This Saturday, in recognition of the the 16th annual National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality, we will mark a historic development in our movement: on this day, activists from Occupy Boston will be joining activists from Occupy the Hood in a joint demonstration of strength and solidarity against police brutality. Not only will we be rallying against recent police repression of our movement, both in Boston and nationally; more importantly, we’ll be rallying against the police violence experienced by poor folks and communities of color every day in this country. What’s more, we’ll be rallying on the one year anniversary of a recent, unresolved case of police brutality in Boston: the beating of a 16 year old boy arrested at Roxbury Community College, just blocks from BPD headquarters (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXDJvBaTTDQ).
In calling for this demonstration, we aim to use the international spotlight on our movement to illuminate the ongoing struggles against police brutality in our communities, struggles that receive frustratingly little attention despite the systemic and racist nature of the problems they’re confronting. Four actionable points coming out of Occupy the Hood in relation to this issue (points that do not represent any consensus decision of the Occupy Boston General Assembly, but rather are listed to increase awareness of some ideas community members have been putting forth to combat police violence) include:
1. The current CO-OP (Community Ombudsman Oversight Panel) must be given subpoena powers and the ability to initiate its own independent investigations.
2. There should also be a true Civilian review board with the same powers as, but independent of, the CO-OP. The CO-OP is primarily made up of criminal justice/law enforcement professionals and appointed by the Mayor. A true Civilian review board would be compromised of a cross section from all walks of life within the communities most affected.
3. We have begun work with State Officials to examine and propose a State Commission on Police Brutality. This commission would work statewide to study, examine and investigate cases of police brutality and misconduct where cities and towns have found themselves either unwilling or unable to adequately address these issues in a just manner. Local DA’s and Police Departments have shown that they cannot police themselves and some level of accountability must be established.
4. The Boston Police Department needs to reflect the diversity of the city in its command staff and other decision making positions. We recognize it is only in standing together, united in our solidarity and in action, that we will overcome police repression and succeed in creating a better world.
In the spirit of solidarity, and in recognition of the diversity of experiences of all members of the 99%, we invite all our supporters to join us in having these discussions by rallying at 12:00 Saturday behind the BPD headquarters in the southwest corridor park, near the Ruggles and Tremont Street intersection and a short walk from the Ruggles stop on the Orange line. A march is in the works for afterward (we gotta get back to see Chomsky, right?), so bring your walkin shoes!
In solidarity,
Occupy Boston
47 Responses to “Occupy Boston & Occupy the Hood present: A Day of Strength and Solidarity”
We need COMMUNISM now!
So instead of isolated cases of police brutality, you’d prefer the NKVD?
I did live in the Soviet Union for one month. My wife’s family escaped Cuba when she was 4. (Her mom was Castro’s secretary when he was a divorce lawyer) So yeh.. But Paul do you disagree with the recommendations in this document? It is what a lot of us have been wanting for like decades now. I see the Boston poor neighborhoods run very much like a communist country. What do you recommend we do to fix this?
No, I don’t disagree with these recommendations, but as far as what do we do to fix the problems of the inner city neighborhoods, that’s going to take structural change far beyond policing the police.
For example, the ‘Craigslist Killer’ story was national news and it didn’t get off the front page until the guy was caught. I have friends in Arkansas and Minnesota who would call me here in Boston to talk about it. Meanwhile, during the same two week hunt for that guy, four young kids were gunned down in Roxbury in seperate incidents. One of them was shot, execution style, as he waited for the school bus one morning and WHOOPS! Turns out he wasn’t the banger the killer wanted after at all… he was just a kid waiting for the bus.
Think my Arkansas friends heard about him?
Do you think they might have heard about him if he had been a white kid waiting for the bus on Beacon Hill?
Here’s David Simon interviewed on Bill Moyer’s Journal back in 2009 talking about that issue as well as corporate control of government, the disaster that we call our financial industry, etc. He’s been talking about these things long before the Occupy movements were a gleam in anybody’s eye and unless I totally misread him, I think he’d be an ardent supporter.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10022009/watch.html
Good point…Stalin LEGALIZED
torture so the NKVD could use it.
????
I think Paul is referring to the secret police of the Soviet Union.
I was saying “?????” to the left wing nut original poster.
