Revolution #265, April 8, 2012
Snapshot—SF Bay Area Protests against the Murder of Trayvon Martin
The anger about the murder of Trayvon Martin—and the fact that George Zimmerman STILL is free, giving a green light to anyone with a gun to shoot young Black men—is not going away. Some of us in the Bay Area felt there needed to be more protest and resistance—especially from Oakland. At an emergency meeting Tuesday at Revolution Books in Berkeley, the Revolution Club and the Stop Mass Incarceration Network called for a protest on Friday, March 30, with the message "Justice for Trayvon Martin! The Whole Damn System is Guilty!"
The new two days people went out to high schools and junior colleges in and around the Bay Area to spread the word about the protest, and to get out the Revolutionary Communist Party's statement about the murder of Trayvon Martin. We found that at one high school in Oakland, students were already planning a "wear a hoodie day," and at Berkeley High some of the Black students were organizing a walkout for Thursday, March 29. At all of these schools there was a lot of outrage, especially among the Black students, about the whole situation. It opened up a discussion about what happens all the time, how Black youth and others get profiled by the police and even the school security guards. Among the non-Black students there was a fair amount of ignorance about who Trayvon was and what had actually happened, but some of them were changed by the conversation.
The walkout Thursday at Berkeley High was significant. A few hundred students—the majority Black students—but many others as well—took part. One former student took us inside where school staff eagerly bought Revolution newspaper and agreed to pass out the RCP's statement. Students, wearing their hoodies, then marched to the school district office where they occupied the steps. Some students spoke and then heard a speech from Minister Keith Mohammad from the Nation of Islam. The minister gave props in his talk to Revolution newspaper that he said exposes many cases of police murder throughout the country.
At one point, a school official challenged one of the revolutionaries, saying we were using the students, taking their money for the newspaper. He said, "I have been watching you for 35 years, and you always do this." The revolutionary took him on in a very loud voice. "You have been watching us for 35 years, and in that time what have you been doing? Have you told these youth about the need for revolution? You must hate the idea of revolution more than you hate the murder of Trayvon or the crimes of this system." With this, many students cheered, called the revolutionary over and pulled out dollars to get the newspaper.
The following day a group of about 75 people, including some from Occupy Oakland and many Black people, assembled for the rally at Oscar Grant plaza in downtown Oakland. A young man from the Revolution Club spoke about Emmett Till and the Dred Scott decision (Black people don't have any rights that the white man is bound to respect), the fact that the oppression of Black people is built into the DNA of this country since the beginning, and the need for revolution. He talked about meeting a woman right before the protest who told him how she worries every time her son, who is 6'4", 220 pounds, goes out the door, how the police might view him. A leader of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network talked about the connection between the murder of Trayvon and the epidemic of racial profiling, police brutality, mass incarceration, and the slow genocide that could very quickly turn into a fast one. Other people stepped up. The uncle of Kenneth Harding (killed by San Francisco police over a bus fare) talked about how the killing of Trayvon was not an isolated incident but part of a nationwide attack on youth. Another woman spoke to her fear that her two-year-old son, who has a whole drawer full of "hoodies" and who has the prospect of growing up tall, will be a target of the police.
Although small, the march had a spirit of defiance. Chanting "Justice for who? Trayvon Martin!" it took to the streets, marched through a mall and right up to the Federal Building. There, people from the Revolution Club in the Bay Area talked about what Obama didn't say about Trayvon Martin. The march then continued in the middle of the street, past the police station and the jail changing, "Serve and protect, that's a lie, you don't care if Black kids die!" And "We say no to the New Jim Crow!" Even while blocking rush-hour traffic, we got lots of support from people in cars while we chanted "Trayvon didn't have to die, we all know the reason why, the whole system is guilty! The whole system is guilty!" "Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till, the system lets the racists kill!" "No more stolen lives. Enough is enough!"
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