The 68 Olympics: remembering Peter Norman

LtoR Norman, Smith, Carlos

 I am so lucky to have grown up during the 60’s.  What an incredible decade. The colonial revolutions were driving out direct occupation anyway.  Ten million French workers struck and occupied factories.  The music and art scene was flourishing. The Women’s rights movement was in full swing as was the civil rights movement and the Black Panthers in the US, influencing the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland.

I wouldn’t say I was consciously political but even the blues that I listened to was political as while Big Bill Broonzy or T Bone Walker weren’t known as political figures, if you were black and from the US and sang about life, you sang about politics, racism, injustice, lynchings (Strange Fruit).  On of my favorite singers, Nina Simone, didn’t pull too many punches. I was just a bit juvenile that’s all, but it did sink in.

Like many young working class guys at the time though, I was a bit afraid of the likes of Malcolm X and some aspects of the Panthers, mostly because the media demonized them but I also didn’t understand the whole situation and hadn’t yet been introduced to the political ideas that would have helped me understand more.  Malcolm X didn’t help with some of his comments about white people, putting us all in the same boat. And we should not fail to recognize that Malcolm X was killed when he was moving towards working class unity and socialist ideas, not when he was attacking white people as whites---all the same.

In 1968 at the Mexico Olympics, the two hundred meters gold medal was won by the American Tommie Smith and another American John Carlos won the bronze.  Smith and Carlos were both black.  On the podium with them was the silver medal winner, the Australian Peter Norman.  Smith and Carlos had decided to make a statement at the medal ceremony.  They raised their fists in the air, wore no shoes to protest poverty and beads to protest lynchings. Smith and Carlos paid for their actions with a suspension and removal from the Olympic village. They were vilified by many who said that their actions brought disgrace on the US and they received death threats as well. 

I came to recognize them for the heroic figures they were.  But I remember back then seeing the white guy Norman standing there and I wondered what it must be like for him.  After all, wasn’t this black power salute an attack on all white people? I was sure that the black guys would never have included him in their plans. But they did. It was only recently I found out that Smith and Carlos had discussed their plan with Norman after the race. Norman suggested they wear the black gloves which is why Smith is raising his right fist and Carlos his left.

They asked Norman if he believed in human rights and if he believed in god.  He told them he would stand with them and wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge on his chest in solidarity. It is one of the most powerful scenes of the 20^thcentury, these two guys standing there, fists in the air, heads down and Norman with them. Norman said afterwards, "I believe every man is born equal." 

Smith and Carlos were demonized in the media and suffered racial abuse and name calling on top of their suspension for what they did. Norman’s solidarity cost him his athletic career. He was excluded from the Australian team at the 1972 Olympics despite running qualifying times. The Australian media airbrushed him from history despite being one of 

Smith and Carlos lead pallbearers at Norman's funeral

that country’s greatest athletes. This is how they react to a young man who said afterwards,

“I couldn’t see why a black man wasn’t allowed to drink out of the same water fountain or sit in the same bus or go to the same schools as a white guy. That was just social injustice that I couldn’t do anything about from where I was, but I certainly abhorred it.

Avery Brundage, the IOC chairman attacked these men because he didn’t agree that political statements belonged in the Olympics.  This is the man who was at the 1936 Olympics as the president of the US Olympic Committee and raised no objection to the Nazi salute.

Peter Norman died in 2006 from a heart attack.  He had suffered with depression and alcoholism. Tommie Smith and John Carlos were pallbearers and spoke at the funeral, Carlos told Australian television:

"Peter Norman let me know that regardless of what your ethnic background is it has nothing to do with your principles".

And on his treatment he said:

"I think the pressures that the nation put on him and the disrespect that they showed him, I think it wounded him. "I think he was hurting and I don't think he ever recovered from the hurt that they put upon him. Unnecessarily hurt."

In August 2012, the Australian government which had racial exclusionary laws similar to South Africa’s at the time of the famous salute, finally issued an official apology to Norman and his family who were harassed and persecuted for his actions.

I am sure there are many people that know this already but I didn’t so I felt a need to comment on it.  I have to say as I write about this I feel very emotional about these three people.  What courage they had to do what they did. The civil rights movement and actions like the protest in Mexico halted the most openly brutal racist practices in the US including blatantly racist laws, but the institutionalized racism of the system is still very much with us.

For Norman, it would have been easy to step aside, to avoid the confrontation but he didn't, and there’s no way any of them would not have understood the response that would follow the protest.

As I think about it, all those who are not directly victims of the cause they stand up to defend but know it has to be done no matter the cost, are heroic figures.  The state and its minions have dragged an apology from Manning after years of physical and mental torture, maybe his lawyer said it might knock a few years from his sentence, I don’t know.  But he has nothing to apologize for; neither do Smith, Carlos and Norman.

There’s some good people out there.

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Police murders and militarization of US society a threat to all workers

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

While things have no doubt changed since I lived in Europe over 40 years ago, one stark difference between there and the US is the power and role of the police. Here in the US, they can kill without recourse, this is particularly so when it comes to black folks, and young black men in particular.  Those who regret their lives are disrupted or their baseball game delayed because a freeway is blocked or some unruly people (more often than not white middle class youth) smash some windows, should consider that the racist cop who rained a barrage of racial epithets on Oscar Grant, the young black worker killed by Transit police, was fired due to these protests. 

The cop that shot Oscar Grant in the back as he lay on the ground surrounded by police would never have gone to jail at all had it not been for the street protests. George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the murder of Trayvon martin shows that the courts cannot be relied on to protect black youth.  The courts unfortunately cannot be relied upon to protect the rights of any worker as they are institutions designed to protect and further the interests of capital.

I saw three youngsters on a double decker in London last year getting in to it with two unarmed cops. They were not behaving properly I thought so myself, but the cops also didn’t approach them correctly.  Still, the youngsters gave the cops what for and as they were descending the upper deck for their stop one of them looks at the cops sitting in the back and called them “Baboons”.  The cops up and chased them and the last scene I saw was them giving a stern talking to the kids at the bus stop. I thought to myself, “They deal with cops here in the US like that they could be dead.” They got a bit too close to them and if a cop’s threatened here they can kill you no problem.  The same with the London riots last year.  Had they happened here, there’d be a lot more dead bodies.

You only have to watch US TV to see that we are a very violent society, young children see guns and shootings on TV daily and it’s portrayed in a way that it appears as natural as can be when we know that for a normal person, simply getting in to a tense and heated confrontation with another person is upsetting never mind killing them.

