Information, discussion, community! Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
Historical context, response, and vision for the future
On July 13, Sandra Bland became the latest casualty in the war on black lives and bodies. Pulled over for the minor infraction of changing lanes without signaling, Sandra Bland was brutalized, arrested, and three days later found dead in her Texas jail cell. Her arrest and death has sparked national outcry for answers after police reported that Bland committed suicide.
OccupyForum will bring together activists working to address the racism and brutality that continues to tear apart our society. We will hear from Open Circle and the Idriss Stelley Foundation (including Mesha Irizarry), ground zero for families who have suffered a death at the hands of police; The Anti-Police Terror Project committed to ending state sanctioned murder of Black, Brown & Poor People; and CODEPINK which helped amplify the voices of mothers who have lost their children to police brutality. We will also have a representative from the Oscar Grant Committee in Oakland and a historians to situate state/police repression in America.� We will be attempting to contextualize the Sandra Bland case, and talk about the vision ahead to move from protest to the broadest movement to stop the murder of African Americans on the systemic level.
Mesha Irizarry: (whose son was killed in 2002 by police) Idriss Stelly Foundation
Antoinette Gaggero: Open Circle: Addresssing Police Terror and Systemic Oppression
Jeremy Miller: Idriss Stelly Foundation
Dr. James Garrett, Historian
Nancy Mancias: CODEPINK
Cat Brooks: Anti-Police Terror Project
Francis (Civil Rights Singer)
Facilitated by: Gerald Smith, Black history scholar, longtime member of the Black Panther Party, and the Oscar Grant Committee (Investigating Cases of Police Brutality)
LINKS:
Anti Police Terror Project Cat Brooks: https://vimeo.com/124791337
http://www.bet.com/news/national/photos/2015/07/everything-you-need-to-know-about-sandra-bland.html#!072115-national-Sandra-Bland-prison-death-case-2
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/22/what-cops-are-saying-about-the-sandra-bland-video/ (this has a video of the arrest)
http://yourblackworld.net/2015/07/21/third-woman-who-police-claim-committed–suicide-while-in-police-custody/
https://localwiki.org/oakland/Oscar_Grant
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/23/us/sandra-bland-arrest-death-main/index.html
ON TWITTER: #sandyspeaks, #sandystillspeaks, #sandrabland, #sandrablandmurder, #sayhername