Calendar
This Tuesday the BOS will vote on the resolution introduced by Supervisors Avalos and Campos to make Mario Woods’ birthday a day of memoriam in his name. They have also introduced a resolution to apologize to Mario Woods’ . This would be an apology from the city of San Francisco . Mayor Lee said he opposes these resolutions. We need to show up as a community and show our support for these resolutions . Room 250
Black Lives Matter Sacramento joins the Occupation for the Right to Rest on Tuesday January 26th for a Die-In & Protest followed by flooding our City Council meeting for public comments.
WITHOUT SLEEP, YOU WILL DIE
Police continue to raid and harass the homeless in Sacramento:
https://
The city of Sacramento has made it a crime to sleep.
So the homeless are being arrested if they close their eyes too long, and that is disgustingly inhumane.
Reference: https://
Our city has gentrified the hell out of Oak Park and Midtown, making it hard to live and creating more homelessness in the Sacramento area. This has dramatically effected people of color.
Then once you become homeless, where can you sleep?
Where can you sit? Is this all for the new arena?
The City of Sacramento, City Council, and Mayor Johson have made it CRIMINAL to be POOR and/or HOMELESS.
There have been activists on the ground for weeks.
One evening 9 homeless activists were attacked by 53 police officers, resulting in excessive force and unnecessary arrests.
This is where are tax dollars are going.
Join Us at City Hall!
Join us to fight for a livable wage for all Bay Area workers! We collaborate in principled reflection and action on what the Bay Area livable wage would be and where we are at on the right to a livable wage.
The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly builds Community and Power among those who seek higher wages and better work life conditions for area workers.
Our work together encompasses:
(1) The concerns of precarious, care and contingent workers,
(2) Campaigns to improve wages for low wage workers, and
(3) Efforts by unionized workers and unions to improve wages and quality of work life.
We share stories and information in an egalitarian and participatory way to build relationships and build the movement.
Oakland Livable Wage Assembly meets every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month, 6:30-8:00 PM at the SEIU Local 1000 Union Hall, 436 14th Street #200, Oakland, CA
Please love and support one another ~ We have a duty to fight ~ We have a duty to win!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1568668586707336/
The long-delayed review of the BPD’s reaction to the December 6, 2014 protest asserting that Black Lives Matter will finally be be held by the Berkeley City Council this Tuesday evening.
Item 11 a&b.
“The Education of Kevin Powell”
A Boy’s Journey into Manhood
Hosted by Davey D
“This dynamic memoir takes us through a personal journey of pain, growth, triumph, defeat, and finally reclamations of his gifts and importance in U.S. letters. Using his journalist’s keen eye, he also recalls key events and people over the past 40 years in American culture, music, and politics; the birth of Hip Hop, poetry slams, the life and death of Tupac Shakur, Los Angeles’ rebellion after the acquital of police in Rodney
King’s beating, the rise of Barack Obama, and more… ”
– Luis Rodriguez, Los Angeles Poet Laureate
Kevin Powell is the author or editor of eleven previous books. He has written for The Huffington Post, Esquire, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post and others. He is president and co-founder of BK Nation, an American organization focused on civil rights, human rights, education, ending violence against women and girls, health and wellness, and equal opportunities for all people.
Davey D is the Host of Hard Knock Radio (airing on KPFA 94.1fm weekdays at 4pm) and Adjunct Professor, Afrostudies Dept, S.F.State University.
advance tickets: $12 : brownpapertickets.com :: T: 800-838-3006 or Books, Inc, Marcus Books, Pegasus (3 sites), Moe’s, Walden Pond Bookstore, Diesel a Bookstore, Mrs. Dalloway’s S.F. – Modern Times. $15 door, KPFA benefit www.kpfa.org/events
In October 2015, Rasmea’s legal team delivered oral arguments in anappeal of her unjust conviction for Unlawful Procurement of Naturalization. The decision is expected any day now, and we have to be prepared!
Participate on Twitter and Facebook on Wednesday, January 27th, using sample tweets, hashtags, articles, memes, and other resources that we will be sending to everyone on Monday. Rasmea has dedicated her life to the cause of a #FreePalestine and to Arab communities across the world, including the past 12 years in Chicago, so we must continue to organize to win #Justice4Rasmea.