Last week, Reuters reported on the differences between the power of the police in Europe and here in the US.  According to Der Spiegel, the total number of bullets German police used in all of 2011 was 85.  Police in most other industrial countries are trained to avoid shooting with “fatal intent” whereas here in the US, “lethal force” is more often than not the norm. Of those 85 bullets fired by German cops in 2011, “…49 were warnings shots, 36 were aimed at criminal suspects, 15 people were injured, and 6 were killed”, Der Spiegel adds.

In the US, cops have to file a report every time they use their weapon in the line of duty but there are no statistics “readily available” according to RT.  But we have some idea of how things are from daily events.  Bruce Springsteen made a song “American Skin 41 shots to highlight the death of the New Yorker Amadou Diallo who was shot 41 times by cops while siting outside his apartment.  A 19 year old was killed by LA cops last month after being shot 90 times.  “The same month,” the New York Post reports, “…New York police fired at a suspected murderer 84 times.  While the man was wounded, “the punk incredibly survived,”.

Crime has declined in the US perhaps due to the incarceration of close to three million people mostly for petty crimes, people that capitalism has abandoned. But in the aftermath of 911 and the rise of the Occupy Movement as part of the rising opposition to US capitalism’s efforts to put the working class on rations, US society has become increasingly militarized beefing up the police and special fascist type units as well as using drones and massive surveillance methods to root out dissent. According to USA Today, “instances of excessive force or “other tactics to violate victims civil rights” increased by 25 per cent from 2001 to 2007.”

Other examples from RT

In another 2006 six case, plain clothes and undercover New York police shot at Sean Bell more than 50 times a day before his wedding. Bell was killed, and three of his friends were critically injured. The case was widely compared to that of Diallo.

The phenomenon is so common in America that the term ‘contagious shooting’ – the idea that cops reflexively open fire because others are doing so – has entered the national vocabulary.

Perhaps one incident that spurred experts to coin the term was a 1995 Bronx robbery where officers fired an incredible 125 shots at a suspect who did not even fire back. “They were shooting to the echo of their own gunfire,” a former police official told The New York Times.  

One officer told the daily in 2006 that “the only reason to be shooting in New York City is that you or someone else is going to be killed and it’s going to be imminent,” and thus you fire as many shots as necessary to “extinguish the threat.”

Ironically, one officer even said, “until we have some substitute for a firearm, there will always be a situation where more rounds are fired than in other situations.”

You get a lot of support for this macho culture from trolls that have found themselves a safe place in the Internet culture where they can play cop and more often than not espouse racist and anti-worker views. But beefed up police forces have never made life safer for the working class.  The police as well as troops have been used historically to break strikes, sometimes with the most brutal results. The social role of the police makes them naturally the enemy of workers and organized Labor as their entire existence is based on defending laws that are made by the capitalist class in the interests of the capitalist class.  Troops, as workers in uniform are somewhat different when used in this capacity, and much more likely to be won over when workers are on strike or in open struggle against the bosses and the police.. The police can be neutralized at best by the united power of the working class in action; they are not workers in the same way.

Recently cops shot a man's dog after the arrested him as he was on a public sidewalk videoing their actions.  Apparently he didn't turn the music down in his car quick enough.  The dog tried to defend its master so the cops shot it.  It is on film at the end of this commentary but it is a disturbing scene so be warned animal and human lovers, the dog appears to suffer.

In the recent labor disputes here in the Bay Area where we saw a four and a half day strike by BART (mass transit) workers, the issue of safety on the job and as well as the safety of passengers is an issue. This is an issue or all public employees (and some private like UPS drivers for example) especially teachers, transit and utility workers as well as USPS employees.  I worked in areas where youth unemployment was as high as 30% or more and crime was rampant.  For teachers, all the ills of capitalist society are brought in to the classroom. But the answer to these real problems from organized labor and workers as a whole is training programs run by the Unions in every community and a massive investment in social infrastructure, education, transportation and real public housing, not beefing up the state security forces.

Jobs and more jobs is the key.  Increased militarization of society and more police will be used against unionized workers as we are forced to strike to defend ourselves against the capitalist offensive.  We are not exempt from police violence, we never have been.  By defending our communities and especially the poorer communities, many of them communities of color, we can build a united and powerful movement to fight back against the austerity agenda of the 1%.

 We need this united movement for there is plenty of bullets for the rest of us if the 1% feels their interests are threatened.  US police will not only use plenty of bullets to halt our offensive, the Germans will abandon their tolerance for German workers and ammo consumption will skyrocket there too.

Let’s not fool ourselves. Let’s remember which sections of society are our natural allies and which are our natural enemies.

This what the occupation of America's urban areas really means.

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Under pressure from below, Obama tries to calm the masses in the face of the Zimmerman verdict

Don't be fooled: he's not a friend of black folks or working people

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

The racist George Zimmerman has been freed by a jury after stalking and murdering a black teenager, Trayvon Martin.  Martin should have known better, eating Skittles and talking to a friend on a cell phone while black is a very threatening activity in some circles.

This is not so much about Trayvon Martin but all the young black males shot by the police and wannabe cops like Zimmerman.  The reality is, Zimmerman hunted down and murdered Martin vigilante style as the law allows; that’s why he got off. As President Obama said in his speech earlier this week, “The judge conducted the trial in a professional manner. The prosecution and the defense made their arguments. The juries were properly instructed that in a case such as this reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict. And once the jury has spoken, that's how our system works.” Don't laugh. More on this later.

The reaction in the black community has been as it should be, one of horror, anger, disgust and every other emotion that any normal community would express at such injustice, not simply the injustice in this particular case, but the ongoing killing and incarceration of young black males. It is a credit to their humanity, that this anger hasn’t expressed itself in more brutal ways like the random mass killings of whites.

“But more blacks are killed by other blacks; black on black crime is worse” I have heard more than a few times the past few weeks.  What lies behind this comment is that black people are to blame for their own condition, for the poverty, lack of opportunity and incarceration of their youth.  Women are raped because they dress provocatively as well. “Look at those blacks, they are animals.” is the implication here; it’s just another way of cloaking the racist argument.  Anyway, as Jamelle Bouie pointed out in a commentary on July 15^th,

“Yes, from 1976 to 2005, 94 percent of black victims were killed by black offenders, but that racial exclusivity was also true for white victims of violent crime—86 percent were killed by white offenders. Indeed, for the large majority of crimes, you’ll find that victims and offenders share a racial identity, or have some prior relationship to each other.”

