Calendar
Unite for Oakland Kids!!!
We are negotiating to prioritize STUDENT LEARNING over wasteful bloat in OUSD.
Oakland Teachers need a FAIR CONTRACT NOW. We are demanding SMALLER CLASS SIZE and FAIR COMPENSATION and the District has disrespected us over and over by offering us almost nothing.
On April 24th, we will show the District that Students, Families and Teachers are UNITED behind PUTTING STUDENTS AT THE CENTER! In order to provide the highest quality education, we need SMALLER CLASS SIZE and CASE LOADS! In order to have teachers stay in Oakland, we need FAIR COMPENSATION!
Teachers and Families have mobilized in West Virginia and Oklahoma! This is our turn, come out on April 24th!
#OEAContractNow
#StudentsAtTheCenter
#SmallerClassSize
#FairPay
#Equity
- Youth Spirit Artwork’s Tiny House Village project will be considered for very important permit & fee waivers, as well as other project benefits, by the Berkeley City Council. Our youth and project team are asking that as many of our supporters as possible attend this important Council meeting and speak on behalf of our item.
- The proposal is sponsored by Council Members Ben Bartlett and Cheryl Davila and is being amended with input from the Mayor and City Manager. We will pass out the most up to date version of this proposal at the meeting, along with signs for everyone to hold.
24 People have been killed by #SFPD while #GeorgeGascon makes $300,000 as DA. How many killer cops has he charged?🤔
Zero.
🕯️The family of #LuisGongoa will start a 24 hour vigil at 850 Bryant at 6pm tonight. #noconsequencenoconfidence#justice4luisgongora pic.twitter.com/Va74ui7rWZ— nancypili (@nancypili) April 25, 2018
The Berkeley-East Bay Gray Panthers present Malcolm Margolin, author, publisher, and cultural bridge-builder, to speak on Becoming Fully Human: Lessons From The Ohlone Way in honor of Earth Day. Margolin is founder and former executive director of Heyday Press, an independent nonprofit publisher and cultural institution based in Berkeley, CA. His 1974 book, The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area was named by the SF Chronicle as one of the hundred most important
books of the twentieth century by a western writer.
He will share his experiences from his four-decades of involvement
with the Native communities of California. They reshaped his view of the world
and the East Bay. “The battle for a healthy, diverse, and abundant world is
first won or lost in the human imagination.” Under his guidance, Heyday launched
News from Native California in 1987, a quarterly magazine devoted to the history
and ongoing cultural concerns of California Indians, and Bay Nature, in 2001 on
the natural history of the San Francisco Bay Area.
After retiring from Heyday, he founded the California Institute for Community,
Art, and Nature (http://californiaican.org/) in 2017 to expand upon the work that
he began more than forty years ago. Friends of the California Institute for Community,
Art, and Nature, and the Alliance for Landless Peoples will join us on April 25th.
All ages are welcome – Wheelchair Accessible
Join us as we rally in front of Bank of America and march to San Francisco City Hall to demand the SF Board of Supervisors, SF Mayor, and SF Treasurer divest its 10+ billion dollar cash flow from Wall Street banks and create a People’s Bank that will operate with principles of equity, social, racial, economic and environmental justice.
April 25th is the day of Bank of America’s shareholder meeting and it is also one of the main banks that manages San Francisco taxpayer money. Bank of America currently invests in the Dakota Access Pipeline, fossil fuels, gun manufacturers, private prisons, the military industrial complex, and predatory loans that drive low-income people out of their homes.
It is clear that Bank of America is run to make money for wealthy shareholders and not the benefit of those living in San Francisco. The time is now to end our toxic relationship and to finally break up.
We call on everyone to come and say that Bank of America’s time is up and that City officials needs to move as quickly as possible to create a peoples bank now!
*PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EVENT IS A WORK IN PROGRESS! More details to come and if you would like to get involved please email publicbanksf@gmail.com*
#DivestSF #SFPublicBankNow #defundDAPL #occupyWallStreet
Free & Open to the Public / ADA Accessible
A Conversation and Strategy Session with:
-Lara Kiswani, Executive Director, Arab Resource Organizing Center
-Christina Sinha, National Security and Civil Rights Program Co-Leader, Asian Law Caucus,
-Cat Brooks, Executive Director, Justice Teams Network & Co-Founder Anti-Police Terror Project
-Stephanie Lacambra, Attorney and Legal Analyst with Electronic Frontier Foundation
-Juan Prieto, Immigrant Rights Organizer / Statewide Communications Strategist, CIYJA
-facilitated by Leslie Dreyer, organizer with Housing Rights Committee and Artist in Residence with the UC ACES Program
Technologies coming out of the Bay Area are being used to surveil, profile, police and even deport vulnerable residents in our so-called Sanctuary Cities. Platforms claiming to promote democracy have corrupted it and recentralized power, while silencing dissent of targeted communities. Social media, license plate readers, facial recognition and AI are aiding local police, ICE, the Pentagon and beyond, and the most terrifying and distopian applications yet to be approved for use by our government get shipped abroad impacting the privacy and lives of international communities.
Combining analysis by legal experts and on-the-ground organizers, we’ll explore the following questions: What cross-movement strategies can we employ to keep undocumented folks and targeted communities safe? How can we pressure politicians who advance policies that threaten vulnerable residents, including immigrants of color, to work toward those that bring about real sanctuary? And how can we leverage our proximity to Bay Area-based tech surveillance behemoths to demand justice for those most impacted locally and abroad?
*Cosponsored by UC Berkeley’s American Cultures Engaged Scholarship Program, Housing Rights Committee of SF,
Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society and the Arts and Design Initiative
Want to get involved with SURJ Bay Area? Come learn about our current work and activities. SURJ moves white people to act for justice, with passion and accountability, as part of a multi-racial majority.
Featured Speaker: Sandra Johnson a Community Organizer for All of Us or None, a grassroots civil rights organization fighting for the rights of formerly- and currently-incarcerated people and their families, and a project of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.
Parking and Transportation:
The closest BART station is 19th Street BART and the Sierra Club is 4 blocks from BART. If you come by Bart, head north on Broadway and then east (right) on 21st Street and left on Webster to the Building entrance. There will be a greeter in the lobby until 7:15, but please arrive by 6:45 to check-in and get settled so we can begin promptly at 7 pm.
Tomorrow the Re-Entry Council will consider taking a position in opposition to gang injunctions. We need a large show of support to let them know how critical this issue is, and move them to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, NO MORE GANG INJUNCTIONS!
The city attorney and police have used this out-dated tool of repression for years, and have never demonstrated its use in establishing public safety. On the contrary, gang injunctions push African American and Latino families out of SF and dismantle entire neighborhoods. Gang injunctions are actually a tool for police to racially profile and harass us in our own neighborhoods, putting the safety of people of color in jeopardy and making it impossible for us to stay in our homes.
Officials in San Francisco have been in the business of making racial profiling and other forms of police harassment sanctioned public policy for too long, and we’re going to stop them! Dennis Herrera is feeling the pressure. On Monday Herrera issued a press release after finally conducting the first known review of the injunctions, reviews that should have been conducted every 3 years since 2006 according to his own policy. In the press release he makes outrageous claims, stating that the injunctions are not stay away orders, and “They do not restrict anyone, including enjoined gang members, from living, working, going to school, or otherwise being present in the safety zones.” This is an outright lie. We know that the persons named have been harassed and arrested for being at their work sites, for picking up or dropping off their children at school, visiting family members; if you can’t conduct functions necessary for living a normal life in your neighborhood then one’s neighborhood is unlivable. In short the injunctions are meant to drive those named, and by necessity their families out. SHAME ON YOU DENNIS HERRERA!
Upcoming: Save the date, June 13th at 4pm the BOS Public Safety & Neighborhood Services committee will hold a hearing on the injunctions at City Hall room 263.
