Full background:
I am asking you to help free a transsexual mixed-race war veteran who is being held in San Francisco County Jail.
Athena Cadence is not a threat to herself or others and is in compliance with all of Judge Jeffrey Ross’ court orders. However, she is being housed in the male unit of the jail, along with other transsexual, transgender, and intersex individuals. This is in direct violation of the Sheriff’s policy to house transgender inmates in the units appropriate to their genders. Athena has been on hunger strike since November 15th to protest this unsafe violation of trans rights. Every day, Athena and other trans inmates are under threat of sexual assault, violence, and degradation.
Friends of Athena are asking your help in demanding that transgender, transsexual, and intersex inmates be housed appropriately and safely. To that end we are asking that you call Judge Ross and Sheriff Vicki Hennessy on Monday, November 21–we are going to flood their offices with phone calls. In your call:
-Demand that Athena and all transgender, transsexual, and intersex inmates immediately be housed in units appropriate to their gender
-Demand that Athena be freed from custody
Below is an example transcript, but feel free to say what is on your mind when you call:
“Hello, this is _________. I am calling regarding Athena Cadence, who is a transsexual inmate at San Francisco County Jail. As you know, the sheriff’s office has made a commitment to house transgender, transsexual, and intersex inmates in units appropriate to their gender. Athena is a woman and it is unsafe to jail her in the men’s unit. It is a violation of the Sheriff’s department policy to house her in the men’s unit. We ask that you immediately house Athena and all transgender, transsexual, and intersex inmates in the units appropriate to their genders. Furthermore, Ms. Cadence is in compliance with all court orders, and is not a threat to herself or others. Given this, we ask that you release her from custody.”
Here are the phone numbers to call:
Judge Jeffrey Ross: (415) 551-0321
Sheriff Vicki Hennessy: (415) 554-7225
Additionally, if you can make it to Athena’s next court date, your presence would be very helpful. Athena’s next court date is Tuesday, November 22, 9:00 AM in dept 21 (third floor) of the San Francisco Hall of Justice (850 Bryant St, San Francisco, CA 94103). Please be quiet and respectful in the courtroom; no signs are allowed in the courtroom.
I and all of Athena’s friends appreciate your help. Please forward this message to any interested parties. Together we can hold our (in)justice system accountable and prevent the ongoing abuse of transsexual, transgender, and intersex people and all inmates.
Please join Berkeley Mayor-Elect Jesse Arreguin and other elected officials to reaffirm our city’s and school district’s commitment to providing a sanctuary for all and bring our sisters and brothers out of the shadows. #lovetrumpshate
We need to keep the momentum going! We cannot normalize this! We refuse to accept a Trump presidency and the indoctrination of hate and discrimination that comes with it.
We will meet at 555 California Street (Trump owns 30% of this building) and have an hour-long sit in. We will then march through the city.
Because we want to make our presence felt and we want to address concerns of speed, we will be stopping in many intersections during the march.
At each stop we will hear from a speaker or performer or poet or singer etc. If you would like to have your voice highlighted, please message Fuck Trump SF (the org hosting this event) and let us know how you would like to contribute. We will be prioritizing marginalized voices.
Forum on Immigrant Rights with Immigration Attorney Mark Silverman, Tuesday, November 22, 2016, 5:30 to 7:30 pm, Longfellow Middle School pic.twitter.com/kNJLj64juC
— loridroste (@loridroste) November 21, 2016
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/
JOIN CODEPINK, WORLD CAN’T WAIT, OCCUPYSF Action Council and others at the huge PEACE banner
Theme this week is: “REFUGEES…”
Feel free to bring your own signage, photos, flyers, …Additional signs and flyers provided.
Stand (or sit) with us and the huge PEACE banner.
If you would like to hand these flyers out at Citi bank meet at 14th and Broadway on Friday. Flyers will be available there for that morning and for people to take for other days. We will also discuss other Bank pickets for which other versions of this flyer are being made. Please contact me if you can make it Friday or what you other available times are between Black
Friday and Dec, 1.
