Friends,
Next week, Urban Shield -- a trade show and training exercise for SWAT teams and police agencies -- will bring local, national and international law enforcement agencies together with "defense industry contractors" to provide training and introduce new weapons to police and security companies. They're gathering at the Oakland Marriott Convention Center, and we're going to be there to greet them.
We know what "Urban Shield" really means: more police and state repression, more tragedy and more death — since these weapons are used primarily against our communities. Over 30 local Oakland groups have formed an action network to express our opposition to the militarization of police and corporate complicity in it.
Join us on Friday, Oct. 25 to say NO to Urban Shield!
Facing Urban Shield Day of Action
Friday, October 25, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Oakland Marriott City Center, 1001 Broadway, Oakland, CA
Get directions to this event.
It Doesn’t Work
Urban Shield arises out of the incorrect assumption that suppression methods, such as the so-called Wars on Drugs and Terror as well as profiling tactics such as gang injunctions, reduce violence in our communities. In fact, the opposite is true. The militarization of police and increased use of suppression tactics in schools, prisons, at the border, in our streets and against our youth, are counterproductive to community well-being. Spending billions of dollars to militarize police agencies is deeply misguided.
We Need Alternatives to Policing
Instead of pouring resources into the militarization of police, we need to promote a culture of peace and health, and not one of more violence, war, poverty, and incarceration. That is why over 30 groups in the Bay Area oppose Urban Shield and seek to hold our local government accountable for the massive waste of resources on policies and practices that do nothing to sustain our dreams or well-being. We want to send a clear message to repression profiteers and police that they must be directly accountable to the communities they now patrol.
Instead of militarization, invest in life
The focus of the Facing Urban Shield Action Network is to bring public awareness to Urban Shield 2013, as well as to:
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Increase awareness about the harmful impact of police violence by sharing stories about the ways it impacts our lives in the Bay Area
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Reimagine ways to positively invest in our communities
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Promote and support the goals of grassroots organizations in our network to strengthen the movement for racial and economic justice in the Bay Area
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Expose corporations that profit from the sale of tear gas and other so-called “riot control” technology used by police against our communities
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Cultivate international solidarity with movements in Egypt, Mexico, Turkey, Bahrain, Palestine, Canada, Venezuela and Tunisia, all exposed to tear gas made by the US-based Safariland corporation, a main sponsor of Urban Shield 2013
This local action is being coordinated by Beit Convivencia, whose co-organizers are Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb (FOR Freeman Fellow) and Noura Khouri, in partnership with Facing Tear Gas, a campaign of War Resisters League to end the use of tear gas and related chemical weapons. [Beit Convivencia is an initiative of Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb and Noura Khouri. Beit means "house" in Arabic and Hebrew. Convivencia is a Spanish word for living well together. Beit Convivencia seeks to bring together groups and individuals committed to ending systemic racial, economic, and gender injustice and violence; as well as lifting up human creativity and resourcefulness.]
Sponsors: Allen Temple Baptist Church, Oscar Grant Foundation, Malcolm x Grassroots Movement, Cop Watch-Berkeley, International Socialist Organization, Bay Area Catalyst Project, Bay Area Intifada, Tristan Anderson Campaign, Palestine Youth Movement, Metta Center for NonViolence, Liberate/Occupy Oakland, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Interfaith Council of Contra Costa County, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Islamic Labor Caucus, Shomer Shalom Network for Jewish Nonviolence, Beyt Tikkun, Facing Tear Gas Campaign of the War Resisters League, American Friends Service Committee, Global Exchange, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, National Lawyer’s Guild (SF), Coalition for Safe Berkeley, East Bay Alliance for a Safe Economy (EBASE) Queer Insurrection |
