Calendar

Thursday’s 1/10/19 meeting was not the final task force meeting after all. They will meet again on Monday January 14 from 3 to 8pm and then again on January 22 from 9-11am. The process of running through a long set of potential recommendations is about halfway completed.

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Meeting of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors’ Ad Hoc Committee on Urban Area Security Initiative, charged with reconstituting and rethinking Urban Shield.

The committee was established by the Board of Supervisors in March 2018 in response to sustained community concerns about Urban Shield, which is funded in part by UASI grants from the Department of Homeland Security, and coordinated by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.

The Board of Supervisors decided in March, 2018 that 2018 would be the last year the county would approve Urban Shield, as currently constituted, and asked the Ad Hoc Committee to make recommendations to the Board on the UASI-funded emergency preparedness training and exercise in 2019 and beyond.

More information.

Agendas and materials for each meeting are posted at http://www.acgov.org/board/calendarcom.htm

OTU’s Mission

The Oakland Tenants Union is an organization of housing activists dedicated to protecting tenant rights and interests. OTU does this by working directly with tenants in their struggle with landlords, impacting legislation and public policy about housing, community education, and working with other organizations committed to furthering renters’ rights. The Oakland Tenants Union is open to anyone who shares our core values and who believes that tenants themselves have the primary responsibility to work on their own behalf.

Monthly Meetings

The Oakland Tenants Union meets regularly at 7:00 pm on the second Monday evening of each month. Our monthly meetings are held in the Community Room of the Madison Park Apartments, 100 – 9th Street (at Oak Street, across from the Lake Merritt BART Station). To enter, gently knock on the window of the room to the right of the main entrance to the building. At the meetings, first we focus on general issues affecting renters city-wide and then second we offer advice to renters regarding their individual concerns.

If you have an issue, a question, or need advice about a tenant/landlord issue, please call us at (510) 704-5276. Leave a message with your name and phone number and someone will get back to you.

East Bay DSA Night School returns for the 2019 winter session with a class on the life and thought of Martin Luther King Jr.

Every year, in January and April, we commemorate the extraordinary career of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. There is probably no figure in recent American history whose memory is more distorted, whose message is more sanitized, whose powerful words are more drained of content than King. A closer investigation shows that King was far more radical, especially on matters of labor, poverty, and economic justice, than we remember.

Please join us for a discussion on the radical thought of Martin Luther King, Jr.: anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and dare we say, democratic socialist.

Accessibility: Wheelchair-accessible entrance and restrooms

Required Readings

See the readings that we’ll be discussing after a brief introduction from our members.

Thanks to all who attended our previous planning meetings! We’ve established several committees who are working hard to plan this major event. There’s still lots more work to do and plenty of room for you to join in, if you’ve not yet been able to get involved. We’d like to invite back those of you who are already plugged into a committee and all those who were unable to make it, but would like to help us make this a powerful action.

Working committees are policy & program, outreach, logistics & security, media, and fundraising. If you have some time before the 16th, please dm us if you’d like to jump in to one of these committees right away.

Join us to help plan #ThePeoplesMarch – the Fifth Annual March to #ReclaimMLK’s Radical Legacy … A mass mobilization!
Bring your ideas and energy and invite your friends, we’ve got work to do!

JOINT WALK‐IN CLINICS with Public Defender and EBCLC

*Please bring your statewide CA DOJ RAP sheet
if you have it or we can give information at clinic*

We may be able to help with:
 Dismissal of Conviction – PC 1203.4
 Felony Reduction / Prop 47 and 64 Relief
 Early Termination of Probation
 Certificate of Rehabilitation
 Sealing Arrest Record – Factual Innocence
 Juvenile Record Sealing
 Post-Conviction Relief for Immigrants and
Survivors of Human Trafficking
 Employment denials due to criminal background
reports
 Occupational Licensing Denials(DSS, Security
Guard)
 Voting Rights, Jury Service Rights

his film (52 mins. 2006) features interviews with prominent Israeli and Palestinian peace activists and political analysts, as well as Israeli settlers and soldiers, and Palestinian farmers.