Glen Ford writing in the Black Agenda Report reminds us that initially it was hoped this issue would go away:

The White House also wanted Trayvon to be forgotten. Three weeks after the shooting, speaking through his press secretary, the president declared, “obviously we're not going to wade into a local law-enforcement matter." A few days later, Obama sought to placate Black public opinion with a statement of physical fact: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

Let’s recall that the Florida authorities initially refused to arrest Zimmerman for the murder which occurred last February.  It was the public outcry and pressure from below that forced their hand.  This week, in response to the verdict, there have been rallies and protests in hundreds of US cities.  Major black entertainers and public figures have spoken out in opposition to the verdict.  Here in Oakland there have been numerous rallies and protests all overwhelmingly peaceful.  A group also blocked a major freeway and it was interesting that the reporter that I saw anyway, normally eager to share images of one group of workers attacking another, or whites and blacks having opposite opinions on such issues,, spoke to a couple of motorists who although inconvenienced spoke favorably about the need to get people’s attention.

This has forced that superb and eloquent representative of the US capitalist class, or the 1% as they are sometimes referred to, to speak out.  On Friday Obama spoke in very personal terms about the case and about how it could have been his son shot, or him 35 years ago. “There are very few African American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store.” Obama said, reaching in to the hearts of black folks showing how much he identifies with them, “There are very few African Americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.” 

He went on, "You know, I think it's understandable that there have been demonstrations and vigils and protests, and some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through as long as it remains nonviolent.”

Obama is representing his class well.  He is smart, learned; very slick, " The poverty and dysfunction in those communities "can be traced to a very difficult history,"  he said reminding people also that there was a greater chance of Trayvon Martin being killed by his peers than the likes of Zimmerman or a white person.

He followed his effort to calm the black working class through this rare attempt to identify with them with a few suggestions on how to proceed like a sort of diversity training for the cops; in other words, how to arrest young black men without killing them and how to police the black community with a smile.

He wants to “gather together business leaders, elected officials, celebrities, athletes -- to address the need for African-American men to feel that they are "a full part of this society."

“I'm not naïve about the prospects of some grand, new federal program.” Obama added assuring the class he represents that their interests are secured, and that there will be no New Deal on his watch.  “I'm not sure that that’s what we're talking about here.” He continued, “But I do recognize that as President, I've got some convening power, and there are a lot of good programs that are being done across the country on this front.”

Speaking to his victims he assured black folks that,  “I don’t want us to lose sight that things are getting better.”  He talked about his children and children in general, “I think, (Children) have more sense than we did back then, and certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did; and that along this long, difficult journey, we’re becoming a more perfect union -- not a perfect union, but a more perfect union.”

It was a masterful piece of propaganda. It was so good it pretty much silenced the conservative talk show hate mongers.  “We are all Americans” there is no racism, no class conflict, just some bad historical precedents and mindsets that we have to overcome.

There was no talk of black on black crime being a product of third world conditions in the richest nation that has ever existed. No mention of what is an occupation of the black community by the police. Poverty, low wages  and not just a lack of a way out but an impossibility of a way out except for a tiny handful.  No mention of housing, slumlords the incarceration of black males finding the very same condition when they are returned to society.  No mention of the war on drugs that is not a war on drugs but a war on black people. This is what underlies black on black crime.

Look at Obama’s cabinet, the thug and former Israeli Defense Force member Rahm Emmanuel who is closing 150 public schools in Chicago. Arne Duncan, Obama’s education secretary who is connected to all the forces in society aiming to privatize public education.  The savaging of social services and elimination of public sector jobs as well as hundreds of thousands of teachers all affects the black community with a vengeance.

And look at Detroit a city with a majority black population.  Kevin Orr, the emergency manager appointed to deal with this once great city’s bankruptcy who is black, is about to violate the Michigan constitution and cover the city workers pension for a period of six months only although the constitution states these benefits will not be “diminished”.

The Obama administration has refused to help Detroit.  I guess after providing former Egyptian dictator Mubarak among others with billions of US taxpayer dollars, and spending a few trillion more on predatory wars we have no money. Obama’s aggressive drone policy that kills hundreds upon hundreds of young children and babies also cost a few bucks to maintain and certainly doesn’t make us any safer.

“Can we help Detroit? We don’t know,” Vice President Joe Biden said last week. Jay Carney, the White House spokesperson has ruled out any assistance for Detroit.  Obama’s phony claims to feel the pain of black folk and how much better things are holds no water with me. Things are worse for white workers so we know damn well the situation isn’t improving for blacks.

Jobs for all, a massive infrastructure spending program on housing, transportation, schools and a $20 an hour minimum wage is what will cut across black on black crime and crime in general. Training centers in every community organized by the construction unions and community organizations is what is needed to train workers to rebuild what capitalism and the market has destroyed.  It is the system that Obama heads as commander in chief that has destroyed Detroit where three or four generations of American workers gave their labor to make this country rich. Everything that amounts to a real solution to the capitalist crisis waged in the black community will be opposed by the Obama administration.

I have been surprised by the response to Obama’s speech from some folks, even socialists who have been impressed by his connection to the human side of it.

I am neither fooled nor moved by Obama’s comments he was forced to make due to the pressure from black America and more whites than I think people realize.  He is an astute and slick representative of the bourgeois. A nasty character indeed.

He did a very good job for them last Friday.

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Obama on Trayvon Martin: The Word and the Deed

by Jack Gerson

Several weeks before the 2008 presidential election, candidate Barack Obama gave a moving speech on the experience of black people in the U.S., their struggle for civil rights, and his personal encounters with racism growing up and living in the U.S. He appeared to be speaking from the heart, a departure from his frequently emotionless demeanor. The speech was widely hailed, and many liberals, left-liberals, and "anti-racist radicals" declared that we'd seen a glimpse of a new and different kind of politician, one whose experiences and heart-felt connection with the downtrodden masses would give substance to his slogan of "change we can believe in".

Then he was elected. And within days of the election, Obama appointed his transition team. Lo and behold, the foreign policy team was dominated by many of the same tired faces that had dominated policy in the Clinton administration -- Zionists, militarists, and Hillary herself.
 
The economic policy transition team featured Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers & Co. (the Goldman Sachs "Democrat" team, as opposed to the Goldman Sachs "Republican" team that takes the field during Bush administrations).  It's worth recalling that in 2008 Obama received several times the funding from Wall Street than did Republican John McCain, and that his liaison to Wall Street was Penny Pritzker of the Chicago Pritzker billionaires (I believe that all but one or two of Chicago's billionaires are named Pritzker). Soon thereafter, Obama appointed Timothy Geithner secretary of treasury -- Geithner, then head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, was a proven and craven servant of big Wall Street finance capital.

In education policy, Obama showed his commitment to "change we can believe in" by appointing as secretary of education Arne Duncan, then-CEO of the Chicago Public Schools who was the point person for the corporate assault on public education in Chicago (Duncan had closed many schools, grossly expanded charter schools, promoted high stakes test-based accountability, engaged in blatant victimization and harassment of veteran teachers as well as other forms of union-busting, grossly expanded outsourcing to private contractors while downsizing public schools, etc.).

