THE SAN BERNARDINO
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AMERICAN
“A Man In Debt is So Far A Slave” -Emerson
NEWSPAPER A Community Newspaper Serving San Bernardino, Riverside & Los Angeles Counties Volume 51 No. 12 Mailing: P.O. Box 837, Victorville, CA 92383
July 09, 2020 - July 15, 2020
Office: (909) 889-7677
Email: sbamericannews@gmail.com
Website: www.SB-American.com
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them and these will continue till they have resisted either with words or blows or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance those of whom they suppress. —Fredrick Douglass (1849)
“Stop Killing Us:” Activists Bring Their Pain to State Capitol Antonio Ray Harvey | California Black Media
Rideshare Drivers: Back Behind a Wheel or the 8-Ball? Lyft and Uber drivers’ early pandemic experiences have soured them on the companies’ ability to keep their workers safe. By Sasha Ambramsky
Shuttershock.com
Families affected by police violence came from all across the state to participate in the Stop Killings Us Rally in Sacramento. Last week, several California social and criminal justice organizations, as well as community-based groups, gathered for a rally at the state Capitol titled “Stop Killing Us.” Oakland-based All of Us or None (AOUON) organized the event — with the help of other partners across the state — to condemn police violence against African Americans. AOUON is a project of Legal Service for Prisoners With Children (LSPC), a nonprofit civil rights organization that advocates for the rights of formerly and currently incarcerated people and their families. Their demonstration was peaceful — done with official per mission — and less spontaneous than recent explosive protests and riots triggered by the brutal murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minnesota, at the hands of police officers. But it was charged with strong convictions and a solemn sense of grief, much like those protests. “You mess with our children, I'll come running,” said Yolanda Banks, the mother of Sahleem Tindle, who a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) officer killed on Jan. 3, 2018. He was 28. “I have to march,” Banks
continued. “We fight together.” Banks frequently joins other grieving African American fam ilies f rom arou nd California who have lost loved ones to police violence for rallies and vigils like the one AOUON held in Sacramento. Participants arrived from Riverside, Los Angeles, San Ber nardino, Bakersf ield, Vallejo, Richmond, Oakland, San Francisco, and other places in the state. Most of the people in attendance were people who have been impacted by police violence. On the front steps of the State Capitol, large black-and-white photos of people of color who have been victims of police deadly force were on display. According to AOUON, police violence has claimed the lives of 600 people in California over the last five years Asale-Haquekyah Chandler (pronounced “Ah-SAH-lah”) made the trip east to Sacramento from San Francisco to support Banks and the other families involved with “Stop Killing Us.” Chandler is hosting the “One Life Walk: A Silent Walk Parade Protest” in downtown San Francisco July 28. C h a nd le r, who ran unsuccessfully for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Ken Oliver, All of Us or None's policy director
Photos of people of color killed by law enforcement agents in California. District 10 seat in 2018, has also been affected by violence, but not at the hands of law enforcement. Her 19-year-old son Yalani Chinyamurindi, while on a lunch break in San Francisco, was shot and killed, along with three individuals he knew. The young men 20, 21, and 22 years of age were giving her son a ride back to his job when four gunmen surrounded the car they were in and opened fire. Locally, around the Bay Area, the crime, which took place on Jan. 9, 2015, has been dubbed the “San Francisco 4.” Chandler said she and Banks (the two women knew each other well before their sons died) attended the event because see themselves as
“fighters of justice and equality for all of our lives,” she said. “We were fighting way before these children were murdered,” Chandler said. “So, the uniqueness we’re bringing to the table was meant to be. Though I hate to say it — because we lost (our children). My child was killed by the community and her child was killed by the police. We didn’t want to be in this club (mothers of children violently killed). But we are the right ones to be in this club.” Banks, who lives on a rural farm in Calaveras County, told California Black Media (CBM) that the events that AOUON stage are “painful but therapeutic.” The pain and passion expressed continued on page 4
9-Year Old Best Selling Author and Philanthropist Debuts New Talk Show, Raising Greatness Lifestyle News Atlanta, GA — Who says you can’t be a kid and have your own talk show? No one does! That is why Atlanta native, 9-year old bestselling author Nicholas Buamah, can now add talk show host to the list of things that he has accomplished at his young age. Raising Greatness with Nicholas Buamah premiered on YouTube, July 1, 2020, at 2pm EST. With almost 11K subscribers on his channel, Nicholas will interview a plethora of guests to find out what led them down their path to success. His guests will include some of the most amazing
