LSB candidate questionnaire
Omowale Clay (member, December 12th Movement; a key organizer of National Rally for Reparations and Black participation in intl. conferences on racism & women's rights; created slogan "No Justice, No Peace")
Click here for candidate statement
Omowale Clay
LSB candidate questionnaire
Omowale Clay
omowale@justiceunity.org, 212-591-2111
1. Why do you wish to serve on the Local Station Board?
I want to continue the fight to improve the quality of progressive ideas, culture and politics over one of the last avenues open to educating the peoples of our communities. I want to continue working on the Pacifica Mission with some the finest people I have met as part of the Justice and Unity campaign. Lastly, I want to insure that the station finds a permanent home that will be self-staining for its future.
Please vote for all 8 of us who are running with the Justice and Unity Campaign. You can get all the information on the candidates and our positions at www.justiceunity.org.
- What skills, qualifications and experience would you bring to the board?
I have over thirty years of organizing experience in the local, national and international struggles for human rights in Black communities. I have developed expertise in communication skills and I am responsible for creating slogans like "No Justice, No Peace," "Whose Streets? Our Streets," "Africa Called, Cuba Answered," all of which came out of the grassroots struggles against illegal drugs, racist attacks and for international solidarity. I am a member of the December 12th Movement, Millions for Reparations and the Black Men’s Movement Against Crack and the community-based “Put the Guns Down” campaign.
I was a key organizer for U.S. Black participation in several international conferences: World Conference Against Racism, Durban, South Africa; United Nations Women's Conference, China; African Union, Ethiopia, etc. and nationally, the first National Rally for Reparations, Wash. D.C. I worked to get justice for the murder of Sean Bell, a unarmed Black youth, shot fifty times by the police. I also helped organize a Day of Outrage against Police Terrorism on September 11, 2007 which sought to target the general police terror perpetrated against the Black community and in particular support for Evelyn and Tarif Warren, two Black lawyers brutalized by the police.
Professionally, I have over fifteen years of work in housing - from tenant organizing to low-income co-op management. I have spent the last eleven years working in the area of health care at a major NYC hospital - focusing first on high school and college internships for youth, and now Director of Human Resources. I majored in Political Science on the undergraduate level, and Urban Planning at the graduate level.
3. What can be done to improve the dynamics and effectiveness of the Local Station Board?
We must stop the endless use of “Robert’s Rules of Order “ to perpetuate meaningless filibusters that prevent any real conversation and political understanding of what we are doing to sustain and maintain the station. We must make a decision to let majority rule govern our work and agreements. WBAI’s membership must be clear about what kind of station they want. One that allows millionaires to use their financial influence to move the station backwards politically, or a station that champions the justice and the rights of working people and oppressed neighborhoods of color. That is the question to be decided in casting your vote.
4. What LSB committees would you like to join? What Pacifica National Board committees?
I would be interested in joing the Committee of Inclusion, to focus on improving underrepresentation of communities in programming, staffing and elected positions.
5. Would you be interested in serving on the Pacifica National Board, and why?
Yes. I would like to bring our listening audience’s views and experiences to the national board.
6. How do you view the dynamics between the Pacifica network and local station autonomy?
Our local station listenership must be the focal point of our work. However, as we have done to this point, we should recognize the importance of national programming in bringing on broad progressive views to inform our local communities. The key is that local stations must be consulted on the development of such national programs.
7. How should the Pacifica Foundation find a wider audience?
In keeping with our aim to outreach to our various communities through other media to promote the station, we should resume publishing the Folio to show a dynamic face of our station to the community, which the LSB has budgeted for the past year but management has chosen not to implement.
Here at WBAI, e board members can expand our ongoing outreach work to the many political, cultural and social mobilizations, rallies, and programs that the station participates in.
8. What can be done to preserve and share the treasures of the Pacifica Archives?
The Pacifica Archives contains thousands of programs, to say the least, that have been done throughout Pacifica's history. It is a cultural goldmine that contains a vast history of recordings of people and events that shaped the civil rights and progressive movements. All the local boards can support having more special fundraisers – on and off air – to preserve those treasures.
9. Do you have any ideas for new approaches to fundraising for Pacifica?
We must have a full-time Development Director as soon as it’s financially feasible. This is something that Justice and Unity has consistently fought for over the years.
We must build a WBAI “branding” that will utilize the station’s popularly among its loyalists – then build outward to its many supporters who can advertise the station through clothing, buttons, stickers.
We can explore ways to further utilize some of the station’s best prior programs to package them as premiums.
10. How do you view Pacifica’s potential in providing internet content?
We already have digital audio archives, thanks to fundraising by Justice & Unity. Members of Justice and Unity on national Pacifica committees have helped work out the details for a legal structure by which producers can share digital forms of their shows with Pacifica, so they can be broadly distributed to many websites. We could also explore a format like YouTube where we link video content to audio content. We should also continue to build on new technologies on the Web, through downloads, streaming and podcasting.
11. What technologies should the Pacifica Foundation consider for the future?
We should consider podcasting, HD radio, and satellite radio.
12. What can be done to improve our signal strength?
Of course this is a technical question that experts should be consulted on.
13. Should the station consider relocating the studio to other facilities? Where and Why?
There’s an urgent need to get out from under our huge studio rent on Wall Street, which escalates every year, by moving to a facility we own. Also could be an opportunity to expand to multi-media center. Justice & Unity is ready to launch a capital campaign as soon as there a permanent general manager in place. It would be best to move to a low-income neighborhood somewhere in NYC, to be closer to one of communities we serve.
14. How can our station better serve under-represented communities?
Through well-thought-out marketing campaigns that put the station into communities that do not have a radio voice understanding and expressing their concerns. In addition, we can continue to invite various members from these communities to sit on our Community Advisory Board.
15. How can our station better serve the many linguistic communities of the signal area?
Thanks to aJustice and Unity initiative at the national level, we already have a Mon-Thurs Spanish-language progressive news show produced by Pacifica and aired on WBAI. The station should do outreach and hold town halls meetings to various linguistic communities to determine the best way to serve them. We may be able to use our sideband (extra frequency near 99.5 that can be heard over special radios costing around $40) for this purpose. We also need flyers in various languages promoting the station.
16. What do you see as our station’s strong and weak points?
Weak point… Not enough “branded” advertising in our ongoing work.
Strong point…In spite of some of the most malicious attacks on the station, some from board members who cannot stand being outvoted by board members committed to anti-racism, the station goes on – it prevails.
17. Have you ever been party to, or provided support for, a lawsuit involving Pacifica or its employees? No.
18. How do you think the election process for Local Station Board can be improved?
Pacifica should change elections to only odd-numbered years with 4-year terms so we aren’t faced with extremely costly elections 2 of every 3 years that create major diversion of energy from governance and fundraising. Bylaws amendments to do this were written by various people around the network, in which Justice and Unity took a major role, but it was narrowly defeated, and here at WBAI, it was fought by the board’s opposition bloc.
Justice and Unity did get a national bylaws amendment passed that sets up a new calendar that moves elections up by about 6 weeks, avoiding a clash with the fall pledge drive. This will give more airtime for candidate debates next time. Again, the WBAI board opposition was opposed to this.
We also need to find a way to remove the outrageous influence of private funding for campaign mailers to Pacifica voters – it biases the elections toward those who can raise thousands of dollars.
19. What are your hobbies, interests, and other organizational affiliations?
I continue to do my political work in my community, seeking to build alliances with other communities of color.
20. What question(s) would you pose to your fellow candidates?
What has using Robert’s Rules of Order done to enhance the workings of the LSB?