​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.

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.

​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.

Our Ask: Support the work SURJ Bay Area and our partner organizations do around gentrification and displacement by donating here.

“How can we respectfully live, work, and walk on Ohlone land?”

At a recent presentation about her work on protecting sacred Indigenous sites in the East Bay, Corrina Gould faced a lot of seemingly impossible questions. She had presented the local history — from the 10,000 year long native perspective — to a packed room of Bay Area newcomers trying to come to terms with the fact that their current lives directly build on three waves of genocide: The Chochenyo and Karkin Ohlone living in the ancient village of Huichin were displaced, enslaved, and killed in turn by Spanish missions, Mexican ranchos, and the American invasion. And the current escalation of gentrification-driven evictions in what is now called Oakland could well go down in history as a fourth wave of displacements, if not genocide. However, despite having been denied federal recognition, the Ohlone tribes and Indigenous organizations — in coalition with racial justice organizers such as SURJ Bay Area — are gaining traction in advocating for historic preservation, Indigenous sovereignty and environmental justice in the Bay Area:

By Felicia Gustin

We are all feeling outrage over the cruel and inhumane immigration policies that separate families at the border. Trump’s Executive Order is a smokescreen, a distraction, and we have to keep up the pressure. Now is the time to do something. You can turn your anger into action. Do one thing today. Do several things this week. Join with others because collectively we are stronger. Here’s a consolidation of the many lists floating around to give you more information on what can be done.

​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.