More on Oscar Grant

[Marvin X]

More on Oscar Grant

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – JUNE 30^TH, 2010

Contact: Tony Coleman, Rachel Jackson

[phone] or [e-mail]

OAKLAND ORGANIZERS DEFEND RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE AFTER MEHSERLE VERDICT

WHO: Oakland General Assembly for Justice for Oscar Grant

WHAT: Press Conference

WHEN: Thursday, July 1st, 11:00 AM

WHERE: 14th & Broadway, Oakland (at the flag poles in Frank Ogawa Plaza )

As the Mehserle murder trial verdict draws near, Oakland community organizers fear that the Mayor and Oakland
Police Department’s contradictory actions will hinder the
exercise of First
Amendment rights. Officials claim to support free speech, while
video of heavily armed officers – marching in military formation,
swinging batons on peaceful mock-protesters, and preparing pepper spray, tear gas,
and tanks – sends the opposite message: that protestors will be
brutalized, for the “crime” of protesting police brutality.

Despite this intimidation, the Oakland Assembly for Justice for Oscar Grant and all victims of police abuse,
supports the call for a community gathering at the intersection of 14th
Street and Broadway in Oakland
, 6pm, the day the verdict is announced.

Tony Coleman of OneFam raises key questions, “After years of cuts to youth services, now the City can pay for
PSA’s and pay outreach workers to say that Oakland officials love
young people? Where was funding or action against police abuse last
year, when Dellums told protesters he ‘was too busy,’ to comment on the
shooting of Oscar Grant? And why are gang-prevention officers high on
the list of officers to be cut from the OPD? This is hypocrisy, and it’s
way too little, way too late.”

“The police are out of control in California and beyond, from Seattle to
Detroit to New York , and it’s past time for Obama to step up,” says
Rachel Jackson of the New Years Movement for Justice. “Despite the hype,
there are no ‘outside agitators’ when a problem is nationwide. The
‘outsiders’ are officers who don’t live in cities they patrol, would
never send their children to Oakland schools, and believe the solution
to crime is to pack prisons with non-violent offenders.”

Hannibal Shakur from the Laney Black Student Union drives the point home: “I get targeted by the police
regularly, including for the ‘crime’ of documenting police abuse on
video. It’s offensive and condescending to imply that young black men
need ‘outsiders’ to tell us how to respond to racism.”

Regardless of the Mehserle verdict, police violence must stop. At this historical moment, the Oakland Assembly
urges us to look to each other for healing and solutions to community
problems. The Oakland Assembly for Justice will facilitate a
youth-focused program to express and process emotions our on the day
of the verdict, in a space where our voices will be heard.

RALLY * OPEN MIC * SPOKEN WORD * YOUTH SPEAK OUT!

Day of the Verdict – Community Gathering – 14th & Broadway, 6pm

The Oakland General Assembly for Justice for Oscar Grant is a grassroots coalition of concerned citizens working with statewide
partners to stop the epidemic of police abuse. For more information,
see www.oaklandforjustice.org.

From: "Brooks, Desley" a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="mailto:[e-mail]">[e-mail]>
Date: June 30, 2010 1:07:02 PM PDT
To: "Brooks, Desley" a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="mailto:[e-mail]">[e-mail]>
Subject: Press Release from the Black Electeds and Clergy of the East Bay.

Contact: Desley Brooks [phone]

Keith Carson [phone]

For Immediate Release

Black Elected Officials and Clergy of the Eastbay’s statement regarding
Upcoming Oscar Grant Verdict

An Open Letter to the Community:

Within the next couple of days and/or weeks there will be a verdict in the Oscar Grant case. This case has struck a nerve in Oakland and around the
world. In anticipation of the verdict the Black Elected Officials and
Clergy of the Eastbay wanted to share some information with our
community.

Representatives of our organization have been monitoring this case since Oscar Grant was senselessly murdered by Johannes Mehserle on January 1, 2009. We
demanded that a reluctant District Attorney file criminal proceedings
against Mehserle; we helped to organize community pressure on BART to
bring about organizational change and implementation of polices and
procedures to ensure that a tragedy like this never happens again; we
have attended all of the court proceedings; and most importantly we
have demanded justice for Oscar Grant, his family and everyone that
Oscar represents – because we all could be Oscar Grant.

A community needs to know that its leadership will stand to protect their interests. While we are hopeful that our Justice System will be just; we are mindful of incidences where it has failed us. When
the system failed us in the Rodney King case, the Justice Department
stepped in to ensure that the Community’s interests were protected. We,
the Black Elected Officials and Clergy of the Eastbay, stand prepared
to call upon all State and Federal agencies to seek any and all
recourse if an unjust verdict is rendered in this case.

We know that emotions may run high depending on the outcome of Johannes Mehserle’s criminal proceedings. The current
State Court proceedings are just one step on the road to
justice for Oscar Grant. As such, we are asking that you work with us
to shut down anyone who would engage in destructive behavior in our
community. We are also asking that you work with us as we continue to
demand justice for Oscar. We have been assured that the Justice
Department is monitoring the Mehserle case.

Martin Luther King said that peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice. In the same vein as Martin
Luther King, Rosa Parks, Rodney

King, and many others we will receive JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT.

