Forum Post: Oakland

I think people here should be able to see what "women and queer" Occupy Oakland activists are saying about the arrest of three Black Oakland Occupy activists on charges of "hate crime" supposedly against a lesbian woman. The authors of this statement are close to the situation and their take on it should matter.

http://oaklandoccupypatriarchy.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/pigs-are-no-friends-of-ours/

Pigs are No Friends of Ours

5 MAR –by some women and queers of Occupy Oakland

Because of recent manipulative lies released by the Oakland Police Department, we felt compelled to make something unquestionably clear: The exclusive role of the police is to serve and protect the interests of the patriarchal and racist state and the rich capitalist elite. The “justice” system of the united states has one function: to protect the rulers from us, those who would want to overturn this horrible state of things and begin a new way of living all together. So we can say with confidence that the police and the state do not give a FUCK about women, about fags, about dykes, about trans people or about queer people, UNLESS one of these people happens to be RICH and POWERFUL. OR, unless “protecting” us helps to justify their racist, patriarchal attacks on poor people, which is what they have done, once again, on Friday March 2nd in their press release.

Yesterday three of our comrades from Occupy Oakland were charged with robbery and “hate crimes” on someone for allegedly making hateful remarks on her sexuality. The OPD writes, “The Oakland Police Department prioritizes hate crimes for immediate investigation.” Police frequently lie, and also many of us, as products of a sexist racist society, do shitty things, but etheir way, cops can’t and won’t change what sucks about this society. But WE sure as hell intend on doing that. Part of that project is negating police authority and their monopoly of violence.

The OPD’s claim that they care about “hate crimes” is a disgusting manipulation of OUR identities as women and queers, in order to justify state violence that we ABSOLUTELY OPPOSE. The history and current existence of militant radical women, queer, and trans’ movements is dealt a blow every time the state invokes our identities to hurt us and our comrades, under the vice that they are protecting us and our identities. THAT IS THEIR GOAL, to reduce our struggles to the desire for a right to vote, a right to marry, a right to buy commodities marketed especially for us — to all those things that don’t really threaten the status quo.

We have worked with and alongside these 3 people with solidarity and with love for months. These are people we’ve cooked with, cleaned with, cracked jokes with, danced with, at Occupy Oakland, at the Occupy 4 Prisoners Rally, at countless events and marches. We will be at their court dates and ready with warm food when they are released. On the other hand, we have experienced nothing but brutality from OPD. We have been terrorized, verbally abused, condescended to, and assaulted by OPD. We have seen the city and the police department lie on a regular basis in order to throw occupiers in jail, particularly homeless people and people of color. So while WE actually care about misogyny and gendered violence, the OPD appropriates the language of our struggles to serve its own evil purposes.

There is racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and violence in every nook and cranny of “This Great Country.” People are treated like trash, garbage and worse, and that means sometimes we do not treat each other well. But the project of communicating, learning from each other, and dealing with assault and abuse is something that we have to do, together, and we can do it a million times better than the wettest dream of even the most ‘liberal’ state institution. If someone fucks with us because of our gender, our race, our sexuality, that is something for US to handle, whether it means mediation, accountability, reparations, violent retaliation, or exclusion — that is for US to work out together, WITHOUT the police. In order to do that, we need to break down the barriers that the police and the capitalists are so interested in building between us, so that we can start learning how to work together. It is something we began to do in the Oakland Commune before the pigs cracked down on our collective projects.

Until they tear off their badges and join our fight against the state and capital, willing to fight the officers who stay on the side of the state with as much force as they have fought us in the streets from Oakland to Cairo, the police are our enemies. And any time they purport to be on our side, or act for us, we have three little letters for them: FTP!