964 where Brother Malcolm, Jim Brown and Sam Cooke are all in Miami to witness their friend, Muhammad Ali (1942-2016), then Cassius Clay’s big fight against Sonny Liston for the Heavyweight Championship. What happens after the fight when the men get together at Brother Malcom’s hotel for an improvisational after party complete with ice cream is off the record. However, Kemp Powers’s 2013 stage play which he later adapted for film (2020) imagines these Black men with differing ideas of success simmer, boil and occasionally whistle as judgment and accusation make space for truth.

What happens in that room literally changes the world—two of the men ancestors less than a year later.

Black manhood frightens white dominance, because this systemic inequality is not sustainable and despite the fatalities has not stopped our collective move forward economically or politically and has fueled or inspired African American cultural and spiritual momentum. I appreciated the vulnerability expressed by the men – that room a kind of limbo where if the curtains were drawn, the four could entertain another outcome than the one outside the door.

Violence was/is a legacy none could stop, like birthrights and inheritance or legacy DNA trackers.  When secrets were shared, the bond between each of the men grew tighter, so that once parted they no longer walked alone. Malcolm like Richard Wright shared a pragmatism in art as a political tool, Sam Cooke was not in agreement initially yet eventually accepts.

All the men are successful public figures whether athletes, entrepreneurs or religious and political leaders which makes the imagined conversations a rare opportunity to see Black men speak honestly about what matters to them as Malcolm looks out the hotel window and confirms he is being followed.   “A Night in Miami” is a film about trust. It is a film that explores options only available in community. “We is we.”

“A Night in Miami” is also entertaining. Lots of laughter and Black man shenanigans juxtaposed to the more serious moments such as 22-year-old Cassius prays with his friend before his bout while simultaneously not missing a hilarious beat when he claims victory in more ways than one. Today, Jim Brown (85) is the last man standing.

Serious Malcolm X shares with a disbelieving Sam that he was on security at his concert one evening when the venue lost power. Malcolm watched amazed, he told the men listening, as Sam, a consummate professional, sang acapella while the audience provided the rhythmic grounding—his point to Sam acknowledged and confirmed the artist’s leadership and ability to move his people. Cinematically we all return with the two men to that memory with delight. We later see Cooke (1931-1964) on TV singing his latest work, “A Change Is Gonna Come” (1964), which is different from his previous work.  He obviously heard Malcolm and gave the people what they needed to hear, not what they might want.

It’s the apex of the movement for Black life, for human rights for Black Americans hitting a national and global audience with Malcolm X’s call for justice to African nations and to the United Nations against the US government, a call that has yet to be answered or addressed in any real way. Great film, Sister Regina King. Brava!  Here is a Variety Interview with featured cast: Eli Goree as Muhammad Ali, Kingsley Ben-Adir (Malcolm X), Aldis Hodge (Jim Brown) and Leslie Odom Jr. (Sam Cooke) and Regina King, director at the Toronto Film Festival (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FneK97Jz7V4).

This film released on Christmas Day, 2020 was perhaps a love song to Black men who are too often maligned in the media. Another recent series on Brother Malcolm I’d like to bring to your attention is “Who Killed Malcolm X” a Netflix series released last year Feb. 7, 2020, which follows insipid sleuth Brother Abdur-Rahman Muhammad who for 30 years pursued this cold case.

The recent deathbed confession of Ray Wood (NYPD undercover officer) is cause to revisit this series for those who might have missed it given the call by Shabazz family and attorney on their behalf to reopen the case.