Please join us for the 17th annual protest of the shopping mall constructed atop the Ohlone Shellmound in Emeryville. This year we come together to draw connections between the amazing resistance by Water Protectors in Standing Rock and the protection of sacred sites here at home in the Bay Area. Please join us to share solidarity, prayer, ideas, hopes, (and food) at this particularly pivotal moment.
Background: In 1999, the City of Emeryville built the mall that now sits on the corner of Shellmound St and Ohlone Way. This space was once a Ohlone village site and it was one of the largest Shellmounds in the Bay Area. The sacred Shellmound once stood over 60ft high and 350 ft in diameter and it was considered the largest funerary complex of the Ohlone people. When the mall was built, we petitioned the city council and asked them not to destroy our sacred sites, but the developers and the businesses ignored our voices. Although the mall was built, our resistance is alive and it has never died. Hence, every year, on the day after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year, we’ve organized an educational protest to remind everyone that Ohlone peoples are alive in the Bay Area and we aim to educate the public on why and how the desecration of Ohlone sacred sites hurts the Ohlone and everyone living here in the Bay Area. We also ask people to not shop at this mall.
Bring friends, food to share, appropriate and thoughtful signs and please bring your positive attitudes. The ceremony at the protest will include spoken word, sacred songs and dances. Please contact organizers beforehand if you have an offering you would like to share.
Meet at Oscar Grant Plaza at 14th Avenue & Broadway in Oakland to picket banks that have invested in the DAPL pipeline.
Download a flyer by clicking on the following image:
Download the 4x Flyer
We feel we should coalesce and concentrate on our most urgent effort of building the movement to FREE MUMIA NOW, during the 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party, while groups all over the country are gathering to celebrate that anniversary. In this way all our groups will benefit, and we’ll feel our collective power that will help us win all of our demands in the future. Remember Mumia is a great journalist, who’s been fighting for all of us for the 35 years he’s been behind bars.
Locally, we are building for a rally and march from Oscar Grant Plaza to the Oakland Police Station, on December 9, 4:00 PM. Let’s join together and make this HUGE!
(Backup location if Paris Baguette has no seating: Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater, 14th & Broadway, outside of City Hall.)
Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.
If you are new to Strike Debt and want to come early , meet one or two of us and get a briefing on our projects before we dive into our agenda, email us at strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com .
Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.
We also oppose debt because it is an instrument of exploitation and political domination. Debt is used to discipline us, deepen existing inequalities, and reinforce racial, gendered, and other social hierarchies. Every Strike Debt action is designed to weaken the institutions that seek to divide us and benefit from our division. As an alternative to this predatory system, Strike Debt advocates a just and sustainable economy, based on mutual aid, common goods, and public affluence.
Strike Debt is committed to the principles and tactics of political autonomy, direct democracy, direct action, creative openness, a culture of solidarity, and commitment to anti-oppressive language and conduct. We struggle for a world without racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression.
Strike Debt holds that we are all debtors, whether or not we have personal loan agreements. Through the manipulation of sovereign and municipal debt, the costs of speculator-driven crises are passed on to all of us. Though different kinds of debt can affect the same household, they are all interconnected, and so all household debtors have a common interest in resisting.
Strike Debt engages in public education about the debt-system to counteract the self-serving myth that finance is too complicated for laypersons to understand. In particular, it urges direct action as a way of stopping the damage caused by the creditor class and their enablers among elected government officials. Direct action empowers those who participate in challenging the debt-system.
Strike Debt holds that we owe the financial institutions nothing, whereas, to our friends, families and communities, we owe everything. In pursuing a long-term strategy for national organizing around this principle, we pledge international solidarity with the growing global movement against debt and austerity.
Join the Permaculture Action Network & Rising Appalachia Music for a Bay Area Permaculture Action Day! This special Thanksgiving action day will be taking place at City of Dreams urban farm in San Francisco on Sunday, November 27th following Rising Appalachia’s show at the Great American Music Hall on Saturday the 26th.
