Part 3 about the weekend of Aug. 1, which I wrote about in the following blog entry because I was covering a Night Owl event that was intensely political and thought provoking. The entry turned out way too long for one post so I am breaking it into sections.
Aug 2: Culture plays a vital role in politics, said Mark Tribe, creator of the Port Huron Project, responsible for staging the Angela Davis speech.  Culture creates conditions for emancipation, autonomy and democracy, was the way he put it.
Tribe said the political climate – or lack thereof — at Brown University in 2005 when he began teaching led to the project. People seemed to feel resistance was futile.
I asked a woman at the Angela Davis speech recreation at DeFremery Park if she thought people were disillusioned and less active than the 1960s and 70s. “There is not as much opposition because you don’t see body bags,” said Annette Santos, a former Black Panther in the New York and Oakland branches. She was talking about the opposition to the Vietnam War, which spurred a generation to intense protest. In contrast, the Bush Administration has blocked images of U.S. soldiers’ caskets being shipped back to the United States from Iraq. No one was dying at the start of the war in Iraq, Santos said. “Wen they did, we didn’t hear about it.”
Media have been banned from covering the arrival of remains at Dover, according to a USA Today article.  Read the rest of this entry »

Here is more about the weekend of Aug. 1, which I wrote about in the following blog entry because I was covering a Night Owl event that was intensely political and thought provoking. Art and resistance together. The entry turned out way too long for one post so I am breaking it into sections.
Aug. 2: “Port Huron Project 5 – The Liberation of our People” was about taking texts out of history, reanimating them to engage people and inserting them into contemporary politics, the creator Mark Tribe said.
He also wants to turn “depoliticized space” like DeFremery Park into a place for participatory democracy.
But not everyone saw it that way. A young woman stood up to ask what Tribe was doing to be more than just a cultural carpetbagger who rides into town to capitalize on its history then rides right back out without leaving so much as a tip. She wanted to know what he was going to do to keep the momentum going after the speech to make it more than a “creative intellectual exercise.”
West Oakland Lower Bottoms impresario Marcel Diallo said it’s up to the community to ride the energy Tribe creates by creating events around the event. “I’m not trippin’,” Diallo said. “Anyone who come in I’m going to find a way to ride it.” He showed up Saturday at the park with T-shirts, paintings and other items for sale. 
Just like when Davis made the speech, the park Saturday was full of people from all walks of life, colors and ages, Black Panther Minister of Culture Emory Douglas recalled. Read the rest of this entry »

Who says politics can’t be cool? check out the Oakland Museum tonight. Saturday is the restaging of Angela Davis’ speech she made in the same spot in 1969. (Read all about it.) Also from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday this weekend is the Lakeshore art and wine festival Saturday and Sunday: live music, arts and crafts booths, local vendors, a Green Living Expo, a carnival for kids, wine tasting, food booths and more.
Lakeshore between Lake Park and Mandana. IT’S GRATIS.