In addition, although we are confident that we will win the appeal and have the conviction overturned, there is a chance—as we reported right before the end of 2015—that the appellate court will uphold the conviction, ruling in favor of the government. If that happens, it is very likely that Rasmea will be ordered to turn herself in to federal prison authorities, as we petition to keep her out on bail.
We have developed an Emergency Response Plan for this contingency!
If this worst-case scenario decision comes down BEFORE 12 NOON, and Rasmea is ordered to prison, we are calling for protests the VERY SAME DAY at 5 PM at federal buildings across the country.
If the decision comes down AFTER 12 NOON, we are calling for protests the NEXT DAY at 5 PM. Allies and supporters across the world will also be participating in the emergency response by protesting at U.S. consulates and embassies everywhere.
Please forward widely and look out for our follow up announcement early next week. Tell all your family, friends, and colleagues to be ready to join us on social media Wednesday, January 27th, to demand #Justice4Rasmea!
Rasmea Defense Committee January 22nd, 2016
Call to Action: The Economic Development Without Displacement Coalition (EDWD) invites you to stand against displacement and the destruction of a historic public space in West Oakland. Do Not Displace our Public Space!
Who (is being displaced): Black and Brown Elders of West Oakland
What: Call to Action to stop the closure and demolition of St. Andrew’s Plaza (a public micro-park in West Oakland) @ the City of Oakland’s “Community Kick-OUT Meeting”
Why: The City of Oakland is planning to displace neighbors at St. Andrew’s Plaza with their plan to demolish, fence off, and reconstruct the park beginning in January 2016. This effort will launch with a Community Kick-Out Meeting The meeting will be hosted by Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney, with the city’s design team, to share key dates on this initiative moving forward.
About St. Andrew’s Plaza: St. Andrew’s Plaza is a mini park located on San Pablo Corridor, across the street from St. Mary’s Center in West Oakland,. The Plaza is a public gathering space for marginalized seniors, and has long been a social space for community members and houseless folks to come together, and often to receive food. The neighborhood borders Emeryville and is considered an ‘up and coming’ area given its proximity to North Oakland and South Emeryville. With the West Oakland Specific Plan and the San Pablo Corridor Coalition
About the Local Resistance: The City has in the past tried to alienate people’s rights to the park and increase policing by raiding the park, fencing of the space, and relocating the bus stop to outside of the Plaza (also see this article on St. Andrews Plaza on fireworks bay area). Last year neighbors in the area mobilized to tear down the fence surrounding St. Andrews Plaza and assert people’s rights to this space.
Part 3 of Movement Generation “Race, Class, & Ecology Series” which aims to answer the question “How do we respond to this global crisis of migration with justice, ecological understanding and deep love for the people?” Migration must be recognized for what is is: a natural response of all living things to escape hostile conditions and capitalist economies create these harsh conditions through exploitation, pollution and war.
Join this exciting conversation between migrant rights organizers, climate justice activists, and audience members.
Co-sponsored by: Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), CultureStrike, Mujeras Unidas y Activas (MUA)
SUNRISE PICKET!
“As a housekeeper, I work very hard so that Homewood guests can have clean rooms and a good experience at the hotel, but the pressure of having to clean so many checkouts in one day gives me so much stress that I don’t have any energy for my kids when I come home at the end of the day. That’s why I am fighting for the same workload protections, fair raises and affordable health insurance for my family, that other union hotel housekeepers in Oakland have.” – Consuelo Andrade, Homewood Suites Room Attendant
Housekeeping staff at the Homewood Suites are paid at Oakland’s minimum wage. The health insurance offered to employees is unaffordable for the majority of Homewood workers, so that some have to depend on public benefits. And many housekeepers complain of chronic body pain from cleaning too many rooms under time pressure. Homewood Suites workers are standing up for living wages, safe workloads, and affordable health care!
Join them on the picket line – and experience a gorgeous sunrise and good coffee while you fight for justice!
In solidarity,
UNITE HERE Local 2850
UNITE HERE Local 2850, 1440 Broadway, Suite 208, Oakland, CA 94612 | www.unitehere2850.org
Our next meeting will be on Thursday at SEIU local 1020 at 6 pm. Enter at 350 Rhode Island . Enter on Kansas Street side between 16 th and 17th street side.