Projects include:
– Terracing & Irrigation Install
– Mural Painting and Repair
– Fruit Tree Planting
– Building Beds & Removing Brush
– Outdoor Classroom & Kitchen Build
– Compost System Install
Music & Performance:
– Members of Rising Appalachia Music
– J Brave of the Luminaries
– Jasmine Fuego & the Pop Up Band
– Tatu Vision
– Lydia Violet Music
– Members of Thrive East Bay Choir
– more TBA
– Cypher hosted by: Jada Imani
Contests:
– Freestyle
– Dance-Off
Workshops/Panels:
– Yoga
– Panel of Elders
– More TBA
Please bring:
– Water
– Garden tools
– Dish or snacks to add to Pot Luck meals (rice & beans provided)
– Paint for murals
– Working clothes + Layers (prepare for typical fall Bay weather)
– Stories + Songs to share
About City of Dreams:
City of Dreams is committed to supporting youth living in San Francisco low-income public housing in building a bright future through mentorship and youth leadership development. They have a beautiful established garden and a youth-led garden program operating out of the Oakdale Community Center.
Tickets to Great American show: http://www.risingappalachia.
(Permaculture Action Day itself is free, as always)
Please click “Going” on the Facebook event page, invite your friends, and post the link! https://www.facebook.com/
Write to us at ‘ Contact (at) PermacultureAction.org ‘ if you want to contribute or get involved.
We will gather to discuss organizing a General Strike in Oakland on #J20 and or during the Trump presidency. We will have a general discussion about what that would look like then break out into several committees to organize media, outreach, logistics, etc.
The conversation will center working class black and brown voices but everyone is welcome to speak and share their thoughts and skills!
November 27th – 12PM – Telegraph and Broadway – Latham Square (The site of the last General Strike of 1946 in Oakland CA) #j20 #disruptj20
No Inauguration! General Strike Against Trump! #NoInauguration #DisruptJ20 #ShutItDown #GeneralStrike #J20 #LathamSquare #Oakland
More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/675206962654366/
Bay Area LGBTQ Town Hall Meeting and Strategy Session in response to the incoming Trump administration’s agenda and threats to our community.
This facilitated Town Hall meeting will focus on needed strategic community organizing and solidarity, and will feature speakers providing updates on the likely impact of Trump’s agenda on LGBTQ lives in the areas of law, legislation, healthcare, immigration and the growing sanctuary movement.
Organized by the ad-hoc Bay Area Queer Anti-Fascist Network. Find us at: https://www.facebook.com/
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 3 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If for some reason the amphitheater is being used otherwise and/or OGP itself is inaccessible, we will meet at Kaiser Park, right next to the statues, on 19th St. between San Pablo and Telegraph. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 3:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (In prior years we have agreed to meet at 4:00 PM during summer hours, that is, once Daylight Savings Time goes back into effect).
On every last Sunday we meet a little earlier at 2 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over five years! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally. Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.
At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.
General Assembly Standard Agenda
Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.
Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area
San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv
If you’re devastated by the outcome of the 2016 election, or you’ve been shocked by the normalization of hate speech and intolerance by a master manipulator of mainstream media, you’ll want to ATTEND this march against hatred and bigotry on December 10th in downtown San Francisco.
The Bay Area needs to flex its collective muscle to reflect our level of disgust towards the incoming president. We aren’t just going to “get over it.”
THIS IS NOT NORMAL.
Each day’s news brings a “new normal” — a higher level of coarseness; casual and open racism; insults targeting entire religions; and an intolerance of diversity that’s impacting our social fabric. We cannot let a Trump regime take power without conveying our extreme dissatisfaction with his character; his divisive rhetoric; his cabinet picks; his anti-LGBT stance; his misogyny; or his willingness to allow intolerance to grow and be rewarded amongst his supporters. We cannot accept this reality as normal, BECAUSE IT’S NOT NORMAL.
Join us on December 10th: UNITED AGAINST HATE.
Share our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1229170823796239/
Donate to the logistics of the event: https://www.gofundme.com/antitrump-demonstration
F I E L D T R I P
for the Amor for Alex Memorial
Bring banners and your Amor for Alex T-shirts. Wear red and black in honor of Alex Nieto. Let’s join each other at one of our oldest varrios on Cortland Street!
