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By Heather Millar I really couldn’t believe it when my next-door neighbor said it. “I’m selling my house,” she told me a couple weeks ago as we stood on the path between our houses. “They’re going to be taking pictures. I’m wondering — would you mind taking down your ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign when the photographer comes?”  By Felicia Gustin ...But will Donald Trump Destroy the Postal Service? For most of my life, like most people, I pretty much took the post office for granted. I wrote a letter, put it in an envelope, slapped on a stamp, dropped it in the mailbox, and off it went, thousands of miles away for mere cents.  By Davey D Cook
Over the past few days, I’ve been noticing a number of folks understandably upset because of the vicious, callous unempathetic comments they’ve been seeing in their feeds bashing the #Moms4Housing Many are wondering how and why so many people who are seemingly on or close to the societal, economic and political margins, came out riding hard for a multi-million corporation with a sordid, distasteful reputation? Why were so many people protecting a company that for the most part has not been friendly and altruistic to Black folks, especially those facing gentrification? By Liz Jacobs
In this unseasonably cold winter and as we bundle up, think what it must be like in the homeless encampments in Oakland with no heat, no water, and a leaky roof if there is even one. On Sunday, November 24th, a coalition called Housing Justice Village set up a housing community in Oscar Grant Plaza. The City of Oakland decided that at 10:00pm the community became in violation of an overnight camping regulation. Police tore down the tents and arrested 22 coalition members on charges of overnight camping and suspicion of resisting arrest. All were taken to Santa Rita with bail set at $5,000.
If you follow the California State Legislature, May was an exciting month! Since all California bills must pass both state legislative houses (the California Assembly and the California Senate), May is the month when bills that successfully passed with enough votes in their house of origin “cross-over” to their second house, hopefully on their way to the governor’s desk.
The Policy Working Group of the SURJ Bay Area chapter is working in service to, and in collaboration with our POC-led partner organizations that work on legislative advocacy: Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) / All of Us or None(AOUON), Essie Justice Group, and Initiate Justice. We listed our original policy goals in our previous post SURJ Bay Area Policy Priorities For 2019, and now that some bills have successfully crossed-over, here’s the updated list of bills that we are actively supporting as the bills go through their second house!  Essie Justice Group is an organization led by and for cisgender women, trans women, and gender non-conforming folks with incarcerated loved ones, working to transform the criminal justice system and combat mass incarceration. They bring together their members, including Black and Latinx women, formerly and currently incarcerated women, trans women and gender non-conforming folks, to heal, build power, and create structural change rooted in race and gender justice.
Essie Justice Group’s Healing to Advocacy Program unites women with incarcerated loved ones to do this work together. Each cohort is led by previous program graduates, and cohort members are nominated by their own incarcerated loved ones, one another, or themselves. This past fall they graduated their 17th cohort. Essie members facilitated cohorts in Inglewood, Los Angeles, Vacaville, San Francisco, San Jose, West Oakland, and Fruitvale.  #12DaysToShowUp, Donate this December to SURJ's 12 Days to Show Up Campsaign Our Ask: Support the work SURJ Bay Area and our partner organizations do around gentrification and displacement by donating here.
Bay Area renters face the highest rent burdens in the country and too many residents—especially Black and Brown families—are forced to leave behind the homes, neighbors, and communities they love. This crisis is fueled by racist housing policies that continue to enrich wealthy developers and corporate landlords at the expense of working-class residents.  #12DaysToShowUp, Donate this December to SURJ's 12 Days to Show Up Campaign Our Ask: Support the work SURJ Bay Area and our partner organizations do around gentrification and displacement by donating here.
Urban renewal; eminent domain for highway and BART construction; corporate developers; gentrification of low income neighborhoods; predatory lending; rising rents displacing Black and Brown communities and other vulnerable groups; homelessness for many: all fueled by capitalism, growing income inequality, and a long history of racial injustice in housing, jobs, education, healthcare, police, courts, and social services. As a part of SURJ Bay Area’s #12DaysToShowUp Fundraising Campaign — and our ongoing commitment to racial justice and reparations — 50% of all donations raised for SURJ are passed on to local POC-led organizations. The other 50% will be used to fund under-resourced rural SURJ chapters and to support our own work mobilizing white people in the Bay Area.
Donate to SURJ Bay Area before December 31 to help us reach our year-end fundraising goal of $20,000. In addition to your donation to SURJ, we encourage you to match donations directly to POC-led organizations like those we’ve featured each of the 12 Days of this campaign. |
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