The Third Hand: Gentrification by Terror

<center><strong>The Third Hand: Gentrification by terror<br>Editorial by Willie Ratcliff</strong></center><br><br>
The “Third Hand” is a term used by Nelson Mandela to describe the government’s clandestine efforts to destabilize the movement to abolish apartheid in South Africa. The Third Hand is the enemy of oppressed people everywhere who want to exercise their God-given right to control their lives and create a strong, loving community.<br><br>
In San Francisco, the Third Hand is trying to drive African Americans out of the City. Targeting neighborhoods like the Hunters Point “village” described by Tenisha Bishop with the warlike brutality that she and Susie McAllister report on (all stories start on this page) is meant to knock the strongest of us to our knees.<br><br>
What happened on Kiska Road on Martin Luther King Day is terrorism, pure and simple. That incident reflects a policy of terrorism against the Black community that is intensifying. We know of several other instances of police brutality in the past two weeks that are almost as heinous as this one — all against residents whose strength and leadership was extraordinary. The Martin Luther King Day incident demonstrates this official policy of terrorism. What else can you call it when police beat children in front of their parents and threaten to shoot any of the family and neighbors who question their right to do so.<br><br>
When one parent inquired, “Why are you doing this?” the answer from the officer whose picture is on the front page was, “As long as you people are here, we will act like this.”<br><br>
Now let us put the officer’s answer in perspective. What I believe he meant was, “We are carrying out orders to beat you and your children under color of law whenever we please. We are telling you, take a Section 8 certificate and get yourself and your family the hell out of here, because the big greedy developers want your space, your view, your land on the sunny side of San Francisco, to make money for themselves — and they don’t care about you.”<br><br>
But we do care about us, and terrorism will not defeat us or drive us away. Our right to live in San Francisco is worth fighting for, and we will not be moved.<br><br>
I have watched police sweeps in the Bayview, OMI and the Fillmore — in all San Francisco’s major Black neighborhoods — and it is all part of a plan to keep Black people from attaining economic, environmental and political justice. That much justice equals freedom.<br><br>
To make freedom ring in San Francisco, we must put a stop to the beating and harassing of our people. The best way to stop police abuse is to make it public and let those who think they can act with impunity think twice. We will name the names — or, if we have no names, show the faces — of those police officers who use their badges to violate the civil rights of Black people.<br><br>
To win our freedom in San Francisco, we must also have the right to earn a decent living. And that’s been harder and harder for Black folks whether the general economy is booming or crashing.<br><br>
And so, as mitigation for the relentless discrimination and lockouts we’ve endured, we’re asking Muni to set aside construction of the $125 million maintenance facility for Third Street light rail as a pilot project to train our youth on the job in all construction trades and put our contractors and our people back to work.
<br><br><strong>San Francisco Bay View newspaper</strong>