We are taking a break from the traditional Feed the Hood bag lunch and hygiene kit distribution to prepare to go hard for our unhoused brothers and sisters for the winter. On October 20, 2019, join us for fun and community celebration at the Feed the Hood Family Festival. Learn more about how YOU can make impact in the lives of our unhoused brothers and sisters.

Bring essential items to donate to the large hygiene kit drive:

• Soap
• Lotion
• deodorant
• Feminine Hygiene supplies
• toothbrush
• toothpaste
• toilet paper
• baby or body wipes

Special ask for bags of dog food.

Part of our ongoing series of workshops designed to reduce our reliance on an increasingly militarized police force, this offering from Community Ready Corps (CRC) will cover basic principles and practices to help us keep ourselves and our communities safe.

What would you do if you found yourself in the middle of a violent situation? How can you safely get yourself and others out of that situation?

We will be asking for a voluntary donation to support the vital work of Community Ready Corps. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER

CRC is a liberation organization that combats white supremacy and actively builds & supports self determination in disenfranchised communities. Their work focuses on nine areas:

Politics
Economics
Family
Health
Education
Art
Media
Traditions & Ways
Self Defense

ABOUT THIS WORKSHOP SERIES

A growing coalition of organizations in the Bay Area is coming together to explore alternatives to calling the police to our campuses and into our neighborhoods. Over the coming year, we will be offering a series of workshops to explore alternatives to calling the police. Some of these workshops will provide deepening analysis and a grounding in alternative ways of thinking about community safety. Others, like this one, will provide practical skills. All of them will lift up a transformative justice framework and emphasize the importance of self care.

The Coalition includes First Congregational Church of Oakland, Kehilla Community Synagogue, Qal’bu Maryam, Jewish Voice for Peace, Skyline Community Church, Oakland Peace Center, Oakland LBGTQ Community Center, and the Omni Collective. We are eager to partner with additional organizations so please contact us if you are interested!

EVICTION DEFENSE NEEDED: Tue Oct 22 – Wed 23, 8am-4pm. Camp behind Home Depot at E8th/Alameda Ave. Support needed, bring supplies, cameras to document. Be prepared to defend residents who refuse to move.

EVICTION DEFENSE NEEDED TMRW Tue Oct 22-Wed23 Camp behind Home Depot. E8th/Alameda Ave Support needed 8am-4pm Be prepared to defend residents who refuse to move

— Anti Police-Terror (@APTPaction) October 22, 2019

Urgent Mobilization: The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office is dysfunctional and out of control. With mounting human rights abuse, neglect, mistreatment, in-custody deaths, we need real transparency and accountability. Join us for a brief rally outside of the ACSO office, followed by a Alameda County Board of Supervisors open meeting where the Sheriffs independent audit will be discussed.  We can not allow ACSO to continue it’s reign of no accountability. It is time the BOS take immediate action. It’s time to #AuditAhern.

Whose Public Art? Contested Histories, Practices, and Representations in the 21st Century Public Sphere

Tuesday, Oct 22, 2019, 5:00PM – 7:00PM

Osher Lecture Hall
SFAI—Chestnut Street Campus
800 Chestnut Street, San Francisco, CA 94133

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Free + open to the public—Reception immediately following panel discussion.

A decision earlier this year by the San Francisco Unified School District Board to “paint down” the Victor Arnautoff murals of the life of George Washington at the public high school of the same name sparked local, national and international debate, raising anew questions of how history should be publicly represented, what public(s) art means to address, and when and how dominant historical narratives should be reinterrogated by elaboration, augmentation or erasure. This panel of artists and scholars moves beyond mere controversy to speak to the urgent need for deep critical discussion about how artists engage in broader practices of historical remembrance, struggles for social justice and ongoing social debate regarding the definition of the “public” in the 21st century. How do artists work with and represent particular communities and histories? How can art activate public space as pedagogical space, creating convening places for empowered teachers and learners? Beginning to answer these questions involves delving into the multiple meanings of art in the public sphere, building on concepts of the ‘theatricality of power’ in representational practices, cultural imaginaries, and built environments, and expanding the ways that artists as activists might intervene in the dominant narratives that structure our relationships to one another.