Following the screening a discussion will be held with the assistance of Dalit Baum, Ph.D., Director of Economic Activism for Palestine at the American Friends Service Committee.

Baum is the Israeli co-founder of Who Profits from the Occupation, and the Coalition of Women for Peace in Israel. She is a scholar who has taught about militarism and the global economy from a feminist perspective in Israeli and American universities. She has been active with various groups in the Israeli anti-occupation and democracy movement, including Black Laundry, Boycott from Within, Zochrot, Anarchists against the Wall and Women in Black.

Reception at 6 PM, film presentation and discussion at 7 PM
Pre-register at: http://www.ourpeacecenter.org

Join us  for political education that will connect the struggles of the migrant caravan at the US-Mexico border to other anti-imperialist border struggles in El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Yemen and Palestine.

We will also be fundraising to help support the needs of the migrant caravan at our border. See below for where to send your donations today.

Translation headsets will be available.

SPEAKERS
Veronica “Beby” Aguilar – Pueblo Sin Fronteras
Chris Lopez- School of America Watch, East Bay Coordinator
Pierre Labossiere – Haiti Action Committee
Ashwak Hauter, former AROC Collective member
Carlos Manuel Martinez – Ashwak and Carlos recently returned from Tijuana, after close consultation with organizations providing legal and medical support for migrants and asylum seekers.

Make donations to:
Al Otro Lado: https://alotrolado.org/take-action/donate/
and
Enclave Caracol through “Cash App” using @enclavecaracol@gmail.com

Enclave Caracol, an autonomous project in Tijuana, organizes material support for the caravan and coordinates with Al Otro Lado, an NGO that provides free legal support to asylum-seekers and coordinates volunteer efforts on the ground.

Tony Platt, Distinguished Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Law & Society, UC Berkeley, discusses his groundbreaking new work, Beyond These Walls: Rethinking Crime and Punishment in the United States.

Beyond These Walls is an ambitious and far-ranging exploration that tracks the legacy of crime and imprisonment in the United States, from the historical roots of the American criminal justice system to our modern state of over-incarceration, and offers a bold vision for a new future. Author Tony Platt, a recognized authority in the field of criminal justice, challenges the way we think about how and why millions of people are tracked, arrested, incarcerated, catalogued, and regulated in the United States.

Beyond These Walls traces the disturbing history of punishment and social control, revealing how the criminal justice system attempts to enforce and justify inequalities associated with class, race, gender, and sexuality. Prisons and police departments are central to this process, but other institutions – from immigration and welfare to educational and public health agencies – are equally complicit.

Platt argues that international and national politics shape perceptions of danger and determine the policies of local criminal justice agencies, while private policing and global corporations are deeply and undemocratically involved in the business of homeland security.

Finally, Beyond These Walls demonstrates why efforts to reform criminal justice agencies have often expanded rather than contracted the net of social control. Drawing upon a long tradition of popular resistance, Platt concludes with a strategic vision of what it will take to achieve justice for all in this era of authoritarian disorder.

Panel Discussion & Strategy Session

*No food or drink allowed in the Auditorium. Thank you!

Join us for a discussion and strategy session—building on recent victories in Florida and Louisiana—on felony disenfranchisement, jury service, running for political office, and other rights we need restored in California.

Speakers include:

Desmond Meade, Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC)—spearheaded the campaign to pass Amendment 4 that will restore the rights of 1.4 million Floridians with felony convictions on January 8, 2019.

Norris Henderson, Voice of the Experienced—New Orleans (VOTE-NOLA)—campaigned to successfully pass Amendment 2, requiring Louisiana juries to have unanimous verdicts. Currently, Oregon is the only state in the U.S. with Jim Crow non-unanimous jury verdicts.