We all know what followed: gross handouts of trillions to the banks ("They got bailed out; we got sold out") coupled with calls for "shared sacrifice"; moving the locus of war from devastated Iraq to Afghanistan (and then escalating the war there with "the surge"); a national Obama / Duncan education policy that actually deepens the damage done under Bush, advocating more charter schools, more test-based accountability, turning the development of national education standards over to the publishing and education conglomerate Pearson (whose chief education officer is one Sir Michael Barber, the "Speaking Clock" who was in charge of shutting down British schools in Tony Blair's first term and of pushing austerity across public sector programs in Blair's second term), and compelling states to compete with one another for federal funding. Not to mention expanding "Homeland Security" surveillance and harassment; rolling over to the big energy companies; etc. The victimization of black and brown youth -- and especially young black men -- has if anything increased.  (one example: last month Philadelphia announced over 3,000 layoffs of school employees in addition to closing 23 schools, citing as cause a $300 million deficit. A few days later, work began on the construction of a $400 million prison just north of Philadelphia).

Downsizing and privatization of public education. Punitive measures against students, teachers, and schools in the lowest-income communities (that's what high stakes test-based accountability enforced by school closures does). Increased surveillance and harassment. Austerity cuts to essential public programs in cities, counties, and states across the country. Continued and escalating police harassment in the black and brown working class communities (here in Oakland, unarmed black teenager Alan Bluford was murdered by Oakland cops right outside his home; unarmed young black man Raheim Brown was murdered by Oakland school police in a high school parking lot; unarmed young black man Oscar Grant was murdered by BART police while handcuffed and lying face down; etc.) Criminalization of young black men (in Washington DC, for example, three out of every four young black men under age 25 is or will be in the penal system). These are the conditions that breed the climate under which Trayvon Martin was executed by George Zimmerman. Conditions that cry out that it's open season on young black men in the U.S.

Now, in the context of the wave of indignation, anger, and revulsion at the freeing of Trayvon Martin's murderer, Obama has once again given a moving speech that draws on his personal experiences with racism in the U.S. What he says may well be heartfelt. It's important to recognize that. But what he says is intended to corral and confine sentiments within safe channels. We are guaranteed to hear more about the need for us to all pull together, but the goal will be to pull together for austerity (he will say, as he always does, "shared sacrifice"). And he will no more deliver on any aspirations raised than he did in the aftermath of that moving speech he gave in the fall of 2008.

Obama is not Bush. He is Obama. An extremely intelligent and formidable man, but a loyal servant of capital.

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Opportunity knocks (again) for BART Unions. Trayvon Martin murder is a union issue

Trayvon Martin. Caused his own death according to Florida court

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

As to be expected AFL-CIO and Change to Win leaders don’t have too much to say about the Zimmerman verdict and what I could find on the AFL-CIO website was pretty lame. I looked at the CTW website which while not quite so drab also had nothing on there about this defeat for workers in this country and for black workers in particular.  On the AFL-CIO page Randi Weingarten of the AFT issued the following statement:

 “While we believe in the rule of law and the jury has spoken, the implications of the acquittal are profound. It is very disappointing that a racially profiled, unarmed African-American young man wearing a hoodie can be shot dead and there be no consequences for the perpetrator. This case reminds us that the path to racial justice is still a long one, and that our legal and moral systems do not always mesh. The proceedings in the Sanford, Fla., courtroom may well have dealt with the criminal aspects of the case, as defined by Florida law, but we will continue to deal with the moral ones. As the AFT pledged in a resolution passed at our 2012 convention, we remain steadfast in our commitment to fight for laws, policies and practices that will prohibit racial profiling at the federal, state and local levels.

“The disposition of this case is the antithesis of what we teach our children in school—that the law protects innocent victims and that no one has the right to take the law into his or her own hands. Everyone’s child matters. We pray for the strength of Trayvon’s parents and loved ones in this difficult time.”

Lee Saunders, the president of AFSCME, my former Union says:

“AFSCME is calling for the Justice Department to immediately conduct an investigation into the civil rights violations committed against Trayvon Martin. We know that it will take federal intervention and a massive grassroots movement but justice and positive change is still possible.
Bottom of Form

“In the fight for justice, it is time to stand our ground. As we have throughout our history, AFSCME will work with faith leaders, community groups and civil and human rights activists to create a more just society for all.”

Ho hum! Reading this reminds me of Nina Simone’s words from Mississippi Goddamn:

Picket lines
School boy cots
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
For my sister my brother my people and me

Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Sister Sadie

Oh but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying 'Go slow!'
'Go slow!'

But that's just the trouble
'Do it slow'
Desegregation
'Do it slow'
Mass participation
'Do it slow'
Reunification
'Do it slow'
Do things gradually
'Do it slow'
But bring more tragedy
'Do it slow'
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know

Nina Simone

I checked the National Education Association’s website (NEA, the largest union in the country, and couldn’t find a word about Trayvon Martin and his murderer’s acquittal. I clicked on the link “Minority Community Outreach” and there was nothing there either. Like the Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden affairs where heroic individuals are being ruthlessly persecuted by the state for making the public aware of the violence, corruption and lies that are the norm for this government, Trayvon Martin is a non issue even on a page that deals with minority community involvement. This is as these issues are topics in every workplace, every coffee shop, every dinner table and drinking establishment.

And what does Ms. Weingarten mean by the “Rule of Law”. Laws are made by politicians of the 1% and in the interests of the 1%.  Would she say as a union leader in Nazi Germany that “we believe in the rule of law”? And what about the Jim Crow laws in the US Apartheid South? They were changed through direct action and violating the law not praying. One sees this term in the big business press all the time it means to respect laws that protect the capitalist class and their system, that’s what it means.  If those heroic figures that built the trade Union movement in this country had that attitude we wouldn’t have unions at all. We wouldn’t have sick leave or unemployment benefits, meager as they are; the UAW wouldn’t exist.  The Apartheid South would still be thriving if people had respect for the “rule of law”.

The union hierarchy is the only force that slavishly obeys the law except when it comes to dealing with their own members and the internal life of our organizations that they head.  Wall street crooks steal billions, politicians lie cheat and live off the fruits of bribery and the Union tops claim sainthood.  The bosses pass laws that are clearly against the interests of union members and all working people and the union hierarchy ensures they are not broken; anything to avoid a fight; send an e mail to the president and vote Democratic. They are terrified of a victory as it would increase expectations and inspire millions of workers drawing them in to activity after decades of savage attacks on our living standards.  Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is the trademark of the Union leaders atop organized labor.