Given the NYPD and FBI stealth involvement in the operations of Black organizations that spoke to Black Liberation, I am not shocked that Brother Malcolm was killed; however, the US government killed him not any one person even if the person had his hand on the trigger.  It was a bigger plan. It’s always a bigger plan. Abdur-Rahman’s methodical attention to the details of the story and conviction of the three men, ignoring the innocence of two men charged: Muhammad Abdul Aziz (aka Norman 3X Butler) and the late Khalil Islam (aka Thomas 15X Johnson). The guilty shooter, Mujahid Abdul Halim (then known as Talmadge Hayer) and the innocent men spent 20 years in prison. The FBI had records which would have exonerated the two innocent men; while the NYPD had information gathered from its undercover agents like Wood. The two agencies did not share documents; however, the strategy was clear regarding Brother Malcolm’s influence: discredit, disrupt, discontinue. If Malcolm X died during the process, so be it.

I watched all six (6) episodes which for a closet detective were engaging as the story unfold to its unfortunate conclusion.  Muhammad who lives in DC and is a tour guide, interviewed men who knew the five men identified at the ballroom as the shooters.  Halim/Hayer while still in custody (he was released in 2010) gave the court the names of all the accomplices; he also interviewed with Abdur-Rahman Muhammad.

When AR Muhammad narrowed the shooter responsible for firing the projectile that ended Brother Macolm’s life, this person, whom Newark Mayor Ras Baraka as well as Sen. Cory Booker, knew, was not investigated. The evidence collected was huge. It was as if, criminal turns his life around means he is not held accountable, which he should be.

The recent surfacing of NYPD undercover officer Wood’s letter explains why there was no security at the entrance to the ballroom.  It was planned by NYPD.  This is how 5 weapons came into the facility.

The investigation according to AR Muhammad was sloppy with the room left unsecured the evening of the murder. The podium was not even taken into the prescient as evidence. The room was mopped and used for a program the same evening.

The shooter(s) especially the shooter who fired the fatal shot were working for the government (except perhaps the shooter who was caught) which means, until there is transparency there is no trust and even once there is transparency the assault Black people — leadership and valued if ordinary citizens, is so routine or habitual, even then a person might have cause to never trust this government. This is what Muhammad Abdul Aziz tells Abdur-Rahman Muhammad.

Just because citizens go along with the program does not mean they agree or support said program.  We are just bidding our time, right?

If the government, specifically the FBI and NYPD tell the public about this operation and –more expansively (such operations elswhere in New York, in California, in Louisiana, in Texas, etc.– across the nation cases where innocent citizens were shot from orbit just because their narrative countered that of this racist nation and its leadership past and present, perhaps we might be able to mend this festering sore masquerading as a democracy.

In the meantime, do not get lost in the distractions called facts or explanation (read excuses) or “blame the revolutionary” rhetoric. These false narratives are smoke screens that have nothing to do with the goals and objectives of the dominant class structure which has never upheld Black people, our collective humanity or our welfare as a goal.

We are always on the menu.

When the movement for civil rights meets the movement for Black Power, President Johnson comes to the throne (office) and promises Dr. King and his dream team passage of legislation  JF Kennedy had had on the table: Voter Rights and Civil Rights. And after much haggling, the watered down legislation passes in 1964, yet just as previous CRAs in 1866 and 1875, did little to change the circumstances of Black people.

Bobby Seale is gaged and hogtied five short years later (Oct. 29, 1969) in court and charged with inciting a riot at the Democratic National Convention (1968). Before this case is dismissed, Chairman Fred Hampton (Dec. 4, 1969) is killed while in a drug-induced sleep. Chairman Bobby Seale says in court the next day (in “The Trail of the Chicago 7”, dir.: Aaron Sorkin (2020), that Hampton was shot in the shoulder and then in the temple—“it was an execution.”

Breonna Taylor, execution.
Ahmaud Marquez Arbery, execution
George Floyd, execution

On the Fly:
Congratulations to Diamano Coura West African Dance Company for its National Heritage Fellowship. Thursday, March 3, these Oakland-based World Arts West community members will be featured in “The Culture of America: A Cross-Country Visit with the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellows.”  On March 4, 8pm ET / 5pm PST this virtual trip across the country will take viewers into the homes and communities where the 2020 National Heritage Fellows live and create. Click this link for the event info and to watch the preview.