SHARE THIS FAR AND WIDE:
The only way to the front lines is forward.
If you are upset about Trump or the Dakota pipeline, you can and should let your voice be heard. But if you want action, an action that leads to creation, then follow us to the front lines, and it is not in a far off distant land; it is here in our city of San Francisco.
Join us this Monday, November 28 at 6:00 p.m. for the “All Hands Meeting for the Alex Nieto Memorial!” at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center on 515 Cortland Avenue, Alex Nieto’s varrio. For all you OG Veteranos and Veteranas, you know that Cortland is one of our oldest varrios, one of the first places in San Francisco’s Mission/Outer Mission that was gentrified starting back in the 90’s. It was such a loco colorful beautiful hood until they tricked residents into gentrification and kicked them out. Now mostly wealthy white folks live there – lawyers and technology executives. In 2011 they literally erased the varrio history by destroying the Cortland library’s 1983 Native American and cholo mural.
https://todobododown.wordpress.com/all-hands-meeting-for/
This time we must stand together. History cannot and will not be erased. It is up to you, I literally mean YOU, to make this Alex Nieto memorial reality. Not only is it what the Nietos desire and deserve after being swindled by a mostly white jury out of a just verdict in the civil trial, but also it is what we need as medicine for our community.
We proved Alex’s murder. Check the evidence yourself. I would love to hear any reasonable arguments about how Officer Schiff could, after being counseled by his police officer father, on the night he shot at Alex Nieto, go from saying he looked into Alex’s “angry” eyes and saw his forehead “scrunch” up to being proved a liar two years later in open court Alex had on a baseball hat and sunglasses on, so it would have been impossible for Officer Schiff to have seen Alex’s eyes or forehead. I would love to hear any explanation of how Alex Nieto’s wrist bone was found in his pocket if, as the officers state, he always had his hands out and pointing a taser. Because there is no reasonable explanation, we must conclude Alex Nieto was unlawfully killed, and this is a severe injustice and tragedy for his family and community. Yet we are thankful for whirlwinds, for they have helped shape who we are: Amor for Alex.
We need mass attendance at this meeting because there may be some who want to erase racism: from the caller, who admitted Alex was doing nothing improper but described him as a “foreigner”, to the dog owner who threatened Alex and spewed obscene racial slurs against him, to the police who profiled him and shot at him fifty nine (59) times. There may be some who want to ignore the corruption of San Francisco: from the district attorney that refused to file criminal charges against the officers, to the collusion between San Francisco and Taser International, the company that gained a two million dollar contract with the city, after manipulating the time stamps on Alex Nieto’s taser so that it would match up nicely with the fabricated police narrative.
We sing NO to erasure. We shout NO to corruption. With the joining now of 3,000 others who have signed the petition and at least four San Francisco supervisors, we demand an ordinance (law) for a memorial tribute to Alex Nieto on Bernal Heights. We imagine community members hiking up to that mountain and praying like he did, looking out over the view of San Francisco and being reminded and reminded of his unlawful death AND our community resilience. We want students of all ages to travel up to that hill for field trips and stand at that memorial site and learn about the history and creativity of our community; they will write thousands of critical educational essays. We want families to pilgrimage hands together and love each other at the place where Alex breathed his last breath. Lovers will make an offering and share a kiss, the way we used to do it up on that mountain in the old days. We want this place to be a place of peace, of inspiration and amor.
We need you there. Your family needs you there. Your community needs you there. Your unborn grandchildren need you there: “All Hands Meeting for the Alex Nieto Memorial!” Monday, November 28, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center. Wear red and black in honor of Alex. Join the Facebook event page here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1156504267790999/?notif_t=plan_user_associated¬if_id=1478981259825422
Amor for Alex Nieto: March 4, 1986 to March 21, 2014
Against the violence and injustice of 59 bullets, family and community rose to defend honor and promote positive spirit.
Benjamin Bac Sierra, M.A., J.D.