Another Black Family Evicted?

I made this video in solidarity with POOR Magazine–revolutionary poverty scholars, media-makers, and organizers based in San Francisco and Oakland.

Sabrina Carter and her two boys are going to being evicted from her home in the Plaza East Apartments in the Fillmore because she “failed to control the movement of her 19 year old adult son” (after she was forced to sign a restraining order against him when he was shot and subsequently criminalized).

Could this have something to do with the fact all of San Francisco’s public housing, including Plaza East, is currently being privatized under the RAD program? Or that McCormack and Baron, the developer in charge of Sabrina Carter’s home, is Goldman Sach’s “urban investment partner?”

Please call Karl Nicita at the SF mayors office (415) 665-6141 and ask them to stop the eviction of Sabrina Carter.

Dignidad Rebelde Print Party [VIDEO]

The artists of Dignidad Rebelde (Melanie Cervantes, Jesus Barraza, and more recently Bobby Fuentes) are humble legends known for creating art for social movements.  Earlier this month, they held their first-ever print party, bringing in the community to learn and help produce posters in solidarity with the California Prisoner Hunger Strike.

the act of killing

The other night at Oakland’s New Parkway theater, I saw Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing”—a documentary so surreal, so bizarre, so truthful, I thought it might be fake.

The film, which is currently nominated for an academy award, follows perpetrators of the 1960’s Indonesian genocide as they recount, with pride, the killings they carried against their fellow Indonesians.  It is so disorienting that it had got to be staged, right? Nope.

Oppenheimer began working on this film by interviewing the survivors of the genocide, a topic illegal to discuss publicly, but the Indonesian government quickly shut him down.  At the suggestion and encouragement of the survivors and Indonesian human rights community, he began interviewing the perpetrators of the genocide.  He traveled the country for 2 years filming these mass killers boast openly about the hundreds of murders they’d personally committed.  They spoke not with remorse but celebration and self-satisfaction.  The 41st perpetrator he met was Anwar Congo, who he ended up following for 5 years, and around whom the film revolves.

“I chose to focus on Anwar because his trauma was closer to the surface,” Oppenheimer said in the Q&A afterward.  “I could see it the first day I met him.”

Anwar Congo

Watching the psychological undercurrents of this man carries the whole film.  He and his fellow war criminals decide to reenact their mass killings—the central narrative thread of the documentary—while maintaining total denial that was they did was wrong.  To witness his remorse almost, but never fully, rise to the surface is excruciating.

I didn’t get a chance to speak during our discussion after the film ended, so I thought I’d write what I wanted to say—to Joshua Oppenheimer and to us, a mostly white US audience sitting in the plush chairs of the New Parkway.

Joshua Oppenheimer

First of all, thank you for having the courage, compassion, and conviction to spend the 7 years it took to create this film.  I don’t know too much about Indonesia, and I definitely learned something.  It’s phenomenal that this film (which has screened thousands of times and is streaming free in Indonesia) has opened up a previously forbidden public conversation about the genocide upon which their modern society is founded.  Phenomenal.

But I’m from the United States, and so I found myself viewing this film as a US citizen. That’s what I know. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how this film is also deeply, deeply about the United States.  Perhaps more so than any film I’ve ever seen.

It’s not just that Congo’s entire “gangster” identity and killing techniques were inspired by the Hollywood films he and his fellow war criminals adored.  That, in between pulling a thin, sharp wire around his victims throats—too thin for them to grab—he was watching Hollywood films in movie theaters, getting inspired.  Or that Indonesian state media literally refers to him as a heroic “movie theater gangster.”

It’s not just that the US was supplementing it’s Hollywood exports with financial and military support for General Suharto and his paramilitary forces, under the guise of defeating (exterminating) communism.  That the CIA compiled lists of people for the death squads to target.

It’s about a mentality, a logic.  It’s when one of the perpetrators describes Guantanamo Bay as a “good idea, ” or says “How are we wrong?  The United States committed the same genocide.”