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San Francisco Art Institute occupies a special place in history of public art-making—not only for the historic murals by Diego Rivera, Frederick E. Olmsted and others on the Chestnut Street campus but for the ongoing engagement of SFAI artists, teachers and alumnx in contemporary questions of making art in public. The new Art, Place, and Public Studies program at SFAI offers a unique opportunity for students desiring to further their investigations of art in the public sphere—creatively, critically and curatorially.

Panel Co-Chairs: Robin Balliger and Jeannene Przyblyski
Panelists: Robin Balliger, Cristóbal Martínez, Refa One, and Jeannene Pzyblyski

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Dewey Crumpler’s recent video commentary on the Victor Arnautoff murals at George Washington High School will also be screened.

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THE PANELISTS

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Robin Balliger, PhD, is Chair of Art, Place, and Public Studies and Liberal Arts at the San Francisco Art Institute. She earned her PhD in anthropology at Stanford and her research in Trinidad focused on popular culture in the context of neoliberal social and spatial transformations. Balliger’s current project is on Oakland, particularly on arts, culture, and racial politics in the context of urban restructuring. In 2019 she was invited to present her work at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Balliger has received fellowships from Fulbright, MacArthur Foundation, and she was awarded the Textor Award for Outstanding Anthropological Creativity. Her publications appear in The Global Resistance Reader, Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of a Transnational Festival, Media Fields Journal, and Race, Poverty, and the Environment. Formerly, Balliger was a musician and founding member of Komotion International, a legendary collective performance space that exemplified the radical politics and creativity of San Francisco’s Mission District.

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Dewey Crumpler is Associate Professor of Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute. His current work examines issues of globalization and cultural co-modification through the integration of digital imagery, video and traditional painting techniques. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is featured in the permanent collections of the Oakland Museum of California; the Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, California; and the California African American Museum, Los Angeles. Crumpler has received a Flintridge Foundation award, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant, and the Fleishhacker Foundation, Eureka Fellowship. A digital image of his murals has been included in the 2017 Tate Modern’s exhibition “Soul of a Nation” in London, England.

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Cristóbal Martínez, PhD, is an artist in Postcommodity and Chair of Art and Technology at the San Francisco Art Institute. In his work, Martínez positions metaphors that mediate complexity at sites of dromological, spatial, social, cultural, political, ecological, and economic anxiety. By interrogating our human behaviors within these contexts, his art reveals the complex and often incongruent nature of our memories, behaviors, beliefs, values, assumptions, choices, and relationships.

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Postcommodity has received grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Creative Capital, Art Matters, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellowship, and Harker Fund. The collective exhibited in: Contour, 5th Biennial of the Moving Image in Mechelen, Belgium; 18th Biennale of Sydney in Sydney, Australia; 2017 Whitney Biennial, New York, New York; documenta14, Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany; the 57th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and the US/Mexico Border.

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Refa One, an Oakland California native, has been instrumental in the development of the innovative, unorthodox genre of art known as “Aerosol Art” (Graffiti Art/Style Writing) for well over two decades. Immersed in HipHop culture as a youth, the walls of urban structures became his canvas. Refa’s refined HipHop calligraphy speaks to a legacy of style writing, a cultural tradition born from the NYC subway painting movement. A lifetime of involvement in HipHop culture via the Universal Zulu Nation combined with his radical political awareness, has translated into a successful career as a HipHop calligrapher, muralist, illustrator, activist, and educator. Refa’s design aesthetic promotes African culture as a vehicle for radical political and social change. His pieces are maps of vision and reflection that capture the intellectual value and heritage of the HipHop vernacular. His work has been featured nationally and in various countries throughout Europe and the African continent. Refa One is currently the director of AeroSoul, an international organization of spray can artists from the African Diaspora.

