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Updated SURJ Bay Area Policy Priorities for 2019 — Cross-Over Edition

6/29/2019

 
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!


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SURJ Bay Area Policy Priorities for 2019

5/1/2019

 
As described in our previous post The Role of Policy in SURJ’s Racial Justice Work, 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.  As we enter the 2nd quarter of the 2019 California legislative cycle, we’d like to share the bills, propositions, and campaigns that are our focus for 2019. While we expect a few more additions, this list will give you a good idea of what we’ll be supporting (and opposing) as this year progresses.

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#12DaysToShowUp Day 6: Support Black Liberation

12/20/2018

 
Image of people holding hands with the text #12DaysToShowUp, Donate to SURJ's 12 Days to Show Up campaign. Background image courtesy CRC Media.
​In 1969 Fred Hampton Sr, the 21-year-old charismatic chairman of the Chicago Black Panther Party, was targeted and killed by the FBI in a raid organized by the Cook County State Attorney. Law enforcement carried out the raid and murders after several months of media coverage blasting the the Black Panther Party as “Wild Beasts”, and the FBI issuance of internal memos deeming them a “major threat” to the country. The FBI was committed to dismantling the Black Panther Party “by any means necessary.”

​We look back at that time and those events in disgust and awe. However, we know that targeted repression of Black resistance is unquestionably NOT a thing of the past. We need only look at a 2017 FBI internal report entitled “Black Identity Extremists Likely Motivated to Target Law Enforcement Officers” which seems to have been used to justify surveilling and jailing a black activist — severely disrupting his life — based solely on his Facebook posts calling out police brutality.


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#12DaysToShowUp Day 5: No Hate, No Islamophobia in the Bay

12/19/2018

 
#12DaysToShowUp, Donate this December to SURJ's 12 Days to Show Up Campaign#12DaysToShowUp, Donate this December to SURJ's 12 Days to Show Up Campaign
SURJ Bay Area is committed to standing with our Arab neighbors and community members as they face renewed persecution and Islamophobia! ​Arab and Middle Eastern communities in the United States have been targeted with a renewed ferocity under the Trump Administration. Policies that for years had been couched in code of “combating terrorism” and “defending national security” are now explicitly framed in Islamophobic terms. It is telling that one of the Trump Administration’s first acts was to ban travel from predominantly Muslim countries, a cruel policy that separated Muslim-Americans from their families, and, as one circuit-court judge wrote, “drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination” (p. 12). The current administration is working tirelessly to institutionalize Islamophobia in this country.


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#12DaysToShowUp Day 4: Resist State Terror!

12/18/2018

 
Picture of signs that say 'End Police Terror' and 'Black Lives Matter'#12DaysToShowUp, Donation this December to SURJ's 12 Days to Show Up Campaign
​The rapid displacement of Black, Brown, and poor community members has subtly altered the role of police in the Bay Area. Until the 1960s, many Bay Area cities had “Sundown” laws, which allowed police to arrest any person of color after dusk. While these laws are no longer on the books, the Oakland-based Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) notes that related tactics are still in place. In the current era, police continue to selectively patrol upscale and “up and coming” neighborhoods, and over-patrol poor neighborhoods. In this way, Bay Area police violently reinforce the status quo of white supremacy in our communities. The recent Oakland Police pay raise without public input and the stalling of California’s Police Use of Deadly Force (AB 931) bill are further evidence that police unions hold undue sway in the democratic process, often sidelining the voices and needs of communities of color to make way for increased police power and influence.


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Racial Bias in Police Shootings by the Numbers

5/7/2018

 
​The police killings of Black and Brown people in the US is a threat that stretches well beyond the individual officers who pull the trigger. Recent data show that throughout the country Black and Brown people are far more likely to be shot by police than white people, regardless of local and race-specific levels of crime. The racial bias behind these murders is a systemic problem that is the product of biased policies in police departments and cities and the compounded effects of historical and present structural racism in the US. Racism in policing is one aspect of systemic white supremacy. In the Bay Area we see examples by looking at the murders of Kayla Moore, Alex Nieto, Luis Góngora Pat, Oscar Grant, Mario Woods, Sahleem Tindle, and others by police.

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#12DaystoShowUp Day 3: Stop Urban Shield

12/15/2017

 
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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#12DaystoShowUp Day 2: Stopping Police Terror

12/13/2017

 
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 toSURJ, 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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I Went Behind The Scenes At “Urban Shield.” It Was More Racist Than I Could Have Imagined.

9/6/2017

 
In 2016 I bluffed my way into Urban Shield, the massive police weapons fair in Pleasanton, California, that is also one of the world’s largest police training exercises. What happens here shapes policing all over the US. What I saw shocked me. The training exercises were far more racist than I could ever have imagined.

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#SayHerName: Charleena Lyles. Nabra Hassanen. Josie Berrios.

6/23/2017

 
Picture
Left to right: Charleena Lyles, Nabra Hassanen & Josie Berrios.
We as SURJ Bay Area are deeply saddened, horrified, and outraged by the recent murders of three women of color across the U.S. We honor and uplift their names: 
Charleena Lyles.
Nabra Hassanen.
Josie Berrios.

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  • Home
  • Start here
    • Start here
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  • Take Action
    • Events
    • Action Hour
    • Newsletter Signup
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    • Put up a BLM Sign
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    • Resources for Families
    • Justice for Palestine Solidarity Statement​
  • About Us
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