There it is.  The painful truth that he is not wrong.  That all these countries across the globe who use brutal military violence against their own people to “modernize” their economies are following the model of the “greatest, freest nation in the world”: The United States of America.  Genocide.  Unspeakable violence.

Oppenheimer pointed out that when he thought Congo would finally express his remorse, he forced himself more deeply into denial.  “I realized he was a pendulum, swinging back and forth more and more violently between almost-remorse and total emotional repression,” Oppenheimer said.

In the film, Congo ultimately chose denial.  In one of the final scenes, he stands amidst lush greenery, beautiful women dancers interspersed around him, all facing the camera, as a giant waterfall pours down behind him, and he holds out his hands in a large black gown like the caricature of an angel.   This is one of his self-directed scenes.  A man walks up to him and says, “Thank you for killing me and sending me to heaven.”  Congo is the all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent mass murderer.

During this batshit crazy scene, I could not stop thinking about one thing:  Manifest Destiny.

The radiant, glory-filled, god-given gift of Anglo-America’s western expansion on regal horseback across the pristine virgin wilderness of North America—untouched land that was just waiting to become the greatness that would be the United States of America.

Genocide. Occupation. Unspeakable violence.

Anwar Congo is us.

Especially those of “us,” who are white, male, cisgender, hetero, citizens, wealthy, “American.”  The descendents and members of a nation so addicted to celebrating our “exceptionalism,” the you-better-not-fucking-tell-me-otherwise Greatness of our Nation.

The denial.  Pushed down so deep the only way to escape is to celebrate ourselves.  So we go on continuing the violence because we don’t know how to stop.  We are the Greatest, haven’t you heard?

In the end, it is not, as one audience member said, that “maybe the Indonesians just don’t have enough education.”  It is not that we should spend our time transphobically laughing at one of the war criminals who consistently dressed as a woman, as another audience member suggested.  It is not simply, as you said Mr. Oppenheimer (in an admittedly short question and answer period) that we must stay aware that our clothes are produced in places like Indonesia.

It is that Anwar Congo’s denial is our denial.  His celebration and laughter is our celebration and laughter.  When will we let our sins bubble to the surface?

Of course Anwar Congo is not a metaphor.  He a real man.   But your film—that is what is more, a mirror, a reflection of us.

So, my question for you is, as a fellow social justice filmmaker who is also white, male, and from the United States, “If you win an academy award, which you have a very good chance of doing, what will you say with your 60 seconds on a global stage?”

Reposted on Medium.

Wells Fargo: The 99% Takeover

For a piece I wrote with Salima Hamirani about the event, see “The Spring Offensive: Dignity and Resistance in Bay Area Streets.”

Photos: The Well Fargo shareholder meeting 99% Takeover.  April 24, 2012.

Locked Out of Work for Two Years

“We work at a playground for millionaires.”  That’s how UNITE HERE! Local 2850 began the Facebook invite for their march on Saturday (Feb 25).  They are referencing the Castlewood Country Club in Pleasanton, which was ranked the wealthiest mid-sized city in the U.S. in 2007.  “Two years ago, they threw us out on the street because we wouldn’t give up affordable health insurance for our families.”

Saturday morning, Castlewood Country Club workers led hundreds of their allies in a march that marked two years of being locked out of their jobs.   From being confined to sidewalks in downtown Pleasanton, to taking over the middle lane on busy thoroughfare, to the empty gulf courses where the country club had locked out it’s own members, workers made themselves loud and clear.  It was also the first time Occupy Oakland got involved, bolstering the fight with numbers, media attention, and a mock counter protest by the 1%.

According to the “End The Lockout” chronological timeline, in August 2009 the country club attempted to deny their staff healthcare by asking the workers to pay unaffordable monthly contributions–$367/month for single people and $739 for families–for what had otherwise been free.  The union provided a counter-proposal that they say would save the country club $9,000 more per month, but management refused.

On February 25, 2010, the country club locked out its own janitors and food service workers, and proceeded to tell the workers that they could return to work only if they dissolved their union.  General Manager Jerry Olson told us,” the union writes, “that the Club is ‘philosophically opposed’ to paying for family health benefits, even if workers make up the cost by giving up wages and other benefits.”

