Remember Oscar Grant

Oakland, Calif.—The Oscar Grant Committee held its first public forum on Sept. 13 at the main hall of Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library to a packed audience of activists and family members-turned-activists. The fol­lowing is a summary of statements made there.

Organizers Gerald and Lesley said: Oscar Grant was shot in the back while he was lying on the ground of a BART platform on Jan. 1, 2009. What made a dif­ference was that other BART riders took pictures of the incident. The response from police everywhere to the semi-successful prosecution of the shooter has been to prevent people from taking pictures of them.

A couple states passed laws that make it ille­gal to take pictures of cops. So far all those laws have been overturned when challenged in court, but given the Supreme Court we have, they could find it legal.

When the International Longshore and Warehouse Union struck for a day last October to protest Grant’s murder, it was the first time in recent memory that a labor union went on strike for a Black person killed by police. Families of other police victims came together during Officer Mehserle’s trial. They inspired us to make Grant’s commemoration an ongoing movement.

Cary Downs told how his stepson James Rive­ra, Jr., was killed by Stockton police a day before his 17th birthday in July 2010: There were 48 rounds fired at our son, of which 16 entered our son’s small body. He posed no threat. He was unarmed. The police were seen to be high-fiving each other after the shooting, as though they thought what they did was an accomplish­ment. We need to come together, to speak about police violence, not just in Oakland, but many other places. Too many times the police are found “justified” in kill­ing our children. We the parents, we the people, will not stay silent anymore while police kill our children! We stand united with many other families who mourn the death of their loved one at the hands of the police.

Sharena Curley spoke on behalf of her brother, Antoine Thomas, who was wrongly convicted: Police gunning people down, she said, is not the only injustice they commit. My brother was framed. He was sexually assaulted by police while being arrested. They stomped on his head. The gun he supposedly used had someone else’s fingerprints, not his. Security cameras showed it was not him. His whole trial was a miscarriage of justice. It lasted three days and resulted in a 65-year sentence! He is filing an appeal, but if it does not work, he’ll spend a lifetime in prison.

Anita Wills spoke about her son and grandson, both victimized by police: My son, Kerry Baxter, Sr., was in a bar fight in 2001 with Jones, who had a blanket immunity for testifying for police. Jones has been com­ing up from Merced, robbing people, etc., because he had this blanket immunity. He has no strikes, though he recently beat his wife almost to death. They blamed Jones’ crimes on my son! A public pretender (can’t call him a defender) said, “take the 40-year plea or we’ll go after you!” He was set up and is now in prison for 65 years. We’re fighting it, but we can’t do it alone!

My grandson was killed in January 2007. The same officer who accused my son is in charge of investigating this murder. He refused to give me any information and called my grandson’s mother to tell her I am impeding the investigation! There has not been any investigation in my grandson’s death. Police are getting our tax money, but they don’t protect us. They are killing us!

Rosemary Duenez spoke of her son Ernest Duenez, who was killed in Manteca on June 8: He was fighting drug addiction, but was also achieving his dream: he was married and had a one-year-old son. Po­lice hated him. He tested dirty on June 8. Police pulled in behind his car. He would have done 90 days for a dirty drug test. But as he came out of the car, with his hands up, they emptied their guns into him.

Police claimed he was advancing on them, but their own report tells that they had to cut a seat belt, in which his foot was entangled as he was trying to leave the back seat. They hand­cuffed him as he lay on the ground. They did not administer any first aid, just waited. We know there is a police video of the incident, but they won’t release it. The police took my son! He was not garbage, none of our children are. He loved his child. He was a human being.

Verbena of Cop Watch in Eureka spoke of Mar­tin Cotton, beaten to death by Eureka police in 2007, in broad daylight, in view of 40 people: It’s as though they were saying, “Look at what we can do! Nothing will happen to us.” [A federal jury awarded his family several millions ten days after the event.] Martin Cot­ton, Sr., said: We are all one. We got to stick together. Power to all of us.

During the discussion some appreciated that the families humanized the persons who were not perfect. They may have done bad things, but it does not give the police the right to kill them. Future meetings of the Os­car Grant Committee will continue on the first Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm at the library.

