From a World Can’t Wait organizer in the San Francisco Bay Area
More info will be coming soon as we do more investigation. But here’s
what I can gather from talking to some students and a couple teachers
this evening:
Today (March 6) — 4 days after many students walked out for May 1 and
one day after Cinco de Mayo celebrations — ICE agents terrorized
communities in Berkeley and Oakland, spreading panic and fear in
schools in both districts, particularly Berkeley High School and
Stonehurst Elementary in East Oakland. This also came on the heels of
major raids in San Francisco (supposedly a ‘sanctuary city’) and other
East Bay cities at the El Balazo Taqueria chain restaurants on May 2.
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Your Struggle, My Struggle The anger runs through my veins. I feel my blood begin to boil as my Tears wait for a sign to be released. Just one minute, I tell myself We have work to do in Berkeley.
I’m half way across the country and I feel their pain. Not in the Bill Clinton/Televangelist way where Humanity is expendable as long as my legacy is in tact, Rather, every person I run into today will know that There is no place safe from pigs.
No longer can we remain in self imposed slumbers As if what happens out there has no relevance With our lives As if we can divorce our individual struggles From people who are of a different color Or who came to this country in a different way.
(If you cannot feed your children because of what this system Has done in your home country, And you walked miles in desert heat just to get here, Risking everything and leaving everything behind, Then how can I tell you the chains you are carrying Are not as valid as the chains that carried my ancestors here, To this land , Where parents still can’t feed their children.)
I realize that your struggle is my struggle And we all have chains to cast off. By Jamilah Hoffman |
From what we know at this point, ICE vans drove through the streets of Berkeley and East Oakland today, in particular, driving around Berkeley High and Stonehurst. This provoked a ‘frenzy’ (as one BHS teacher described it) of panic and fear that spread through the school and beyond. At BHS, teachers were hiding students, parents were frantically rushing to the school to pick up their kids and make sure they were safe, and many tears were shed. The Berkeley and Oakland school districts did the right thing: they sent out directives to all their schools to not let ICE agents cross onto school grounds. And Berkeley High apparently arranged for rides home for some students. In Oakland, mayor Ron Dellums came to Stonehurst at the end of the day to denounce the raids, saying, ‘No way children should ever be treated to that kind of harassment and fear.’
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Although ICE agents did not enter school grounds (from what I can tell), they arrested a family of 4 (with relatives that attend BHS) on Russell Street in Berkeley near BHS and they arrested a woman in East Oakland near the elementary school. There are reports that ICE agents questioned students at the elementary school. Although some media outlets may try to turn this into a case of ‘false alarm’ — as in, they weren’t actually targeting the students so it’s nothing to get worked up about.
But it would be a serious mistake to fall into that kind of thinking. First of all, whether ICE entered the schools or not, they succeeded in doing what they are trying to do: creating a climate of fear among the immigrant population in general, and in particular among the most potentially radical section of that population (many of whom showed that when they walked out several days earlier), the youth. And if people are mollified by the fact that these gestapo-like raids are happening in our communities but not (yet) IN our schools, then we have big problems. While there have been major ICE operations in the Bay Area following the outpouring of immigrants into the streets in 2006, they have (mostly) not been in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, which are known for their more tolerant, ‘sanctuary’ status. Now they are even coming to these communities.
We cannot keep accepting this encroaching fascist nightmare, like Pastor Neimoller. It’s time to say Ya Basta!