The workers have been picketing every day ever since.

Workers say that they and their families have gone short on food and “a lot of things,” but this has not stopped them in their fight to reclaim their job security and healthcare in this crisis economy.  And their tenacity is paying off.  They’ve called and convinced many organizations, including the Oakland A’s, to cancel their golf tournaments at the club.  And it has been hitting the country club in their pocketbook.  In 2010 alone, the union says, the club reported it’s operating revenue $550,000 below budget, $300,000 paid in legal expenses relating to the lockout, and $57,000 paid to “persuade workers to decertify their union.”

In the most recent contract offers, the union made an offer that they said would cost only $8.70 more per club member per month, and commented that many members are already paying $600 per month in dues, on top of a $25,000 membership fee.  Management again refused.

The National Labor Relations Board held it’s final hearing on the case yesterday, and it expected to give a ruling within the next several months.

The union workers of Local 2850 and their struggle agains the Castlewood Country Club has been an inspiration for the rest of the 99%.  Here is how they ended their Facebook invite to the protest Saturday:

‘We’re fighting for health care for our children.
We’re fighting for work with dignity.
We’re fighting to show the 1% that we are human beings.
We’re fighting for you.
JOIN US.”

If you would like to contribute to their strike fund, please donate HERE.

Eric Mann on Transformative Organizing

Eric Mann, a lifelong organizer with the L.A. Bus Riders Union and Labor/Community Strategy center, came to Causa Justa last thursday to speak about his new book, “Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer,” and his booklet prequel, “The 7 Components of Transformative Organizing Theory.”  They are essential guides to social justice organizing, and I hope anyone curious about what “organizing” actually means buys, reads, and shares the books.  His vision of transformative organizing unites radical political worldviews with pragmatical political struggles rooted in working class, community of color membership and leadership.  His vision of “the Movement” is an “international antiracist anti-imperialist united front.”  He is also a great example of a antiracist white activist.

In lieu of writing up a full account of the event, I’ve included a few of his quotes from the evening:

‎”Back in the 60’s I never would have believed that in 2012 we’d have 2.4 million people incarcerated, that we’d have our first black president, and he’d be deporting 400,000 people per year–more people in 3 years than Bush deported in 8 years. I would have not believed the realities of global warming, the mass poverty, and mass police state. I would not have believed that after the war in Vietnam, the U.S. would once again be provoked into war with the rest of the world.

We need to build a multiracial left.

My dream is not a utopia. My dream is not socialism. I feel like a Jew in the warsaw ghetto. We are going to fight the Nazis. We are going to fight the United States.

My dream is resistance.”

*          *          *

“It is important to know the ‘why’ of ‘why are we organizing?’  Everything that we do is trying to build a broad united front against U.S. imperialism.   There is a long tradition of anti-racist, anti-imperialist fighters.   We could be slaves organizing a revolt, activists during Reconstruction, labor and communist organizers in the  30’s, SDS and SNCC in the 60’s.  These were all transformative organizations.  Occupy has done a phenomenal number of things right, but they don’t come out of an antiracist, anti-imperialist, people of color-led tradition.”

*          *          *

“Most people don’t organize.  The just have opinions.

Yes, I understand, I’ve read the paper too.  But the only question I wanna hear is, ‘What are we gonna do about it?'”

*          *          *

“In black and Latino neighborhoods, we’re talking about a communities that are under military siege.  You can’t even begin working for civil rights without being [locked into] the security surveillance state.”

*          *          *

“Always be authentic to who you are.  There is not anything wrong in being who you are.  The question is, ‘Which side are you on?'”

*          *          *

“The definition of theory is the coherent explanation of random phenomenon.  Organizing is very theoretical.”

*          *          *

“If you don’t like it, then don’t be an organizer.  There are many other roles that we need in the movement, such as fundraising, research, media.  For me, I love it.  I get to meet amazing people everyday and make history.”