Here in the Bay Area, a 4 day strike by Bay Area Rapid Transit workers galvanized attention for a

ATU members on strike

period.  Due to the ability of the BART workers to cripple the local economy contract negotiations between these two forces always makes headlines.  The bosses went on the offensive and demonized these workers in their media.  The union leaders as I explained in an earlier commentary have no answer to this as their general approach is that concessions have to be made. After all, we all have to share the pain, there is a need for “shared sacrifice”.

The decision to halt the strike for 30 days was a mistake as it is hard to get workers back on the lines once they’ve been taken off.  With a strike you either win one or lose one. The decision to end the strike for what is termed a “cooling off” period was in order for the union hierarchy and their political allies in the Democratic Party to make some deal that the members can accept, hopefully with minor changes that bring less aggressive concessions.  It is my view that they were forced to call one due to the anger from below and the pressure they were facing to let off some steam in case the pot boiled over. 

It is still not too late but the labor leadership will not act unless they are absolutely forced to from below or replaced. The anger in the ranks is significant for BART workers as they have not had a raise in five years but all workers have been savaged over the past period. There is a golden opportunity that must not be lost here.  The other transit workers that operate the buses have their contract up and could legally strike with the BART workers, they are also in the same union as the train operators, the ATU. SEIU 1021 also represents BART employees like station agents and janitors. The city of Oakland workers  also in SEIU 1021 have suffered serious cuts and can also strike.  Water workers are also in contract talks and their contracts expired at the end of May I think.

Unfortunately, despite a mood among bus drivers to support BART workers at a transit board meeting, the decision by union officials not to bring bus drivers out with the them was a serious mistake and made victory less likely for both. Both BART and AC Transit workers face aggression and acts of violence from the public. The same is true for teachers.  But labor’s response is not more policing. Increase policing never helps workers and the poor and certainly doesn’t help the most oppressed sections of our class. All the ills and pressure of society weigh heavily on public sector workers like transit, city, teachers and water workers as we deal with the public every day. Our response must be jobs for all, housing, education, urban renewal, wages and an end to racism and sexism.  This will strengthen us with the public and will unite the class rather than dividing it.  Unity is not an abstract thing.  What are we uniting around?  It has to be made concrete. We cannot win without building links with the communities in which we live and work.

A strike by BART, AC Transit and the City of Oakland workers would open the door to the transformation of the mood among workers in and outside the unions. You want public support?  Here’s your chance. Taking a major public stand against the Zimmerman verdict and against the ongoing murder and incarceration of black youth will get a tremendous echo in this community along with a call for community involvement and help to win the strike around such demands as:

No to the 1%’s austerity agenda

No more police, no more jails but a massive hiring and job training program under the direction of the unions and community organizations.

A $20 an hour minimum wage

Free public transportation for all seniors

Increased services in mass transit (especially buses) including for the disabled

Free public education at all levels, reopen closed schools reduce class sizes and hire one million teachers

For a national public health service

Organized the unorganized.

The money fro these basic things can come from making the rich pay, ending all wars an occupations and nationalizing the banks to suggest a few.

These are just a few small ways a movement can be built around such a strike that would undoubtedly challenge the 1%’s austerity agenda and drive back their offensive. The slogan should be No more business as usual, it stops here in the Bay Area, the home of two huge general strikes.  

No more Trayvon Martins—no more shared sacrifice. Jobs for all.

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Zimmerman murder. Capitalism wipes its brow and launches counter offensive.

Relieved that there were no mass riots after the racist verdict in the murder of Trayvon Martin US capitalism are wiping their brow and launching a new offensive to blame black people. In the Wall Street Journal today there are 17 items of worldwide news on the long column the regularly have down their front page. These cover the news in the US also. Yesterday these included at the top the news of the racist verdict. Today there is not a mention of it. The only mention of the case in the entire paper is a single column inside the back page which blames black people. Believe it or not this quotes Martin Luther King. Of course not where he says that there is something wrong with capitalism in the US and the country must move to democratic socialism.

This columnist who blames black people makes a lot of use of figures on crime. Of course he does not mention the criminality of the ruling class which keeps the system loaded against the working class and the poor and the majority of the black and Hispanic population. For this capitalist mouthpiece crime is okay as long as it is carried out by the bankers, the corporate class and their bribed politicians. For this capitalist mouthpiece it is okay to leave out how living in poverty and coming out of a history of centuries of repression can and does affect all of us.

But to go back to the arguments this mouthpiece makes about crime in black neighborhoods. For over 300 years black people were forced to work for no pay in this country. Their children were taken from them and sold. They were whipped and murdered and raped and lynched and their bodies burnt. Then when slavery was ended they were and still are forced to work for less wages than the rest of the working class. They were kept out of the skilled trades. This is the reality that exists for black people. The fact that the black revolt scared the capitalist class and saw it promote and bribe a few black politicians to hold down the black working class as a whole does not change this fundamental reality. Obama in the White House does not change the fact that the overwhelming majority of black people still live in poverty and at a lower standard than other workers and under the vicious racist repression of this racist state. Obama is a fraud for black workers and youth. He says of the racist verdict on Trayvon Martin that "We are a nation of laws" and calls on all to accept this racist verdict. I wonder when we became a nation of laws. Is the firing of drones to kill children in other countries the actions of a nation of laws. Is the torture in Guantanamo bay and the solitary confinement of thousands of prisoners a sign of a nation of laws.

It is hard to think of a more racist society in the advanced capitalist world than the US. It is hard to think of a more censored mass media in the advanced capitalist world than the US. And it is impossible to think of any society in the advanced capitalist world that is more racist and sexist. The most important leaders of black America in the past 50 years, Malcolm X, the Panthers, Martin Luther King all came to the conclusion that US capitalism had to be overthrown and a socialist society established. They were correct.

Sean.

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Martin Bashir tells the truth about Trayvon Martin's murder

You can't put it better than this.
Some comments from Zimmerman about Mexicans from his old MySpace page.

"Some of Zimmerman's apologists make the argument that he could not possibly be a racist vigilante as he is actually half peruvian and a self identified Latino. Here is what Zimmerman had to say about Mexicans on his old myspace page, "I dont miss driving around scared to hit mexicans walkin on the side of the street, soft ass wanna be thugs messin with peoples cars when they aint around (what are you provin, that you can dent a car when no ones watchin) dont make you a man in my book. Workin 96 hours to get a decent pay check, gettin knifes pulled on you by every mexican you run into!”

 Note: we haven't verified the source of this other than facebook

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Zimmerman. Racism and divide and rule and the working class.

