Feature Archives

After a fascist mob attacked a small group of UVA student counter-protesters the night before, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia turned deadly on August 12 when nazi enthusiast James Alex Fields of Ohio deliberately sped his car into a crowd of antifa, killing thirty-two year old anti-racism activist and Charlottesville native Heather Heyer. Nineteen others were injured in the attack, some critically. Within hours, solidarity demonstrations and vigils sprang up across the country. In Northern California, San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Monterery, and other cities gathered to show support for the anti-fascist resistance in Charlottesville.

The Workhouse medium security prison in north St Louis City is notorious for it’s filth, cockroach and rodent infestations, black mold, antagonism by the guards, and deep ineptitude of those who operate it. To highlight the inexcusable conditions, a noise demo was called for the evening of July 21. Around 300 people gathered outside the Workhouse to demand immediate relief for those suffering inside. The front line of the demo turned it’s energy on the fence itself, shaking the outer fence and eventually removing some of the clasps that adhere the fence to the fence poles. Protests continued through the following day. People were pepper sprayed by police and arrested.

This timeline mapping state violence in Stockton, CA was collectively generated as part of a larger ongoing convivial research effort to expose low intensity war across the Bay Area and state. The timeline was produced through a collaboration between the Center for Convivial Research and Autonomy (CCRA) and the efforts of families and grassroots groups in Stockton and beyond. It is a tool that remembers, counts, mourns and honors our dead. The timeline is a collaborative effort of documentation over time that makes visible the many resistances that have refused erasure.

Northern California Anti-Racist Action writes: On May 24, the Berkeley Police Department arrested Eric Clanton in Oakland regarding alleged assaults that occurred during an April 15 confrontation in Berkeley between antifascists and a coalition of far-right groups. In weeks preceding Clanton’s arrest, members of 4chan’s politics forum called /pol/, the alt-right and all around disgusting and hate-filled internet message board, had been collecting what they considered to be evidence in the case. Threads about Eric Clanton’s alleged behavior could be seen wedged between other discussions such as anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jewish world domination and the biological inferiority of people of color.

On Thirteenth Street in front of the Sacramento Convention Center where the Democratic Convention was being held on May 20, a group of activists held a mock “tug of war" between the people of California and the oil industry for the loyalty of Governor Jerry Brown. The skit depicted the contradiction between Jerry Brown the “climate leader,” who appeals to his Democratic base by preaching against climate change and for green energy, and the other guy, “Big Oil Brown,” who supports the expansion of fracking in California and the construction of the Delta Tunnels — and has received millions in contributions from the oil and energy industries.

The Highway Murderers are a crypto-fascist rock band from Santa Cruz. Since their formation in 2002, they have constantly been subject to criticism and resistance from the northern California music community for their violent, misogynistic, and racist behavior. The band is generally good at masking their white power and fascist symbols and aesthetics behind the violent imagery that permeates in contemporary metal music scenes. Despite this, members have slipped up and revealed their true colors with social media posts that expose their neo-nazi leanings. The Highway Murderers are scheduled to perform on Saturday, May 27 in San José.

A new study released by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, Paying More for Being Poor: Bias and Disparity in California’s Traffic Court System, shows that Californians pay some of the highest fines and fees in the country — more than three times the national average for running a red light. And new Bay Area data reveals that African-Americans are four to sixteen times more likely to be booked into county jail on a charge related to inability to pay a citation. Two bills before the California Legislature (SB 185 and AB 412) seek to address many of the disparities