I had not heard of that incident at Roxbury Community College before this posting, so for that alone i am thankful for this being raised here. I watched the video, and it looks pretty clear to me that the young person was well restrained and any attempt a “resisting arrest” was well under control, and yet he was still being brutally beaten with punches and knees in the side and back, especially by the one officer with the baseball cap, who is said to be Michael T McManus, who has since been placed on “administrative duty” which I take to mean he’s been pulled off the street but has not been punished otherwise and is still being paid. This same officer was centrally implicated in a death the previous year of 22 year old David Woodman, whose crime was holding an open beer in public. While i caution against painting the arrests of the Occupy Boston protesters a couple weeks ago as “police brutality” (and i was there and saw much of it, and think some of the cops did use too much force with too much relish, while others were well restrained and “proportional” as they say), this brings to light real serious police brutality that does happen far too often especially in communities of color and against people of color. The racial aspects of police brutality and over-stepping has been in the news a lot lately (by which I mean NPR) and it’s an issue to deal with now and strongly. I admire the concrete proposals and think it’s high time for a citizen’s review board with power to actually dismiss and even convict police who do such horrible crimes in uniform, as anyone would be subject to without the uniform.
Even while i saw what i just said, and as one who has been beaten by police, and had bald faced lies written on my police report resulting in being on trial for felony charges that had absolutely no basis in truth … even with all that, i still want to add that we live in the system that we live in, and i think it’s important to recognize that most cops are probably trying to do a good job, and it’s a career that they’ve chosen, and they’re human beings with fallibility and admirable traits like anyone else, who deserve equal measures of respect and wariness like anyone else. The difference is that they’re entrusted by the state with the use of violence / physical force, which is why they need to be held to a higher standard, otherwise they become oppressors to us all, especially people of color as well as the disadvantaged people who don’t have the money to control them by their purse strings or fancy street address. So i urge people in the Occupy movement to address police brutality as a serious issue, but to speak about it with integrity and with absolutely no hyperbole. Any exaggeration will work strongly against the movement, and will also not serve the fight against systemic police brutality.
Glad this was posted… need to see more examples of this stupidity. A clear case of use of unnecessary force. They should be tossed off the force.
Occupy the hood is a racist group who blames their cultures short fall on white people.
There are some things that are better about the “culture” or whatever you want to call it. I chose to stay in the city and let them send my autistic son to the segregated all black schools. There is not the cruelty we often see in the white schools. These kids helped him and stuck up for him as they did for me when I was an outcast white kid.
The only justification for the type of beating we see in the Roxbury Community College video would be trying to get a knife or gun out of the kid’s hand. I would not be surprised to find that they are even using some accepted de-weaponing technique on this kid. But he is just some unarmed kid who at the worst did nothing more than make the cops feel angry and jealous. Why are these police never put in jail?
Does anyone have a problem with a group of mostly white people deciding to “occupy” the hood decades after their ancestors fled to Weymouth or wherever?
As someone trying my best to be a vegitarian, I am loath to take your bait, “beef.” but I think your response is so typically thoughtless and cynical in terms if a respone to both the occupy movement and to raical matters, I thought I would take a turn. . .
So, first, in your post you seem to be alluding to the parroted line that the occupy movement is made up of comfortable whites who are engaged in thier actions to simply scold the world for forces that don’t really affect them. this idea does not match my expereince of what I have seen at Dewey Sqaure. Sure, a large amonunt of the protestors may have relatively comfortable backggrounds when compared to the realities of the nation’s poor. Nevertheless, I have met people from a large spectrum of socioeconomic backgrounds at the encapment and I know that idea that they are all trust fund ivy leaguers going throgh a phase is simply unture. and godbless any kid who does match such a profile that is turning up to the protests, as far as I am concerned.
More troubling is your implication that people who have benefitted from our white supremacist culture should not take a stand against it. As someone who grew up in a gentrifying South End, and whose parents were able, due to systemic white prilliage, but a home in SOmerville
Opps… pressed a wrong key and got cut off above, before able to both finish and spell check!!! continued below …
Ok so, this is such a deep issues in our city and ones that has been a defining force in all bostonians’ lives (race/real estate… privilege/oppression)– although ALWAYS most defining for those who bear the very brunt of systemic oppression — I fear I will spend too much time typing what will be basically a garbled attempt to work through my thoughts and (I fear) really a fool’s errand as you, beef, I guess will only check in to the list to see if you in fact did provoke someone with your comment, and ultimately retort with some pithy yet cynically bankrupt quip…
But anyway: Yes, Occupy no doubt is too homogenous. Yes, racial politics are a mess in this city. But the only way to undo, is to work towards undoing.
