Calendar
EBC will host a mail night at our office to respond to the increasing amount of correspondence we’ve been receiving from people in prisons and jails across the country. We are getting lots of questions about prior ballot initiatives including Prop 47 and 57, advocacy support, requests for pen pals, responses to our Night Out for Safety and Liberation letter drive and EBC’s work at large.
Please RSVP to emily@ellabakercenter.org
American Friends Service Committee, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Episcopal Peace Fellowship, and San Francisco Friends Meeting and suppporters observed the occasion with their weekly 12-1pm vigil rain or shine every Thursday at 450 Golden Gate, the Federal Building.
Why We Vigil
For five years we have stood on this corner every Thursday from noon to 1:00. We come because we believe that what our government is doing is wrong. The so-called war on terror is a disaster, doing more to stimulate the growth of terrorism around the world than to keep our country safe.
We believe justice is the way to a terror-free world. We urge the United States to devote our resources to things that help humanity. Rather than investing in armaments, destruction and death, this country should be working to see that nobody in the world is starving or without shelter, clothing, education and medical care.
We say: Stop the war
Stop the torture
Bring the troops home now
Defend civil liberties
PRACTICE NONVIOLENCE
We believe in the American dream. We believe that the only way to live the American dream is with nonviolence. Please join us to stand against all war and to pray for all victims of war.
Please stand with us.
We have stood on this corner every Thursday since October 2001. We come to say NO to war and to speak up for nonviolence. All in agreement are invited to vigil with us.
This vigil was started by two Quaker groups–American Friends Service Committee and San Francisco Friends Meeting. They have been joined by Buddhist Peace Fellowship and Episcopal Peace Fellowship. Participants come from a range of backgrounds. Some of us are silent, praying or meditating. Others do not keep silence and are happy to speak with you.
Please vigil with us every Thursday.
Contact information: American Friends Service Committee
65 Ninth St., San Francisco, CA 94103
415 565-0201
www.afsc.org/
Buddhist Peace Fellowship
P.O. Box 3470, Berkeley, CA 94703
www.bpf.org/
Episcopal Peace Fellowship
415 824-0288
http://www.episcopalpeacefellowship.org/
San Francisco Friends Meeting
65 Ninth St., San Francisco, CA 94103
415 431-7440
Welcome to San Francisco Friends Meeting
To contact the vigil:
We hope you’ll join us. We’ll use the occasion to look at the state of human rights in Berkeley and beyond. We will commemorate the generations of movements that we have supported and learned from. But our main focus is to look ahead. We’ll discuss the importance of having a peace and justice commission in the 21st century, and how we can together transform the city and its government to put human rights first.
We are proud of our expansive mandate to act on all issues of social justice. We will highlight the commissions’ accomplishments and challenges the city faces in areas such as:
* Racial justice
* Women’s and girls’ rights
* Nuclear weaponry
* Socially responsible investing, banking, and procurement
* Militarization and peace
* Public education
* Indigenous rights in Berkeley
* International solidarity and the Pacific Rim
* National security state and police accountability
Doors open at 7pm, Screening starts at 7:30pm.
FREE! Donations of any size benefit the Haiti Action Committee & La Peña Cultural Center!
As white supremacy is increasingly coming out of the shadows in this country, it is important we confront racism in our native Latin American and Caribbean countries.
Black in Latin America is an award-winning documentary series where Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. travels to 6 different nations in Latin America and the Caribbean to explore how each nation’s history with colonialism and slavery directly impacts the ways black people in those countries experience discrimination and instituional racism today.
Join us at La Peña Cultural Center on Thursday, Sept. 14 as we screen Episode 1 in the Black in Latin America series “Haiti & the Dominican Republic: An Island Divided”, followed by a community discussion with special guest Pierre Labossiere, founding member of the Haiti Action Committee.
