OSA Students Participate in Walkout

On Friday, January 9, fifty students at Oakland School for the Arts, located in the Fox Theatre in downtown Oakland, mobilized in a walkout.

The protesters marched and chanted in resistance to both the execution of Oscar Grant and the continued occupation and active aggression toward Gaza and all of Palestine.

The procession moved from OSA, on 19th and Telegraph, to 14th and Broadway, an intersection that has seen much dissent regarding Oscar’s murder. The students chanted, “No more guns, we need peace,” and, “They’re killing minorities by the hour, what do we do? Fight the Power!”

Many students took turns speaking to the gathering about what they feel is a misuse of their tax dollars, the injustice “from Oakland to Gaza,” and expressing their solidarity to the month-long (and lifelong) struggle in Greece against police violence.

Dashaya, 17, was a powerful voice in the walkout. She said, “I’m out here to fight police brutality, I’m out here for justice, I’m out here because I believe in peace and I think police shouldn’t attack minorities based on their racial identity. I don’t think we should put money into war during a recession. I’m here to say no to injustice,”

About half of the students laid on their stomachs in the now well-known position that Oscar Grant was laying in when he was shot in the back by Officer Johannes Mehserle on New Year’s Day, chanting, “No pigs! No cops! No pork chops! No donut shops!”

The students then marched to City Hall, where they stood on the marble steps out front, chanting, “No justice! No peace! Stop the police!” There was then a full minute of silence, as many students stared at City Hall with their fists raised.

Again, the students addressed one another, emphasizing the importance of artists (the high school is a chartered arts school) in resistance and singing many songs from the civil rights struggles of the sixties. A few student speakers urged their classmates to draw the connections between the attacks on Palestinians and the attacks on poor minorities in the US, The students finally marched back to school. One student was heard saying, “Now we go back and study hard, to prove that we are not looters and gangsters, and we can use those tax dollars for good.”

There is another mass walkout planned for Friday, January 16 at 11:00 AM at the District Attorney’s office in downtown Oakland. It is anticipated that over five East Bay high schools will be participating. The DA’s office is in the courthouse on the southwest side of Lake Merritt.