—Marxist-Humanist supporter

Stop leeches bleeding public schools dry

New York City—”The Trial Is On! The People of NYC are gathering to put the perpetrators of education crimes and human and civil rights violations against our children on trial—in our own People’s Court!” On Oct. 15, the Coalition for Public Education (www.for­publiced.org) took testimony from parents, teachers and school aides condemning Mayor Bloomberg’s edu­cation policies, which supplant quality public education with for-profit charter schools.

One teacher described the transformation of high schools as the surrounding neighborhoods become gen­trified. Brandeis High School was one of the first to educate Black and Latino immigrants in a full bilin­gual program. Prior to breaking it into smaller schools, access to the library and computers was discontinued. Experienced teachers and community-based parapro­fessionals were gone, along with knowledge of the his­tory of the struggle to provide relevant education. This kind of phase-out demoralizes the school community.

Now, the 25 police officers—in addition to School Security—who patrol the building are told, “Your job is not to be social workers, but to arrest students.” The new young principals and teachers cannot meet the special needs of these students who deserve a just, fair education. A mother, in tears, said, “My special-needs son struggles because of standardized testing…the stu­pid tests don’t prove anything about the quality of these kids.”

A laid-off teacher’s aide said that while programs like Teach for America pay young people to move to New York, live here and complete their training, there are no monies for paraprofessionals from the local com­munity to move into teaching positions.

State Assemblywoman Inez Barron spoke against mayoral control: “The mayor wants to use our students to get profits. Since when is Wall Street interested in educating Black and Latino kids? Since it became prof­itable.”

To support reform efforts, contact the Grassroots Education Movement at: http://gemnyc.org.

—Veteran teacher

Aftermath of Tropical Storm Sendong (Washi) -- photo from ABS-CBN News Channel

Every day I’ve been searching press reports about the latest disaster in The Philippines for any mention of the causes of the massive flooding beyond that Tropical Storm Sendong (also known as Washi) blew in. Finally, here’s one from The Philippine Daily Inquirer. An excerpt:

The tragedy that struck the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan was an event waiting to happen. It was foretold three years ago, but was dismissed by lawmakers as “too alarmist.”…[A] simulation of the effects of extreme weather events from climate change such as saltwater intrusion, sea level rise and intense tropical cyclones, showed that major Philippine cities, including Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, were at risk of massive flooding.

The same dynamic keeps happening. Projections by scientists are dismissed by politicians, ideologues, and other corporate representatives as “alarmist,” or even as some sort of conspiracy. Nothing is done to prevent disaster or to prepare for foreseen events. Then the projections turn out to be true. Yet the deniers keep spouting their nonsense, and it keeps getting better coverage than the science, whose uncertainty is played up. In reality, the general trend is that the scientific projections have been found to be too conservative–not “alarmist” enough. Every report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is already known, by the time it is approved and published, to have underestimated effects like sea level rise. But those who represent the movement of capital keep undermining action, pushing us toward a more and more perilous future. Until we can abolish capital (which is a social relation, not a thing), we will have no chance of avoiding climate chaos.

White House stormed over Medicare cuts

Part of the hundreds of concerned people from over 90 disability, aging and civil rights groups which converged on Washington, D.C., for the My Medicaid Matters rally on Sept. 21. Photo courtesy of www.ADAPT.org

Washington, D.C.—As President Obama unveiled his debt plan, which includes reduced spending for Medi­care and Medicaid by $580 billion, hundreds of activists with disabilities stormed the White House demanding a voice in Medicaid reform. ADAPT, the national dis­ability rights direct action group, is asking the admin­istration to work with them to ensure that Medicaid dollars are invested in cost-saving community supports.

“The President says that he expects all Ameri­cans to share the burden of controlling the bud­get, but Medicaid recipients are already shoul­dering the burden for balancing budgets at the state level,” said Randy Alexander of Memphis ADAPT. “States have already made significant cuts to Medicaid. How many more people with disabilities and seniors must lose our basic free­doms and lives in order to have done our share?”