*          *          *

“In the 60’s, I found MLK, Malcolm X, and Fannie Lou Hamer more compelling that Judaism.  To me, The Movement is my religion.”

*          *          *

“Organizing exposes a lot of stuff inside yourself that you wish was better.”

*          *          *

“It’s like on the airlines: Put on your own oxygen mask before you put it on the baby.  There is nothing selfish about taking care of yourself first….I know you think it’s real f*kin’ revolutionary to miss all your bill payments, but seriously, pay you bills.  Register your car.  Don’t be a mess.”

*          *          *

“How can you be a revolutionary and not be about material things, like buses and housing?”

*          *          *

“Historically a successful movement requires most of its donors (not most of its money) to come from the working classes.  Movements of the poor are significantly funded by members of the middle and affluent classes who support their moral appeal.  This has been a dependable model throughout history.” (pg. 64).

*          *          *

“Fight to win.”

End Oakland’s Toxic Deal with Wall Street

Occupy the Hood, Decolonize Oakland, SEIU Local 1021, Oakland Community Organizations (OCO) and Oakland clergy packed the city council’s chambers on Tuesday evening (Feb 21) to demand an end to the city’s “toxic deal” with Goldman Sachs.  They are referring to debt payments that the city of Oakland makes to the speculative banking corporation every year, which have totaled $26 million since the late nineties and potentially over $2 million more per year until 2021.  Coincidentally, that is the exact same amount that would be required to keep open the 5 schools slated for closure.

Goldman Sachs’ colossal gambling addiction played a central role in crashing the global economy in 2008, but rather than receiving any type of retribution, they have instead received multiBILLION dollar bailouts of public money.   This government welfare subsized the $4+ billion in private profit they made last year, and the $40+ million they paid their CEO alone.  Meanwhile, the city of Oakland and municipalities across the country received no bailouts and have been passing worse and worse austerity budgets each year.

As Goldman Sachs receives free support in the form of taxpayer money (TARP) and an essentially open spigot of no-interest loans from the Federal Reserve, Oakland has been paying a fixed 5.6% interest to them for debt in which the principal has already been paid, activists say.  The East Bay Express breaks it down:

“The toxic rate-swap agreement in question dates to 1997 when Goldman Sachs convinced Oakland officials that it would protect taxpayers against the possibility that interest rates would rise on variable rate bonds that the city planned to issue the next year. Rate swaps — essentially contracts between two parties — allow governments to transform variable-rate debt payments into fixed-rate debt. Oakland’s deal with Goldman Sachs converted floating rates on $187 million of bond debt into a fixed 5.6 percent.”

“The problem for Oakland, however, was that floating interest rates only briefly exceeded 5.6 percent in the past fifteen years; first between 1998 and 2001, and again at the height of the housing bubble between 2006 and 2008. During the economic recession that followed 9/11, interest rates plummeted below 2 percent, forcing Oakland to make much higher payments to Goldman Sachs than it would have had it never signed the deal. Then, with the collapse of the economy in 2008, the US Federal Reserve reduced its lending rates to virtually zero, with variable rates in markets trailing close behind. Yet Oakland was still stuck paying more than 5 percent.”

Decolonizers brought the heat to the council during a lengthy open comment session, each speaker’s words multiplied by the signs and cheering behind them.  Luz Calvo, an ethnic studies professor at Cal State East Bay, quoted a famous saying, “‘Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank.  Give him a bank and he can rob the world.’ That is exactly what is happening,” she said.  “Every politician always says they’re tough on crime.  Now it’s time to go after the REAL criminals.”  Another speaker pointed out that Los Angeles and San Francisco have already set precedents for nullifying some of their debt payments.

Councilmember Libby Schaff responded by saying that this issue will be “agendaized” at a future meeting.  “We’ve already asked for the termination fee to be waived,” she said.  To that someone shouted, “Don’t ask, demand it!”  And she corrected herself to “demand.”