In the Dominican Republic, Professor Gates explores how race has been socially constructed in a society whose people reflect centuries of inter-marriage, and how the country’s troubled history with Haiti informs notions about racial classification. In Haiti, Professor Gates tells the story of the birth of the first-ever black republic, and finds out how the slaves’s hard fought liberation over Napoleon Bonaparte’s French Empire became a double-edged sword.
ABOUT OUR SPECIAL GUEST, PIERRE LABOSSIERE:
Mr. Labossiere was born in Haiti and has been active in the struggle for justice since his teen years. In addition to his work at the Haiti Action Committee, he is also a Board member of Global Exchange, the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund and Ecumenical Peace Institute. The Haiti Action Committee, based in the Bay Area, is a network of activists who have supported the Haitian struggle for democracy since 1991. Members foster extensive contacts with the grassroots movement in Haiti and work to promote international solidarity.
ALL BLACK IN LATIN AMERICA SCREENINGS & DISCUSSIONS Doors open at 7pm, Films start at 7:30pm
Sept. 14 – Haiti & the Dominican Republic: An Island Divided
Sept. 21 – Cuba: The Next Revolution in Cuba
Sept. 28 – Brazil: A Racial Paradise?
Oct. 5 – Mexico & Peru: The Black Grandma in the Closet
Community Ready Corps (CRC) is organizing to protect Black spaces & communities from racist intimidation, harassment, and violence, and to provide security & self defense trainings.
Emboldened by the election of Donald Trump, White Nationalists with genocidal aspirations against Black people, Muslims and Immigrants are organizing in the Bay Area.
Who are the organizations and individuals making up the “Alt-Right”? Where did they come from? What do they believe? How has their movement picked up so much steam?
Join CRC and CRC(Allies & Accomplices) for a community teach-in about the Alt-Right and how you can participate in resistance their White Nationalist agenda.
The Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair is an annual event that brings together people interested and engaged in radical work to connect, learn, and discuss through books and information tables, workshops, panel discussions, skillshares, films, and more! We seek to create an inclusive space to introduce new folks to anarchism, foster a productive dialogue between various political traditions as well as anarchists from different milieus, and create an opportunity to dissect our movements’ strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and tactics.
Join us, rain or shine, as we show up for Kayla Moore!
Kayla Moore, a Black trans woman with a mental health diagnosis, was killed by Berkeley police in 2013. Four years later, her family and community are still working to hold the City of Berkeley and Berkeley police accountable with a civil suit. Demands also include that police not be first responders to mental health emergencies and an end the BPD’s violent attacks, criminalization, and profiling of people who are Black, Brown, disabled and/or trans.
This “Human Billboard” will lift up Kayla’s story and the Justice for Kayla Moore Coalition’s call to come out for court support October 23rd. We will also make visible our support for the Movement for Black Lives and communities targeted by Trump. These gatherings, held throughout the East Bay and nationally, are a simple yet effective way of channeling anger and sadness over injustice into collective action and solidarity.
For those of us who are white, it’s a way to express a unified voice in opposition to the white nationalist, transphobic, sexist politics that Trump and his followers represent, and to commit to ending white silence and visibly supporting racial justice.
For all of us, it’s a concrete way to put our heart and soul into action. It’s being in community with each other, to share with like-minded people a belief that a loving, humane, compassionate world is possible, and to take a small step towards making that happen.
If you’ve been wanting to get more involved, this event is a great way to take action, meet people and gain further connections in the community we’re building. Bring flowers for an altar. Bring friends, family and neighbors. Bring a sign – here are some ideas for messaging:
- Justice for Kayla Moore!
- #SayHerName: Kayla Moore
- Will you show up for racial justice?
- Will you show up against police terror?
- Black Lives Matter!
- Black Trans Lives Matter!
- Solidarity with Black and POC Trans Women!
- End Displacement of Black and Brown communities!
- Solidarity with Queer and Trans People of Color!
Follow the Justice for Kayla Moore coalition website and Facebook page for more information on Kayla’s story and court support in October.
