Please Write Letters of Support to Reunite Kerie with her Children!

Kerie needs letters of support for her court date on Monday, in order to get her children back. A letter of support is: a testimony to her character, sharing good experiences about her, especially if you’ve seen her interacting with her kids, in the loving, supportive, and brilliant way she always does!! The court is most receptive to people who have good or high-status jobs, (even though Keri wants letters from everyone and doesn’t value people based on their ‘status’ within capitalism!). IF YOU WRITE A LETTER, you MUST include the phrase: “I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct.”

People must send these letters in by MONDAY, APRIL 16!
Send them here! : antirepression@gmail.com
And please donate to help this amazing mom get her kids back! :https://www.wepay.com/donations/fund-to-help-keri-get-back-her-children

♥♥ love, antirepression crew & oakland occupy patriarchy

SINGLE MOTHER FALSELY ACCUSED OF ENDANGERING HER CHILDREN AT OCCUPY OAKLAND

[This article is a much shorter version of an original piece that connected Kerie Campbell’s situation to larger systemic issues, with analysis about how patriarchy and heteronormativity get enforced in this society, through the court system and in so many other ways. However, because of Kerie’s legal situation, her lawyer warned us that this kind of publicity might anger the court system and prevent what we all want to happen more than anything: for Kerie to gain custody of her children. We will continue to make important systemic analysis in other actions and articles. In the meantime, we are finding ways to support Kerie and hope you join us to help Kerie in her struggle to get her children back.]

The authorities apparently stop at nothing to intimidate and scare people from participating in a movement that they fear. Stayaway orders, bogus arrests, heavy charges for minor offenses, sham “lynching” laws, and, most recently, deploying the Child Protective Services to attack a single mother for participating in Occupy Oakland.

Kerie Campbell is an all-star activist at Occupy Oakland. There from the very 1st planning meeting in Mosswood Park, there the night the camp struck back in October, Kerie is also an admin on the OO (Occupy Oakland) website and co founder of the Occupy Oakland Children’s Village.  The Children’s Village is an area for kids and parents/legal guardians to hangout and feels safe, and is designed to create a space for children to have their voices respected and heard in ways not common for them.  It allows people come to OO events knowing they will have a safe, friendly place to spend time with their kids. Most recently, at the OO Barbecue/Speakout series, kids in the Children’s Village made puppets, got their faces painted, and otherwise hung out together with their parents or guardians.  Considering that Kerie is also a single mother with two young children, the fact that she is so heavily involved is impressive.

Around Occupy Oakland Kerie and her children are welcome, familiar faces that everyone loves. Like many other children who spend time around OO, Kerie’s kids became part of the larger OO family.  But recently something tragic happened in her life that is angering her and the larger community of OO. This activist who has such a standing in the welfare of children had her own children forcefully taken away from her by an Ex-Husband under ridiculous charges that are clearly politically motivated.

Throughout Kerie’s marriage to Anthony Sprenger and during the 6-year custody battle of their 2 children, Kerie and her ex-Husband had a tumultuous relationship to say in the least. However their legal situation was finally worked out and she had two years of relative calm, which made this most recent attempt to bar Kerie from seeing her children come seemingly from out of the blue.

On Friday afternoon Kerie arrived at her children’s school like any other Friday, the day she her Ex-Husband normally switched custody. The Friday custody switch-up, until this point, went “like clock work.”  Thursday night Kerie’s daughter called her, crying about a classroom conflict. “I told her that I would see her the next day.” Kerie recounts with tears in her eyes.  But when she got to school, her children were nowhere to be found. She panicked, until a friend told her that her ex husband had come to pick the kids up before she got there. Frantically, Kerie went to different school administration officials to find out how exactly her Ex Husband had done this without any warning to Kerie. The search for more information from the administration, with which she had a good relationship up until this point, was to no avail. “They had their heads and eyes down and said that they couldn’t do or say anything.”  Finally, she was forced to call the police (which she did not want to do) who eventually, after a lot of back and forth, produced the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) her ex used to take the children. The Restraining Order was supposed to be served her before taking her children. It had no supplementary declaration or evidentiary documents.