Taina Vargas-Edmond, Initiate Justice—campaigning to restore voting rights for all Californians, regardless of conviction or incarceration status.

Dauras Cyprian, All of Us or None—leading AOUON’s “Let Me Vote” campaign, currently on parole and thus ineligible to vote.

The discussion will be moderated by Aminah Elster—after spending over 15 years incarcerated in California prisons, Aminah is currently on parole and thus ineligible to vote. Aminah is the 2018 Elder Freeman Policy Fellow and a current student at UC Berkeley.

Sensible Cinema presents the West Coast Premiere of the award winning
documentary Eyes Of Mississippi by filmmaker Ellen Ann Fentress the
story of the impact of one relatively unknown reporter Bill Minor.
The film will show how the impact of one reporter determined to call
out racism and government during the Civil Rights Movement of –
the South carries uncanny resonance in the nation today .

There will be a panel discussion after the screening with the filmmaker
Ellen Ann Fentress moderated by Professor James Taylor of the University
of San Francisco.

Roma is a film of breathtaking beauty. Cleo, an indigenous woman from Oaxaca, is the heart of the film as the nanny and domestic worker for a middle class family in Mexico City. Set in the early 70’s, a time of student rebellion and government repression. Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron wrote, directed and filmed this masterpiece, winner of the 2019 Golden Globes for Best Foreign Film and Best Director.

WOMEN’S MARCH OAKLAND 2019

“The woman power of this nation can be the power which makes us whole.” – Coretta Scott King

Women’s March Oakland 2019 will flood the streets with a wave of self-identified women and their allies from the East Bay and beyond. At this nonpartisan, peaceful event on the Saturday before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we will activate our communities and publicly proclaim our commitment, in Scott King’s words, to “create new homes, new communities, new cities, a new nation. Yea, a new world, which we desperately need!”

RSVP: Ready to march? Register to get updates and give us a more accurate attendance estimate https://www.eventbrite.com/e/womens-march-oakland-2019-tickets-50802485602.

SCHEDULE

10:00 a.m. – Rally at Lake Merritt Amphitheate

11:00 a.m. – March to Frank Ogawa Plaza
We’ll flood 14th Street with a wave of self-identified women and their allies from the East Bay and beyond.

11:30 a.m. – Take action at our Call to Action Alley
We’ll groove with Bay Area performers, learn about organizations doing mighty work, and shop at local and women-owned businesses.

The rally and march starting point will be at Lake Merritt Amphitheater. The march will proceed up 14th Street, ending at Frank Ogawa Plaza with our Call to Action Alley.

Accessibility information for the route: The route is 0.9 miles. It is uphill for the first couple of blocks to Oak Street. There is a slight uphill slope from Oak to Madison. There is a bad curb cut at 14th and Alice on the right, and another one at 14th and Franklin on the right.

Want to volunteer before or during the event? Sign up today: https://womensmarchoakland.org/volunteer

Gear up for the march! Order your T-shirt or hoodie now: https://www.bonfire.com/store/womens-march-oakland/.

While we are part of a national movement, Women’s March Oakland is independently operated and funded. We do not have a shared funding arrangement with Women’s March Bay Area, Women’s March California, or Women’s March.

Women’s March Oakland is run by and for all womxn and their allies with deep roots in Oakland, Alameda County and the East Bay. Our leadership team includes women of color, queer womxn, and women with disabilities who are dedicated to representing this beautiful, diverse region.

HOSTS: The 2019 march is co-hosted by Women’s March Oakland, Black Women Organized for Political Action, and Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center.

The Bay Area Street Medic Collective (BASMC) is a collective of folks active in various Community Defense organizations and projects in the Bay Area.

Our fundamental goals are to offer basic medical skills training and provide access to information, supplies, resources, communication and networking to all members of our communities to take care of ourselves and each other and help to decolonize health care.
This event will be an introduction to who we are as a collective, open discussion on community needs and Q&A, and a two hour workshop on basic patient assessment with demo and practice of hands-on first aid skills.