12th Annual Powerful Women of the Bay Virtual Awards Luncheon, Friday, March 12, 12-1:30 p.m. features:

Cathy Adams, CEO of CDA Consulting Group; LaNiece Jones, Executive Director of BWOPA; Treva Reid, Councilmember City of Oakland, District 7; Mary Stutts, SVP of Corporate Relations at Sumitvant Biopharma; Janiece Evans Page, CEO at Tides Network; Vera Moore, Market Manager at JP Morgan Chase; Erin Archuleta, Head of Small Business & Community Advocacy at Square; Nichelle Rachal, Sr. Manager of Community Relations at The Clorox Company; Honorable Sheng Thao, District 4 Councilmember for the City of Oakland; Honable Lily Mei, Mayor of the City of Fremont; Sandra Varner, President of Varner P.R; Brittney Doyle, Founder of WISE Health.

Listen to Wanda’s Picks Radio for an interview with Sandra Varner, awardee. We close with a conversation with Michelle Browder and JC Hallman about the Mothers of Gynecology project.

Luncheon ticket holders will receive an UberEATS gift card to order lunch; tickets must be purchased no later than Thursday, March 11th.  Visit http://powerfulebwomen.com

Sponsorships for Powerful Women of The Bay are available. Contact CDA Consulting Group via email, cathy@cdaconsultingroup.com for more information. A percentage of event proceeds will support the Training Institute for Leadership Enrichment (TILE), which provides programs to develop and incubate a generation of African American women leaders.

The Schomburg Center closes its monthlong series of author talks with Walter Mosley: Between the Lines, Online:30 Years of Easy Rawlins

And again, it doesn’t matter which corner of the world you might be viagra ordering hiding or working on it. Also, do not take more than one order generic cialis icks.org sildenafil dosage in a day. Better cheapest price for levitra sex will also result from the erectile and ejaculatory benefits men get from increased libidos. Sildenafil also has various side effects but you could be tadalafil cheap prices endangering your overall health.

Image of book cover with the text in bold orange and red letters that read Blood Grove. Another image is of the author Walter Mosley, a light skin black man with a fedora hat.

Walter Mosley’s infamous detective Easy Rawlins is back in Blood Grove, with a new mystery to solve on the sun-soaked streets of Southern California.

In 1990, Walter Mosley introduced Easy Rawlins in his debut novel Devil in a Blue Dress. Ezekiel “Easy” Porterhouse Rawlins is an unlicensed private investigator turned hard-boiled detective always willing to do what it takes to get things done in the racially charged, dark underbelly of Los Angeles. For over 30 years, readers have voraciously consumed the 15 book series and the films based on the series starring Denzel Washington. Join us as we welcome back award winning novelist Walter Mosley to discuss his latest Easy Rawlins’ novel Blood Grove and hear readings from some of the series’ favorites.

This program will be streamed on Livestream.com. You must register with your email address in order to receive the link to participate. Please check your email shortly before the discussion to receive the link. Captions for this event will be provided.

GET THE BOOK | Readers everywhere who wish to pre-order the book can do so online at The Schomburg Shop. A limited number of signed copies will be available. All proceeds benefit The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Walter Mosley is one of the most versatile and admired writers in America. He is the author of more than sixty critically acclaimed books that cover a wide range of ideas, genres, and forms including fiction (literary, mystery, and science fiction), political monographs, writing guides including Elements of Fiction, a memoir in paintings, and a young adult novel called 47. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages. (Read more at https://www.waltermosley.com/bio/)

Theatre
Oakland Theater Project presents its world premiere: The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, co-created by John Wilkins, Lisa Ramirez, and Michael Socrates Moran, Mar 12—Apr 18 with Previews: Fri, Mar 12 & Sat, Mar 13 at 7:30 p.m.. Opening Night is Sunday, March 14 at 7:30 p.m. with Performances: Thu/Fri/Sat/Sun through April 18 (all 7:30 p.m.)

