Javad Jahi

Javad Jahi is on life support at UCSF and needs our prayers. All day yesterday I kept getting emails stating that he'd died, that he was alive, and then on KPFA Hard Knock announced his passing.

I am reminded of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey and how it was announced that he passed before he had. So until I get an official announcement to the contrary Javad is alive and fighting for his breath, and encourage everyone to send healing energy his way. H1M1 is no joke.

I saw Ayanna who sent out the first email early yesterday at Andrea Lewis's memorial but didn't get a chance to talk to her before she left, to ask if she'd been by the hospital. I also saw Davey D, who didn't know if the email from Javad's brother was now true-a follow-up email said "he'd jumped the gun," so I am going to remain encouraged and encouraging.

Please keep me posted on Javad's condition.

The last time I saw Javad was at the hearing for SF8 where all the men were acquitted except Francisco Torres, who is still free, and Jalil Muntaqim, who took the fall for his comrades, and Herman Bell, the latter two men, both incarcerated, were sent back to NY for parole hearings.

I remember riding with Javad to Sacramento one year for African Liberation Day. What impressed me about him was our conversation around gender equity and his statement that he was in recovery from patriarchy, that as a man, he had to monitor his male privilege. Keep it in check. I just thought this was so beautiful and so conscious on his part, but I see this sense of fairness in many brothers whom Javad would call his peers like Eesuu and Keba and his elder Maestre Temba.

Another time Javad who made the Maafa Ritual each year, invited me to him home to meet with friends from Philly who wanted to host a Maafa there and wanted to discuss the history with me. It was a great conversation. I don't know what happened with the plans, but since then I learned of Odunde, a ritual and celebration of African culture in the summer in Philly. Hopefully the couple connected with the organizers there. It's the oldest in the country.

One year I was in New Orleans and ran into Malcolm X Grassroots at a poetry reading in the French Quarters. I was hanging out with my friend Sakura Kone, who was organizing support for Common Ground Relief. Imagine my delight running into Kali and Javad with their kids from the San Francisco Bay in Nawlins!