Calendar
This workshop is part of a series of workshops in which we are developing the skills to reduce reliance on policing that is often harmful to our community members.
In this workshop, we’ll work together to identify elements of white supremacy culture and police and law enforcement culture. Then we’ll engage with just transition culture. Finally, we’ll examine the cultures of our own organizations and map them toward a just transition, imagining together some steps in that journey.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Patricia St. Onge is the founder and a Partner at Seven Generations Consulting and Coaching, where all of the work is culturally based. Deeply rooted in the concept of Seven Generations, we honor the generations who have come before us, are mindful of those yet to come, and recognize that the impact of the decisions we’re making now will last for seven generations.
Patricia has worked to support progressive social justice movements for all of her adult life. She’s worked as Executive and Interim Director of more than a dozen non-profits and a contributor to many publications on cultural competence and social change. She is a Board member at the Highlander Research and Education Center.
Of Haudenosaunee (Mohawk) and Quebecoise descent, Patricia is a member of Idle No More and The Peoples’ Nonviolent Response Coalition. Between them, she and her life partner Wilson Riles, have nine grown children and six grandchildren. She is part of a growing community called Nafsi ya Jamii (The Soul Community), an urban farm and retreat center in East Oakland, CA.
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 will provide practical skills. All of them will lift up a transformative justice framework and emphasize the importance of self and community 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, SURJ-Bay Area, the Omni Collective, Berkeley Free Clinic, and PLACE (People Linking Art, Community, and Ecology). We are eager to partner with additional organizations so please contact us if you are interested!
This training will take participants through many of the strategies, tools and considerations of non-violent direct action, including power and privilege, de-escalation, blockades, legal, direct action organizing models, and the opportunity to form affinity groups. This training will be an important place to get plugged into for upcoming actions in late April and beyond.
WHO: Diablo Rising Tide. diablorisingtide@riseup.net
RSVP: https://actionnetwork.org/events/rsvp-non-violent-direct-action-training-on-april-18/
This training will take participants through many of the strategies, tools and considerations of non-violent direct action, including power and privilege, de-escalation, blockades, legal, direct action organizing models, and the opportunity to form affinity groups. This training will be an important place to get plugged into for upcoming actions in late April and beyond.
WHO: Diablo Rising Tide. diablorisingtide@riseup.net
RSVP: https://actionnetwork.org/events/rsvp-non-violent-direct-action-training-on-april-18/
Next week, millions will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day together, even though we will be physically separated.
Instead of mass protests, from April 22 to 24, youth and adult activists are coming together for Earth Day Live, a three-day live stream focused on climate action. The live stream will include training sessions, performances, and appearances to keep people engaged, informed, and inspired, with speakers including celebrities, politicians, scientists, and youth activists.
We are leaning into healing and togetherness to provide comfort and inspiration during this time of anxiety and the unknown. On all three days, we are centering the stories and voices of frontline, Indigenous, and POC leaders.
Here’s an overview of what’s happening each day:
- April 22 STRIKE: The 50th anniversary of Earth Day is about demonstrating collective power in the face of today’s multiple crises. There will be performances, conversations, training sessions, and more.
- April 23 DIVEST: The world’s largest banks have pumped $1.9 trillion into fossil fuels since the 2015 Paris Agreement. We can’t let fossil fuel companies use the pandemic to loot trillions more when people need relief so desperately. Led by the Stop the Money Pipeline Coalition, April 23rd focuses on the role of money in driving the climate crisis.
- April 24 VOTE: We need leaders who will address the existential threat of climate change, and for this to happen, we need people to show up at the polls. Led by the US Youth Strike Coalition, April 24th will focus on voter registration and feature a digital, relational voter registration challenge to see which region of the country can register the most voters.
Stay tuned for more info about local sessions coming to you from the SF Climate Justice NVDA Spokescouncil on April 23 at 9:00-10:00am and 4:00-5:00pm. To get involved in Youth Vs. Apocalypse’s #NoOneIsDisposable social media campaign, virtual art build, Climate Strike Live Streams, or Green New Deal and Just Transition workshops, email rcostellonic13@gmail.com.