Tickets: $25—50 online, additional pay-what-you-can tickets available; no door sales, online only at oaklandtheaterproject.org/waste-land

Also at OTP

Oakland Theatre Project presents: Binding Ties: The 16th Street Train Station through March 7

“Binding Ties: 16th Street Train Station” at the Oakland Theater Project (formerly Ubuntu) begins its 2021 Season with a site specific work created by Dr. Stephanie Anne Johnson and Michael Copeland Sydnor in 1991. In the reprise, Johnson works alone, Copeland-Sydnor now deceased.  Folks jokingly speak about the disappeared Black people; however, Wood Street from 7th over to 17th where patrons enter the fenced off train station looks nothing like the slides that illustrate the work, not to mention the people in the townhouses and condos—these new neighbors who are not descendants of Pullman porters or maids who cleaned the passenger cars in silk uniforms—they had to pay for themselves. We hear one character talk about her shift which allowed her to get her children ready for school in the morning, even if it meant they are alone much of the night (3 p.m.-12 midnight.)

There is an actor on the ground who opens the play and then acts as a translator between scene changes.
The score competes lovingly with the narration, text that of the historic characters whom we come to know and care about.

A house manager with a cool light saber points to an usher just ahead once we drive in who escorts cars to designated parking spots. The guides show up again afterward to help us file out without incident. There are no concessions, but if you have to go to the toilet, there is a port-a-potty on the premises. I think we were told the play would be an hour, but it was a bit longer the evening I attended.

After being escorted to a parking spot patrons turn their radio dial to the frequency where the theatre sound lives. If you don’t have a radio in your car like me, make sure you have an app on your phone before you leave home or a portable radio.

The VIP tickets are parked center stage, while the regular patrons ($25-$35 donation) are to the side of the larger façade at the front of the station. One of the characters in a projection speaks about how the white patrons act like the Black men are pieces of furniture. We hear of the work by CL Dellums and A. Phillip Randolph who eventually help organize the first Black Union after the first March on Washington. “Binding Ties” is an ancestor tale. Though the men and women whose livelihood was tied to West Oakland are gone, their stories are a part of the archives in the Oakland History Room, the Bancroft Library and so many books. There is something to be said about historic preservation and the integrity of sacred spaces consecrated by Black labor, Black love and Black life—however, the empty space behind the walls images are projected on speak to the erasure of Black people from the Oakland landscape. Land trusts is one way of securing permanence; however, the best way to secure space is for Black people in places like West Oakland is for municipalities and citizen constituency to understand and value a Black presence.

There are no tickets sold at the OTP performance, so get your tickets in advance: The shows are at 7:30 p.m. gates open at 7 p.m. Thursday-Sunday.   There are limited PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN TICKETS: $5 / $10 / $15 / $20 per vehicle. General admission is: $25 / $30 / $35 per vehicle with PRIORITY TICKETS (Reserved priority parking) at $50 per vehicle.  Visit https://oaklandtheaterproject.org/binding-ties


Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in collaboration with SF Playhouse, Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s [hieroglyph], March 13-April 3

The play currently available on demand at Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in collaboration with SF Playhouse, Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s [hieroglyph], asks a similar question—When will Black wom(b)en and girls voices be amplified publically and behind closed doors? And I include here gender nonconforming Black wom(b)en, all of us together, because we are all included in the silencing. We practice allyship for protect. Allyship is a form of accompaniment— witnessing from the inside.  “I see you,” is a start. Agreement is not a prerequisite for belonging. We will find a place where we agree and build on that premise. We need all our people.

