Oakland
Police Assault Anti-War Student Protest
On March 5, 2003, the U.S.
was on the brink of a military assault against defenseless Iraqi men,
women and children. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, Oakland police
had already begun their assault on young African and Indigenous students
who dared speak out against U.S. imperialism.
On this day, 300 to 400, mostly
non-white students from high schools and middle schools militantly marched
out of their classrooms in defiance of the status quo, while the U.S.
threatened its brutal “shock and awe” slaughter campaign in
Iraq.
This walkout was reminiscent
of 35 years ago, when young folks took a similar militant stand against
that time’s manifestation of U.S. white power - the “Vietnam
War.”
After walking out of their
classes, the students converged on downtown Oakland and marched to Jack
London Square, a gentrified tourist neighborhood on the waterfront. The
march was fully non-violent and fell within the parameters of basic democratic
civil rights described in the U.S. constitution. When they reached Jack
London Square, the police encircled them with a phalanx of approximately
30 motorcycle cops.
Police
attack peaceful protest
The pigs began using their vehicles as weapons, running over the feet
of the young comrades and pushing them closer together - in effect, corralling
them as if they were cattle.
It was during this attack that J.R. Valrey and Sister Rashida, two African
reporters for a local black community news journal the San Francisco Bay
View, were arrested on charges of assault on a police officer and resisting
arrest.
The public policy of police
containment of the African community has not missed a beat, even in the
face of the City of Oakland paying out nearly $11 million to 119 people
as part of a court settlement for the police terror and brutality which
has come to be known as the “Oakland Riders” scandal.
In addition to the brutality
on the streets of Oakland, many African students were prevented from participating
in the walkout.
Students from Oakland high
schools testify that school gates and doors were locked to hold up the
students. This is a blatant violation of school and district fire codes.
In the Oakland school system, which has 55,000 mostly African, Raza and
Asian students, those who dared to consider exercising their conscience
to participate in the walkout were threatened by the school administration
with expulsion. However in the nearby, mostly white Berkeley school district,
students were officially excused from class, encouraged to participate
in anti-war actions, and given extra-credit for doing so.
This component of oppression
of African people is just another front of the U.S. war against colonized
people. Iraq is another.
Peace will come
only through true liberation of African people
Inside the U.S., and in the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Area in particular,
we see the absence of African, Indigenous and other oppressed people at
these peace rallies where hundreds of thousands of people attend. This
is because the “peace movement,” led by the white left, will
organize marches and rallies against a war in Iraq, but refuse to address
the domestic war against African people.
In response, the African People’s
Socialist Party is building a contingent of African people to converge
on an anti-war march and rally scheduled for April 5, 2003 in Oakland.
It is necessary to bring significant numbers to this mobilization.
If the students who were attacked
seek to join forces with those who are truly their allies, brothers and
sisters in the struggle for peace and social justice, they will join the
Uhuru Movement contingent.
The Uhuru Movement not only
fully supports the right of the Iraqi people for self-determination, but
we also are determined to raise the rights of African people for social
justice and national liberation as the basis for peace. If African people
are not free, there will be no peace for anyone.
The time is now for African
people to be selfish with building our own movement for our own benefit.
The days of supporting what
white people think peace should look like — a peace on the plantation,
where the slave is prevented from rising up and fighting by any means
necessary, for total, unequivocal freedom — are over.
Time to struggle! Time to win!
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