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Charges Against Black Friday 14 Dropped. Collected Community Statements.
On December 4, Alameda County district attorney Nancy O'Malley dropped all charges against the Black Friday 14. The following statements were first collected at the Occupy Oakland website.
Asians For Black Lives Statement on the BlackFriday14 Victory: The Power of the People Won’t Stop
#BlackLivesMatter
#EndTheWarOnBlackLives
#Asians4BlackLives
Today, Asians4BlackLives stands inspired and proud alongside our comrades, the BlackFriday14, as Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley announces she is dropping the charges against them. This is a victory for the people. This is a critical moment to celebrate the power of grassroots organizing, direct action, and the fierce multi-sector, mutli-racial solidarity that worked hard to win this decision. We congratulate the BlackFriday14, and we acknowledge Nancy O’Malley for deciding to stand on the side of justice.
The BlackFriday14 inspired so many of us when they shut down BART last November, as part of the nationwide Movement for Black Lives. Two weeks later, Asians4BlackLives, alongside other non-Black allies, chained shut the doors of the Oakland police headquarters while Black activists led an action outside. While Nancy O’Malley pressed for restitution and criminal charges against the BlackFriday14, she did not prosecute A4BL and other non-Black allies for this similar action. As non-Black people of color, we recognize this differential treatment as another example of how the state specifically targets and criminalizes Black communities. District attorneys across the country, including O’Malley, fail again and again to prosecute police officers for the murder of Black people, and instead use their time and resources to prosecute Black activists fighting for their lives under a state of emergency.
This is a global state of emergency. It is the violence of white supremacy and anti-Blackness that led to the police murder of Jamar Clark and the shootings of BLM protesters in Minneapolis, and the killing of Mario Woods in San Francisco just this week. There are many fronts of this daily war on Black Lives–from police violence, to gentrification, to mass incarceration. We will continue to take to the streets, shut down business as usual, and stand alongside our Black comrades to end this war. For we recognize that Black liberation is inextricably linked to our own. The forces of white supremacy and imperialism that harm us and our people across the world–from Syria, Lebanon, South Korea, Burma, and Palestine to Oakland–cannot be toppled without working to dismantle anti-Blackness.
Dropping the charges against the BlackFriday14 is one victory in a long struggle. This past Black Friday, Asians4BlackLives supported Black Lives Matter Bay Area in disrupting the SF Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, calling out Mayor Ed Lee for his role in fueling gentrification which has displaced many and left the city with only a 3% Black population, and his support in building a new SF Jail in a city where over half the current jail inmates are Black. This city, which prides itself on diversity, is really a city that is pushing out its Black residents, while it continues to erase and devalue their lives.
Some non-Black Asians like Mayor Lee have opted to become active agents in this war. Asians stand on both sides of the class divide in the Bay; as gentrifiers and gentrified, as oppressors and oppressed. Each of us has the choice to be silent and complicit in the forces harming our communities–or, to commit to the fight for Black liberation, and the liberation of all of our peoples. As we declare this victory with the BlackFriday14, we call on our Asian sisters, brothers, and siblings to join us in this fight towards freedom, safety, and wellbeing for all.
http://a4bl.tumblr.com/post/134517927334/a4bl-statement-on-the-blackfriday14-victory-the
#BlackLivesMatter
#EndTheWarOnBlackLives
#Asians4BlackLives
Today, Asians4BlackLives stands inspired and proud alongside our comrades, the BlackFriday14, as Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley announces she is dropping the charges against them. This is a victory for the people. This is a critical moment to celebrate the power of grassroots organizing, direct action, and the fierce multi-sector, mutli-racial solidarity that worked hard to win this decision. We congratulate the BlackFriday14, and we acknowledge Nancy O’Malley for deciding to stand on the side of justice.
The BlackFriday14 inspired so many of us when they shut down BART last November, as part of the nationwide Movement for Black Lives. Two weeks later, Asians4BlackLives, alongside other non-Black allies, chained shut the doors of the Oakland police headquarters while Black activists led an action outside. While Nancy O’Malley pressed for restitution and criminal charges against the BlackFriday14, she did not prosecute A4BL and other non-Black allies for this similar action. As non-Black people of color, we recognize this differential treatment as another example of how the state specifically targets and criminalizes Black communities. District attorneys across the country, including O’Malley, fail again and again to prosecute police officers for the murder of Black people, and instead use their time and resources to prosecute Black activists fighting for their lives under a state of emergency.