We may be physically separated, but we can and we will come together in solidarity on Earth Day and beyond.
_
Car Rally to #ProtectOaklandWorkers:
Calling on City Council to Pass Emergency Paid Sick Days and Right to
Return to Work Policies
Gather in front of Xfinity & Popeyes
End at Eastmont Mall (by Burger King) by 12:30 pm
Why:
Half the Oakland City Council failed to show up for workers [2] this
week to pass an emergency paid sick days law that would have protected
workers and the community during this pandemic.
We are joining EBASE and other community partners for an action, riding
through the Fruitvale and East Oakland, the areas hardest hit by
COVID-19 [3], to call on Councilmembers Gallo, Taylor and Reid to stand
with Oakland workers.
Join us in sending a message that Oakland’s workers are essential, and
deserve protections!
* Pass a strong Paid Sick Days law, with no loopholes that requires
all employers to provide universal, immediate paid sick leave during a
public health emergency.
* Protect workers’ livelihoods by ensuring that when it is safe to
return to work, they still have a job with a Right to Return policy.
* Stand up the Department of Workplace & Employment Standards to make
worker protections real.
Bring:
* A car
* Signs with Messages:
* Protect Oakland Workers!
* Show Up for Workers!
* Councilmember Gallo: Support Workers!
* Councilmember Taylor: Support Workers!
* Workers Need Paid Sick Days!
* Workers Need the Right to Return to Work!
* A bullhorn, if you have one
* Your protective mask
* We’ll bring a planned route, signs, tape and window paint
Please let us know if you can participate by emailing
becky@alamedalabor.org
*Specifically for outreach workers and anyone dealing with police and trying to safe on the streets*
Topic: Copwatch Know Your Rights Training
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 839 5062 6113
Password: 804253
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Oakland #dpw told residents on Wood st that they would come evict residents on June 3rd!!!
Come out to defend the community at 9am!!
Meet at 18th & Wood st— the United Front Against Displacement (@TheUfad) May 25, 2020
#TheTown Sits OUT the Curfew
Our coalition includes
Anti Police-Terror Project CRC Oakland Rising
Bay Rising CURYJ Black Organizing Project
Ella Baker Center
Family, JOIN US Wednesday night 6/3 at 8:05 pm
We, The People of Oakland, and our allies and accomplices around the bay, DISSENT to the steadily encroaching FASCISM of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department’s 8pm curfew order!!!
We’ll be sitting down in the intersection of 14th and Broadway to say an unequivocal “F***k your curfew!”
Everywhere we turn there are reminders to fight for each other’s freedom. Today, 6/2, is Miles Hall’s Angelversary ( https://www.facebook.com/events/538186717063894/ ). We defy the sheriff’s orders in honor and memory of him, as well as Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, Steven Taylor, and countless others murdered by so-called civil servants.
The CURFEWS here and nationwide are RACIST policing measures that serve the militant suppression of The People. These measures are in clear, direct response to us rising up in defense of Black Lives. We won’t submit to Trump’s “Law and Order State”.
On Monday, June 1st, young organizers from Oakland Tech led a George Floyd Solidarity March that was multigenerational, peaceful, and 15,000 STRONG
On Monday, June 1st, at 7:57 pm, OPD threw flashbang grenades and teargas into the gathered crowd and proceeded in making 100+ arrests into the night — rounding up protesters and non-protesters alike, including many of our unhoused neighbors and essential workers
Again, WE DISSENT
Our coalition includes
Anti Police-Terror Project
CRC
Oakland Rising
Bay Rising
CURYJ
Black Organizing Project
Ella Baker Center
You, your loved ones and friends
NOTE: We remain committed to offering to post bail for Black & Brown folks arrested while protesting. Please contact us if you know of anybody arrested and held who needs this support.
PANDEMIC REMINDER: Wear your mask. Hold 6 foot distance as much as possible. Bring sanitation supplies such as hand sanitizer for yourself, and more if you have enough to share.
THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM CONTINUES!
STOP Police Terror, Systemic Racism & STOP the Privatization of the Port of Oakland!
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Longshore Division will stop work at all 29 ports on the West Coast for eight hours to commemorate JUNETEENTH, the holiday celebrating the end of slavery.
