Hella Hella Occupy!

HELLA HELLA OCCUPY
The system is about to die
We bout to Hella Hella Occupy!

RISE UP FOR THE TOWN
We gotta get up, get up, get down
Gonna rise up, rise up for the town

AQUI ESTAMOS
Aqui estamos y no nos vamos
Y si nos echan, nos regresamos
[Translation:]
We are here and we are not leaving
And if they make us leave we’ll return

------Youth chants @ Laney WALKOUT 2 Nov 2011

From the Port of Oakland to Haiti, the whole world joined the Laney Jr. College WALKOUT in support of the Oakland General Strike as close to 500 people left Laney on 2 November 2011. The WALK-OUT first serve an Eviction Notice to the Oakland Unified School District on the steps of the OUSD office and then proceeded on to a convergence w/ citizens of the bay area in solidarity w/ Occupy Oakland.

As a 2-hour rally rocked the house, students, instructors, and parents from elementary schools, high schools, junior colleges and universities sent their representatives; peoples media photojournalists, videographers recorded this, one of the first steps from the hood in Oakland towards the organization of an indefinite general strike.

Everyone was here, at Laney, telling our story: from high and elementary school students and their instructors to college students; from as far away as the United Teachers of Richmond to Arise High School to Alameda Jr. College and UC Berkeley; from Labor Black & Brown to the Oakland Education Association; from Local 713 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters to immigrants, the unemployed, underemployed, and the homeless: all converged on Laney’s Quad to call attention to problems in the hood, police attacks on our communities, the closure of our schools and libraries, the entombment of our political prisoners, the murder of our Loved Ones, by an economic system built upon the enslavement of AFRIKAN peoples, and the continued genocide wrought by imperialism’s wars, greed, corporate power, religion for profit, and the destruction of the very Earth upon which we stand.

And one of the WALKOUT members’ first and most important actions was to issue an EVICTION NOTICE to the Board Members of the Oakland Unified School District on the steps of the OUSD offices, which read:

NOTICE OF EVICTION

“Parents, Teachers, Children and Community Members with Occupied Wall Street hereby make the following Notice of Eviction from Office for members of the Oakland Unified School district Board in the county of Alameda, California

This Notice is to inform you that your eviction of 800 elementary students from Lazear, Lakeview, Marshall, Santa Fe and Maxwell Park schools has caused great hardship for our children, our parents, teachers, school workers and communities.

Our children are overwhelmingly from low-income families, are overwhelmingly children of color and already suffer enough difficulties and uncertainty in their lives. Students and parents are very happy with our excellent schools, which you have voted to close.

We believe your actions are making the poor and working class children of Oakland pay for the budget shortfalls caused in turn by the 1% refusing to pay taxes.

We therefore put Board Members Jody London, Jumoke Hodge, Gary Yee, Chris Dobbins and David Kakishiba on notice that they WILL be evicted from office at the next election for carrying out the dirty work of the 1% and closing our great Oakland Schools.”

This eviction notice was read. Then it was presented to the resounding cheers of over 500 people, and the chagrin of OPD and the person [not the school superintendent…] who accepted the notice, and mumbled something about, ‘well it had to be done, we didn’t want to, but it had to be done.’

Obviously, this is the wrong response, 1%.

For at Laney Jr. College alone:

• 150+ classes are being cut next semester
• Tuition is rapidly increasing
• Good teachers are being laid off or are working overtime to support increasing class sizes.

Students are being told all over the country that their educational wants and desires come 2nd to the school’s administration/chancellor making money.

This system doesn’t want us empowered – it wants us enslaved. The ghosts of J. Edgar Hoover, Cristobal Colon, Napoleon, King Leopold of Belgium, Willie Lynch; of presidents and popes reach out from their graves in an attempt to make it so.

It is a system that is afraid of the genius of our Ancestors, of Imhotep, of the first universities at Timbuktu and Sankore, of AFRIKAN popes, spirituality, and freedom. It is afraid of the genius of the people educating our selves. It is a system that was more afraid of the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast Program than it was of armed Panthers; a system that is more afraid of Mumia Abu-Jamal as the Voice of the Voiceless, than they would be if he held a gun in his hands.

And it fears more than anything the hunger strikes of entombed men and women in prisons across the country willing to die for freedom rather than to live on their knees.

Imperialism will always fear a thinking people empowering our selves as opposed to an enslaved people under their thumb.

The organized and historic Laney Jr. College WALK OUT was a warning shot; a shield and a spear to put a decrepit and ancient evil on notice that the 99% are ‘sick and tired of being sick and tired’ of the vampirism of the 1% living off us.

For it is true that if the 99% stop working, the 1% will not profit. If our labor isn’t there to be exploited, the 1% will not survive.

If we want our needs to be addressed, we have to build the bridge to the platform that addresses them.

And the way to get a monster off your back is to stand up.



By the end of the day, the Laney Jr. College WALKOUT had participated w/ 100,000 people from all over the world to:

• Shut down Wells Fargo, Citi Bank, Chase, and Bank of America outlets;
• Shut down the Port of Oakland;
• Serve notice to the Oakland Unified School District that its governing board will be evicted from office for its eviction of 800 students from the closure of 5 of their schools.

This was very powerful first step indeed.

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE


WHO ARE THE 99?

English:
Who are the 99?
We are the 99!


Cantonese:
Been gaw hi 99
Awe dei hi 99!


Tagalog:
Sino ang 99
Tayo ang 99!


Spanish:
Quien es el 99
Somos el 99!


END THE WAR, TAX THE RICH
How do you fix the deficit?
End the War Tax the rich!

------Youth chants @ Laney WALKOUT 2 Nov 2011