This is a global state of emergency. It is the violence of white supremacy and anti-Blackness that led to the police murder of Jamar Clark and the shootings of BLM protesters in Minneapolis, and the killing of Mario Woods in San Francisco just this week. There are many fronts of this daily war on Black Lives–from police violence, to gentrification, to mass incarceration. We will continue to take to the streets, shut down business as usual, and stand alongside our Black comrades to end this war. For we recognize that Black liberation is inextricably linked to our own. The forces of white supremacy and imperialism that harm us and our people across the world–from Syria, Lebanon, South Korea, Burma, and Palestine to Oakland–cannot be toppled without working to dismantle anti-Blackness.
Dropping the charges against the BlackFriday14 is one victory in a long struggle. This past Black Friday, Asians4BlackLives supported Black Lives Matter Bay Area in disrupting the SF Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, calling out Mayor Ed Lee for his role in fueling gentrification which has displaced many and left the city with only a 3% Black population, and his support in building a new SF Jail in a city where over half the current jail inmates are Black. This city, which prides itself on diversity, is really a city that is pushing out its Black residents, while it continues to erase and devalue their lives.
Some non-Black Asians like Mayor Lee have opted to become active agents in this war. Asians stand on both sides of the class divide in the Bay; as gentrifiers and gentrified, as oppressors and oppressed. Each of us has the choice to be silent and complicit in the forces harming our communities–or, to commit to the fight for Black liberation, and the liberation of all of our peoples. As we declare this victory with the BlackFriday14, we call on our Asian sisters, brothers, and siblings to join us in this fight towards freedom, safety, and wellbeing for all.
http://a4bl.tumblr.com/post/134517927334/a4bl-statement-on-the-blackfriday14-victory-the
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Adding to the Collected Community Statements:
Considering this victory took place December 4, 2015, we should have heard the announcement here much sooner. The San Francisco Examiner, a free newspaper in San Francisco, had the announcement on December 4, 2015. See
http://www.sfexaminer.com/alameda-county-da-drops-charges-against-black-friday-14-who-stopped-bart-trains/
Considering that Dec 4 was 2 days after Mario Woods was killed in San Francisco, and Democrat DA O'Malley wants to be attorney general (see https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/11/10/18779859.php?show_comments=1#18779880 and http://www.ebcitizen.com/2015/03/alameda-county-da-nancy-omalley-eyeing.html) for which she will need labor's vote and the black vote, although no worker has any business voting for any Democrat or Republican, the timing clearly indicates that labor's actions were decisive.
International Action Center had the following article on December 8, 2015:
Oakland, Calif.: Victory for the ‘Black Friday 14’ by David Welch, 12/8/15
http://www.iacenter.org/racism/bl14-120915/
By Dave Welsh
December 8, 2015
On the so-called “Black Friday” shopping day of Nov. 27, 2014, following the failure to charge cops in the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Mo., 14 Black activists chained themselves together on a Bay Area Rapid Transit platform. They wanted to stop trains from moving at the West Oakland station in response to the police war against Black communities. The 14, a majority of them women, faced criminal charges.
Now, after a year-long campaign by the “BF14” and a broad coalition of allies, District Attorney Nancy O’Malley dropped all the charges on Dec. 4.
“Our criminal case is over, but the war on Black lives remains,” read a statement issued by Black Lives Matter Bay Area. “There can be no business as usual while young Black men and women … are murdered with impunity by police officers, security guards and vigilantes. The police remain an occupying force in our communities. Black bodies are not only over-policed and over-incarcerated, we are also underpaid, overworked, and priced out of communities we’ve lived in our entire lives.”
Union leaders tie struggles together
Organized labor took several key actions in advance of the DA’s decision. In May the Alameda (Calif.) Labor Council canceled a plan to honor Nancy O’Malley at its annual dinner, citing her handling of the BF14 case. A BART union member showed up at a BART hearing to support the BF14.
