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It is always a nice feeling when you get to see any end product - in this case the video that was produced by Youth In Action. It is a bit embarrassing when one is featured in the video as I was - you kinda of feel out of place when you see yourself talking - more taking a position - you slap yourself and ask - did you really say that? Espanola Jackson too was featured in the video and did us all proud.
Youth in Action had the first release of their documentary Hunters Point On Fire. Kudos to the team and especially Jenn and Derek. We all met April 27, 2002 at the Horace Mann Middle School to see the Youth In Action. It was a day full of practical workshops, skits, poems, and of course the video Hunters Point On Fire. Dan Barnel from Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi office was at hand to read a nice letter of encouragement and guess what we even saw Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi say some cool stuff about Environmental Justice or is it Injustice? She was present at the Bayview South East Community Facility last Saturday and we took the opportunity to capture her on video. It is always fun visiting those middle schools, managing to sit in one of those classroom chairs. You get a flash back going to those days when one was in school and in middle school - I was very naughty. My teachers all remember me and I could make a number of documentaries on the pranks I played and the havoc I caused - but very clean fun. I was born in Nairobi, Kenya and when I grew up the environment in Kenya was pristine. Decades later Kenya fell prey to so called civilization and with civilization - pollution. This video could easily have been shot in Nairobi, Kenya. Back to the video, it addressed the incident on January 21, 2002 - Dr. Martin Luther King's holiday - when some policemen from District 10 decided to brutalize some innocent African American youth - ages 12 to 14 years on Kiska Road in Hunters Point. When the news first reached me I could not believe it. On Dr. Martin Luther King's holiday in the year 2002 in San Francisco? It was time I put on the mantle to stand for the youth and register this hate crime. And that is what I did - I spearheaded the effort to bring justice - wrote, spoke, and did all in my power to send a clear signal to the San Francisco Police Department, Mayor Willie Brown, the Chief of Police Lau, and anyone who mattered in the City and County of San Francisco and the extended Bay Area. The video addressed the subject of Injustice meted out to the victims beautifully. It went further and addressed the Environmental Injustice meted out to the residents of Hunters Point and the Bayview - by the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Youth in Action and the San Francisco Conservation Corps to which the Group is affiliated did us all - proud. Call Youth In Action to find out more at (415) 820-7171. |