In a previous blog we explained how the racist Zimmerman got off for murdering Trayvon Martin. I would like to add to this. The Wall Street Journal today lists some of the events leading up to the trial, which of course according to it was a model for civilized society. It even gets round to praising Obama with his calls for calm. That is one for the books. The Wall Street Journal praising Obama.  Obama's role in this is despicable. When it happened he said that if he had a son he would look like Trayvon now he says the jury has spoken so that is that. Class enters here also. If it had been Obama's son then there would have been a different response.

This was a racist jury. There was not a single Black person on it.  Only a racist could conclude that a young black child walking home doing nothing wrong could be murdered and the murderer was innocent. This verdict also in spite of what the law tries to say points the finger at  Trayvon Martin. If Zimmerman was not guilty then Trayvon was. Somebody has to be responsible for the death of Trayvon. It was not an accident.

What a despicable lot these attorneys, the local cops, the judge, the jury were. In our home we had to turn off the TV we were so nauseated by the dirty methods of the defense, the phony stare of Zimmerman, the gleeful celebrations of the defense attorneys when the verdict was read out, and not a single sign of or statement from Zimmerman or his family in sympathy with the Martin family. Obviously this racist family thought their son had done a good job in killing this black child.   The judge would not allow the jury to hear the many many times Zimmerman called the cops to report what he said were suspicious people every one of whom were black. If this is not a sign of racism in the attitude of Zimmerman what is. This judge by ruling these out shows her racism also. 

The Wall Street Journal tries to arm its racist readers with some arguments to defend the verdict. It säys that "police investigators made mistakes including failing to preserve the crime scene or to widely canvass the neighborhood in timely fashion." It was not racism see just some "mistake" the cops inexplicably made. They would not have made this mistake if the shooter had been black. He would most likely have been shot their on the street. There was a six week delay in arresting Zimmerman. And it only happened at all due to the pressure of the anti racist forces in the country. The local chief of police had to resign the role of the local racist cops was so bad. These events prove that the local cops supported Zimmerman with the exception of the one cop who in the first day or two said he should be charged.

This verdict strengthens the racist forces in this country who think it is open season on shooting young black males.

But let us look at who runs this country in the context of the murder of Trayvon Martin. . It is run by the major corporations which are dominated by the mainly white capitalist class. Their system is on a major offensive against the working class. All the gains made by the great revolts of the 1930's and 1960's are to be taken back. At the same time  their system cannot provide jobs for all. Full employment would mean a much stronger working class and with this would come a powerful thrust from the working class for a bigger share of the pie. This ruling capitalist class do not want this at all costs. So through the Federal Reserve they manipulate interest rates and through this unemployment rates to keep sufficient numbers of workers unemployed to weaken the working class. In this they particularly target the black working class and youth in order to con many white workers into thinking this is a question of race not a question of policy by the capitalist class. but what to do with these millions of mainly black workers and youth for whom their system will not provide jobs. The jail them, the US has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prisoners, or they shoot them on the streets to intimidate those they cannot jail. This is the big picture of why Trayvon is dead.

Malcolm X said you cannot have capitalism without racism. this is what he meant. The working class  have to unite against the racist capitalist system. Those who think they can maintain a racist attitude or can sit out the struggle against racism are making a bad mistake. In the last analysis racism and the divide and rule tactics of the capitalist class that go with it are aimed at the working class as a whole.

Sean.

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Travyon Martin murderer walks away scot free

George Zimmerman

The authors that write for this blog share this short statement in response to the Zimmerman verdict. We will write more as things develop over the next few days.

*****************

So the racist murderer Zimmerman walks free. The producers of this blog are enraged.  Think about who this racist murderer really is. In the past he was accused of domestic violence against a former girl friend. A younger female cousin accused him in the past of molestation and assault. This same younger cousin also said that Zimmerman's family was proudly racist against Black people. He was also arrested for assaulting a cop. This horrible creature murdered a young man because this young man was black and he could get away with it and he did. He is from a privileged background, his father being a retired judge.  Are we supposed to think this means nothing in America?

But it’s not only Zimmerman and his family who were and are racist.  So are the prosecutors who dragged in every racial stereotype they could and the judge who determines what can or cannot be allowed in to the case and directs the affair. The Jury was also racist. Nobody could have listened to this case, where a young man who was doing nothing wrong was murdered walking home from the store, and not seen it was murder unless they were racist.  This cannot be seen in isolation as young black men are murdered with impunity by the police in US society.  And of course the US capitalist system and its so-called justice system is racist and biased. No one actually believes that we are all treated equally under the law. Young black men can be shot at will in our society and they fill the prisons in droves.

The reason Trayvon Martin was murdered and his murderer got off was because Trayvon Martin was a young black male.

Some of us who write for this blog have black male grandchildren.  People sometimes do not understand why the parent or relative of a black male might be concerned when our young ones are out in the world. But it is completely normal for black folks to feel this way given the murder of their children by the police and racists and a justice system that allows it.

A white mother of five who reads this blog told us that she would be terrified to have a young black male child. She says she does not know how Black mothers have the strength to put up with the murdering and jailing of their children, especially their male children.  We agree but it is time for action.

There are numerous protests and gatherings throughout the country tomorrow in response to this racist verdict and there will no doubt be more.. They are all over Facebook and social, networking sites. If you work with black folks, if you drink with them, if you are their neighbors and even if you aren’t it is your obligation, the obligation of all people to get off their asses and come out for our brothers and sisters in the black communities across this nation as this situation develops.

Anyone that can’t come out in to the streets and to actions and protests in support of our black brothers, sisters and comrades to protest yet another racist verdict and the freeing of a privileged thug and racist killer of black youth we don’t want to hear you whining about property destruction and rioting should this occur given the anger at this travesty. Do not let the black communities stand alone.

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Sterilization: coercion is not consent!

Cynthia Chandler is the co-founder of Justice Now.  She gives FFWP permission to publish her comments on why sterilization coercion is not consent!  She asks our readers to sign on to the petition to stand up to forced sterilization.  We also published a previous blog about forced sterilization in India, offering women I Phones in exchange for sterilization.  This also is not free choice, it's coercion, it's more, it's violence against women.
                      ***************

 

by Cynthia Chandler

 My response to prison officials who say women in prison signed release forms before being sterilized: Of course. That is the whole point. In a coercive environment, people in power can make people who are dominated do or say anything, including signing a release form authorizing sterilization.

Think about it. Arrest a woman when she is pregnant. Cage her in a jail designed to be so unpleasant that it induces plea bargains quickly. Feed her nothing but a couple of bologna sandwiches daily. Shackle her with her hands behind her back in a paddy-wagon, where she can do nothing to protect her belly as she is jostled about, and then take her to court to face the humiliation and life destruction that is criminal prosecution.