This would be an important victory because 1) it would recuperate millions of taxpayer dollars per year for the people of Oakland, and 2) it would free the city from the snare of megabank debt servitude.  Thirdly, the victory itself would show that the 99% can win, giving the movement momentum toward bigger goals, such as addressing the structural crisis of Oakland’s budget, which soon leads us to the structural crises of our whole economy and the need for re-imagining our economic systems.

We need to see this policy demand to end debt repayments as part of a larger arc in decolonization, which means both autonomy from the 1% and creating a system beyond our current one that provides for the basic human needs of all people.

“Today, We March for Dignity”

On the Friday morning (February 17th), hundreds of people rallied and marched with workers recently fired from Pacific Steel in Berkeley after a federal immigrations crackdown on their workplace.  Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents audited their factory in December and demanded the firing of all workers without social security numbers.  The company terminated the livelihoods of 200 workers for no other reason than that they are undocumented, in a country where it is virtually impossible to get residency or citizenship for most immigrants.

The rally began at Berkeley City Hall at 10am, full of chants, colorful signs, dancing, and megaphone-amplified speeches.  Some signs made specific policy demands: “STOP THE SILENT RAIDS” referring to ICE raids and “END E-VERIFY.”  Others appealed to a deeper part of our humanity: “THE WORLD HAS SO MUCH WEALTH, THERE SHOULD NOT BE MISERY,”  and “WE ARE NOT CRIMINALS, WE ARE WORKERS.”  All in spanish.  One girl held a sign declaring, “MUERTE AL CAPITALISMO” (“Death to Capitalism.”)

Speakers zeroed in on the Obama administration’s dehumanizing, anti-immigrant policies that have resulted in a record number of people deported and families torn apart.  In fiscal year 2011 alone, 397,000 uncles, fathers, mothers, and cousins were deported from neighborhoods in cities and towns all over this country.  Because Obama’s Orwellian-titled “Secure Communities” program (S-comm) integrates local police records with ICE, the vast majority or deportees are originally arrested for non-violent crimes, and many for something as simple as a traffic violation.

“Today,” one of the speakers declared, “We march for dignity.”

Before noon, the march took over University Ave parading west through the sunshine.  A huge banner at the front declaring “MARCHA POR LA DIGNIDAD” kept everyone organized into a solid mass of jubilant protest.   At the front, a fierce young girl and a couple of adults held down the chants: “Obama! Escucha! Estamos en la lucha!” (“Obama! Listen! We are in struggle!”), or “No cruzamos la frontera! La frontera nos cruzo!” (We didn’t cross the border! The border crossed us!).  Farther back, the Brass Liberation Orchestra gave the march a vibrant soundtrack. 67 suenos, an organization of migrant youth, went particularly hard, a one point getting the front of the march so hyped everyone was jumping up and down in unison.

The long march ended at the Pacific Steel and Castings Factory in Northwest Berkeley near the 80 freeway, where a huge banner proclaimed, “Local Union Labor at Work, Products Made in America.” A rally was held once more, complete with guitar-led sing-alongs, religious leaders, and countless red construction paper hearts to be sent to Janet Napolitano, the head of Homeland Security, which controls ICE.

Workers expressed their appreciation for the solidarity and turnout at the rally, saying that it gave them great hope in their struggle moving forward.  At the very least, they are demanding access to retribution of the pensions they paid into, which are held by their former union, GNP Local 164B, which has cut off all contact.

While many felt invigorated by the action, not everyone was.  A friend told me she’d been at a rally last year with the same workers after they’d been striking for just wages and working conditions.  Two-hundred and fifty people, all workers and their families, had attended.  “How many worker’s are there today?” she said.  “A dozen?”

Oakland City Council Member Ignacio De La Fuente, who is Vice President of the Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics, and Allied Workers International Union, supposedly cut a deal with ICE wherein workers would be fired and deported in small waves, in order to neutralize protest.  And it was clear that many of the 200 workers were not in attendance on Friday.

That is still the reality.

