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Remembering the Racism of Pot Prohibition, Celebrating 420 Day

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So, today is national stoner day. You know, 4/20, dude. Californians will likely be voting to Legalize It in November, though it’s not certain at this point what language will be approved.

Legalizing pot won’t free it from its long history of association with racism, and we need to talk about it. And I’ll share some of the fun 420 coverage from around the state.

Harry Anslinger, made commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics after alcohol prohibition failed, was one of the driving forces behind pot prohibition. He pushed it for explicitly racist reasons, saying, “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men,” and complaining about “its effect on the degenerate races.”   [Read more…]

The Early Years of Norma Hernandez: Life Outside the Comfort Zone

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Norma Hernandez’ road to becoming a Chicana activist is different than that of the other Latinos and Latinas I have written about. Norma was born in Tijuana in 1938 and lived there until she was fifteen years old. She is an only child born to Mr. and Mrs. Arce. Fortunately, there were a large number of cousin, aunts and uncles that provided an extended family experience.

Her great-grandmother Valeria was an Otomi Indian who lived in San Luis Potosí Mexico on a little ranchito. Norma’s mother was born in Johnson, Arizona, a small mining town near Bisbee Arizona which no longer exists today.

When her mother was a year old, Norma’s grandparents moved to Mexico. The United states was experiencing a chicken pox epidemic. Fearing for the health of his family her grandfather moved them to Tijuana where he would own a barber shop and later a movie theater.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Idyll of Pomos

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Eyes closed into hands
touching the womb

Grass grows greener
where the goddess of Pomos
bent legs in birth
arms stretched out
over infant earth   [Read more…]

A New Era of Feminism: Women Continue to Inspire Women

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By Leah Schroeder

March was a month for deep reflection for a lot of us women on the question, “how far have we come?” A plethora of articles and books are available that discuss this question, and dissect the variety ways in which women are still subjugated in all societies. There are so many controversial, frustrating, and generally negative circumstances I could write or rant about.

It’s easy to become angry at how “The System” (patriarchy, misogyny, menstrual cycles, racism, you catch my drift) has been set up against marginalized groups for millennia. Sometimes, this anger is consuming. For example, when reading about how an African American woman was (allegedly) gang-raped by men on the lacrosse team at a prestigious, majority white university (cite). Among other things, gender-based violence occurs all over the world, a lot more often than many people think.

The historical and deeply systematic subjugation and de-humanization of women that still prevails in many ways today can really get you down. However, there’s also a growing sensation of power that comes with education and the knowledge gained from women in the past and present.   [Read more…]

Joseph Medicine Crow, Last Crow War Chief and Living Link to Battle of Little Bighorn, Dies at 102

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Devoted Indigenous rights advocate and chronicler of Plains Indian history died this weekend in hospice in Billings, Montana

By Nika Knight / CommonDreams

Joseph Medicine Crow, the last living Plains Indian war chief and a passionate historian, died on Sunday at age 102.

A member of the Crow tribe, Medicine Crow was an outspoken advocate for his people, whose suffering he witnessed in the wake of the U.S. government’s relegation of American Indian tribes to reservations and the policy of cultural genocide in government-run boarding schools.

  [Read more…]

Historically, Liberals and the Left Have Underestimated the Right. Today, They Overestimate It.

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By Corey Robin

I’m going to float a series of vast and quick historical generalizations in order to try and get at something that is distinctive about the present moment in US politics.

Beginning in Europe in the 19th century, liberalism has been engaged in an on-again, off-again, two-front war: against the right and against the left. Against the right’s revanchism and the left’s radicalism, liberalism has held itself up as the original Third Way. It is the reasonable and moderate alternative to the extremes, offering men and women the promises and profits of a capitalist, vaguely democratic, modernity but without its revolutionary perils and reactionary mystique.   [Read more…]

Joe Wilder: Gentleman of Jazz

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Joe Wilder was not only a magnificent trumpet player but a gentleman according to all who knew him. I had the privilege of presenting him and saxophonist Marshal Royal along with a local rhythm section composed of Mike Wofford, Bob Magnusson and Roy McCurdy at the Lyceum Theatre in 1990 under the auspices of the San Diego Jazz Society. A CD was made of the performance which, unfortunately, is out of print. Joe helped to break down racial barriers on Broadway, radio, television and in classical music.