Join the ACLU as we facilitate a free film screening and discussion on money bail and what we can do to replace this broken system in California.Are you aware that Black people, Latinos, and Native Americans are twice as likely to be locked in jail because they can’t afford bail? The U.S. money bail system is largely to blame for over-crowded jails across the nation. 70 percent of people are incarcerated for one simple reason: being too poor.
Unscrupulous bail bond contracts allow private corporations to make exorbitant profits off of people living in poverty. While the rich can buy their freedom, everyone else can have months, and even years of their lives taken away from them without ever being convicted of a crime. The consequences are devastating. People can end up losing their jobs, homes, and even custody of their children.
This isn’t justice. Race or socio-economic status should not determine someone’s freedom.
Come and see “The Bail Trap: How We Keep People of Color in the System” with us. California needs bail reform now.
Tickets? Registration is requested.
From its inception, the Oakland Police Commission has been incredibly problematic. One of the most egregious elements is that it allows the Mayor to directly appoint three people to the commission with no vetting.
NOW – the Commission is dragging its feet to comply with community demands that the Chair of the commission, Thomas Lloyd Smith, who was directly appointed by Libby Schaaf, undergo an investigative process related to inappropriate actions he has taken as the Chair:
– On March 11, the night of the most recent police shooting in Oakland, Mr. Smith showed complete disregard for the community by getting on the media and parroting the police narrative of that shooting without any investigation having happened.
– Mr. Smith was not supposed to be at the scene in the first place. His mere presence at the scene violated the very procedures he was trained in and prevents him from later engaging in disciplinary procedures.
– Mr. Smith falsely claimed that the meetings needed to move from Wednesday to Thursday’s because that was the only day KTOP could broadcast in an effort to exclude a member of the commission who has been publicly critical of his behavior.
– There are multiple concerns about the actions of Mr. Smith, both on the dais and behind the scenes. These have been brought to him both from the community in public forum and privately, and as well have been expressed to him by several commissioners- mostly women. He remains unwilling to acknowledge or respond to these concerns.
Not only has his actions demonstrated a necessity for careful scrutiny of the behaviors of commissioners, but before this commission was even formed we knew it was compromised by the placement of Mayoral appointees without a clear transparent process for the skills, and characteristics of who the mayor would send to be on this commission. We knew this before the commission even began, but as a Mayoral appointee, he has simply proven our point.
We continue to maintain that all commissioners should be appointed by the community to represent the community, and should be always evaluated by and held accountable by the community. You cannot replicate the systems of oppression that exist within the police department by hiding facts, being dishonest and avoiding accountability.
Join APTP to demand an investigative process for Mr. Smith to be accountable for his actions.
ROAR will be a space to gather, build, and learn from each other’s struggles and continue to build an anti-racist front in the Bay Area and beyond. During these times more and more attention is being paid to those of us who use direct action and hold liberatory and revolutionary politics. We can use this moment not only to inspire others through our actions, but to also inspire with our ideas. To draw a line not just against this or that politician, or this or that alt-right figure, but to construct revolutionary positions such as returning land to the indigenous, centering black folks and their perspectives, community self defense, taking care of one another, putting women and gender non conforming people to the front, obliterating borders, opening prison doors, and gaining our freedom from the state, capitalism, and all the other damning institutions.
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Anti-Facism Movement
Anti-Patriarchy, Transphobia + Homophobia Anti-Racism in Education Black + Brown Resistance Black Liberation/Black Power Community self-defense Crisis Relief Alternative Models/Disaster Solidarity History Lessons from Movements past Indigenous Struggles |
Intersections of racism and disability
Muslim struggles Political Prisoners Policing Prison Abolitionist Radical Self-Care Undocumented + Immigrant struggles Youth Liberation Queer Liberation & Legacy |
You may be aware that there is a rise in overdoses due to fentanyl (fueled by the War on Drugs). Narcan (naloxone) administration is one successful method to reverse overdose. Walgreens and CVS have recently been authorized to sell Narcan over the counter, and we would like to share this life-saving information. This training will teach you how to administer naloxone to someone who has overdosed. Please join us in building tangible skills for preparedness and increasing mutual care in our communities.