Most states have already reduced or eliminated vital homecare services and forced seniors and people with disabilities into nursing facilities against their will. Bruce Darling, an ADAPT organizer from New York pointed out, “People are already experiencing re­duced or eliminated access to basic healthcare, includ­ing medications. Jobs have already been eliminated for homecare and direct care workers.”

Texas lawmakers underfunded Medicaid by about $5 billion, a move that homecare advocates say leaves the elderly and adults with disabilities unsure how their care at home will be provided.

California eliminated funding for about 330 adult day centers, a move that will affect over 35,000 seniors who use them for medical care and socializing. Law­makers are hoping to restore about $85 million to tran­sition seniors into an as-yet-undetermined alternate program—about half the amount cut from the budget.

Minnesota is considering cuts to home health aides and to a program that allows disabled people to live on their own. In Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick proposed cutting $55 million from the state’s adult daycare program, two-thirds of its funding, affect­ing some 5,200 participants.

The ADAPT community has identified four princi­ples for real Medicaid reform: 1. Expand the use of com­munity-based services 2. De-medicalize services 3. Ex­pand consumer directed service options 4. Reorganize Medicaid services to eliminate wasteful bureaucracy.

I applaud ADAPT’s efforts and agree that some­thing needs to be done immediately. However, reforms aren’t enough. Reforms are not going to result in the kind of lasting, continuous change that is needed; and it is unlikely they will take place under a system where healthcare is for profit.

A capitalistic society that denies people a basic hu­man right like free healthcare will not willingly give up its power. ADAPT’s suggestions are based on human needs; to keep capitalism going, basic human needs come last, if at all.

—Suzanne Rose

Fukushima activists testify in New York

New York City—A delegation of grassroots environ­mental activists from Japan came to share with their U.S. counterparts heart-rending eyewitness accounts of the health impact and continued contamination pro­duced by the Fukushima-Daiichi reactor units that suffered catastrophic damage on March 11. They met with the public at three different venues Sept. 22-23 at events co-sponsored by Shut Down Indian Point Now! (SDIPN), Indian Point Safe Energy (IPSEC), Beyond Nuclear, and other groups.

The immense suffering of people affected by the Fukushima-Daiichi disaster can be given meaning if we learn from this catastrophe and those that preceded it at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and elsewhere, said Kaori Izumi, director of Shut To­mari. She appealed to the world to end the age of nucle­ar power in the wake of Fukushima. Otherwise it could happen again, in Japan, at Indian Point on the Hudson River, or anywhere that reactors are still operating.

Izumi discussed the unhealthy and corrupt pro-nuclear relationship among government, business, the media, pro-nuclear “intellectuals” and the judiciary. The Japanese delegation learned that the complicity of the U.S. Government regulators with energy corpo­rations is just as insidious as in Japan, with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission routinely lowering safety standards in order to keep aging plants in opera­tion.

Aileen Mioko Smith, Executive Director of Green Action, spoke about the plight of Japan’s children. The Japanese government refused to safely evacuate its citizens, including 300,000 children still in Fukushima, or adequately warn them of the radiation danger.

The delegation delivered the message to the UN at a rally at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza on Sept. 24 that the Fukushima disaster made it clear that the world must shut down all nuclear power plants, and even con­fronted the Japanese Prime Minister.

They visited the Indian Point nuclear plant to see its proximity to earthquake faults and to the larg­est concentration of people in the U.S..

Sachiko Sato, an organic farmer from Fukushima and a member of Fukushima Network for Saving Chil­dren from Radiation, and her children, 13 and 17, talk­ed of the disruption to their lives. Yukiko Anzai, who lives near the now re-started Tomari reactor, talked about the fate of farmers after the meltdowns.

Strong bonds were formed between the activists of both countries and it was recognized that the struggle against nuclear power must be a global one. A video of this meeting is available at: http://politube.org/ show/3285.

—Evan Giller and Tom Siracuse, Chair and Vice Chair, SDIPN www.SDIPN.net

30 years later

AIDS activism and ACT UP Chicago

Darrell Gordon, long-time African-American Gay anarchist activist, was one of the founders of AIDS ac­tivism in Chicago.