Next Thursday 1/28/16 at 7 pm, Join AROC for a panel discussion on the Egyptian Revolution. #Jan25 #Egypt pic.twitter.com/pfm0xb4x0U
— AROC (@AROCBayArea) January 22, 2016
Please come support Nailah, a comrade who was part of last year’s uprisings and is having charges filed against her in the last days before her statute of limitations is up
The Social Justice Symposium (SJS) is a student-organized event that serves as space for the community to meet and discuss social justice work in the Bay Area. Workshop space is limited to 400 people. Please register before January 30th.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Strike Debt Bay Area will be presenting a workshop on Human Interest Lending / Community Check Cashing at two different times, once from 10:30 AM to Noon, and again from 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM.
The complete schedule is still being developed. Check the Social Justice Forum 2016 website for updates. Here is the basic schedule:
Event Timeline:
· 8:30am – 9am – registration and breakfast
· 9 am – 9:30am – introductions
· 9:30am – 10:30am – keynote speaker
· 10:30am – 12pm – workshop 1
· 12pm – 1pm – lunch & resource fair
· 1pm – 2:30pm – workshop 2
· 2:30pm – 4pm – workshop 3
· 4pm – 5pm – musical performance/closing
Saturday January 30, 2016 is the grand opening of Mayor Lee’s Super Bowl City. He has spent all of his energy pushing out the homeless, disabling bus lines and creating traffic jams so that his precious Super Bowl City can inconvenience the city of San Francisco for two weeks.
This is energy he could have spent apologizing to Mario Woods’ family, seeking justice and acting like he actually cares about the black and brown community in San Francisco.
We have promised him no peace until we get justice.
We will bring it to his precious Super Bowl City at it’s Grand Opening this Saturday.
We will meet at Union Square and march to the main entrance on Market at Main.
Please wear black and bring a sign .
Please help spread the word and remember as you spread it through social media to use these hashtags:
#justice4mariowoods
#mariowoods
#firechiefsuhr
#nojusticenosuperbowl
#blacklivesmatter
Justice 4 Mario Woods Coalition
Twitter: @Justice4MWNow
Instagram: @Justice4MarioWoodsNow
–COME SUPPORT OUR TENANT PICKET! —
Bring music and noisemakers!
–ALSO–
Please call and/or email Happy Homes and ask them to relocate the Morales family NOW!!
-info.hhpartners@gmail.com
-510.655.3253 (Bing Udinsky, owner)
-510.204.9922, and/or 510.599.2015 (office lines)
Don’t worry–they won’t answer the phone, so just leave a voicemail
–HAPPY HOMES AND 475 ALCATRAZ—-
The living conditions at 475 Alcatraz Avenue in Oakland—a property owned & managed by Happy Homes Partners, also known as Bing & Jerald Udinsky—are both dangerous and appalling. Multiple units have MOLD, WATER LEAKS, EXPOSED WALLS AND CONCRETE FLOORS, CARBON MONOXIDE/GAS LEAKS, and more. Happy Homes has consistently ignored tenant requests to repair units and clean common areas, knowingly exposing their tenants to unsafe conditions.
Despite this state of ill-repair, Happy Homes has continued to HIKE RENTS annually, as well as EVICT existing tenants and replace them with higher-income individuals who are willing to pay exorbitantly high rents—until the problems in their units start, after which they are essentially “forced out” of the unit by the bad conditions. Happy Homes then comes in and performs purely cosmetic interior repairs, and re-rents the apartment at new (even higher) “market rates.” The next tenant comes in, and the cycle starts all over again. This is Happy Homes’ business model!
–MORALES FAMILY STORY–
The Morales family, tenants of 475 Alcatraz since 2011, have faced particularly deplorable conditions; there is peeling paint, WATER LEAKS & MOLD throughout their apartment, they currently have NO WORKING HEATER, and they are UNABLE TO USE THEIR BEDROOMS because the flooring & wall was stripped down due to water flooding, so they sleep in their living room. They recently discovered that their oven was leaking massive amounts of CARBON MONOXIDE. They have been THREATENED WITH EVICTION for standing up for fair housing!
Two months ago, Happy Homes agreed to pay the Morales family a small sum for their suffering over the last 4 years if they move out of their apartment by February 15th. The Morales family plans to use the settlement money to relocate to a safe, clean apartment; however, Happy Homes’ insurance company says it may take up to another 6 weeks to pay the settlement. In the meantime, the Morales family are TRAPPED IN SUB-STANDARD & HAZARDOUS HOUSING, FACING if they don’t leave on February 15th, despite the fact that they have not received their compensation!!