Send her to prison where she will be stripped and body cavity searched, her changing breasts and belly exposed, inspected, and patted down publicly, daily, repeatedly. Give her very limited food, the quality of which is so poor, people try to not eat it anyway. Subject her to daily taunts of bitch, nigger, whore by guards. Subject her to doctors with a demonstrated lack of attention and skill that results in documented abnormally high levels of miscarriage and still birth. Some doctors will refuse to even touch her.

Have her stand in the hot central valley sun in 100+ degree heat for hours to try to get prenatal vitamins. Add continued taunts reminding her that she is an unfit mother--that she deserves to, and will, have her baby taken from her at birth. She will sleep on a thin egg crate mattress over a concrete slab--back pain, sciatica, irrelevant.

Have her be alone without family, birth attendant, anyone to give her basic information about how and why her body is changing, what it means, how to cope with birth. There is no birth plan. There is no information about what a birth plan is. Know that there is a high likelihood that she has survived child sexual abuse and violence and that having her body taken hold by her baby inside her, no matter how much she loves her child, likely triggers fear over loss of control and post traumatic stress disorder. Good luck getting prompt medical attention if she should start bleeding or get an infection. And if she should refuse even one suggestion made by an inattentive physician, she will know that getting attention later will be even less likely.

Those same doctors will be reminding her of how irresponsible she was to get pregnant, how she will be doing the right thing to agree to be sterilized, that to do so is to be a good mother/Californian/person. When she goes into labor, in a crowded cell designed for 4 people and now housing 8, she will have to try to keep quiet so as to not increase tension among everyone else caged in the cell. When she is near birth, and only then, will she be put into a cage, within a van, like a dog, and brought to a hospital by the same pool of guards who refer to her and women in prison generally with racist, sexist slurs. Until recently, she would have been shackled, too, unable to use her hands to keep pressure off her vagina or to find any comfort during contractions, or generally, to keep from falling in any direction. Her world may very well be a sea of pain, fear, and shame. She will arrive at her final destination--a rural hospital with less than 100 beds and a distressing reputation for poor care.

The whole prison has been renovated, except the wing for prisoners that remains as it has for over 20 years. The medical staff refer to it colloquially as the dungeon. She will know no one. And she will know that when her baby comes, her baby will be taken away, most likely forever. And then a doctor, with his own agenda of saving the state money and possibly ridding the world of people like her, says he can help her. He can make sure she never has to experience any of this pain ever again. It's a simple procedure. Just sign this form. This pain will be in the past and you can go on with your life. And a correctional officer looks on. And again, until recently, she would be shackled to a gurney. And she signs.

By 1970, even without the added pain of daily life in prison, over one-third of all Puerto Rican women of child bearing age were coerced during the pain of labor into "consenting" to sterilization during labor and delivery through government-led eugenic programs. Californian doctors similarly coerced tens of thousands of Latinas to "agree" to be sterilized during labor and delivery in Los Angeles in the same period. Early civil rights activists understood how these sterilization programs were racist, sexist and wholly coercive--the consent the government was so proud of obtaining, was not consent--it was the product of intimidation, fear and coercion. And that is why there are now federal safeguards radically limiting when and how free-world people can consent to sterilization surrounding pregnancy. And why there is a total prohibition on any sterilizations for the purpose of birth control on people in prison--because it was understood that any attempt at obtaining consent in that kind of coercive environment is unreliable at best.

So of course California coerced women into signing consent forms before committing the crime of sterilizing them. Congratulations. Shows what bullies they are. They know how to intimidate women well.

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California prisoners hunger strike, condemns solitary confinement

30,000 California prisoners started a hunger strike yesterday to protest the inhumane conditions and in particular years in solitary confinement. As the video from Al Jazeera above states, a hunger strike isn’t recognized as such until participants refuse 9 meals. We have blogged about the situation in Guantanamo where hunger strikers are being force fed, a cruel and painful procedure. Prisoners from Pelican Bay's SHU released a statement describing their actions and intentions:

“The principal prisoner representatives from the PBSP SHU Short Corridor Collective Human Rights Movement do hereby present public notice that our nonviolent peaceful protest of our subjection to decades of indefinite state-sanctioned torture, via long term solitary confinement will resume today, consisting of a hunger strike/work stoppage of indefinite duration until [the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] signs a legally binding agreement meeting our demands, the heart of which mandates an end to long-term solitary confinement (as well as additional major reforms).”

What is Solitary Confinement? (from Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity)

"In California, nearly 12,000 imprisoned people spend 23 of 24 hours living in a concrete cell smaller than a large bathroom. The cells have no windows, no access to fresh air or sunlight. People in solitary confinement exercise an hour a day in a cage the size of a dog run. They are not allowed to make any phone calls to their loved ones. They cannot touch family members who often travel days for a 90 minute visit; their conversation and their mail is monitored by prison guards. They are not allowed to talk to other imprisoned people. They are denied all educational programs, and their reading materials are censored. UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, stated that any time over 15 days in solitary confinement constitutes torture. Yet many people in California state prisons have been encaged in solitary for 10 to 40 years!"

The US with 2 million incarcerated has the largest prison population in the world. It is big business and a very lucrative one. These are the workers and the poor that capitalism abandons, a huge proportion of them people of color. The prison industrial complex is simply the warehousing of human beings, keeping them out of sight and out of mind. Prisoner’s rights are extremely limited. The return rate is considerable as the system makes no real effort to help prisoners return to society. A guaranteed job and a $20 an hour minimum wage would do a lot to halt not only crime but the return rate for prisoners.

Having to fend for themselves in a society that has very limited social services of any kind they often return to the milieu that they feel can provide some sense of security and belonging. Incarceration in the US is also a way of disenfranchising people politically. The racist and brutal US prison system perpetuates violence. Sexual abuse of both women and men is rampant. It is truly the American Gulag. You can sign a petition supporting the hunger strikers at the Prisoner Solidarity website.

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Racial profiling is not the product of someone's imagination

You have to watch this. A young friend of mine, a black youth, once told me how he felt every time he went in to a store. People were always watching him assuming he was up to no good. I used to work in the streets of Oakland with a crew of guys. The foreman might be a Japanese American or a Latino guy, the truck driver was black, I might be the only white guy.  But whenever a member of the public wanted to know what was going on or what was wrong, they invariably came and asked me. I would have to send them over to the foreman.  Even black folks came and asked me.

This is a very powerful video about racial profiling.  The most important thing is that racism is part of the system, it is built in to it, institutionalized.  Dealing with it as an individual problem as opposed to a social one is not enough.  As Malcolm X said, "You can't have capitalism without racism." 

Next time you think a black youth seems to display what seems to be some unwarranted anger or suspicion, give them a little slack in how you deal with it. It's no wonder people go off.