At this legal clinic, people will have the opportunity to reduce or clear their felony convictions and get a free copy of their RAP sheets. Attendees will learn how we can help to remove barriers to vital programs and services. Spanish interpreters will be present and there will be free food! We are seeking volunteers to support the legal clinic. if you are available, contact: tash@ellabakercenter.org.
The Left is coming together in the wake of the chaotic Trump administration. Bernie Sanders brought a mass movement together through his campaign, and we’ve seen some of the largest protests in US history, just in 2017 so far. Although the Democratic Party establishment has made some overtures to this movement through the “better deal” program, they refuse to take concrete steps to prove any motion towards the Left, like rejecting corporate money or embracing single-payer healthcare.
So how do we take the movement forward? Socialists and the Left can lead the way. The Republicans may control the federal government, but we can establish footholds in cities or even states, all over the country, and build progressive strongholds. Trump is trying to attack the working class and lower our living standards so he can enrich his billionaire friends.
However, we can Trump-proof the Bay Area by building local, working-class power, and winning concrete gains. We can start by taxing the rich, building affordable housing, ending homelessness, establishing REAL sanctuary cities, winning single-payer universal healthcare, and stopping police brutality. We can win all this and more by electing independents and socialists to local office who reject corporate money – and through unified action based on a movement of the working-class and oppressed people.
Socialist Alternative Bay Area and the San Francisco chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America are hosting this event to bring the left together and Trump-proof the Bay Area.
Featuring
- Kshama Sawant: The socialist Seattle city councilmember and member of Socialist Alternative
- Gayle McLaughlin: Former Green party mayor of Richmond and current independent and corporate-free candidate for the Lieutenant Governor’s race
- Jeremy Gong: Member of the DSA National Political Committee and the East Bay DSA
FEED THE HOOD If you’ve been wondering how you can help people who are currently living on the streets, here’s a community event worth adding to your schedule — Feed the Hood. Community group East Oakland Collective (EOC) and nonprofit Struggle 2 Bubble Foundation are joining forces to host this event, where participants will assemble and distribute bagged lunches and hygiene bags to people living in homeless encampments throughout Oakland. The group is asking those who’d like to participate to either donate food items (e.g. loaves of bread, lunch meat, juice boxes, cases of water) or personal care products (e.g. socks, feminine hygiene products, travel-size bottles of lotion or mouth wash), or make a monetary donation so that food and supplies can be purchased. RSVP at http://bit.ly/feedthehood2. Feed the Hood takes place at 7:30 a.m. on Sept. 17 at San Antonio Park, 1701 E. 19th St. (at 17th Ave.), Oakland.
The East Bay-San Francisco Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom is honored to have Maxine Hong Kingston, celebrated author and professor of creative writing at UC Berkeley, in the last of our Peace Talks series. She will reflect on her life, her writing and creativity; on immigration, war, peace, and activism in conversation with Kate Raphael, author and producer of KPFA’s Women’s Magazine. The event is free, all are welcome, wheelchair accessible, refreshments.
Kingston’s first book, a memoir entitled The Woman Warrior, was published in 1976 and won the National Book Critic’s Circle Award, making her a literary celebrity at age thirty-six. Her second book, China Men, earned the National Book Award. Both books are still widely taught in literature and other classes. Kingston has earned additional awards, including the PEN West Award for Fiction for Tripmaster Monkey, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and the National Humanities Medal, which was conferred by President Clinton. Her most recent books are The Fifth Book of Peace and I Love a Broad Margin to My Life. Kingston is currently Senior Lecturer Emerita for Creative Writing at the University of California, Berkeley. In July 2014, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama.
The Peace Talks Speaker Series is a presentation of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, East Bay and San Francisco branches.
In July Governor Jerry Brown and representatives of the oil industry crafted a bill to renew California’s greenhouse gas cap and trade program. The governor then rammed the bill through the legislature in less than two weeks. In this forum, oil industry experts and activists in the climate and environmental justice movement will explain what cap and trade has (not) accomplished, what the new law will do, and how it passed so quickly. And we’ll talk about future strategies for stopping the fossil fuel industry from poisoning communities, increasing climate catastrophe, and corrupting our politics.