As concerned members of the community, we must demand that Happy Homes IMMEDIATELY take the following actions:
• Completely repair ALL the units at 475 Alcatraz, and authentically repair the underlying structural problems
• Stop all evictions, and until the building is repaired, put a moratorium on the annual increases allowed by the city
• Provide the promised payment to the Morales family and return their deposit so that they are able to relocate!

–FOR QUESTIONS & MORE INFO CALL: CAMPAIGN FOR RENTERS RIGHTS (510.457.1846–Leave a VM)–
How does a mentally ill person drown themselves in a few feet of water on a crowded Memorial Day beach in full view of numerous emergency responders – and no one does a thing?
They all watch, transfixed, as the sand in the man’s hourglass runs out. Succumbing to hypothermia, he loses consciousness within the hour. His body is left to drift back to shore, untouched, for twenty-two minutes.
SHALLOW WATERS is a documentary film that deconstructs the events of that hour in an attempt to understand what happened and why. What were they all waiting for?
The events on Alameda’s Crown Beach scorched the island community. Now for one day only, filmmaker Jaime Longhi brings his documentary to Alameda for a community conversation between filmmaker, friends and family of the victim, and all those seeking to understand what happens in moments that seem inexplicable.
Join us for this very special one-time showing. The film screening will be followed by a Q+A with director Jaime Longhi and Alameda residents.
“I saw several films during the festival here and Shallow Waters was by far the most moving documentary among them – I think what makes the film so compelling is that it brings up so many issues: our ethical responsibility to each other; the many ways in which our bureaucracies can fail us; our mistrust of the community services that are supposed to be protecting us. If there is one thing I noticed about how people responded to this film, one question that stood out for everybody, it’s this. We all — every single one of us — walked out of that documentary pondering the most important question of all that is posed by that incident: what would I have done? That includes me.” -Michael McLeod, Professor at Rollins College / Global Peace Film Festival (Orlando, FL)
Media Alliance is pleased to present a unique screening of “Shallow Waters”, followed by a Q&A session with the director of the film (who is flying in for the event) from the East Coast.
The Q&A will be filmed for future release in a DVD.
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| DISCUSS HAITI’S ONGOING REVOLUTION! HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE STUDY GROUP TOPIC: The Ongoing Haitian Revolution January 1st marked the 211th anniversary of Haiti’s independence. Join us as we analyze how Haiti gained its independence and discuss the connections to today.
We invite you to be apart of our monthly study group. We use films, texts, and speakers to explore Haiti’s history, current political situation, and make connections to parallel struggles throughout the U.S. and around the world. Come to this month’s meeting! |
The Community Democracy Project is your connection to direct democracy in Oakland! Convened out of Occupy Oakland in Fall 2011, we’re gathering steam on a campaign to bring the people back in touch with the city’s resources through participatory budgeting.
Picture this: Across Oakland, Neighborhood Assemblies are regularly held in every community. People come together to tackle the important issues of their neighborhoods and of the city. At these assemblies, people don’t just have discussions–they learn from one another, from city staff, and they make fundamental decisions about how the city should run. They decide the city budget.
Democratic, community budgeting is a powerful step toward building strong communities, real democracy, and economic justice–and it’s being done all over the world.
The budget of the City Oakland totals more than $1 billion per year. Although part of the budget must be used for specific purposes, still over half of the budget–over $500 million per year–consists of general purpose funds paid by the taxes, fees, and fines of the people of Oakland. The Mayor and the City Council decide the city budget, with minimal input from the community.
Working together, we will not only get a seat at the table–we will REBUILD the table itself. Participatory democracy is real democracy–join us to say: Local People, Local Resources, Local Power!
Liberated Lens is a digital filmmaking collective dedicated to social change, based in Oakland, California. We share resources, skills and knowledge to help each other tell stories that might otherwise remain untold. We make films in a spirit of collaboration and solidarity, share a lending library of film equipment for creative projects, and organize free, at cost or donation-based workshops.
Join us for our weekly meeting and a workshop!
We usually meet in our editing suite (2nd floor in the ballroom, to the left of the stage) and then work on projects. It’s open to all!