The TRO stated that Kerie’s children were at risk because she had taken them to the Mosswood Encampment, which was an Occupy Oakland re-occupation that occurred on March 22nd, thus endangering them. That day the encampment was granted permission to be at Mosswood by OPD once the occupiers had taken their tents down. The “recklessly endangering” activities that Kerie and her children were taking partin? They ate pizza, wrote letters to imprisoned comrades, played Frisbee and tag,and read books in an environment largely resembling a park picnic. Clearly, this event was not dangerous. The TRO mentioned quite a few other charges that cite Kerie as an unfit mother because of her involvement in OO, which is absurd given her activities in Occupy Oakland.

This attack has disturbing implications for how repression could affect single parents involved in OO and is something the larger OO community must be on the watch for.  Kerie believes this was a targeted attack against her involvement in Occupy Oakland.  “[My ex-husband] had gone after everything else before, this was all he had left to go after.”

As occupiers and feminists, we must support Kerie against this attack, and we must continue to provide spaces like Children’s Village that support people with children   who want to participate in this movement.

To donate to Kerie’s legal fund send checks to her friend Don Macleay:
“KC”. C/O Don Macleay, P.O. Box 20299, Oakland CA, 94620

Expanding themes of the Occupy Oakland Community BBQ this Saturday: Justice for the victims of racist violence and the police state

Occupy Oakland’s fourth Community BBQ & Speak-Out event will take place this Saturday, April 7^th at Defemery Park in West Oakland, commemorating Fallen Comrades on Lil’ Bobby Hutton Day and calling for justice for all of the countless racist murders that are directly caused by, or systematically ignored by, the racist “criminal justice” system. This call includes justice for Oscar Grant, who was murdered by BART police based on racially motivated suspicion; as well as justice for Trayvon Martin, who was murdered by a neighborhood watch volunteer also based on racist suspicion, and whose racist attacker the Florida police refused to arrest despite the man’s clear guilt. The connections are obvious—in its hypocrisy, the racist police state and its citizen proxies will conflate criminality with colour and use this as a basis for murder, even while protecting and defending perpetrators of murder crimes, as long as these crimes uphold the racist dimensions of power and repression. To expand these connections and our conversation around endemic, epidemic forms of racist violence in our society— to demand justice for Trayvon Martin, and also for the countless others who suffer this violence daily—we add the call for justice for Shaima Alawadi. Following the BBQ, there will be a “Hoodies and Hijab” march from the park to Oscar Grant Plaza.

Shaima Alawadi was an immigrant from Iraq, a resident of US for almost 20 years, a mother of five children, a devout Muslim, a woman who wore hijab, and a person like any other. She was brutally beaten and bludgeoned by an unknown attacker inside her own home, left for dead, bloody and unconscious on her living room floor. She was found by her daughter, with a note on her body that read “go back to your country, you terrorist.” According to a recent Huffington Post article, “Investigators said they believe the assault is an isolated incident… ‘A hate crime is one of the possibilities, and we will be looking at that,’ Lt. Mark Coit said. ‘We don’t want to focus on only one issue and miss something else.’”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/24/shaima-alawadi-dead_n_1377724.html

In furthering the connection and our commentary on the hypocrisy of the racist police state, its perpetration of racist violence, and its perpetuation of systemic violence in society, it is particularly relevant to reflect on this reluctance of police to declare the case a hate crime. Considering that police don’t hesitate to use the hate crime classification arbitrarily in order to criminalize and repress political dissent, as in the case of the Ice Cream 3 of Occupy Oakland, it becomes obvious that the state’s infrastructures for “safety” and “justice” are only utilized in order to stabilize the racist, sexist capitalist order. They don’t give a fuck about women, people of color, immigrants, fags, dykes, queers or trans people UNLESS one of these people happens to be rich or powerful, or useful in the preservation of the status quo of rich and powerful.

The police commonly report hate crimes and racist violence as “isolated events” in order to make it harder for people to identify this violence as a structural issue within our society, rather than a few racist individuals. When, for instance, cops kill black people in Oakland, it is not because there are a few bad cops in the system; it is because cops and the system itself are the protectors of white supremacy. Shaima’s case is also particularly relevant considering that the national discourse on terrorism, alongside that on immigration, has been an overwhelming source of the resurgence of racist ideology in the U.S. over the past decade.