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Jeannene Przyblyski, PhD, is an artist and historian, working on questions of people, place and representational regimes, particularly in the U.S. and China. Przyblyski has published widely on photography, media, visual culture and urbanism, and produced creative public artworks that make visible the contested landscapes all around us. Her most recent project, Some Place Chronicles, was commissioned by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission to map in bilingual artist’s books the history and culture of LA’s unincorporated areas. Przyblyski was a San Francisco Arts Commissioner from 2004-2009 and has held positions as Dean of Academic Affairs at San Francisco Art Institute and as Provost of California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). She is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the SFAI.

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Join us at city hall for the Public Safety Committee in support of effective police oversight

Oakland police are out of control. They just violently arrested a leader of our community.

Join us tonight at the Oakland City Council Public Safety Committee to demand real police oversight and accountability to prevent OPD crimes.

The Committee will read the community’s proposal to radically reform the Oakland Police Commission (Measure LL) for the first time. Let’s show up in force!

We’ll also be supporting Wilson Riles, who was assaulted by OPD last week.

Wilson Riles, a former city councilmember, mayoral candidate and long time civic leader in Oakland, was at a city office when he was thrown to the ground and violently arrest by OPD.

Tonight he asks his Oakland community to show up as he protests his treatment and OPD’s treatment of Black Oakland residents.

Folks can also contribute to his PayPal account: wriles@pacbell.net

For more info on OPD’s violent assault of Mr. Riles, read this article.
Hope to see you tonight!

APTP
Anti Police-Terror Project is not a non-profit.
We are a community group powered by people like you.

Donate

Performance and Presentation of the Feminist Economics Department’s (the FED) pamphlet called:

Desperate Holdings (un) Real Estate: Dis-Investment Strategy
written by Cassie Thornton

++Freshly published pamphlet by TRIPWIRE,� a journal of poetics++

with contributions from
HUMANS HAVE PREDATORS
Tara Spalty
Ann Schnake
Danielle Wright
Sarah Rowe
Yasmin Golan
Lizabeth Rossof
Dawn Kceul
Lindsay Tunkl
Cassie Thornton
and an introduction by Leigh Claire La Berge

Blurb about the book:
Real estate always combines the most real—the tangible, immovable problem of land, space, the built environment—of capitalism with its opposite: fantasies of ownership, power and domination, and ultimately the fantasy that once the physical reality of capitalism takes shape, it becomes impervious to change. Thus real estate has a dark history. In the ante-bellum American South, slaves were a form of real estate and thereby adjudicated. In the massive, federally subsidized post-war expansions of suburbs and cities, people of color were routinely “red-lined” out of forms of capitalist real estate. And, of course, all the real estate of continental North America is already a site of eviction and genocide.

Desperate Holdings seeks to both reveal these processes and to ask: might they be different? Might there be a remainder? Might other lands and places come into being? We cannot know these answers in advance, but we can hold open a hope that other answers exist. In Desperate Holdings that potential is located in a small piece of (un) real estate, some clay extracted from an excavation site of an office tower in San Francisco. Cassie travels with this clay, fantasizes about it, offers to share it and ship it, and holds it close as it now functions as “the last land a non-millionaire can touch” in San Francisco. Under her stewardship, the clay changes form. It becomes “liquid real estate.”

-Leigh Claire La Berge

*This project tells the story underneath the immersive real estate/spa installation at Dream Farm Commons in spring 2019.

More info:
www.desperateholdings.com
www.feministeconomicsdepartment.com
https://tripwirejournal.com/

“Higdon and Huff have produced the best short introduction to the nature of Trump-era journalism and how the ‘post-truth’ media world is inimical to a democratic society.”