2018 will be the year California gives serious attention to legislation, that provides a real path to Universal Healthcare in the State. If you’ve ever wondered about the intricacies of our current healthcare system, and the historic progress in California under the ACA; or policy options that can successfully move California toward Universal Healthcare, then you’ll want to attend the IB Healthcare Team’s Forum coming up on Saturday, April 28th from 11 to 3, in Berkeley (lunch provided). Save the Date!
The forum will feature two expert speakers from UC Berkeley; Robin Flagg, PhD, MPH, and Ken Jacobs,Chair, Center for labor Research and Education.You’ll come away from this informative session with a greater understanding of how the system works, proposed policy changes, and possible directions for action. Please save the date, Sunday April 28th. This event is free.
For additional details on the forum, please contact Steve Lehman at:
Speaker Bios:
Robin Flagg, PhD, MPH, is a lecturer at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, and at the Haas School of Business. Her research interests include: State health care politics, expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, and health care and the aging population. Flagg is a recipient of the School of Public Health’s Committee on Teaching Excellence Award.
Ken Jacobs is the chair of the Labor Center, where he has been a labor specialist since 2002. His areas of specialization include low-wage work, labor standards policies, and health care coverage. Jacobs leads a multi-campus program providing research and technical assistance to consumer stakeholders and policy makers on the effects of the Affordable Care Act, and measures to cover the remaining uninsured in California. Along with colleagues at UC Berkeley and UCLA, he is consulting for Covered California on issues related to ACA implementation. During 2017-18 he has served as a panelist at informational hearings of the California Assembly Select Committee on Health Care Delivery Systems and Universal Coverage. His work has been covered in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Public Radio.
This family-friendly festival is free to all and will offer free health screenings, interactive fitness workshops, live music, free healthy lunches, garden workshops, free children’s face painting and activities, vendors, info on alternative health options and more.
Ona Zene Yeshitela, coordinator of Uhuru Health Fairs & Festivals nationally, asserted that
“The dire state of health faced by African families in Oakland is well known and well documented.” Reports by the Alameda County Department of Health show grave disparities in life expectancy, maternal health, infant mortality, chronic disease, medical care access and overall health and well being. Some of these statistics include:
A person of African descent born in East or West Oakland can expect to die almost 15 years earlier than a white person born in the Oakland hills.
The rates of Asthma for African-American children is 2.5 times higher than the overall rate in the county.
Diabetes in Alameda County is at 13% for African-Americans compared to 5% for caucasians.
High blood pressure is 48% for African-Americans, 28% for caucasians.
According to Yeshitela, the long term goal of the health festivals is African self-reliance. The Uhuru Health Festival is harnessing the vast resources of the Bay Area, putting these crucially needed resources in the hands of our under resourced African community. And we are inviting people from all walks of life to participate and contribute.
To get volunteer or support the Uhuru Health Festival and for more information, contact 510-763-3342 ext. x5 or email oakland [at] uhuruvolunteer.org
The African People’s Education and Defense Fund is a national 501c3 nonprofit whose mission is to defend the civil and human rights of the African community. APEDF builds programs and institutions that are addressing the grave disparities faced by the African community in health, healthcare, education and economic development. Apedf.org
Black Star Industries is building economic development and commerce for and between African people worldwide. http://uhurupies.org/about/story.php?store=stpete
And in #Oakland join us on Saturday, April 28, 12 pm at Oscar Grant Plaza, 14th & Broadway to #FreeMumiaApr30 https://t.co/HEUk25pLS0
— Terri Kay (@TKOakWWP) March 29, 2018
Join us as we pick up the work of the 2018 campaign. We will vote on endorsements in District 2 and for Alameda County District Attorney and begin to plan for the summer’s activities. Draft Agenda includes:
1) Endorsements:
- Presentation of Pamela Price for Alameda County District Attorney
- Present Nikki Fortunato Bas for District 2 Oakland City Council
2) Our Revolution Reportback
3) Discussion and Planning for May General Meeting with BBQ
4) Announcements and other Event Information
May 26, Time TBA. Our General Meeting will be combined with a Memorial Day Weekend BBQ and Fundraiser. Let your friends and family know!!