We see this practiced in Dickerson-Despenza’s play. There are so many relationships explicated here between these pages danced on the stage. Margo Hall, new Artistic Director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre (LHT), is a magician in her elegant navigation of an alternative theatre space – film.  The cast, equally gifted in their ability to capture and translate this wonderful work on the stage via screen gives the urgency of this story primacy: Black girls, Black women are at risk for sexual violence. Black girls and Black women are being violated. There is a direct correlation between a people’s violation especially the women and girls and the earth’s violation in the Great Storm where the levees broke contaminating water and land and killing so many living beings.

In the play, young protagonist davis despenza hayes (13) portrayed brilliantly by actor Jamella Cross, tells her story through her drawings. Her artwork provides a road map none but her astute art teacher, ms. t (actor Safiya Fredericks) can decipher.

davis’s loving father, ernest hayes (actor Khary L. Moye) is trapped in his own demons and worries. NOLA post-Katrina, transplant in Chicago, the father-daughter are still swimming with dead bodies two months later. The mother is not there which further complicates the story.

ms. t establishes a bond with the child right off. There is something about “davis,” who joins the class mid-semester, whose craft and skill she admires. There is even what one could call a soul connection evident in a linked synergy to a shared if unnamed trauma neither can articulate initially. davis has nightmares which are staged really well. Sometimes she is up all night and then drags herself to art class where even on a bad day, she still answers all the questions posed by ms. t.

Art is so powerful; one wonders what davis would have used to articulate so beautifully through those nightmares which woke her from sleep had she not had her drawing pad and pens. What stories is davis sharing? ms. t suggests to “ernest,” davis’s dad, at a parent teacher meeting that he look at the drawings and talk to his daughter about them. davis is failing all her classes except Art.  ms. t suggests her father think about why davis is doing so well in art.  ernest looks at his daughter’s portfolio filled with the faces of people met at the Superdome who died.

Later on when the father asks davis what the coded language in the pictures means, she does not want to share; however, her father “sees” something is wrong and agrees to find his daughter a therapist. davis, who is “grounded” until she picks up her grades, especially in math, invites a friend to help her. leah (actor Anna Marie Sharpe), davis’s friend from school, who likes her and is also good in math, helps her pass her test. For this, ernest, who is sad davis doesn’t want to spend time with him on her birthday—there is a show at the museum where he works he wants to take her too. He instead, lets davis spend the night with her friend. He doesn’t know the girls have other birthday plans.

The playwright paints adults who care about davis, adults who struggle with themselves yet are not so self-centered that they are unreliable. This is especially true for ms. t. Fredericks’s character champions and pays attention to the details and does not stop at unraveling the narrative davis is intentionally drawing. Perhaps this is the beauty of childhood, the kind of childhood davis had prior to Katrina and Superdome experiences and their indelible impact on her life.

Can a man protect and still honor the agency of the girl-child he is protecting? Can he keep her life separate from his? Too often men act like they were raped, when it is their ego that is raped—how dare he harm “my” daughter?! He thinks. davis as possession blinds the protector to the true victim—

This Covid-19 pandemic has increased the danger women and girls are living with. I wonder where they are finding a safe bed. I wonder about homeless children, runaways, sexual exploitation— The playwright was influenced to write one of the characters based on the story of a child in Chicago gang raped whose body was thrown under a bridge.

Trauma is on the table, yet the father who is trying to keep his job and take care of his daughter while in limbo about his marriage—pushes it to the side. Parents need to pay attention; the signs are there. It is not often that we see a Black father play with his daughter like these two characters do. The characters Dickerson-Despenza writes are human and have experienced a tragedy most of us cannot conceive let alone contemplate when sexual violence is added to the cocktail.

[hieroglyph] ignites multiple explosions, like cluster bombs. davis’s friend, leah—book-smart is also traumatized. What [hieroglyph] suggests is we stop judging our children and their friends and pay closer attention.