My parents were part of what you allude to in your post, what you might understand as the “white flight” of the 1970s and 80s from the city to areas outside of the city. My blocks and the blocks around it were squeezed out by realtors and contractors who were making the bastion of privilege the South End is today. My parents, because of white privilege, were able to do something I have no doubt was next to impossible for most of our neighbors of color– they took this moment to go from being renters to homeowners. This is going back to a time when a housepainter and secretary could buy a house in Somerville.
Because I have this history, or the younger occupiers might have this history in the generation before they were born, this according to you ought to mean we are barred from showing our concern with what happens in the city?
That’s the sort of bloated, hopeless cynasimim that I see the occupy movement finely subverting in what has become a far too heartless society.
My understanding is the Occupy the Hood development is from that part of the city and the Occupy Bostonians, as they are comprised now, are going there to lend support, and I know they will, on balance, do just that: support– and try to avoid the pitfalls and social failings that a culture of supremacy has unfortunately grafted onto all our personalities.
what i want to say in this post is scattered and unclear, mostly I want to say:
embrace the change, beef. another world is possible.
I’ve been to Dewey Sq several times and consider myself on your side. I know OB isn’t just privileged white college kids. I was just echoing the criticism made by Jamarhl Crawford when he came to lecture you about being spoiled white people who usually waste their time protesting animial rights instead of trying to help save black people from themselves. Then he asked you to come Occupy the hood. I have a problem with the fact that Boston needs a segregated subcamp separate from Dewey Sq to address the problems of “the hood,” as though these problems aren’t all tied together in one big ball of economic injustice. I expect right wing talk radio to tell everyone protesting that their lives are great and they have nothing to complain about, but when Mr. Crawford basically does the same thing everyone bends over backwards in support to prove how not racist they are. As valuable as advocates are, this movement did not get to where it is because people took to the streets to advocate for others, we are here now because people are out fighting for themselves, but fighting together (hopefully), and I’m not going to be made to feel guilty for being a white person who lives paycheck to paycheck because the incarceration rate of black males is disproportionately high. Occupy together or go home. I get it, “color blindness” is a lie/not something to strive for, institutionalized racism exists, women are raped and beaten and subjugated all over the world, people are killed for loving someone in a non-heteronormative way, but once, maybe just for a minute, could the left come together and strive for a utopian vision of universalism (especially considering the 99% slogan) and get together to fight against corruption and economic justice without fighting ourselves?
Ok… There is much in what you say that I agree with; some that I don’t…
I however appreciate your thoughtful elaboration
Remember the basic core value often is that people don’t want to let go of the microphone.
1. White people and other members of Occupy Boston will enter the community as SUPPORT ONLY.
2. OB’ers will be under the direction and agenda of People/Organizers of Color.
3. The current Occupy Boston format, (GA, hand gestures, etc.), Will NOT be used in the community.
4. Obviously do not bring any drugs, alcohol, weapons into the community.
5. While nothing is expected to happen. Your safety is not guaranteed. You must be willing to sacrifice and experience what thousands of People of Color (from infants to elderly) live in every day.
6. This is a movement of the willing. If any of this makes you hesitant or uncomfortable. Do not come.
Seriously man? Fuck you. I definitely will not come, thanks for the uhh, invitation? I can’t believe OB is jumping on board to support this segregationist bullshit.
(from here: http://blackstonian.com/news/2011/10/occupy-the-hood-boston-event-update-latest-info/)
Come on at least give it a try and don’t just abandon everyone who may agree with you. I am going to be there with my kid. Let these guys blow some steam. Worst case we can go hang around the bus station and talk to folks. Dudley is the coolest part of town.
Beef, it’s not only segregationist but blatantly racist.
Can you imagine what the reaction would be if Occupy Boston put out a document that said,
“1. Black people and other members of Blackstonian will enter Dewey Square as SUPPORTERS ONLY.”??
Jesus Christ!
Beef, could you just say “okay i won’t come” but leave out the F bomb? That hurts my ears in this context, and marks you as a closed-minded person to me.