Shaima’s murder should make us reflect on how the imperialist U.S. government only cares to address gendered violence when it can be racialized in service of white supremacy and used to justify the state’s acts of invasion and colonization. When the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, one of its central justifications was the patronizing, racist claim of “protecting Muslim women,” meanwhile at home the domestic dissemination of an anti-terrorist rhetoric fostered racist anti-Muslim sentiments that violated and harmed women and Muslims all over the country. In other words, the government only ever addresses gendered violence when it can use it as a means of demonizing men of color at home and abroad, and thus to use this as an argument for repression, invasion, and imperialism.

In extending these calls for justice to include a Muslim immigrant woman whose violent murder was explicitly racialized by her attacker, we develop our understanding and rejection of the racist police state, even as we remember its victims, drawing connections across race/ethnicity, nationality, religion, and gender. We acknowledge that the violence of the system runs broad and deep; that it is structural, fundamental. Fuck the system. All power to the people. Justice for Trayvon Martin & Shaima Alawadi! Justice for Oscar Grant. Justice for Anna Brown… Justice for Rekia Boyd… Justice for JaParker Jones… Justice for Raheim Brown… Justice for Kenneth Harding… Justice for Aiyana Jones…

Sat April 14: Oakland Occupy Patriarchy BBQ and Speakout: REFLECTING ON ENDING THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE

Sat April 14: Oakland Occupy Patriarchy BBQ and Speakout: REFLECTING ON ENDING THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE

OOP Mayday Planning Meetings::fiercely fighting against Capitalism, White Supremacy, Patriarchy and Colonialism!

There is a War being waged on Women, Trans, and Queer people, particularly those of color. This year has begun with a shit-storm of disgusting laws being proposed and passed nationwide to limit women’s access to abortions and birth control. In some states, politicians (usually old white men) are going so far as making it legal for doctors to withhold information about health risks related to pregnancy. In other words, politicians would prefer women to die than to have abortions.

But lets not be so shocked, we live in a world where Capitalism, Patriarchy and White Supremacy wages a constant war on Women, trans and queer people, particularly those of color. We live in a world where we are criminalized for not having babies, yet we are provided with no childcare, and little to no welfare assistance; where affordable childcare means wealthy mothers paying poor and immigrant woman (usually of color) a barely livable wage to raise their children; where being an “out” queer or trans person can mean inability to get a job, safe shelter, or even survive. Where being raped or assaulted means either suffering in silence or utilizing a criminal “justice” system that only works for our enemies; where calling the police to keep yourself safe from an assaulter can mean men in uniform raping you again; where defending yourself against trans-phobes can mean the “justice” system charging you with murder (Solidarity with Cece MacDonald.)

White supremacy is born out of racist attacks on women (e.g. the islamophobic murder of Shaima Alawadi and the daily targeted budget cuts on resources most utilized by poor mothers of color) and it is also born out of the usage of women and queers as a justification for racist state violence (e.g. the state attempting to justify Kenneth Harding’s murder by police by claiming he was a pimp and misogynist.) We must destroy this double-edged sword of capitalist society from the root up!

So, this Mayday, we are adamantly making it clear that Enough is Enough!! This Mayday we, as women, trans and queer people are coming together, in anger and fierceness, to fight against Capitalism, White Supremacy, Patriarchy and Colonialism. We refuse to remain invisible or be silent victims to these systems. This mayday we will fight for a world where no one will control our bodies or lives but ourselves!

 Come join us on Sundays at 5pm at 19^th and Telegraph to plan for Mayday!

If you cannot make it and have ideas for Mayday, email us at oaklandoccupypatriarchy@gmail.com

In This From My Heart

by Linda

The camp was the most beautiful experience of my life. Then they tore it down. We responded by bringing tens of thousands to march on the Port of Oakland, declaring a General Strike in the city of Oakland. The night of the General Strike, everyone came back to the plaza and the police shut down the buses so I couldn’t go home. Someone let me use their tent and I didn’t mind staying out all night. It was my first time ever encountering police in riot gear, but the way that my comrades hurled things at them and chanted “fuck the police” gave me a whole new sense of empowerment.

