Calendar
In California’s Central Valley, there is a crisis. Not only are communities running out of water, but over the last few years, they’ve seen an increase in dangerous forms of drilling for oil and gas. To make matters worse, the historic drought fueled by climate change is exacerbating existing health issues, water scarcity, and poor air and water quality. Luckily, the Central Valley’s history of resistance hasn’t faded. Communities are rising up against a hypocritical Governor who claims leadership on issues that are hurting communities in California today.
Join us for a screening of Growing Resistance: Drought, Oil & Climate Change in California, a 28-minute film that shares the stories of communities on the frontlines who are rising up against not only the immediate health impacts of the oil and gas industry, but against the growing climate impacts that are disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable in the state.
The film will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with:
- Shadia Fayne Wood, Director and Coordinator of Survival Media Agency
- Linda Capato Jr., US Fracking Campaign Coordinator, 350.org
- Madeline Stano, Staff Attorney, Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment
- Juan Flores, Community Organizer, Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment
With filmmakers Emmitt Thrower and Leroy Moore, and also La Mesha Irizarry, Lisa Tiny Gray-Garcia, and David Perry.
The documentary “Where Is Hope: The Art of Murder” chronicles disabled victims murdered by police as well as the activists/artists who have fought and are fighting against police brutality against people with disabilities. Emmitt H Thrower, a retired NY City cop turned artist/filmmaker, Leroy Moore, founder of Krip Hop Nation, La Mesha Irizarry, founder of the Idriss Steeley Foundation, and Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia of Poor Magazine intend the film as a tool to facilitate forums with discussions around this topic.
Thrower, Moore, Irizarry and Gray-Garcia will be joined by disability rights journalist and history professor David Perry.
This event is free, open to the public and wheelchair-accessible. Please refrain from wearing scented products so that people with chemical sensitivities can join us. If you need any other disability accommodations in order to attend, including communication services, please contact Susan Schweik at sschweik@berkeley.edu.
Sponsored by: Disability Rights Education Defense Fund (DREDF); Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, UC Berkeley; Haas Institute Disability Studies Cluster, UC Berkeley; Nailah Suad Nasir, Birgeneau Chair, Haas Institute Educational Disparities Cluster, UC Berkeley
For more information on the film, check out the Facebook group
Where is Hope Documentary on Police Brutality Against People with Disabilities, at https://www.facebook.com/
Oakland has long been a center for highly polluting transportation activities. This has resulted in disproportionately high health impacts for the residents of West Oakland. Our goal is to systematically reduce the level of pollution caused by all these polluting activities, and we have definitely had some success. But we can’t afford to allow brand new pollution, in the form of coal dust, to further threaten our health.
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!Fascism: What It Is, and How to Fight It
With Gerald Smith
Secondly, Scientific Socialism has lost the allegiance of the most politically active members of the working class internationally.Faced with declining profit levels in the sixties and seventies, the ruling class has pursued a variety of strategies to enhance its share of national income, including exporting industrial production to less developed countries, which in turn undermines the bargaining power of the most organized sections of the working class.
In tandem with this, many of the most advanced capitalist states either overtly (Brasero program in the U.S., Gastarbeiters in Germany, etc.), or covertly (destabilization of third world countries and purposely lax enforcement of border controls, etc.) encouraged mass immigration of poorly paid and legally precarious workers from less developed regions, and bureaucratically distorted state-owned economies.
This in turn feeds resentment of increasingly beleaguered sections of the working-class, often providing a fertile recruiting ground for neo-fascists. Before a serious reactionary trend can be successfully eliminated, it is necessary to understand the phenomenon: its origins, its essence, its mutations.
Gerald Smith has a long history in the Black Liberation and Workers’ movements. He is currently involved with the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia, Liberated Lense, and the Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality.
Time will be allotted for Q&A, discussion and announcements.