Then on Nov. 10, as part of a national Fight for $15 action and in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, 14 labor leaders held a sit-in at the DA’s office, demanding she drop the charges against the BF14.
The labor leaders, including the president of the California Labor Federation and key officers of nine unions, representing service workers, university employees, teachers and hotel workers, issued the following statement:
“Half of Black workers make under $15 an hour, and our members are people of color who face a crisis of inequality and displacement as well as police violence and injustice from the courts. We know that economic justice and racial justice are inseparable. And we honor the actions of the Black Friday 14 as part of a long tradition of fighting for dignity in the civil rights and labor movements. …
“While the charges are dropped, the movement continues,” the statement went on, “and continued injustices — from Chicago, to Minneapolis, to the latest police killing in San Francisco — will keep calling us to action. As leaders of the labor movement, we reaffirm our commitment to our workers, to Black workers, to Black people and to standing for the freedom side.”
Considering this victory took place December 4, 2015, we should have heard the announcement here much sooner. The San Francisco Examiner, a free newspaper in San Francisco, had the announcement on December 4, 2015. See
http://www.sfexaminer.com/alameda-county-da-drops-charges-against-black-friday-14-who-stopped-bart-trains/
Considering that Dec 4 was 2 days after Mario Woods was killed in San Francisco, and Democrat DA O'Malley wants to be attorney general (see https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/11/10/18779859.php?show_comments=1#18779880 and http://www.ebcitizen.com/2015/03/alameda-county-da-nancy-omalley-eyeing.html) for which she will need labor's vote and the black vote, although no worker has any business voting for any Democrat or Republican, the timing clearly indicates that labor's actions were decisive.
International Action Center had the following article on December 8, 2015:
Oakland, Calif.: Victory for the ‘Black Friday 14’ by David Welch, 12/8/15
http://www.iacenter.org/racism/bl14-120915/
By Dave Welsh
December 8, 2015
On the so-called “Black Friday” shopping day of Nov. 27, 2014, following the failure to charge cops in the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Mo., 14 Black activists chained themselves together on a Bay Area Rapid Transit platform. They wanted to stop trains from moving at the West Oakland station in response to the police war against Black communities. The 14, a majority of them women, faced criminal charges.
Now, after a year-long campaign by the “BF14” and a broad coalition of allies, District Attorney Nancy O’Malley dropped all the charges on Dec. 4.
“Our criminal case is over, but the war on Black lives remains,” read a statement issued by Black Lives Matter Bay Area. “There can be no business as usual while young Black men and women … are murdered with impunity by police officers, security guards and vigilantes. The police remain an occupying force in our communities. Black bodies are not only over-policed and over-incarcerated, we are also underpaid, overworked, and priced out of communities we’ve lived in our entire lives.”
Union leaders tie struggles together
Organized labor took several key actions in advance of the DA’s decision. In May the Alameda (Calif.) Labor Council canceled a plan to honor Nancy O’Malley at its annual dinner, citing her handling of the BF14 case. A BART union member showed up at a BART hearing to support the BF14.
Then on Nov. 10, as part of a national Fight for $15 action and in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, 14 labor leaders held a sit-in at the DA’s office, demanding she drop the charges against the BF14.
The labor leaders, including the president of the California Labor Federation and key officers of nine unions, representing service workers, university employees, teachers and hotel workers, issued the following statement:
“Half of Black workers make under $15 an hour, and our members are people of color who face a crisis of inequality and displacement as well as police violence and injustice from the courts. We know that economic justice and racial justice are inseparable. And we honor the actions of the Black Friday 14 as part of a long tradition of fighting for dignity in the civil rights and labor movements. …
“While the charges are dropped, the movement continues,” the statement went on, “and continued injustices — from Chicago, to Minneapolis, to the latest police killing in San Francisco — will keep calling us to action. As leaders of the labor movement, we reaffirm our commitment to our workers, to Black workers, to Black people and to standing for the freedom side.”
For more information:
http://www.iacenter.org/racism/bl14-120915/
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