Paul, I’m a white person but as I understand it, it would be more like the Occupy Boston group saying that banking executives and politicians are welcome, but they are welcome as supporters only, and should expect no special treatment because of their status of privilege in the outside world. They shouldn’t expect the Occupiers to kiss up to them because they as the “powerful elite” of our society condescend to come to see what the rabble are up to, or to play cool because they’re “hanging with the peeps” or with the commoners. Maybe get a photo and a t-shirt saying “I went to Occupy Boston (don’t worry I took a shower afterward)”.
There is a serious thing that goes on when one group has more power and privilege than another group. I’m a white person and I don’t think i have it all figured out, but it feels alright to me for a group that’s come from a place of disempowerment to make a movement where they are making the decisions. I as a member of Occupy Boston want damn well to have a voice if i choose to use it, and don’t want the mayor, or on-duty police, or any politician in their official capacity to come and try to take part in a meeting as if their position and power doesn’t matter. It’s different with race because you can’t be an “off duty” white person, but that is okay with me. I will be an ally when i can, ask what support i can provide when a movement resonates with my ideals, and otherwise step back and let people of color run their own movement … i don’t think that i have all the answers, or that this answer is complete, but maybe you can understand where i am coming from.
Sorry for fucking swearing but this shit makes me mad. It’s actually not like saying that members of the powerful elite can only be supporters at OB (since first, no one is saying that, and secondly one person on the 1% supporting the 99% blog is posting most of the updates to OB.com, so I would say it’s safe to say they are involved). It’s also not the same because class and race are two different things. I get it, I’m white, mea culpa. Sorry black people for all I have done. Remember when Martin Luther King had that awesome dream that his children would be grouped into caucuses by their skin color, sexual orientation, and gender? Oh yeah, me neither. Remember all the white people who marched for civil rights? Who were involved as more than just “supporters?” While I’m at it, progressive stack (and affirmative action for that matter) is racist and sexist. I know this isn’t a popular opinion (mostly because if you oppose this kind of thing, those in favor of identity politics automatically assume it is because you are racist or sexist or whateverist, which is a good way to quell dissent on the issue) but I’m pretty sure history will prove I’m right. These problems are real and should be dealt with as they come up, but there is nothing progressive about fighting racism with a different kind of racism. Kill whitey!
Sage, put exactly spot-on.
Sage you are right on target with your thoughtful comment.
I just got back from the event a little while ago. I was there from 6:00 to 10:00. It was wonderful with all kinds of people. White people brought their kids. I brought my 14 year old son with autism. He got to play for a minute with a 13 year old disabled child who was with an Occupy Boston resident. (a minute was all my son had patience for) Everyone was really nice. We really have to keep getting out in the world. People complained on this website about stuff. See if it happens again. Things are maybe changing by the minute. Maybe even I will make peace with the Boston School Bus Drivers Union. I do love Steve Gillis every time I see him. There really was some good energy there.
Reaction to police brutality brought to you by Anonymous:
http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/10/hacker-group-hits-boston-police-websites/dZ2bbt28EWyFXuYTlkYqRK/index.html
Someday these hackers may be our jailors.
“…When you talk about destruction,
Don’t you know that you can count me out…….”
Occupy Boston needs to publiclly condemn this, in no uncertain terms, and soon.
Condemn the hackers because some police support us but if you see a Boston police officer, ask him or ask her like I did, what they know about their chief who commanded his men to arrest us and they will tell you things he’s been investigated for. I talked to police who support us, they told me about it, and it disturbs me. How can we trust them if they can’t trust trust each other, their leaders, and they have to investigate their own chief and they have to take orders to arrest us from him. Too many police cover up for each other too much, too often. We need to stop the brutality and all of the lying they do when they whitewash it.
No, condemn the hackers because what they did on Occupy’s behalf does not in any way fit with Occupy’s peaceful protest declarations.
Yes and that as well.
I agree with Paul. I don’t like this at all and I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t want anyone doing things like this in my name without me having a chance to be part of the decision or opt out of the movement. I hope that Occupy Boston will quickly put out a statement saying this this was not done by or for us.
I don’t like people occupying “the hood” in my name, oh well. Just deal with it, man. Cops and white people suck, get on the boat.