The struggle continues,

Hon. Desley Brooks

Hon. Keith Carson

Minister Keith Muhammad

Rev. Dr. Harold R. Mayberry

Rev. Zachary Carey

Hon. Darleen Brooks

Hon. Kathy Neal

Hon. Marlon McWilson

Bishop Keith Clark

Rev. Dr. Kevin Barnes

Hon. Darryl Moore

Hon. Alice Spearman

Partial listing

Desley Brooks

Oakland City Council Member, District 6

City Hall

1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, 2nd Floor

Oakland, CA 94612

[phone] (office)

[phone] (facsimile)

[e-mail]

Keep Making A Difference -- Pay It Forward!

Parable
of Oakland Police Riot

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Parable
of Oakland Police Riot





The Oakland Police are planning to riot. This is the community
consensus based on conversations at the crossroads. They shall be
waiting for the crowd to gather in front of City Hall after the verdict
is announced in the Oscar Grant murder trial. The consensus among the
people is that the BART police officer shall not be found guilty of
murder. The prosecution has been weak as water, with no real effort to
convince the jury Oscar Grant was murdered in cold blood last New Year's
day.



Oakland police have been planning for weeks how they will handle the
expected protests. They have been training in riot control, the old
condemned North County jail has been prepared to handle protesters. Even
the jail above City Hall has been made ready. All downtown businesses
have been told to close early on Thursday and don't leave cars parked in
the downtown area.



OPD Chief Bates says he wants peace but is prepared for war. Mayor
Dellums concurs. The religious leaders, aka Pharaoh's magicians, are in
league with the police to keeps the masses calm.



Yet the consensus among the people is that, if anything, it shall be
a police inspired riot, instigated by agent provocateurs, Cointelpro
agents and undercover police. The police want a riot so they can justify
not getting laid off, having their budget cut and forced to contribute
to their retirement fund. A good riot will make them eligible for
Federal funds such as gang abatement monies and other grants from
criminal justice and Homeland security.



So the OPD is ready to whup heads and slaughter demonstrators after
they are instigated by agent provocateurs.



As far as we're concerned, justice for Oscar Grant was granted by
Louvelle Mixon. Dr. Fritz Pointer said Mixon's shootout with the OPD
allowed the Oakland masses to enjoy an "obscene pride" after years of
police abuse under the color of law.



We are against all violence except in self defense. When the police
stop acting like an occupying army and understand they work for the
people and not the reverse, perhaps then, and only then, shall there be
real peace in the hood.



The Supreme Court's decision to allow Americans to defend themselves
with guns must be understood by reading the subtext: let them niggers
keep killing each other, so long as they don't cross the line into the
white community. If they cross the line, we're ready for them.



We know who sells guns to the brothers and sisters in the hood, and
we know who allows the dope in. We cannot disassociate guns and drugs
from politicians and developers who are eager to gentrify ghetto
neighborhoods with buppies , yuppies and puppies. They will employ such
tactics as gang abatement and eminent domain to ethnically cleanse the
hood for the pseudo liberal black and white bourgeoisie.



A friend attended a gang abatement meeting full of whites. He
wondered aloud where are the guys who are targets of gang abatement?
Four of them were in jail and two others are home owners who must now
stay one hundred blocks from their homes.



We cannot view this problem solely in a local context, but it must
be seen within the wider context of the global wars against the poor in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere. Through the
tribal chiefs, America paid insurgents in Iraq to lay down their
arms--that was the real surge, not the phony surge of General Patraeus,
that was essentially the ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods in Baghdad,
separating the Sunnia from the Shia by in numerous checkpoints, along
with forcing four million internally and externally displaced refugees.
In the most restive Anbar Province, Sunni insurgents were paid to lay
down their arms and join the security patrols in their neighborhoods.
This is the reason for the dramatic decrease in violence.



They are employing the same tactic in Afghanistan. The plan is to
pay the Taliban billions to lay down their arms and pledge allegiance to
the corrupt Karzai who is hardly the president of a nation but the
Mayor of Kabul, the Capital. The Taliban shall be given jobs, housing
and education.



Isn't this fantastic! Jobs, housing and education! Why not try this
tactic in the hoods of America, specifically in Oakland, Mayor Ron
Dellums, OPD Chief Bates, Attorney General Holder, President Barack
Hussein Obama. But oh, no, you rather pay the Taliban because they are a
threat to your national security, although there is more violence in
the hoods of America annually than the combined violence in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.



Is not the violence in the hoods of America a threat to national
security? Children can't go to school, men and women can't go to work
and come home safely, worshippers can't attend church, the elderly are
prisoners in their homes in the day and night. Where is the national
security?



It is costing you one million dollars per soldier per year to occupy
Afghanistan, yet you have not reported the killing of one Al Queda
soldier on the soil of Afghanistan. And then you say you must stay in
Afghanistant until you improve the army who is so illiterate they are
too retarded to defend themselves, yet these are the people who ran out
Alexander the Great, the Monguls, the British, the Russians, and soon
they will run your asses out. Yet you tell us you must occupy their land
until they are literate enough to defend themselves?



I rest my case. Let us pray for peace in the streets of Oakland, a
valiant city, home of the Western Pullman Porters, home of the Black
Panthers. Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?

--Marvin X

Academy of Da Corner

14th and Broadway

6/29/10

www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com
www.parablesandfablesofmarvinx.blogspot.com

The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables
Black Bird Press, 2010
311 pages
$100.00

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