Occupy Oakland’s Love March

(via greendoula)

This Valentine’s Day evening Occupy Oakland marched up and down Broadway for “Love not War,” proudly proclaiming hella love for the city and people of Oakland.  The positivity was infectious.  When I arrived at the Henry J. Kaiser park on 19th and Telegraph at 7pm, I couldn’t get the grin plastered onto my face off if I tried.  Everyone was mingling, passing out valentines, dancing to Miguel’s “Sure Thing.”

Passing the Lenny Kravitz show at the Fox theater, the march left south on Broadway bursting with untraditional chants: “Everybody come on down, Oakland is a lovers town!”  And, “Love! And revolution! Is what we need for evolution!”  In the back, Laleh of the Anti-Repression Committee towed a speaker emanating Sade’s “Soldier of Love.”  Marchers gifted valentines to onlookers.  The highlight for me was the oceanic, swelling chant “WE LOVE OAK-LAND!” that became a call and response with folks on the sidewalk.

At times, rage-based chants poked through.  At one point, a young man kept yelling “Fuck the Police!,” and much of the march paused at the OPD headquarters to taunt the few officers assembled there by chanting the age-old rhyme, “You’re sexy! You’re cute! Take off your riot suit!”  That’s a great chant when riot police show up to repress a march, but the police deserved to be ignored in this context, and others kept the march moving forward.

It felt obvious at that moment that chants based in love rather than rage carry more power.  Love comes from a deep internal reservoir, and it’s collective chants make us feel united, light, and powerful.   Chants of love are so much more likely to bring smiles and reciprocated cheers from those driving by, those waiting for the bus after a long day at work, those cleaning and closing up their restaurants.  Rage, on the other hand, is exhausting.  It drains us quickly.   Even though it is justified, it turns people off emotionally and build walls between us, especially because it’s often coming from aggressive white men.

So…can we get a weekly Love March at Occupy Oakland, similar to what exists for the TAC-organized Fuck The Police marches?  I say that as someone highly skeptical of “flower-child-love-everybody-style protesting,” which is too often based in naiveté, ignorance, and the violent blinders of white privilege.  It is too often “sentimental and anemic,” in the words of King, or “infantile” and self-centered as Baldwin might say.   But there is deeper kind of love that can transform society, and this march provided a glimpse into what that culture shift could look like.   It is the love that is so powerful it dissolves our tendencies toward hate and rage.  It is the love that is expressed collectively when we take over city streets not with a permit but with our will.  It is the love that dissolves the pain and alienation we all experience in our lives for different reasons.   It is the love that builds the movement.  Justice, they say, is what love looks like in public.

“Consent yes! Cops no!” the river of marchers shouted.

There is much work to be done, of course. Instead of directing our anger at the 1% and their protectors, Occupy can use things like a Love March to focus on communicating and spinning the web of interconnection within the 99%.  When making protest signs, to cite a small example, instead of writing defiant messages to the 1%, why not write messages of love for the bus riders, students, shoppers, drivers, and street-living people who the marches always pass?  Or write messages that invite people to join in?  And beyond simple sign-making, true organizing takes incredible amounts of humility, engaging in conversations primarily to listen, and self-reflecting in order to deconstruct your own privilege.  The march, and Occupy Oakland in general, has to get more sophisticated in understanding its positionality and whiteness within Oakland, for example.  It is still largely a white thing, at least numerically.

If mass public love does become contagious, collective, powerful, and inescapable, then we really will be on the precipice of transformation.  And no, I don’t mean mass public love like awkwardly long hugs from old men who you don’t really even know.  I’m talking about a commonly understood unity based on affirmation of our shared humanity, and from that the smiles, subtle head nods, and public kindness that begins to flow between strangers.

After making a U-turn at the OPD headquarters, the march returned to Kaiser Park, beneath the giant Chamber of Commerce-funded busts of Ghandhi, King, and other social justice figureheads, where previously we’d been tear gassed and illegally kettled on Move-In Day (#j28).  A dance party ensued.  Queer and hetero couples made out.  Livestreamers danced.  Toddlers made street art.  And Leon paused the music briefly to shoutout the man who’d filmed the police kettle from his overlooking apartment.