Chicago—People in Chicago started dying from AIDS a year or two after the first nationally known cases. I started going to forums dealing with AIDS at City College campuses. In 1985 there was a vigil at St. Clement Church. In the 1980s there were “safe sex” par­ties that taught about AIDS and how to use a condom. These were common at the beginning of the outbreak.

While dealing with the fight against the disease, we also had to confront the Reagan administration, which used it as a weapon against Gay rights. Since it was then mostly Gay and Bi men who were affected, it was easy to stigmatize people.

The first political AIDS demonstration I attended was organized in 1986. A food store called Evergreen, at Belmont and Broadway, put out a newsletter calling for the quarantine of people with AIDS, and for them to be forced to wear AIDS ID bracelets. That was a common sentiment of people on the Right.

I was a member of the anti-apartheid solidarity committee for South African Moses Mayekiso, formed by Earl Silbar. I decided to join with others to hold a press conference in front of Evergreen. The guy who ran the store also ran an art festival on Broadway. We de­cided not to boycott the art fair, but to picket the store.

ACT UP grew out of an organization that began in 1984 of Dykes and Gay men against racism and re­pression. It was started mostly by folks from the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Prairie Fire. It con­centrated mostly on anti-racism work, the Pride Parade and U.S. oppression abroad.

Then in 1987, before a March on Washington, there was legislation proposing mandatory HIV testing and quarantine. People were upset about this, but were still thinking in terms of just writing letters.

We decided to do a 24-hour vigil and civil disobedi­ence action the next day at Gov. Thompson’s home in Uptown, which was very successful. Some of the Illinois Gay and Lesbian Task Force initially said they would support our demonstration, but then decided not to. I guess they thought it would hurt their relationship with the establishment.

ACCESS TO DRUGS

Other activists in New York had similar experi­ences. So we became an AIDS activism organization, first Chicago For Our Rights, then by spring Chicago for AIDS Rights. We pushed for lowering the prices of AIDS drugs, and the release of more of them. By Oc­tober and the national action in Washington, D.C., we had become ACT UP Chicago.

Right away there were two factions in the group. One was largely a single-issue group of mostly white Gay men. Prairie Fire also had its own ideology when it came to dealing with race and class. The group refused the idea of bringing more people of color into the group. Their argument was that Blacks and whites should or­ganize separately in their own communities, and that African Americans could go to social service agencies to meet their needs—at a time when the churches didn’t want to deal with the issues of AIDS and Gay rights.

Because I argued consistently over race and out­reach and class, there was a tension and an attempt to freeze me out. In 1989 I initiated the idea of a People of Color Caucus to do outreach to the other communi­ties. It was geared to both people of color and working class people. It wasn’t an ego thing, but in support of the liberation of all Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans people, not just the privileged in the Lakeview neighborhood.

Other organizations that started subsequent to this were the Coalition Against Bashing, the Coalition for Positive Sexuality—a guerrilla-style activist group concerned with getting safe sex and birth control in­formation to high school students—and Queer Nation.

ACT UP Chicago ended in 1995. Lots of people in our group died, and others left because of the con­flicts. Some just wanted a single-issue movement with a white, Gay, male focus. As AIDS drugs became more available, and Clinton was elected president, the more liberal members of the Queer communities had the idea that a Democrat in the White House would save us, and we could retire from activism. The great message of the 1993 March on Washington seemed to some to be, “We don’t need to do this anymore.”

By 1994, the only active committee was the prison committee. If the group had continued, we would have had to face the question of relating to communities of color as being increasingly the casualties of the epi­demic.

FACE OF AIDS CHANGED

It would have had to become a multi-racial group instead of a predominantly white organization. We could have built on the demonstrations against insur­ance company policies, and public health issues at Cook County Hospital, where we fought to get more beds.

AIDS, a death sentence 30 years ago, has changed. Many people are living longer. but we still haven’t got to the root of the real problem with AIDS, which is hetero­sexism and homophobia. That is connected to the issue of race, class, sexism and the economy as drug program cuts close off access to medicine.

At times Gay men and women did work side by side, but sexism needs to be addressed. Struggling against a misogynist society’s definition of relationships should not be left up to women alone.