—Robert W. McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times

The role of news media in a free society is to investigate, inform, and provide a crucial check on political power. But does it actually do any of these things?  It’s no secret that the goal of corporate-owned media is to increase the profits of the few, not to empower the many. As a result, people are increasingly immersed in an information system structured to reinforce their social biases and market to their buying preferences. Journalism’s essential role has been dramatically compromised, and Donald Trump’s repeated claims of “fake news” and framing the media as “an enemy of the people” have made a bad scenario worse.

“Mickey Huff and Nolan Higdon emphasize what we can do today to restore the power of facts, truth, and fair, inclusive journalism as tools for people, to keep political and corporate power subordinate to the engaged citizenry and the common good.”  —Ralph Nader

Dr. Nolan Higdon is a lecturer of history and media studies at California State University, East Bay, and the University of San Francisco. He is co-host of the podcast Along the Line, and author of numerous articles, blog posts, and book chapters. He is a former co-host of the Project Censored Show, and a longtime contributor to Project Censored’s annual book, Censored. In addition, he has been a guest commentator for The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and various television channels.

Mickey Huff  is the current Director of Project Censored and president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation.He has edited or co-edited ten annual volumes of Censored, and contributed numerous chapters. He is currently professor of social science and history at Diablo Valley College, where he is also co-chair of the history department.  He is executive producer and co-host of the Project Censored Show, a weekly syndicated public affairs program aired over KPFA Radio and fifty community radio stations.

EVICTION DEFENSE NEEDED: Tue Oct 22 – Wed 23, 8am-4pm. Camp behind Home Depot at E8th/Alameda Ave. Support needed, bring supplies, cameras to document. Be prepared to defend residents who refuse to move.

EVICTION DEFENSE NEEDED TMRW Tue Oct 22-Wed23 Camp behind Home Depot. E8th/Alameda Ave Support needed 8am-4pm Be prepared to defend residents who refuse to move

— Anti Police-Terror (@APTPaction) October 22, 2019

Caltrans is coming on Thursday, Oct. 24 and 25 for Berkeley Homeless. Upstairs/Downstairs will be hit on Thursday. Gilman and Ashby/Shellmound on Friday.

The majority of the residents and have approved an occupation of the two encampments. Meaning residents are inviting homeless throughout Berkeley to move to the Seabreeze/I-80 Underpass to stand collectively together. Currently, homeless in downtown Berkeley are being harassed and many are being cited with violation of the sidewalk ordinance. A one time occupation where we can stand together will demonstrate how many are tired of being kicked around. This (see below) is what I shared on FB. Please feel free to share our message with everyone. We need help. Thanks so much!

Please read and share. Are you homeless in Berkeley? Are you housed and want to stand in solidarity with us.We are asking all homeless who are tired of being kicked around, harassed, vilified, hated and alone to join the encampments at the Seabreeze and under the I80 underpass. We have room for your tent. Caltrans is coming this Thursday, October 24th. Come and pitch your tent so we can collectively tell the Bay Area that we are human and that we exist. Alone you can be harassed but we can stand together as human beings to demand an answer to “Where do we go?” So many citations are being issued in downtown Berkeley each week. There are evictions all through Oakland this week. All are welcome to join us. This is a nonviolent action. Know that you are worthy and you are not invisible. A movement has started, join us. #wheredowegoberk

Join the East Bay DSA’s Labor Committee for their regular Beer and Roses social. Hang out with other members who are interested in the labor movement, hear about what’s happening in EBDSA Labor Committee & learn how you can get involved.

For those tired of shouting across the table as they debate the future of the country and the planet, Revolutionary Love brings hope, respect, and love to today’s political divide. Michael Lerner offers concrete solutions for future development by identifying why the left and the right have been so pathetic in achieving any lasting change and discussing what it will take to actually heal and repair the world, both spiritually and physically.

