Kiilu Nyasha: A Revolutionary for Life Part I 2

Kiilu Nyasha is one of my sheroes.  She became politically aware as a youth and has been an active member of the struggle to bring human rights and dignity to all people.  What is especially impressive about her struggle is that a significant amount of her revolutionary activism has been accomplished as a disabled woman. She reminds me that there is always something we can do to help create positive change.  The following is part one of a two part interview.

In your work as an activist your media activities have played a major role these past few decades?  You have written news articles and opinions, you produce and host a television program, sent out articles and commentaries to a significant mailing list, keep a blog, and you were a radio host on both KPFA and KPOO radio for years.  How do you think working in each medium helps forward the struggle?

I learned the value of media in educating to liberate minds from the dogma of individualism, capitalism

I learned the value of media in educating to liberate minds from the dogma of individualism, capitalism, as a veteran of the Sixties and Seventies’ revolutionary struggles for the liberation of Black and other oppressed peoples. Selling and writing for the Black Panther Newspaper was my first experience in this endeavor, and I learned how effective our community newspaper was in raising the consciousness of our people to fight back against recurring injustices endemic in our neighborhoods.

Ironically, my first experience working for a commercial Black newspaper happened in 1971 when Reginald Major was in Algeria and The Sun Reporter needed a substitute reporter to cover pretrial hearings for Angela Davis and Ruchell Cinque Magee Decades later, writing for the S.F. Bay View Newspaper allowed me to reach a wide, predominately Black readership – especially prisoners – nationwide.

Strangely enough, my being disabled got me into radio. I was invited to join several disabled activists being interviewed by Philip Maldari for KPFA in 1983. He “hired” me that day to do commentaries for “Traffic Jam.” That launched my radio career first as a commentator and later a programmer on listener-sponsored KPFA and (eventually) KPOO — plus Free Radio Berkeley and S.F. Liberation Radio.  The latter two experiences comprised my best involvement in media because for a few years (1990’s) we had uncensored freedom not subject to FCC rules. Revolutionary radio!

Beginning in 2007, producing and hosting television programs not only broadened my skills, it put me in touch with a huge new audience of TV viewers (most of whom don’t do radio).  It also facilitates uploading of our shows to YouTube allowing them to be archived and universally available.

What do you bring to journalism that a young, fresh journalist might not (yet) have?

I think I bring to journalism a revolutionary perspective that millennials simply could not have for lack of experience within the historic context of revolutionary movement. E.g., the BPP was targeted as the “greatest threat to the internal security of the United States.” The original Rainbow Coalition in part evoked this all-out assault, peoples of color plus poor whites. That radical unity really upset the racist rulers, and they used “every dirty trick” in the book to crush it and re-divide us.

You do keep a web presence. How do you combat or react to the idea of “false news?”  How does the less informed reader, for example, tell the difference between the veracity of your posts and articles and that of a contradictory, and knowingly disingenuous neo-conservative “news” site?

  I think most people recognize the truth when they hear it, even conservatives.

Combating “fake news” has been my mission well before this particular phase was coined. The mainstream media’s news and information is so mendacious that I’ve already developed the habit of crosschecking and relying on my own instincts for discerning the truth.  At this point, I’ve been doing it for so long that folks reading my posts and blog know that I’m right more often than not, and when I discover I was wrong, I’ll post my corrections often with an “oops!”  Moreover, I think most people recognize the truth when they hear it, even conservatives. Too many fear telling or even acknowledging true facts when the authorities or their “bosses” contradict them.

End Part I. Part II will post on Monday, January 30. It includes Kiilu’s thoughts on writing political prisoners, being a disabled activist, her visual art as a political medium, and how to keep energized in a struggle with many losses and sporadic victories.