I love Occupy Oakland because it has given me a new voice and a new strength that I never knew I had. It also gave me confidence and the knowledge that I can fight back; I do have a voice and a choice in this world. I can push change forward. I love being in such a diverse movement: Being surrounded by different races, different sexes, different cultures, different thoughts and opinions and different, creative ways we all come up with to communicate with one another makes me feel wiser, helps me think more creatively and inspires me to act more responsibly. Every time I go to a general assembly or a committee meeting I work with other people that feel the same way and that really is a beautiful experience. I’ve always helped people, always wanted to affect people’s lives positively, and Occupy has given me another way to do that.

I’m getting my SSI check cut every three months while my food stamps dwindle away. Housing isn’t easy either. I’m on Section 8 and they want you to bend over backwards to stay in your home. Then I got with occupy and I realized that everyone’s dealing with some bullshit. I’ve been homeless before, for four years in a row, and I don’t ever want to be homeless again. That’s why I fight to help homeless occupiers get what they need to stay on their feet.

The fight for prisoners and their families is my fight too: my husband’s locked up right now on some bullshit charges. Issac ran out of his medication and got into an argument with a corner store owner over religion. The response of the state to a poor man of color in our neighborhood acting out was to taser him and lock him up instead of getting him the care that he needs to stay healthy. This is just one example from my life where I’ve learned about the way mass incarceration affects families: Issac was a huge help around the house, going grocery shopping, watching the baby, helping me take care of my mother, helping financially when he could. Now I’m taking care of three children, including my three year old, on my own, who ask for him daily.

I’m in this mostly for my kids because I’m worried about their education. I have a three year old son whom I’m afraid might not have an elementary school to go to the way schools are closing at an alarming rate, especially in minority communities. I know why; because the threat of our children being educated scares the shit out of them. If our children knew what the rich and powerful know, our kids would take the power of the elite away from them, and they definitely can’t have that. My children march with me, protest with me and shut the banks down with me. I’m showing my children bravery, consistency and courage, admitting that there are wrongs in this society that my kids should be aware of while they’re growing up. The reason why I have them in marches and protests is so they can see how powerful it is when masses of people come together. They should always know they have the freedom to speak up about issues that affect them personally and the struggles that are going on all over the world. I know we might not see the effects immediately, but there are gonna be changes.

The only way to fight this selfish, greedy capitalistic society is to come together against the police, the mayor and the district attorneys. We need to fight back and occupy has given me a ground to fight back on. We need to occupy the courts, the schools, the university campuses, the ports, the banks, the Capitol, the White House, every capitalist institution that doesn’t give people a fair chance at life. I think whoever came up with the port shutdown and the general strike were geniuses. What a way to say fuck capitalism. What a way to say fuck you greedy bastards.

I wish more people would come out to see how beautiful this movement is. Occupy doesn’t just care about what’s going on in Oakland, we care about changing the whole world. Nothing in the world could stop me from being a part of this. No police, no baby daddys, no one can stop me from being a part of this. I want to be in Occupy Oakland ’til I die.

Originally published at http://www.oscargrantplazagazette.com

OOP Mayday Planning Meet-ups!

We will be meeting at 5pm on Sundays after the GAs at 19th and Telegraph!

Come for the glamor, glitter & fierceness, stay to plan some smashing of capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy & the fascist state! 

Right now our bodies are under attack by the state and its rightwing minions. And we’re ready and waiting to bash the fuck back against this attack on reproductive freedoms and bodily autonomy. So on this May Day we’re going to be organizing around reproductive labor and we invite all queers, women and trans* folks to come every or any possible sunday to the planning meetings with ideas and open ears!!

Call For Submissions: Survivors of Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Writing on Solidarity with Prison Abolition

ANTHOLOGY CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:

Working Title: Challenging Convictions: Survivors of Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Writing on Solidarity with Prison Abolition.

Completed submissions due: April 15, 2012.