If you see a Boston police officer, ask him or ask her like I did, if they know about their chief who commanded his men to arrest us. They were talking about him again, in Roxbury. If they’re good people, they’ll tell you about the investigations into his perjury. If like me, you’ve heard Boston’s police officers walking around us, talking about the Boston Police chief’s wife catching him cheating on her with a news reporter and having domestic violence with them then covering it up for him, ask them about it. I talked to police who support us, they told me about it, and it disturbs me. We can’t trust them if they are the ones who have to investigate their own chief for testilying and they have to take orders to arrest us from him. Too many po lice are lying on the witness stands and they cover up for each other too much, too often. Ask Alan Dershowitz, he knows, he’s a Harvard law school professor. Read what he has to say about it. We need to let our voices be heard.
http://www.constitution.org/lrev/dershowitz_test_981201.htm
There’s little anyone can do about the actions of others, especially in a movement as unwieldy as this. Please keep in mind that other movements have been stained with the errant actions of supposed sympathizers (or by agents provocateurs)…
Anonymous is into bloodless violence. I think Losif is right. If hacktivists can act on their own they can also arbitrarily decide who’s worthy of attack.
True enough, but Occupy Boston has the choice to step up and say that it was not done by their request and they don’t support that action. It doesn’t have to be a big deal / top story press release, but it could be a simple statement of fact to make it clear.
Actually, it should be a top story press release. The Anonymous story, complete with their anarchic, violent, threatening rhetoric, has been on Boston.com and other media since early this morning.
It’s only going to be a matter of time before FoxNews, Cantor, Limbaugh and their ilk seize on this story and lay Anonymous’s actions squarely on the shoulders of the Occupy movements. (Anonymous said they did it in support of Occupy!)
And then it’ll be too late to play catch-up because your failure to denounce them will be seen as tacit approval and Occupy’s peaceful declarations will called into question.
Occupy Boston – Do the right thing and do it now.
I agree with you, Paul… The flat “hierarchy” of the movement debilitates it as well as frees it from being captive to a charismatic leader. There needs to be a way to respond quickly to the press. It’s actually necessary since the press is the conduit to the people (still).
Well, I just read in the Boston Herald and at UPI the reason why the Occupy Boston media folks refuse to publically criticize Anonymous. They’re scared that their OWN emails will be hacked if they do!
Seems like an important issue to speak out on. But, no.
With all the grandiose ‘change the world’ rhetoric coming from this group it’s interesting to see you exposed as a bunch of sniveling little cowards.
Boston Herald
http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/2011_1023hackers_leak_info_on_hub_cops_group_claims_action_prompted_by_occupy_boston_arrests
UPI
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?storyid=%7B06cc3c06-0b6b-4aed-af73-e05c193a698b%7D
The person who made that comment to the Herald reporter doesn’t reflect the overall sentiment of Occupy Boston. In general, OB is not afraid of Anonymous because Anonymous only attacks corrupt organizations, which we are not. Some participants of Occupy Boston support the hacking, some don’t. No official statement has been made primarily because Occupy Boston had nothing to do with the hacking, and we don’t feel the need to comment on every event that is related to us.
from GA 10.20:
“This could be just a bunch of illiterate baloney, but when reading on an online forum about Ocupy the Hood, there were some ppl claiming that leader — I can’t remember his name — there was a claim made — that he boycotts white business. Confirm or deny?
POP…..no. This — just…no.”
actually the answer is yes. why did you shut him down? just… no. the answer is yes! the new black panther party supports exactly that and a simple google search will tell you that. YOU ARE LOSING CREDIBILITY.
“Is OtH an organization separate from OB? Or is it the event tomorrow?
There is a lot of energy around this initiative. We don’t know what it really is, yet. Tomorrow is the first public thing it’s having. It’s not really a separate organization, but we’re just having a rally. The proposal is to support the RALLY not the organization.”
good point! Nuremberg KICKED ASS but the nazis sucked.
Please realize that your criticisms here may have been taken to heart and had a major impact. I strongly suspect this is the case. I went to the event near Ruggles today and stayed for almost 2 hours.
Posts dominated by ivory tower cocktail party chatter. To Occupy, government is a cow to be milked and private business is a rabid animal to be shot. The 52% who are paying for the 48% that contribute nothing will protest that in 2012.