Feature Archives

On March 14, thousands of San Francisco Bay Area students participated in a national walkout against gun violence, with 1,500 marching in the suburb of Menlo Park alone. However, not all went smoothly for some Bay Area students seeking to express themselves. One district superintendent in the South Bay accused students of not thinking things through, and stated that “Organizations have their own agendas and they’re using kids as pawns."

On March 24, the kids and families of March For Our Lives took to the streets to demand that their lives and safety become a priority, and that gun violence comes to an end. Northern California is marched in solidarity. The national mission statement declared: March For Our Lives is created by, inspired by, and led by students across the country who will no longer risk their lives waiting for someone else to take action to stop the epidemic of mass school shootings that has become all too familiar. In the tragic wake of the seventeen lives brutally cut short in Florida, politicians are telling us that now is not the time to talk about guns. March For Our Lives believes the time is now.

Joshua Shepherd writes: I have a self-inflicted wound. I joined the United States military. I didn't know. I couldn't see. I couldn't hear. I was borne of wounded folk. I became wounded myself. Let us heal. I am currently using a Twitter account @FortressBayArea to name militarisms past and present. I aspire to a kind of community solidarity where we challenge our neighbors to stop inflicting wounds for their own sake and that of others. The foundation of the modern Bay Area was laid on conquest. Of land, of people, of spirit. One of UC Berkeley's cornerstones was shifted 5° to align with the Golden Gate and mark the coming conquest of the Pacific.

On March 10, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) and other housing activists kicked off the campaign in the Bay Area for the Affordable Housing Act — a proposed ballot initiative that that will give cities and counties the power to adopt rent control measures necessary to address California's housing affordability crisis by repealing the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. For the November 2018 ballot, the deadline for collection of 585,000 signatures statewide is May.

Hundreds of immigrant rights activists, including many students, unionists, and other allies, surrounded the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in San Francisco to disrupt ICE's daily patterns of mistreatment and dehumanization. Increased ICE activity has been reported throughout the Bay Area, the Central Coast, and in the Central Valley. Reports from rapid response networks confirm that ICE agents have recently arrested hundreds of people in cities including Monterey, Oakland, Fresno, Napa, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Clara, and Salinas.

Bob M writes: In the wake of the Stoneman Douglas shooting, the high school students at that school and across the country are calling for a walkout on March 24 and again on April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine shooting in 1999. The students are calling for national leaders to listen to them, but as of yet they do not have demands other than getting AR-15s "out of the hands of people who should not have them." Many radicals still hold strong to the important point that de-arming must start with the cops and military, and not take away self-defense from oppressed communities.

The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty released a report, Tent City USA: The Growth of America’s Homeless Encampments and How Communities are Responding, reviewing the rapid growth of homeless people living in tents across the United States over the past decade, as measured by documentation in media reports. Research showed a 1,342 percent increase in homeless encampments reported between 2007 and 2017, with at least one encampment reported in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. As encampments become increasingly common, local governments have enacted laws to prohibit living in tents.