Join ILWU Locals 10, 34, 75, 91 for a day of solidarity & resistance. AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL!
What do we mean when we say "#DefundTheSheriff?" Join us on Saturday for this intro to the Alameda County Budget. #DefundThePolice REGISTER: https://t.co/JCHKQsUETx pic.twitter.com/xktvRSC7bG
— Ella Baker Center (@ellabakercenter) June 18, 2020
EMERGENCY EVICTION DEFENSE TUESDAY, 6/23 @ 8AM. Caltrans is attempting to illegally evict over 20 homeless people during the #COVID19 pandemic!! Come out to help defend the community from #PoliceBrutality !! pic.twitter.com/sVzvNdH1Tz
— the United Front Against Displacement (@TheUfad) June 21, 2020
EBDSA members have the opportunity to help pass the largest tax increase in history on California’s wealthiest commercial property owners, raising $10-12 billion per year for public education and social services. With the Movement for Black Lives uprising deepening into the call for defunding the police, it will be necessary to expand revenues required to build alternative, sustainable public services, and practices. Progressive taxation—especially taxing the rich—is an essential path to accomplish that goal. “Schools and Communities First” (SCF), on the November 3 ballot, is backed by labor and opposed by the most reactionary sectors of capital.
A three-part education series will provide background for EBDSA participation in the campaign. Part I reviews the story of austerity politics and increasing inequality in California with Prop 13—which SCF proposes to reform—from 1978 to the present. Part II looks at the history of public-sector unionism and how a left-wing labor-community coalition won Prop 30, a ‘tax the rich’ ballot measure, in 2012. Part III will supply an overview of the SCF campaign, and explore how EBDSA members can plug in effectively. Biweekly on ZOOM, beginning Monday, June 29, presented by labor historian Fred Glass for EBDSA Labor Committee.
Where: Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81851574731?pwd=Y1RITkRZQjZPSFRvQmxoMENXeXpGUT09
Join the Gray Panthers.
Alex Werth from East Bay Housing Organizations will discuss “Eviction Moratoriums 101” – a presentation on the status of renter protections in Alameda County, Berkeley, and Oakland. Slides available with q and a.
If you knew Margy Wilkinson, who died Saturday night, we will take a little time to remember her.
As time permits, we will conclude with member concerns, and action opportunities, including Berkeley Tenants Convention Online candidates forum July 5
To join Gray Panthers Zoom Meeting
Time: July 1, Wednesday 1:30 — This is a recurring meeting most Wednesday’s
For Zoom online:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5108426224
Meeting ID: 510 842 6224
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Meeting ID: 510 842 6224
Other announcements and updates will follow as time permits.
Memory of Margy Wilkinson of Friends of Adeline
Want to know more about OPD’s share of the Oakland budget? Want to learn about the history of APTP’s Defund OPD campaign?
Register for our Defund OPD Teach-In at https://t.co/yGOmYamK7D#defundopd #defundpolice pic.twitter.com/IaMyT2XcUm
— Defund OPD (@DefundOPD) July 3, 2020
***>> EMAIL STRIKE.DEBT.BAY.AREA@GMAIL.COM FOR ZOOM INFO A FEW DAYS BEFORE THE MEETING. <<***
Strike Debt Bay Area hosts a non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, and How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century.
For our July, August and September discussions we will be reading ‘The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy’ by Stephanie Kelton. (Find it at your local bookstore or through this site.)
For July, we will have read the first two chapters.
For August, we will have read chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6,
For September, chapters 7 and 8.
The book is easy reading, and it would be easy to catch up. Join us – all are welcome!
Stephanie Kelton’s brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure. Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country.
Kelton was chief economist on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee (minority staff) and an advisor to the Bernie2016 presidential campaign. Kelton is a regular commentator on national radio and television and speaks across the world at large gatherings of people interested in global finance, political economy and public policy. She has superb connections in all areas of print and broadcast national media. Her op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg.
For July, we will also have read two shorter pieces, following up on themes we have taken up in previous readings:
- The Neoliberal Era is Ending – What Comes Next? by Rutger Bregman
- From Banks and Tanks to Cooperation and Caring.