Speakers:
Roger Lin, Center for Race, Poverty, and the Environment
Danny Cullenward, Stanford School of Earth, Energy, Environmental Sciences
Amy Vanderwarker, California Environmental Justice Alliance
RL Miller, California Democratic Party Environmental Caucus
Janet Stromberg, 350 Bay Area
Representatives from the Asian Pacific Environmental Network and the California Nurses Association
More information at http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/the-cap-and-trade-scam-sept-17/
OccupyForum presents
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
OccupyForum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR):
Immigration, discrimination, travel issues, challenging Islamophobia, ICE, and our role in putting a stop to the immigration bans.
The San Francisco Bay Area chapter is the oldest CAIR chapter in the country. Back in 1994, a group of dedicated volunteers in the Bay Area saw a need for a unique kind of Muslim organization – an organization that would work to uphold civil rights of Americaan Muslims, foster a better understanding of the Islamic faith and its followers, and help find avenues for Muslims to integrate more fully into the broader society.
Nearly 20 years later, the chapter has grown tremendously, deepening its base in the Bay Area Muslim community, serving the area’s nearly 250,000 Muslims residing in the nine Bay Area counties. CAIR-SFBA has, moreover, become a household name among local Muslims, and a reliable resource and partner for media, public officials and policymakers, advocacy groups, and the interfaith and progressive communities. Our Mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.
Civil rights advocacy remains at the center of CAIR’s work. CAIR has served more than 25,000 victims of discrimination since its founding. Our California offices receive a total of approximately 800 inquiries a year and work to resolve them through mediation, negotiation, public pressure or, if necessary, through legal action. Our services are provided free of charge to the community.
Through various programs, CAIR facilitates opportunities to engage with government bodies, to influence public policy by meeting with elected officials, and to advocate for legislation that aims to preserve civil liberties and promote social justice. CAIR seeks to educate American Muslims about their rights so that they may fully engage in all aspects of civic life. CAIR also works with allied organizations representing other communities in order to build coalitions that foster justice and mutual understanding.
Come to OccupyForum to learn about CAIR’s work, and ways you can support the Muslim Community during this time of extreme duress.
Time will be allotted for discussion and announcements
(All procedes tonight donated to CAIR)
– http://ca.cair.com/sfba/ – http://ca.cair.com/sfba/what-we-do/challenge-islamophobia/
Longtime UC Berkeley sociology professor Arlie Russell Hochschild has centered her work on understanding how those in the majority culture discuss and perceive minority groups. She spent five years in the area around Lake Charles, La., studying the mindset of Tea Party members and exploring the contrast between the population’s disdain for government and their apparent need of its resources. Her findings were chronicled in 2016’s Strangers in Their Own Land, which was a National Book Award finalist.
On Monday, Hochschild — in conversation with actor Benjamin Russell — will discuss how theater can allow individuals to overcome an “empathy wall” and grasp the “deep story” and experiences of the other. Part of Arts + Design Mondays, which is presented and sponsored by Berkeley Arts + Design and hosted at BAMPFA, the event will consider how these stories can lead to cooperative partnerships.
Critical Oakland city council vote: what you can do
Oakland city council is planning to vote this Tuesday, September 19th, 2017, on authorizing the Oakland public bank feasibility study. Here are two ways you can help ensure we get the five votes on Tuesday:
First, call and urge your councilmember to authorize the public bank feasibility study. You can speak with a staffer or leave a voicemail. Here’s a suggested script:
Hi, my name is ________ and I am a constituent of councilmember _______. I wanted to let my councilmember know that I strongly support the public bank feasibility study. Please vote yes on the public bank feasibility study authorization on September 19th.