AIDS is a global issue today. The Treatment Action Coalition in South Africa was influenced by ACT UP. This time around, I’d like to see an AIDS activist move­ment that’s organized by poor, working-class people.

That is a legacy for reviving the quest for taking control of our bodies as Gay men, too. That movement got co-opted in the late 1970s, but ACT UP essentially tried to reclaim tactics that were initiated by the Civil Rights Movement. No coincidence that it occurred dur­ing a lively climate of racism.

—Darrell Gordon

Portrait of Alice Neel

by Robert Taliaferro

Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty by Phoebe Hoban (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2010).

There are many ways to be involved in a revolution. Written words defining theory and practice, and mass social protests are two ways. Creating art outside of the norm is another.

Unfortunately, for many years revolutionary ideas in art were often dictated by the male-dominated spec­trum that defined a palette of beliefs that colored the vision of those who viewed art. Because of this, we hear very little about women artists and the revolutions they sparked through their creations.

Phoebe Hoban’s 2010 biography of Alice Neel is an exceptional book about the artist’s life, and also an es­sential reader on the art culture of the U.S. throughout Neel’s life which spanned nearly all of the 20th century.

Up until the late 20th century women artists often had their creativity stifled by the male-driven view that “proper women” should not (and perhaps could not) be artists of substance. It is fortunate that U.S.-born art­ists like Mary Cassatt were pioneers for change. Even so, the social doctrines of the time were centered on the puritanical concept that Victorian women, even accom­plished artists, should be painting things they under­stood—pretty things like flowers and children.

Neel, born in 1900, was subjected to this banality for much of her early life, and when she decided on art as a career, she was harangued by her grandmother be­cause she was “only a girl.” Hoban writes that this criti­cism only served to make Neel more ambitious.

Neel was known as an iconoclast, and a friend gave her the nickname “Malice Neel” because of her propen­sity towards a Bohemian lifestyle. A social realist, her approach to art was not subtle, and Hoban gives a vi­brant view of her raw style, extraordinary talent, and humanity in a way that is as honest as was Neel.

Hoban writes of three core strands of Neel’s painter sensibility: her radicalism, her extensive knowledge of vulnerability and breakdown gleaned from her time in a mental hospital early in her career, and the Depression which reinforced her social conscience. Hoban writes, “Her inclusion in the WPA easel program…would forge these separate threads into Neel’s signature style.” Around this time Neel was introduced to Marxism and, in 1935, she joined the Communist Party.

Neel was, Hoban writes, the “de facto artist of the feminist movement” and the first American feminist multicultural artist. She was “[H]ighly conscious of herself as a protagonist in her own drama,” and her canvasses were “a membrane through which the artist experienced the world.” Hoban makes sure that we arrive back to the rea­son for the book’s existence: Neel, the revolution­ary; a human being who, despite her fragility, refused to be considered a victim; a paradigm of the Bohemian, yet a woman with a profound so­cial conscience shared with the world.

The feminist movement embraced Neel in her 60s and 70s for her unconventional paths, even though “Neel’s attitude toward feminism was conflicted and complex.” Her images of women, mothers and children, and her unprecedented depictions of pregnant nudes were considered pivotal aspects of feminist iconography. Although Neel was fascinated by people’s exterior ap­pearance, it was their interior life she sought to reflect. She did this by focusing on individual psychology as it manifested itself in body language and physiognomy.”

At 80 Neel created her final self-portrait. It is beau­tiful and irreverently all about Neel: Neel maintained that honesty and vision in the last portrait of herself at 80. She is nude in a chair, sagging breasts with a paint­brush in one hand and small rag in the other. Despite her nudity, the roles seemed reversed, and one expects her to rise from her chair, step in front of a canvas, and start painting a picture of the viewer. Hoban writes that this painting was “…one of Neel’s masterworks, breaking genre barriers, inverting the gaze of subject and artist, and radically subverting the female form.”

Hoban’s biography is a compelling and poignant portrait of Neel, and 84 years of the 20th century that not only helped to create Neel as an artist, but showed us an in-depth look at the world in which she lived.