Wilder’s sense of propriety was legendary. When Wilder was in Lionel Hampton’s orchestra in the early 1940s, fellow band members used to offer him a $10 bill if he would simply utter one four-letter word. Wilder never collected! A soft-spoken and stately man, he never appeared in public without a tie. He was a non-smoker and non-drinker. He was as impeccable in his playing as he was in his personal life. Classically trained, he had to face the reality that no African-Americans were being hired for symphony jobs in the 1930s and 40s. After auditions for symphony jobs, they were told, “Don’t call us; we’ll call you.”   [Read more…]

Women Voters: Their Growing Influence in Politics and Policy

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By Sher Watts Spooner / Daily Kos

In 2016, it’s hard to imagine a time when women in the United States weren’t allowed to vote. Yet it’s been less than a century in this country—and even less than that in other places around the globe—since women weren’t allowed to have a voice at the polls.

Women (well, white women, anyway) received the right to vote on a national scale with the final adoption of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Some Western states had given women the vote earlier, as did a few other countries in the 1800s. Women in South Australia, Finland, Denmark, Germany, and elsewhere received voting rights before U.S. women did. The United Kingdom had a widespread women’s suffrage movement and enacted full women’s suffrage in 1928.

Throughout the 20th century, many countries followed the franchise lead by giving women the vote. The United Nations-backed women’s suffrage after World War II, and in 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women adopted suffrage as a basic right, with 189 countries signing on. Women even voted in Saudi Arabia for the first time in 2015.   [Read more…]

Roger and Norma Cazares: Four Decades of Chicano Activism

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Norma and Roger Cazares are known for their political activism which began while they were both young. They first met each other on a picket line during the Grape Boycott. Chicano politics brought them together and love soon followed.

Last month’s introduction to the activist lives of Norma and Roger provides insight into how they have changed the civic landscape of San Diego. This concluding article fills in more of the details of their commitment to their community and each other.   [Read more…]

Benny Hollman : A Celebration of Life, 1940 – 2015

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By Connie Zuñiga

After three days of heavy rain, the sun came shining through January 8 for a very important day, our farewell to Benny. On December 12 2015, beloved musician and bandleader Benny Hollman lost his years-long struggle with cancer, surrounded by family at his home in Mira Mesa.

We would say our goodbye to Benny at Our Lady of Guadalupe church.   [Read more…]

San Diego Police and FBI Drove Local Black Panthers Underground

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Union-Tribune Finally “Finds” San Diego’s Black Panthers

By Frank Gormlie / OB Rag

In a very decent February 28 article about San Diego’s Black Panthers penned by Peter Rowe of the San Diego U-T, some of the city’s turbulent civil rights and Black power movement history from the Sixties and Seventies was uncovered.

First, it’s amazing to some San Diegans, including Rowe, that San Diego even had a Black Panther chapter back in the day. And that’s a credit that the San Diego Union and Tribune themselves can claim, for the coverage of local Panthers and the civil rights movement in general was skewed due to the right-wing – and yes, racist – policies and bias of its owners and editors. Think the Copley family, who ran the city’s only pair of dailies for decades.   [Read more…]

The March for People’s Park – Memorial Day 1969

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From the San Diego Free Press 1969 /Transcribed by John Lawrence

As noon approached, people prepared to march. There was a hint of danger in the air. People prepared themselves accordingly. Some had moist rags in plastic bags. Others had gas masks on. No one seemed prepared to withstand the buckshot Madigan had promised.

Brothers and sisters were there from all over the U.S. and abroad. San Diego was well represented with people from San Diego State, Mesa College and UCSD. People gathered under placards representing the places they were from to show their solidarity with Berkeley.   [Read more…]

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