Councilmember phone numbers:
District 1: Dan Kalb (510) 238-7001
District 2: Abel Guillén (510) 238-7002
District 3: Lynette Gibson McElhaney (510) 238-7245
District 4: Annie Campbell Washington (510) 238-7004
District 5: Noel Gallo 510-238-7005
District 6: Desley Brooks 510-238-7006
District 7: Larry Reid 510-238-7007
Councilmember at-large: Rebecca Kaplan 510-238-7008
To find out which district you live in, go here and type in your address.
Second, attend the council meeting.
Date: Tuesday, September 19th, 2017
Time: 5:30pm
Location: 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza
Room: City Council Chamber, third floor
The Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland will be out in full force at the council meeting. Please find us in our bright green shirts; we’ll have signs for you to hold up. We will also have t-shirts available for sale.
Learn more about public banking:
upcoming panel discussion at city hall
Want to learn more about public banking and how it can speed the development of local renewable energy and bring jobs to Alameda County? Come to a free panel discussion!
Date: Monday, September 25th, 2017
Time: 7-9pm
Location: 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza
Room: City Council Chamber, third floor
Pennie Opal Plant of Idle No More will open the evening with an invocation.
The panel will include:
� Wolfram Morales, Chief Economist for Spaarkasse, the association of local public banks in Germany
� Nicolas Chaset, CEO of East Bay Communitty Energy, Alameda County’s soon-to-launch Community Choice energy program
� Greg Rosen, founder and principal of Higgh Noon Advisors, currently working on a local community-shared solar project
� Jessica Tovar, an organizer with East Baay Clean Power Alliance.
The SFPD will be holding a community meeting regarding Tasers. Meet at city cafe in the student union building.
Once again SFPD is trying to further arm their officers with more tools to use against the people. The Police Commission will be holding two community meetings before it will come to a vote(the date of the vote has not been determined).
It is vital that we turn out our people to these community meetings and make our voices heard, NO TASERS IN SF!!! We have beaten this before by turning out as many folks as possible!!!
RSVP and more info
Join Climate Workers for a special Labor Screening of “The North Pole,” a new comedic web series from Movement Generation, followed by a conversation with the show’s Executive Producer Josh Healey and a panel of union workers/organizers on labor’s role in combating climate change and defending our homes – from our neighborhoods to our planet.
“The North Pole is a political comedy web series about three best friends born and raised in North Oakland, CA, who struggle to stay rooted as their neighborhood becomes a hostile environment. Across seven outrageous episodes, Nina, Marcus, and Benny fight, dream, and plot hilarious schemes to save the place they call home. Facing both gentrification and global warming, they combat evil landlords, crazy geoengineering plots, and ultimately each other. Cameos by W. Kamau Bell, Mistah Fab, Boots Riley, and Ericka Huggins.”
A Presentation by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
The Alternative Right, commonly known as the Alt-Right, is a set of far-right ideologies, groups and individuals whose core belief is that “white identity” is under attack by multicultural forces using “political correctness” and “social justice” to undermine white people and “their” civilization.
A Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) expert on hate and extremism will share information on an orchestrated campaign by white nationalists to make college campuses their battleground. The battle is not over free speech or political conservatism. Come learn about what they’re pushing, why they’re obsessed with UC Berkeley and how we can effectively resist.
Speaker Bio
Ryan Lenz is the Senior Investigative Writer for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project and editor of its Hatewatch blog. Before joining the SPLC in 2010, Lenz was a regional reporter for the Associated Press and an Iraq war correspondent for the wire service from 2005 to 2008. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
The SPLC is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. SPLC is headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama and have of offices in Atlanta, Miami, Tallahassee, Jackson, Mississippi and New Orleans.
https://www.splcenter.org/
http://
http://www.cnn.com/2017/
Come show your solidarity with the Black community of St. Louis. The cops are out of control, arresting over 80 people and taking the people’s chant “whose streets, our streets” to claim the streets are theirs.#AnthonyLamarSmith #JasonStockley #StLouis