Calendar

This Valentine’s Day, we’re turning up the pressure on Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase in San Francisco. Will you join us? Click here to RSVP.

• What: Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase: Break up with private prisons or we’ll break up with you (Rally and petition delivery)

Sixty percent of the immigrants the Trump administration locked up are being held in private prisons built by companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase finance billions of dollars of their debt. All these banks need to do is stop providing loans to these companies and the private prisons they run would not be able to function.

Now is the time to use our power as customers and consumers to force these banks to act. Join us to make our demands clear to Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase on Valentine’s Day.

If Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase don’t take action to help end the criminalization and detainment of Black and Brown communities, we will by pledging and encouraging others to break up with them and switch to banks that actually respect our communities.

https://www.facebook.com/events/395765747898393/

On Valentine’s Day, join Mujeres Unidas y Activas, La Colectiva de Mujeres, MomsRising, Bay Resistance, Candide Group, Hand in Hand, the national FamiliesBelongTogether Coalition and others to ask WellsFargo and JPMorgan Chase To Break Up with Private Prisons and Immigration Detention Centers!

While professing respect for human rights, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase continue to fund GEO Group and CoreCivic; the biggest operators of private prisons and immigrant detention centers. Let’s tell Jamie Dimon (Chase) and Timothy Sloan (Wells) that we’re not afraid to align our money with our values. If Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase don’t take action, we will — by pledging to, and/or encouraging others to, break up with Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase and switch to banks that actually respect our communities instead!

Can’t come on the 14th at noon, but want to take action- join a bank branch action near you on the 14, 15, or 15th by signing up here: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/show-love-this-valentines-day

EVICTION SUPPORT NEEDED Thu & Fri starting 8am
All Lake Merritt camps getting booted. Bring coffee, bkfst, trashbags, lunch. Starting at columns @Lakeshore

— Anti Police-Terror (@APTPaction) February 13, 2019

ALTERNATIVES TO POLICING WORKSHOP 2

Let’s talk about the “common sense” ideas about crime, morality, and safety that shape and limit how we think about policing and community safety. Many of these ideas are profoundly influenced by a particular brand of Christianity that has dominated in this country, a version of the faith that served to justify genocide and slavery and continues to uphold white supremacy in ways that are sometimes overt but more often subtle and even innocuous-seeming. How can we begin to call these “common sense” ideas into question so that we can have a different conversation?

In this interactive workshop, we will take a deep dive into both the actual history of policing and the narratives and ideologies that have shaped it. Content will include viewing and discussion of segments from two webinars, one offered by Andrea Ritchie on January 28, 2019 on the History of Policing, and one offered by SoulForce on January 8, 2018 on Christian Supremacy and Policing, both through SURJ-Faith.

Andrea Ritchie is a Black lesbian immigrant and police misconduct attorney and organizer who has engaged in extensive research, writing, and advocacy around criminalization of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people of color over the past two decades. She recently published Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color now available from Beacon Press. Read more about her and her work here: http://andreajritchie.com/bio/

SoulForce is an LGBTQI organization that sabotages Christian Supremacy through radical analysis, spiritual healing and strategic direct action. Their website reads: “Christian Supremacy is not new; the project of empire has snatched Christianity and put it into service for hundreds of years, especially in the United States and its business partners. Calling out Christian Supremacy means recognizing that the struggles against white supremacy, capitalism, and (neo)colonization – to name a few – are intricately tied to how certain sectors and expressions of Christianity are driven by power over, not justice. We believe consciousness of how this kind of religion works in the United States – its language, its cultural plumb lines, its relationship to social and financial power, its stated and unstated values – tells a more honest story of how this country came to be.”

Facilitators will be Nichola Torbett and Marcia Lovelace.

We will also ground ourselves in our values and agreements, which are rooted in transformative justice, and in our commitment to caring for our hearts, minds, and spirits as we do this work.

By donation; no one turned away for lack of funds.

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, like this one, will provide deepening analysis and a grounding in alternative ways of thinking about safety. Others 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, Agape Fellowship, Qal’bu Maryam, Jewish Voice for Peace, the East Bay Meditation Center, Skyline Community Church, Oakland Peace Center, Oakland LBGTQ Community Center, KinFolkz, the Omni Collective, and Black Organizing Project. We are eager to partner with additional organizations so please contact us if you are interested!

Oakland’s First** Human Banner: “NO WALL!”

This protest is planned in response to President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency. Join in to protect the rule of law and our Constitution. On this Presidents Day holiday, stand to demand that our president respect the separation of powers.

RSVP.

Over the last year there has been a wave of successful teacher strikes, and our local Oakland Education Association recently voted to authorize a strike. But how do strikes figure into the larger picture of class struggle and building working class power? And what lessons can we learn from historical strikes?

Please join us on Tuesday, February 19 to discuss these questions and more!

Details and readings coming soon!

Accessibility: Wheelchair-accessible entrance and restrooms

Required Readings

See the readings that we’ll be discussing after a brief introduction from our members.

Oakland teachers just set the date of their strike for this coming Thursday! Join us this Tuesday night for an emergency Oakland Is Strike Ready meeting and bring everyone you know! pic.twitter.com/XlnnSR15Ok

— East Bay DSA 🌹 (@DSAEastBay) February 16, 2019

Waffles & Zapatismo is a free space for learning about and discussing the history, ideas, values and practices of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, EZLN or Zapatistas. We serve waffles at the start of the class to those who want them.

Join the International Action Center and Spring Action Coalition for a day of action against US intervention in Venezuela.

We will hold a rally at 14th and Broadway in Oakland to protest the Trump administration’s support for the coup against the Maduro government, and the long history of sanctions and threats against the Venezuelan people.

We demand an end to hostile actions against Venezuela!

POLICE REFORM:  Alameda County Urban Shield/UASI Task Force   

For six years, Bay Area activists have pushed to repurpose Homeland Security disaster preparedness funds away from the hyper-militarized training exercise Urban Shield. Finally the Alameda Board of Supervisors agreed and convened a task force to end “Urban Shield as we know it”.  The  task force has provided dozens of recommendations to do exactly that.

There is lots of pushback and lots more coming, according to the SF Chronicle, which announced the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department is “primed for battle“.  But this is our taxpayer money to protect us and help us recover from disasters like catastrophic wildfires. We get a say in how it is spent.

You can view some of the proposed recommendations here and here. The recommendations follow years of problems with racial profiling, right wing vigilantes, and environmental abuse. Your physical presence on the 26th is important, but you can also use this easy action alert to tell the Supervisors not to buckle to the pressure and really change Urban Shield. Now:

Easy Action Alert

On Thursday, March 7th, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is having an “exploratory” hearing into the City’s cold weather policy. The Government of the City of San Francisco has endlessly harassed folks with nowhere to go. The San Francisco Police Department has confiscated peoples tents in the rain, arrested people for creating shelter and not offering more than a temporary stay in a shelter or a cot.

The People of San Francisco and the Bay Area must come together to resist these attacks on working people. Join activists from other Bay Area cities in this action against the attack on the poor and learn about local struggles and ways we can work together to fight back.

This event is sponsored by: The United Front Against Displacement, Democratic Socialists of America: San Francisco chapter, POOR Magazine, and the Bay Area Landless People’s Alliance