Dolores Huerta is among the most important, yet least known, activists in American history. An equal partner in co-founding the first farm workers union with César Chávez, her enormous contributions have gone largely unrecognized. Dolores tirelessly led the fight for racial and labor justice alongside Chávez, becoming one of the most defiant feminists of the 20th century – and she continues the fight to this day, at 87. With intimate and unprecedented access to this intensely private mother to eleven, the film reveals the raw, personal stakes involved in committing one’s life to social change.
Opening Remarks by Jesse Arreguín – Mayor of Berkeley
Film Followed by Discussion Panel: Farm Labor Organizing in 2018
Facilitated by Felipe Ocampo – Ecology Center’s Berkeley Farmers’ Markets
Panelist from Swanton Berry Farms – UFW Certified and member of our Berkeley Farmer’s Markets
A radical movement is tightening its grip across America. The collateral damage? WOMEN. @BirthrightFilm is a must-see → https://t.co/d6ixdbGXDP pic.twitter.com/WN1JFcTBFV
— ACLU of Northern CA (@ACLU_NorCal) April 19, 2018
Please come to our Inequality Seminar on Sunday, 4/29 at 11:00 AM at the OMNI!
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.
- Presenting debt and inequality related topics at forums, workshops and in radio productions.
Our next seminar/workshop will be on April 29th. Check it out and make sure to come! - Promoting single-payer / Medicare for All to end the plague of medical debt
- money bail reform and fighting modern day debtors’ prisons and exploitative ticketing and fining schemes
- Tiny Homes and other solutions for the homeless.
- Student debt resistance. Check out the Debt Collective, our sister organization
- helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
- Working on debarring US Banks that have been convicted of felonies from municipal contracts, and divesting from the Wall St. banks
- Promoting the concept of Basic Income
- Advocating for Postal banking
- Organizing for public banking in Oakland! We made the first steps happen… now there’s a spinoff group
- Bring your own debt-related project!
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 – Principles of Solidarity
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.
Remember that chant “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie?
There’s a new one now: “Nina, Nina, Nina”!
Nina Turner, President of Our Revolution, is coming to the East Bay to help us send to Sacramento and the Alameda County DA seat three corporate-free, people powered WOMEN.
No one is more eloquent than Nina Turner, President of Our Revolution. Her grandma told her about three bones in the body (Ask her!) — she’s got all three!
Nina Turner brings a powerful message to the Bay Area Saturday, April 28th at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School from 6pm-8pm.
Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign was attacked as mostly “Bernie Bros” – young men operating on social media. Never true. Here are the new “Bernie Bros” four WOMEN, dynamic, experienced, and out to help us take back our government!
No one is a more determined and successful champion of all kinds of voters than Jovanka Beckles, Richmond City Council person, now Assembly District 15 candidate.
Gayle McLaughlin has been leading Richmond and the East Bay for years. Now she’s going (for us) for Lieutenant Governor.
https://gayleforcalifornia.org/
Pamela Price promises to be an innovative, corruption-free Alameda County District Attorney, and she and Jovanka have endorsed each others’ corporate-free agendas.
These four women are people-people. They listen carefully. They craft solutions creatively. They fight resolutely for all of us who want corporate money out of politics, who want medicare for all now, who want the broken justice system fixed.
Come, celebrate and support four women who are fighting for us! Buy tickets here. http://www.jovanka.org/our_revolution_s_people_powered_women