Meetings held Mondays at 7:00 PM
Excepting Monday March 7, when we will meet at 8:15 PM. Come one, come all!
VOLUNTEER NOW!!!
If you would like to go out on Copwatch shifts, work in our office, create art, become a Know Your Rights Trainer or help us out in other ways, WE NEED YOU! Send us an e-mail, subscribe to our email list, call our office or just come to our weekly meetings on Mondays, 2022 Blake Street, Berkeley or our weekly office hours on Wednesdays from 6:00pm – 8:00pm.
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.
Justice for Richard Perkins — Anti Police-Terror Project Successfully Demands Coroners Report for Perkins Family
On Friday, March 11th, at 9:00 am on the corner of 90th and Bancroft (Where Richard was murdered), APTP will host a press conference in partnership with families that have lost loved ones to police terror and celebrate this recent victory while also raising critical questions about collusion between the sheriff’s office and Alameda County police departments to hide evidence from families who have lost loved ones to state sponsored violence.
“We don’t understand why it takes community pressure to force the coroner’s office to release the reports,” said Cat Brooks of APTP. “These families are already suffering a great loss and grieving their loved one. They rightfully want to know what happened and that report is critical in putting the pieces together.”
Yet time and time again, the coroner’s office – which is essentially the sheriff’s office – delays getting this report to the families. Yuvette Henderson was murdered by the Emeryville Police Department in February of 2015. Eight months later, it took APTP in partnership with Henderson’s family, to force them to release the report. Similarly in the case of Alan Blueford who was murdered by OPD on May 6, 2012, the community had to demonstrate at the Sheriff’s office to get the report released to family.
“They know that these reports are critical pieces of evidence,” said Dan Siegel, head legal counsel for APTP. “The longer they delay giving it to the family, the longer it takes to assess the wrongdoing on the part of OPD.”
Friday’s press conference is also the launch of APTP’s campaign for more accountability and transparency with the Sheriff’s office in relation to reports following Officer Involved Shootings. APTP will make the following demands:
– Provide families that are victims of police violence the coroner’s report within 30 days
– Investigate collusion between the Sheriff’s department and the Oakland Police Department
– Recall Sheriff A. Hearn who has a long list of egregious behaviors
– Release the ENTIRE video series to the Perkins family and their legal counsel
– Bring in an outside investigator to investigate the murder of Richard Perkins.
Ada Henderson, Richards mother and Jamison Henderson, Yuvette’s brother will speak at the press conference.
BREAKING #Oakland city council forwarding exclusive agreement with UrbanCore for E12th parcel to full city council for 3/15 vote. #SaveE12th
— E12 Peoples Proposal (@PeoplesProposal) March 3, 2016
City Hall is failing too address Oakland’s housing crisis. While thousands of working class families of color see their rents rise or face eviction, our elected officials are selling off public lands to private developers.
After a hundred people testified last week in support of A People’s Proposal in a public hearing on the future of the E 12th parcel, City Council Members are attempting to undermine democracy and community by moving forward with an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement for the UrbanCore / EBALDC proposal for E 12th, a luxury tower that includes a token amount of segregated affordable housing.
Come out Tuesday March 15th at 5 pm to oppose the UrbanCore/EBALDC proposal, fight for A People’s Proposal, and let City Council know they must create real solutions to the housing crisis now.
We want to show up BIG and LOUD and are asking supporters to:
- Pack the room for open forum at 5 pm to show City Council members right away that we do not accept luxury housing on public land. Be prepared to speak!
- Sign up online to speak during the E 12th agenda item (item #3, sign up here) and urge City Council to vote NO on an ENA with UrbanCore/EBALDC and support A People’s Proposal
- Be prepared to support the incredible organizers who have been working hard on this campaign for over a year now.
E 12th is not just about one parcel, its about the entire housing crisis in Oakland. We are inspired by the brilliance and perseverance of so many Oakland residents and everyone’s incredible support. Join us as we continue to bring the call for development without displacement and accountability from our elected officials directly to City Hall.
