Tag: Oakland Riders

The Constitution guarantees every American the right to a fair trial and to face his or her accusers. This right has been denied to African Americans, who make up a larger and larger part of the prison population under America’s “New Jim Crow.” In the case of Kerry Baxter Sr., the California Superior Court system here in Alameda County blatantly ignored his rights.

OPD held a town hall meeting May 23 at Acts Full Gospel Church to try and calm down residents angry about the murder of Alan Blueford. As Chief Howard Jordan rattled off lie after lie, folks turned their backs to him. The church could not contain the outrage. The argument moved outside into the bright sunlight, where the police shuffled, anxious, like so many cave dwellers. Compare the response in Hunters Point when San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr attempted to hold a townhall on July 20, 2011, four days after police murdered Kenneth Harding, 19. See the videos.

Most people of color know that the cops, and police departments as institutions, historically represent the street enforcement arm of white American racism. Indeed, the police were born out of the white slave patrols.

In October 2007, the Justice Department reported that during the three years from 2003 through 2005 police in the U.S. killed, on average, a person every day.

"Those policies of either marginalizing or outright demonizing of the city's dark-skinned youth lie buried under Oakland like so many kegs of explosive, primed to blow," writes J. Douglas Allen-Taylor. Hear audios from the last Town Bizness Townhall. PACK COURTROOM 112 MONDAY, Feb. 23, 9am, 661 Washington, Oakland, to support POCC Minister of Information JR, liberation journalist charged with a bogus felony in the Oakland Rebellions.

Jan. 23 the movement for justice for Oscar Grant III kicked into high gear at the Prisoners of Conscience Committee's Town Bizness Town Hall Meeting. Follow up by packing the courtroom at Johannes Mehserle's bail hearing Friday, Jan. 30, 2 p.m., at 1225 Fallon St., Oakland. Don't let the cops outnumber us.