And then Kreayshawn came on the stereo, and I knew it was time to go home.

On my way, I met a couple who asked for grocery money to hold them over until their food stamps application was processed.  And at Pizza Man, I sat across from a couple enjoying a 10pm Valentines Day meal with their young son.  In between quick sips on his soda, the boy confidently responded to something his dad had said, “But we don’t have a house.”  Their bond was palpable.

That’s what love looks like.  But not justice.

To meditate on:

“What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.   Power at it’s best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at it’s best is power correcting everything that stand against love.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

“Love takes off the mask we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.  I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, of grace — not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” – James Baldwin

The Interrupters

On Tuesday evening (Feb 14) The Interrupters will air on PBS, and I highly recommend watching it.  The film, which screened in Oakland last week to an overpacked audience of youth and adults, highlights the work of violence interrupters who intervene in young people’s lives on the streets of Chicago.   Ameena, Eddie, and Cobe are formerly gang-affiliated and incarcerated people who spend their days using the power of their words and persistent compassion to build relationships with young people to whom this world has given nothing but oppression, violence, and self-hate.  Ameena Matthews as a person and Cobe’s relationship with Flamo are particularly unforgettable.

Re-watching this trailer reminds me of the problematic aspects of this film as well.  The framework of “violence as a disease” is grossly aligned with the racism-excusing stereotype of the pathology of urban black communities.  There is also the question of PBS’s ideology and audience, which is mainstream and therefore largely white and suburban.  The film only barely mentions the structural lack of employment that people in the hood have faced for decades, and never mentions the ways that people are locked out of the economy though the legalized discrimination of people labeled felons, which is the majority of men of color in many cities.  During Q&A after the film, for example, Eddie said that getting his job after serving prison time for violent crime was “honestly not a second chance.  It was a first chance.” The laws we have, he said, “are made to keep poor people poor.”  None of those sentiments made it into the film.

But the audience in Oakland already knows these realities because of lived experience, and the film provided a powerful jumping off point for discussing and acting on interrupting violence in Oakland.  Kyndra Simmons of Youth Alive! came on stage to speak about her work of de-escalating violence at the hospital with family members of victims who are set on seeking revenge.  Anthony Del Toro, who was there with a large group of his co-workers from California Youth Outreach, spoke on the importance of earning the trust of youth.  “Because I’m an interrupter, I can’t just approach somebody and say you’ve got to stop [the violence].  I have to earn that right.”

One teenager stood up and stoically asked for advice about what do because her 22 year old brother has just been sentenced to life in prison and was losing all hope in life.  Another teen who’d recently lost her father and cousin to bullets declared that because of this film she was going to call up some of her friends that evening to do whatever she could to address the situation.

Marilyn Washington Harris, founder of the Khadafy Foundation for Non-Violence, spoke about her work as a crisis responder to mothers and parents who lose children to violence.  “You arrive at the funeral and you think the process has gone smoothly, but it does NOT go smoothly,” she told the audience.   She lost her son Khadafy in 2000 just after he’d graduated from McClymonds High.  Probably the most important theme of the night was that only if you’ve actually been in someone’s shoes can you help them out.  Without that, it’s not real.

Harris had just been all over Oakland to meet with the grieving families in the aftermath of the many shootings across the city the weekend before.   While OPD was busy having a press conference about how gangs are the cause of the violence, the film reminded us that so much of street violence is not from gangs but interpersonal issues that escalate.  It is those escalations that Ameena, Eddie, and Cobe wake up everyday to interrupt.

So go watch the film, and be a part of interrupting violence on your block and in our society.  But also don’t forget what Dr. King said back in 1967: “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.”

In honor of Kenneth Warren, who was shot and killed while leaving Headquarters barbershop, where he worked for his uncle Don as the “fastest trimmer in Berkeley.”  Emerson & Shattuck. February 26, 2012.  Rest in Peace.

Please see Toyna Love’s write-up of the event for videos of the Q & A.