Like much prison abolition work, the call for this anthology comes from frustration and hope: frustration with organizers against sexual assault and domestic violence who treat the police as a universally available and as a good solution; frustration with prison abolitionists who only use “domestic violence” and “rape” as provocative examples; and, frustration with academic discussions that use only distanced third-person case studies and statistics to talk about sexual violence and the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). But, this project also shares the hope and worth of working toward building communities without prisons and without sexual violence. Most importantly, it is anchored in the belief that resisting prisons, domestic violence, and sexual assault are inseparable.

Organizers of this anthology want to hear from survivors in conversation with prison abolition struggles. We are interested in receiving submissions from survivors who are/have been imprisoned, and survivors who have not.  Both those survivors who have sought police intervention, as well as those who haven’t, are encouraged to submit. We are looking for personal essays and creative non-fiction from fellow survivors who are interested in discussing their unique needs in anti-violence work and prison abolitionism.

Discussions of sexual assault, domestic violence, police violence, prejudice within courts, and imprisonment cannot be separated from experiences of privilege and marginalization. Overwhelmingly people who are perceived to be white, straight, able-bodied, normatively masculine, settlers who are legal residents/citizens, and/or financially stable are not only less likely to experience violence but also less likely to encounter the criminal injustice system than those who are not accorded the privileges associated with these positions. At the same time, sexual assault and domestic violence support centers and shelters are often designed with certain privileges assumed. We are especially interested in contributions that explore how experiences of race, ability, gender, citizenship, sexuality, or class inform your understandings of, or interactions with cops, prisons, and sexual assault/domestic violence support.

Potential topics:

·      What does justice look like to you?

·      Perspectives on police and prisons as a default response to sexual assault

·      What do you want people in the prison abolition movement with no first hand experiences of survivorship to know?

·      How did you overcome depression/feelings of futility when dealing with these systems?

·      Critical reflections on why the legal system has or has not felt like an option for you

·      Perspectives on the cops/PIC participating in rape culture

·      Restorative justice and other methods for responding to sexual violence outside of the PIC? (if you are a settler be conscious of appropriations of indigenous methods)

·      How have you felt about conversations you’ve had about the PIC?

·      How sexual assault inside and outside of the PIC is treated by organizers against sexual assault, domestic violence, and the PIC

·      Police and prison guards as triggers

·      Responding to sexual assault and domestic violence when communities weren’t there for you

·      What the legal system offers survivors and what it doesn’t

·      Rants at manarchists, the writers/directors of televised cop dramas, and communities that let you down

·      Survivor shaming for reporting and for not reporting to police

Please submit first-person accounts, critical reflections, essays, and creative non-fiction to survivorsinsoli@gmail.com by April 15, 2012 with “Submission” as the subject line.

Please:

·      One submission per person;

·      English language (American spelling);

·      Pseudonyms welcomed, as are name changes in the written piece.

If you have access to a computer:

·      12 point Times New Roman font;

·      Submit as an attached document (.doc files preferred).

Passing this on to someone without computer access:

·      We accept scans of hand written letters (please include contact info for the author);

·      Contact us if you require a mailing address.

Early submissions are encouraged. First time authors encouraged.

If you have questions, we welcome emails to survivorsinsoli@gmail.com with “Question” in the subject line. We are looking for both shorter pieces of writing and longer pieces, but if your piece is more than 20 pages consider sending us an email to run the idea by us.

Please attach a short biography that you are comfortable sharing with the editors (200 word max.). This is not about your credentials, but getting to know you and where you are coming from. All information you provide will be kept confidential.

About selection and editing: Submissions will be reviewed by a group of readers who will consider if and how each written piece could contribute to the finished project. Each piece will be read by at least two readers who will contribute to the decision to accept/reject/edit the piece. Some of us working on this project have been made to feel alone as both survivors and abolitionists. Some of us have managed to carve spaces within these communities. Now we are looking to open the conversation and hear from people we’ve never met, who have struggled to practice politics in a rape culture and police state. We believe that the needs of survivors matter in these movements, and we don’t need someone else to speak for us or about us as case studies and numbers. We want to hear from you.

For more information please visit: http://survivorsinsoli.blogspot.com/

Please distribute widely.

Emergency Demonstration against bullshit “hate crime” charges!

URGENT ACTION MONDAY! CALLING ALL QUEERS & FEMINISTS!