Tag: Brooke Anderson

Ugly act of classism by City of Oakland, Sausalito, Alameda and Marin counties – crushing boats, sweeping tents, dumping possessions, creating violence and dehumanization on poor and vulnerable members of our communities.

In crimes against humanity, politriksters and crapitalism execute evictions, sweeps, removals and disposals in the project of gentrification that are violent, traumatic and deadly on the increasing number of houseless people.

It is a collective wound that keeps being opened by the racist killing machine of the police departments in our communities of Black and Brown people. We can stop the bleeding by standing up in our collective outrage for Grandma Addie’s Steven Taylor, and every new injustice and pain perpetrated upon another family in our community.

“Steven was a 33-year-old San Leandro resident. At the time of the incident with police, Steven was struggling with homelessness and mental health. He was experiencing a mental health crisis in Walmart when the police were called, when Steven Taylor was murdered on April 18 inside Walmart, at 15555 Hesperian Blvd in San Leandro.”

Fourteen arrests at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s mansion in Fair Oaks, outside Sacramento, where protestors, organized as the California Liberation Collective, continue to demand the governor use his power to end COVID-19 deaths and suffering in the prisons and detention centers. No more testing the water – swim the river.

On March 27, the San Francisco Bay Area’s Stop Urban Shield Coalition claimed victory in its four-year battle to stop Urban Shield, a war games and weapons convention for cops held in Alameda County every year since 2007. I spoke to Tracy Rosenberg, executive director of Media Alliance and co-facilitator of Oakland Privacy, a citizen’s coalition that works regionally to defend the right to privacy and enhance public transparency and oversight regarding the use of surveillance techniques and equipment. She has worked with the Stop Urban Shield Coalition since 2014.

On Nov. 21, 150 Oakland youth, clean air activists, workers and labor leaders announced a boycott on Phil Tagami’s Rotunda Building in response to Tagami’s lawsuit against the City of Oakland. Tagami is suing to overturn the popular ban on the handling and storing of coal, so that he can continue with his controversial plan to ship coal through the Oakland Army Base. Oakland communities are responding to Tagami’s attempt to force dangerous, dirty coal dust on the people of Oakland by asking local businesses and organizations to boycott the Rotunda Building.

Some 400 people packed a special city council meeting here on June 20 to demand that the city end its “shameful collaboration” with federal police and spy agencies. But the council, while widely hailed as “progressive,” ignored the near-unanimous popular opinion and voted to renew three controversial police programs: participation in a Regional Intelligence Fusion Center, participation in the Urban Areas Security Initiative and acquisition of a bulletproof armored personnel carrier.

On Tuesday, June 20, more than 500 Stop Urban Shield activists became ungovernable at the end of a six-hour Berkeley City Council meeting once it was clear that the Council would not pull the Berkeley police out of Urban Shield 2017. As Mayor Jesse Arreguin and other councilors discussed tepid motions and then began voting, the crowd drowned them out chanting, “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

We find ourselves in a moment with a great deal at stake. Our communities are fighting to define and create sanctuary spaces, while enduring a dangerous presidential administration that has emboldened white supremacist and xenophobic action. The Trump agenda has caused increased harassment, fear and even death. In the movement for abolition of policing, imprisonment, surveillance and the entire prison industrial complex, now is our time to be bold.

As union members gathered in the nation’s capital over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, some of the country’s top labor leaders faced tough questions about how the movement can reconcile its support for racial justice with its embrace of police unions. Over the last year, the AFL-CIO, America’s largest federation of unions, has faced calls from some in its membership to end its affiliation with the International Union of Police Associations.