“Michael Lerner is one of the most significant prophetic public intellectuals and spiritual leaders of our generation. Secular intellectuals and those who yearn for a major change in the direction of American society can learn a lot from reading this book.”—Cornel West, Harvard University

“This book not only puts forward a positive vision, drawing much from the wisdom of feminists and peace activists, but a coherent strategy of how to get there. It liberates readers to go beyond the “be realistic” command of our ruling elites and to embrace the beautiful and love-filled world that Michael Lerner proposes.” —Medea Benjamin, Code Pink

A daring book on an urgent topic, Revolutionary Love aims to reunite all sections of the population into a positive democratic force capable of reversing the downward trajectory of our world. It is about a fundamental transformation of collective thinking and acting that unites us for the greater good of all people. Lerner reminds us that ethical and spiritual qualities  – respect, compassion, love, and a strong sense of community—can bring people together in a beneficial and constructive way that has the possibility of bringing about real change.

Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of Tikkun magazine, has written eleven books, including two national bestsellers, Jewish Renewal and The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right. He received Morehouse College’s King-Gandhi Award for his work for peace and non-violence.

Cat J. Zavis, Executive Director of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, is also an attorney, mediator, and trainer in conflict resolution and empathic communication. She has co-led trainings with Rabbi Lerner on integrating spirituality and activism and on communicating across differences between Israel and Palestine.

Caltrans is coming on Thursday, Oct. 24 and 25 for Berkeley Homeless. Upstairs/Downstairs will be hit on Thursday. Gilman and Ashby/Shellmound on Friday.

The majority of the residents and have approved an occupation of the two encampments. Meaning residents are inviting homeless throughout Berkeley to move to the Seabreeze/I-80 Underpass to stand collectively together. Currently, homeless in downtown Berkeley are being harassed and many are being cited with violation of the sidewalk ordinance. A one time occupation where we can stand together will demonstrate how many are tired of being kicked around. This (see below) is what I shared on FB. Please feel free to share our message with everyone. We need help. Thanks so much!

Please read and share. Are you homeless in Berkeley? Are you housed and want to stand in solidarity with us.We are asking all homeless who are tired of being kicked around, harassed, vilified, hated and alone to join the encampments at the Seabreeze and under the I80 underpass. We have room for your tent. Caltrans is coming this Thursday, October 24th. Come and pitch your tent so we can collectively tell the Bay Area that we are human and that we exist. Alone you can be harassed but we can stand together as human beings to demand an answer to “Where do we go?” So many citations are being issued in downtown Berkeley each week. There are evictions all through Oakland this week. All are welcome to join us. This is a nonviolent action. Know that you are worthy and you are not invisible. A movement has started, join us. #wheredowegoberk

See Less

Five years ago, the Bay Area achieved one of the most successful BDS victories against apartheid Israel in US history! In 2014 we stopped the Israeli-owned ZIM shipping line from docking at the Port of Oakland for 3 consecutive months, and it hasn’t returned since!

Join us to celebrate the historic and decisive Block the Boat victory as a major contribution to all movements for social and economic justice!

Block the Boat was part of a sustained organizing effort to protest Israel’s ongoing occupation, war on Gaza, and settler-violence against Palestinians. The campaign was organized by Block the Boat (BTB), an AROC-led coalition made up of a diverse range of Bay Area community organizations and activists working in close partnership with members of ILWU Local 10, the union which represents dock workers at the Port of Oakland. The coalition built on the worldwide Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement to isolate Israel politically, culturally, and economically.

In addition to being the 5th anniversary of Block the Boat, 2019 marks the first year that Urban Shield, the weapons expo and war games training, will not be taking place—because the Stop Urban Shield coalition successfully ended it! Urban Shield was the largest SWAT training in the world, with Israeli police units regularly participating in it. ZIM is the largest shipping company in Israel, and the 10th largest in the world. Our victories make clear to the world that our communities in the Bay Area will not welcome ZIM or any other business that supports apartheid, repression, anti-Arab and Muslim racism, or militarism.

Now more than ever we must be learning from lessons of the past, and looking to ongoing models of successful organizing and movement building. Come learn more about what made the success of Block the Boat possible, its impact, and ways we can build on it today.