[hieroglyph] is part of award-winning 10-play Katrina Cycle of plays Dickerson-Despenza is writing focused on the effects of Hurricane Katrina in and beyond New Orleans. [hieroglyph] is fully produced and filmed on stage at SF Playhouse, and is presented as an on-demand video stream through April 3rd, 2021. Patrons may support the organization of their choice by purchasing tickets ($15 – $100) from Lorraine Hansberry Theatre at lhtsf.org or from San Francisco Playhouse at sfplayhouse.org.  To listen or watch a Virtual Wanda’s Picks interview on Facebook with Margo Hall, Artistic Director of LHT: https://www.facebook.com/wanda.sabir/videos/10224972454289502

Visit wandaspicks.com for the full April Picks which is updated throughout the month, so keep sending fliers and posts about events. Also, listen to wandaspicks.com/radio broadcasts Follow the blog so you don’t miss any updates. The podcast airs from blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks Download the app.
To listen to March 31 rebroadcast with Margo Hall with an interview with Ms. Hall from 2013 re: BeBopBaby: http://tobtr.com/s/11921125

There are many Black Writing Retreats or Conferences March 26-28

I am at the online Black Writers Conference at Medgar Evers College. There are also two other Black Writers Conferences this weekend: Black Women Who Hold Up the Sky and

Center for Black literature

2021 National Black Writers Conference Biennial Symposium
Saturday, March 27, 2021
Medgar Evers College, CUNY

11: 00 AM – 7:00 PM

Presented on Zoom
“They Cried I Am: The Life and Work of Paule Marshall and John A. Williams, Unsung Black Literary Voices”

Featured program highlights will include a keynote address, roundtable discussions, and dramatic readings. Confirmed speakers include Carole Boyce Davies, Edwidge Danticat, Keith Gilyard, Maryemma Graham, Michael Anthony Green, Lawrence P. Jackson, Evan Marshall, Liza Jessie Peterson, Ishmael Reed, Linda Villarosa, Mary Helen Washington and Jamia Wilson, and a musical tribute by Tulivu-Donna Cumberbatch and Seasoned Elegance.

Register at Eventbrite

AALBC Family: Receive $5 off, the already low fee, by using promo code is NBWCFRIEND at checkout.

Another Black Writers Program: Black Women Who Hold Up Half The Sky

Mar 27, 2021 from 2:00pm to 5:00pm EDT  Black Women Who Hold Up Half The Sky
 
Please Note Justice Betty J. Williams has graciously agreed to replace Atty. Gloria Browne-Marshall on the panel because Atty Marshall has just suffered the loss of a very close family member.
Three Dynamic African Women Speak for CEMOTAP’S Black Women’s Herstory Month Program on Zoom at 2:00 PM 3-27-21. Admission is Free but you must RSVP at call, text or message at 347-907-0629, or by emailing Bashlefi@gmail.com

Follow the site so you don’t miss anything and the radio show too. blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks


Co-presented by the City of Oakland’s Cultural Affairs Commission and the Offices of Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, “Stories of Solidarity” is a virtual town hall conversation and concert led by Oakland’s Asian Pacific Islander and Black artists standing together.

This is a free event.

Land Acknowledgement ritual by: Calina Lawrence

Performances by:
Greer Nakadegawa-Lee, 2020 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate
Kev Choice
Tao Shi
Olafemi “Bankh” Akintunde
Howard Wiley
Terisa Siagatonu and more.

The event will be streamed live here and via Council President Nikki Bas:

https://www.facebook.com/Nikki4Oakland

So, join the organizers Thursday, February 25 from 5:00PM – 6:30PM as they continue the deep tradition of Oakland Asian Pacific Islander and Black artists coming together, across dividing lines, to create a cultural response to racism rooted in power, healing and solidarity.

This event is sponsored in partnership with: Oakland Asian Cultural Center | (OACC) | AYPAL | RedBay Coffee | Oakland Public Library’s Oakland Youth Poet Laureate Program | Life is Living | Oakland Rising | The Oakland Post | Piano Black Tea Co. | Alkalin Rye | House of Sato | Civic Design Studio | GOOD GOOD EATZ