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Suspend Oakland Schools Superintendent Tony Smith

by Jack Gerson

The following leaflet was distributed at today's citywide membership meeting of the Oakland Education Association (OEA -- the Oakland teachers union). It was distributed again at this evening's meeting of the Oakland school board. For those outside the Oakland area, Tony Smith is the schools superintendent (for more details on Smith, see our previous blog post here.) Otherwise, the leaflet speaks for itself -- and it speaks volumes about the ongoing privatization and systematic dismantling of public education.

                                                   Suspend Tony Smith

                                          No More Cover-ups

             No More Victimizing Students, Staff, Community

                   No to Gary Yee as Interim Superintendent

Tony Smith is on the way out. But not soon enough.

Serious charges have been made against Smith, against the school district’s chief lawyer (Jacqueline Minor), and against past and present OUSD police chiefs Peter Sarna and James Williams.  One of the OUSD cops involved in the killing of Raheim Brown, Jonathan Bellusa, says that Smith and Minor tried to coerce him into giving the same version of the shooting as the other cop involved, Barhin Bhatt (who shot and killed Raheim Brown). Bellusa, acknowledging that he ordered the first shots, says the subsequent rounds that killed Brown were unnecessary because Brown was already incapacitated.  Bellusa says that he’s been singled out for retaliation because of this, and because he brought complaints of racist harassment against former OUSD police chief Peter Sarna.

Bellusa’s charges must be taken seriously and investigated transparently, with full community involvement. Did Smith and his legal staff try to manipulate and cover up how Raheim Brown was murdered? Why did Tony Smith want to promote Barhin Bhatt to OUSD police chief after he killed Raheim Brown (only community outrage blocked this)? Why did killer cop Bhatt command the OUSD police invasion of the Lakeview sit-in – tapping away at his gun holster in the presence of children? 

Then there’s the big picture:  the privatization and destruction of Oakland public schools, victimizing low-income areas and especially targeting the black community. We’re all aware of how OUSD was laid low by six years of state takeover: privatizing -- $80 million+ per year in outsourced contracts; downsizing – closing or “redesigning” more than half of Oakland public schools, closing libraries in most middle schools, eliminating electives, shutting down vocational programs, laying off support staff (custodial, clerical, food service, building repair and maintenance, security, …), quadrupling charter school enrollment  while shutting down public schools and driving out  nearly 20,000 public school students,  increasing teacher turnover dramatically,  punishing students for creativity and rebelliousness by focusing on rote learning and obedience enforced by high stakes testing. All low-income areas were hard hit. West Oakland and East Oakland communities were hit hardest.

Tony Smith wasn’t brought in to undo the damage done by the state takeover. No, he was brought in to continue their program, to deepen it, to give it polish and spin with “passionate” rhetoric and claims of his “racial sensitivity.” Spin and hype to cover the ongoing corporate-backed attacks. He is their creature, a creature of the Eli Broads and the Bill Gates. And he made things worse. Tony Smith went after the most vulnerable. He tried to cut early childhood education, and met teacher / staff / community resistance. He tried to cut Special Education, and met even fiercer resistance. But he did succeed in virtually eliminating the Adult education program. When Tony Smith arrived in 2009, Adult Education served 25,000 students. He shut down more than 95% of the program, victimizing the most vulnerable: single mothers, high school dropouts looking for a second chance, and immigrant workers desperate to learn language and customs.

And Smith has brought more charter schools – including semi-private ones. More school shutdowns. More program cuts. Bigger class size.  A high school dropout rate of nearly 50%. The most vulnerable areas, communities and neighborhoods were the hardest hit by the attack on anchors of the communities, their neighborhood public schools and their main source of hope, the hope of a future for their children. Heartless atrocities that can only be explained by a combination of malevolence and incompetence. Even before Smith closed five more elementary schools last June – four predominantly black, one predominantly Latino – young children in largely black Northwest Oakland (North of Macarthur, West of MLK) were being shipped by bus to schools in the far corners of East Oakland (beyond the Coliseum).

And now all hell is breaking loose. YouTube videos are circulating of students fighting students and even of students fighting teachers. We blame Smith, and we blame the board that approved his policies and, at best, turned a blind eye to what was going on. At best.

So we demand a full and transparent inquiry into Sgt. Bellusa’s charges, with full community involvement.

We demand the immediate suspension of all those named, pending the outcome of the investigation: OUSD superintendent Smith, OUSD chief legal counsel Minor, OUSD police chief Williams, Rahim Brown’s killer Bhatt.

We demand that the board not appoint Director Yee – or any other board member – to the superintendent position (be it “acting”, “interim”, or permanent) pending the completion of a full, transparent investigation of the charges.   What has Yee done to stop the blatant racism, class bias and violence embodied in the District police actions and the endless cuts in schools and programs?  Absolutely nothing!

Jack Gerson, OEA retired, former member OEA Executive Board & Bargaining Team
Bob Mandel, OEA retired, former member OEA Executive Board & Bargaining Team
Gerald Smith, former BPP, member Oscar Grant Comm. & Justice for Alan Blueford
Bob Wells, Oakland Adult Education, retired

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Video: Charles Ramsey rescues Cleveland women; reminds us that the US is still a racist society

Sometimes the most profound and insightful statement can just come flying out of our mouths, or in this case someone else's mouth. Charles Ramsey is the man in Cleveland who rushed to the door of the house where the three kidnapped young women were being held. He kicked in the door and helped the young women and the child escape.

He is a national hero. He is black man and the young women he freed from their captors are white. He could have been walking in to a domestic violence situation where he could have been shot by a white husband. But he never hesitated he just acted and freed the young women. But it is what he said that is most profound and insightful and also tragic about US society.

When he freed the first young woman she ran out in to his arms as he explains in this interview. “I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran in to a black man’s arms, .something is wrong here” he tells the newsman, “a dead giveaway, dead give away, .dead give away, either she homeless or she got problems”

Think about what he is saying here and what it reflects about our society, “I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran in to a black man’s arms, something is wrong here” He was saying that a great racist gulf still exists in US society, that he was very surprised that a young white woman would throw herself into his arms.

Ramsey is a solid working class guy. Look at his expressions. He is the guy so many of us have worked alongside. He knows the world around him. He is a beautiful man who could have been killed very easily. The interviewer you’ll notice felt a little uncomfortable with Ramsey’s honesty and plain speaking as a worker and a black man in America. Racism is not something they want discussed in a serious way unless it is discussed in a way that divides the working class rather than uniting us. This is why there is much more of Ramsey on the Internet than the national news stations, he makes the spin doctors feel uncomfortable.  Ramsey is a hero as are the three young women. The three males who allegedly kidnapped them are cowardly degenerates. And US society is a racist society. Trust  Charles Ramsey.

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