people from various walks of life – Celebrity Chefs, Journalist, Hollywood Actors, Comedians, Producers, Professional Athletes, Entrepreneurs, and more. At the age of seven, Nicholas wrote his first book, Kayla and
Kyle: The Walking Dictionaries Election Day. Not only is it an Amazon bestseller, but it has also been cataloged in the Library of Congress. What is just as impressive is his mission: To help kids in underprivileged communities around the world have access to reading materials through his non-profit organization called, Books Without Borders, Inc. Nicholas has been featured in several online news outlets. He has also appeared on major television networks. His most notable appearance was when he
was a guest on the Steve Harvey Show and helped the host learn a few new words. Steve Harvey was so impressed with the young author that he donated 555 books to send to Ghana (West Africa) through Nicholas’ nonprofit organization. He was also honored by the great Whoopi Goldberg on her show, The View. Make sure to subscribe and tune into Raising Greatness every week on YouTube. You don’t want to miss this exciting and inspiring new talk show! “You’re never too young to dream big!” — Nicholas Buamah
In mid-March, with the economy largely shuttered by shelter-in-place orders, gig drivers saw much of their work evaporate. Some struggled on; many others decided to wait out the pandemic. Fifty-year-old Alameda-based rideshare driver Edan Alva got sick in the early days of the outbreak, but never got tested for COVID-19 and so doesn’t know if he now has antibodies. Scared that he might still be susceptible to the disease, he decided to quit temporarily. “I stopped driving April 7th,” he recalls. “Work was so slow I was down to five dollars an hour. I didn’t see the point of exposing myself to risk. Even in the early days, we were the most likely to encounter it. We pick people up from airports. We carry passengers at very close proximity to ourselves. Multiple people every day. Hundreds a month.” Lyft Edan Alva driver says he will sit out the early stages of the state’s reopening: “I’ll start working when I feel safe.” Now, as California’s economy gradually reopens, he’s decided to sit out the early stages of the reopening. “I’ll start working when I feel safe,” he explains. “I’m pretty far from it at the moment. I have a family, people I’m in touch with, and I don’t want to put anyone else at risk.” T he Califor n ia Labor Federation estimates that as many as nine out of every 10 gig drivers – hundreds of thousands of drivers in the state – have lost their income streams over the past three months. Many, like Alva, are now wrestling with the question of how and when to return to work. Their experiences during the early days of the pandemic have soured them on Lyft’s and Uber’s ability, or willingness, to provide their workers with what they need to stay safe. And that, as companies develop models for how to operate during the pandemic, is what has so many drivers worried about what work in the coming months will entail. Alva, who has worked as a driver for over five years, explains how the companies — even after the passage of California’s Assembly Bill 5 — refuse to
consider drivers as employees. Organizers claim, citing UC Berkeley Labor Center findings, that the companies don’t pay their full share into the unemployment insurance fund, and don’t provide the state with earnings data from their drivers. When asked for comment, Lyft’s communications team replied that “the study’s author’s claim that Lyft does not provide states wage data in order to help process drivers through the UI [unemployment insurance] system is flatly false. We have been working with states across the country, including in California during this pandemic, to provide them the data they need for UI verification.” What no one disputes, however, is that the companies don’t provide health insurance to their drivers. As a result, Alva says, he has had to pay for his own health insurance, which comes with high deductibles and thus makes it hard for him to access affordable treatment; and, since he is considered a contractor, he is entirely responsible for all of the costs of keeping his car in good condition. The gig driver model, he has concluded, “pushes the expenses and the risks onto the driver,” providing an unpalatable choice: either stop working entirely, or accept the risk and don’t turn down any rides, even if it puts them in harm’s way. *
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When the COVID-19 crisis hit, the rideshare driver model became even riskier. Alva says that he twice approached Lyft requesting that it provide disinfectant for his car and PPE for him to wear. Both times, he recalls, despite the fact that both Lyft and Uber have publicly committed to spending millions of dollars on PPE for their drivers, he was rebuffed. And so, he says, “I ran from store to store in the Bay Area trying to find masks and disinfectant.” Other drivers report similar stories, as well as being unable to access financial relief as the pandemic took hold. continued on page 2