‘I am Troy Davis’

The State of Georgia murdered Troy Davis at 11:08 p.m., Sept. 21. His execution was carried out in the face of world outrage—large demonstrations throughout the U.S. and Europe, which called attention to the wealth of evidence casting doubt upon Davis’ guilt in the shoot­ing death of a white police officer in 1989.

Seven of the nine trial witnesses against Davis recanted their testimony, five of them saying it was coerced by law enforcement at the time. There was no physical evidence connecting him to the shooting. As his attorney said, “This night the state of Georgia legal­ly lynched a brave, a good and indeed an innocent man.”

The invocation of lynching is accurate. Georgia pio­neered the disgusting “three strikes” laws of today with its statute from the 1700s which said that any slave convicted a third time of striking a white person would be put to death. Before the Civil War, simply publish­ing a paper like News & Letters in Georgia, advocating the uprising of the oppressed, would also have been a capital offense. In 1972, it was the Furman v. Georgia case demonstrating the racist application of the death penalty which led to its brief prohibition in the U.S.

Troy Davis’ execution was part of a long history of racist injustice. The modern history of the death pen­alty is also a measure of the racist wrong turn this country took in the 1970s. Again, Georgia provides the illustration in the case of Warren McClesky, who was executed in 1991.

His lawyer argued that institutionalized racism made a Black defendant more likely to receive a death sentence than a white—which is supported by all sta­tistics. But the Supreme Court held that McClesky would have to prove that only his individual rights were violated, the absurdity of which was pointed out by Jus­tice William Brennan in his dissenting opinion.

It was a defense of institutional racism that has been used to deal with capitalism’s intractable prob­lems in this period, the criminalizing of poverty and the warehousing of millions in the criminal injustice system. The aggressive presence of riot police Sept. 21 to intimidate the peaceful demonstration outside the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison where ex­ecutions are carried out shows that the State means to continue down this totalitarian path.

—Abolitionist

Farmworker solidarity

New York City—Three young members of the Com­munity/Farmworker Alliance (NYC), a local coalition organized in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), spoke at Bluestockings Bookstore here on Oct. 14. They discussed the Campaign for Fair Food.

Fair Food activists are urging Trader Joe’s to en­sure their tomatoes are picked by workers who earn a decent wage and work in humane conditions. Trader Joe’s refusal to sign such an agreement disgusted cus­tomers nationwide. Many criticize Trader Joe’s usage of the “Wal-Mart Model” of low prices and low wages.

Lupe said 90% of tomatoes from September to April are grown in Immokalee, Fla. Workers earn 45-50 cents per 32-lb. bucket; annual wages average $10,000. There is widespread sexual harassment, no breaks, wage theft, locking workers into trucks. Our ultimate goal is to inspire other workers to organize and get cor­porations to be more responsible, she said.

Audrey explained their strategy is to target corpo­rations at the top of the food chain; work on college cam­puses with allies like Dine With Dignity, which seeks compliance from food-service vendors like Aramark, Sodexo and Marriott, and make the invisible visible.

Loren stated one of their approaches was “Brand Busting”—to deconstruct corporate marketing. “We use ‘Traitor Joe’s’ against Trader Joe’s, and ‘Tell Publix to do the right thing,’ because their CEO has said, ‘Don’t let profit get in the way of doing the right thing.’”

To support these struggles, visit www.ciw-online. org or www.cfa-nyc.org or call: 239-657-8311.

—Marxist-Humanist supporter

Sutter nurses strike

Sutter nurses strike; photo and article for News & Letters by David M'Oto

Oakland, Calif.—Sutter Healthcare nurses were joined by sympathizing Kaiser nurses for a rally outside Summit Medical Center on Sept. 22. Sut­ter nurses called the one-day strike because of proposed cuts in patient staffing, sick pay and other benefits. The Summit administration argued that employee illness/injury is not necessarily work-related and there­fore does not warrant as much recompense. One speaker noted that it is the first time she had ever heard that argument but was not surprised it was used against a woman-dominated workforce. Some strikers wore T-shirts reading, “Save one life and you’re a hero. Save a hundred lives and you’re a nurse.”