#SaveE12th & #publicland4publicgood!
Join our keynote speaker, internationally acclaimed urban planner James Rojas of PLACE IT! for an interactive and inspiring evening re-envisioning our water infrastructure in response to climate change. We’ll use everyday objects and our creativity to design a different water future.
Invite friends, colleagues, and neighbors and keep growing our local climate movement!
Dinner served at 6 PM. RSVP: Email rebecca@ecologycenter.org by Thursday, March 10 to reserve a meal.
Join the Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against Stingrays (cell phone interceptors) being acquired by law enforcement agencies, against Urban Shield, and to advocate for privacy and surveillance regulation ordinances to be passed around the Bay Area, especially by Alameda County and the Oakland City Council. - We are also engaged in the fight against Predictive Policing and other “pre-crime” and “thought-crime” abominations, drones, improper use of police body cameras, and against other invasions of privacy by our benighted City, County, State and Federal Governments. OPWG originally came together to fight against the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub. OPWG was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network, and its members helped draft the Privacy Policy that puts further restrictions on the now Port-restricted DAC.
We were also the lead in having Alameda County pass the most comprehensive privacy and usage policy in the country for deployment of “Stingray” technology (cell phone interceptors).
Stop by and learn how you can help guard Oakland’s right not to be spied on by the government & if you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy Working Group email listserv, send an email to:
oaklandprivacyworkinggroup-subscribe AT lists.riseup.net
For more information on the DAC check out
Reach out to aptpinfo@gmail.com if you have any questions, thoughts, ideas, etc.
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Monthly APTP meeting, held on every 3rd Wednesday of the month.
The Anti Police-Terror Project is a project of the ONYX ORGANIZING COMMITTEE that in coalition with other organizations like The Alan Blueford Center For Justice, Idriss Stelley Foundation, Community Ready Corps and Workers World is working to develop a replicable and sustainable model to end police terrorism in this country.
We are led by the most impacted communities but are a multi-racial, mutil-generational coalition.
JOIN US FOR A SHIFT: MASS COPWATCHING
· Friday March 11, 8 PM – 11 PM
· Thursday March 17, 5 PM – 7 PM
· Saturday March 26, 8 PM – 11 PM
Since October 2015, Berkeley Copwatch has been holding “mass copwatch” events that invite folks to join us for a shift. It’s been fun and very empowering to have a group of copwatchers patrolling our city and on the scene when police stop people.
This month we have three shifts scheduled. The Thursday shift will likely be a walking shift. Please join us; we will train you in the essentials of copwatching, how to document and how to stay safe!
Contact us at (510) 548-0425 or berkeleycopwatch@yahoo.com to learn where we will be meeting.
We encourage all Oakland residents to attend the weekly No Coal in Oakland meeting.
Up until its February 16th meeting, the position of a majority of Oakland City Council members on permitting coal shipment from the city’s port may have been in doubt. Even now the proposal remains on the table. But at that meeting, council members took concrete steps toward banning coal exports once and for all. Thanks to the efforts of Mayor Libby Schaff, local clergy, State Senator Loni Hancock, and community activists, the Council has signaled its intention to enact an outright ban on coal exports. In fact, it passed a moratorium on the issuance of any permits for the terminal until the question has been resolved. Read details on the latest developmemts here.
(And for more background, see A Coaltastrophe Threatens Oakland on this website.)
Homes not Jails will be screening Shelter: a Squatumentary and hosting a panel of squatters 3/17 @ 8pm, @Longhaulinfo plz join us!
— homesnotjailsSF (@SFHNJ) March 7, 2016
“City leaders were determined to push this (Urban Core proposal for a luxury housing tower with a segregated building with some nominally affordable units) forward, even if it meant leaving the public behind.” – KTVU Reporter after Tuesday’s City Council Meeting
While the displacement of longtime Oakland residents has already reached crisis proportions (25% of Black Oakland has been displaced in the past 10 years alone), the corporate interests who are driving this crisis are just getting started. This week’s City Council meeting made it clear that our elected officials are willing to leave the public behind to serve a self-interested group.