In honor of the annual “Reclaim King’s Radical Legacy” weekend 2019:

Lead to Life & Permaculture Action Network invite you to the Sogorea Te Land Trust and Planting Justice Nursery in East Oakland for a Permaculture Action Day on Sunday, January 20th!

This is a free, family-friendly event filled with ecologically regenerative hands-on projects, workshops & skill-shares, music, and a community meal. This is the sister event to this past April’s Lead to Life series in Atlanta, Georgia, where 50 guns were melted down into 50 shovels to plant 50 trees in honor of the 50 years since MLK’s assassination.

————————–⥈ ABOUT THE DAY ⥈————————

For this Oakland action day, our partner James Brenner Sculpture is forging a reimagined arsenal of 40 additional shovels, made from weapons collected at Bay Area gun buybacks. Folks from across the East Bay are coming together to use these ceremonial tools to plant trees and build ceremonial space at the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust site at Planting Justice’s East Oakland Nursery, the first piece of land put into this urban, indigenous women-led community land trust. This will be the site of the first ceremonial arbor built on Ohlone Land in 250 years.

The day will be an act of beloved community and grassroots liberation as part of Oakland’s annual weekend to reclaim the radical legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. To honor the vision of Dr. King, the work of people across Oakland, and the indigenous stewardship of these lands, we will work with our hands in the soil to decompose colonialism. We will live into a practice of land reparations through supporting the return of Ohlone ancestral homelands. This day also auspiciously falls on the Jewish holiday of trees, Tu Bishvat!

The following evening, Monday, January 21st, we will reconvene in Oscar Grant Plaza in downtown Oakland, where we will finish transforming guns into our last shovels together in a public participatory ceremony following The People’s March to Reclaim King’s Radical Legacy.

SHARE the monday Facebook Event here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/304864520145992/

“Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library”

We are hosting a delegation of comrades from the Chinese Communist Party, all faculty members of Central China Normal University in Wuhan, one of the top ten Universities in China. They are visiting the Bay Area to get to know the problems of U.S. society and politics better. They will also speak at our forum. The delegation includes:
1.  Tang Min, professor, president of School of Politics and International Studies, CCNU, a  famous Chinese expert in the research of Chinese rural governance, national problems.
2. Zhong Detao,  executive vice president of Party School of CCNU, professor of School of Marxism, CCNU, a famous Chinese expert in the research of history of CPC and the political party system of CPC.
3. Zhou Huaping, associate professor, Center for Marxist Parties in Foreign Countries of CCNU, specialized in the research of European communist movement and Italian Communist Parties.
4. Pan Guangwei, doctor, office director of School of Politics and International Studies, CCNU, specialized in the research of the construction of communist party in the universities.
5. Yu Weihai, professor, dean of Center for Marxist Parties in Foreign Countries of CCNU, specializing in the researches of the communist movement and the world communist parties.
They will discuss three topics at least: history and system of CPC, communist movement, Chinese rural governance and national problem. After their talk, our guests will respond to questions and comments from the audience.

Please join us for a special Sunflower Alliance meeting to follow up on our inspiring retreat and make plans for 2019. Old friends and newcomers are equally welcome.  We need your participation and your voice! Come early to hang out and share a potluck lunch.

12:30 PM — potluck lunch
1 – 3 PM — meeting

In this introductory training, we will discuss some of Dr. King’s more influential writings and his lasting connection to modern movements. This community-based conversation will cover the Six Principles of Kingian Nonviolence, Dr. King’s Six Step strategy for developing a nonviolent campaign, and an in-depth read of “Letter From a Birmingham Jail.” Please join Cynthia Gutierrez and Mica Stumpf of Women’s March Oakland in a highly interactive exploration of the values and philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.