Our voices are needed now more than ever to remind our public servants that they took an oath to serve the people of Oakland and protect our most disenfranchised community members.
To protect the people of our city, we must reject the trickle-down housing strategy, put a stop to the escalating predatory tactics of speculators, landlords, and neoliberal politicians, and provide real solutions to keep our people in Oakland. No more evictions, rent increases, school closures, service cuts, foreclosures or police killings!
Second Acts is calling for an interfaith sunrise ceremony this Friday, March 18th at Lake Merritt. We’ll gather together to tap into our collective power and call for an end to the deception, displacement & death being advanced by private interests with the support of our elected officials.
Coffee & breakfast will be provided to all the community members who show up!
The fight for Pastor Yul Dorn isn’t over! Banks continue to play a large role in displacing long time residents from San Francisco. Join us and demand that Chase bank reverse the foreclosure of Pastor Dorn and hold other banks accountable for funding and fueling displacement!
It is time for black and brown to come together and demand justice for our communities. The decision in the Alex Nieto Case was a travesty of justice.
We must come together and tell SFPD, The Mayor and The City Attorney’s Office that we shall not be moved until we get justice for Alex Nieto, Amilcar Perez Lopez and Mario Woods.
We are now one in this struggle!
These officers have been joking about getting away with killing Alex Nieto and making threats against the Nieto family on Social Media. Unless we hold them accountable, they will continue to commit acts of terror against black and brown in San Francsico. We will meet on the steps of city hall and let them know they will have no peace until Chief Suhr is fired!
NO JUSTICE! NO PEACE!
Tomorrow!! Justice 4 Mario Woods & Justice for Alex Nieto !!! pic.twitter.com/yV92Xm7uO3
— Equipto (@EQUIPTO) March 17, 2016
MOVIE NIGHT
(Free Movie! Free Prizes! Free Popcorn!)
Doors: 6:00PM – Event: 7:00PM
KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON is an inspiring documentary which depicts the remarkable story of 93-year-old jazz legend Clark Terry. A living monument to the Golden Era of Jazz, having played in both the Duke Ellington and Count Basie bands. He broke racial barriers on American television and mentored the likes of Miles Davis and Quincy Jones, but his most unlikely friendship is with Justin Kauflin, a 23-year old blind piano prodigy.
Justin, fighting a debilitating case of stage fright, is invited to compete in a prestigious competition, while Clark’s health takes a serious turn. The two face the toughest challenges of their lives. The result is an intimate portrait of two remarkable men–a student striving against all odds and a teacher who continues to inspire through the power of music.
(enter through the Blue Door from back parking lot)
3/18 – Q&A with Mary Curtis Ratcliff, moderated by BAVC
3/19 – Q&A with Mary Curtis Ratcliff, moderated by Gabriel Saloman, musician and artist
In the 1960s and 70s, a group of renegade journalists known as the Videofreex democratized the future of the media as they deployed the first handheld video cameras to report and observe the world around them. In HERE COME THE VIDEOFREEX, directors Jon Nealon and Jenny Raskin tap into a treasure chest of restored tapes shot by the Freex, including interviews with icons like murdered Black Panther Fred Hampton and legendary activist Abbie Hoffman, charting the path of this underground video collective from their assignment on the counterculture beat for CBS News to their rupture with the network and creation of a radical pirate television station in upstate New York. An official selection at the prestigious Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and BAMcinemaFest, the documentary captures the pure enthusiasm and revolutionary use of technology of the Videofreex as they changed the nature of journalism through the power of portable video, forging a legacy that has evolved to become today’s all-access media environment.
Directed by John Nealon and Jenny Raskin. 79min. USA.