SAN FRaNcISCO

strations and riots that took place in Oakland California afte a white cop killed shot &
Killed a handeuffed Oscar Grant, a young black father, in the back on a crowded subvay
platform in front of hundreds of people in the very firs hours of 2009, These events

became known by many as the Oscar G

at rebellion or in the Bay Area simply, Oscar
Grant, Oscar Grane marked the beginning of the current period of iece anti-police

ioting and uprisings ll over the country that have climaxed in Ferguson and made their
way back to the Bay. Oscar Grant was killed several weeks before Obama's firs inaugur

ion, and this murder and the subsequent uprising in tesponse 1o it shattered the foolish
notion that somehow the election of a black president signified that we were lving in 2
post racial society:

You Canie Shoot Us All s by no means a comprehensive study of the Oscar Grant re-
black man who participating in the rebellion as well as an intellectual challenge to the
would be politicians who tried to control the Oscar Grant struggle. It offes those of us
of the combatants who fought n the strts of the Bay Area. The author delves into the
issue of the outside agitator and the myth of the legitimacy of outrage. The politicians
dredge up many of the same issues addressed in this bief essay. The author alo offers us
a unique perspective in that he is both a young black man and a militant anarchist. This

s not 0 say tha there are no black anarchists n the countey because thereare, especially
i the Bay Ara; but i i rare in our mileu for someone o xplicidy writ from thac
perspective. We believe that this csay is mportant o be spread among those of us who

are engaged in the current nation wide rebellions aguinst the police.

(geliwindsbayorg/uplosds/20120

funiished_2012_bweh.pd)
You Can’t Shoot Us All

When we realized that, in the eyes of the powerful, ur lives are just pils of bones
waiting to be shattered, arteries and veins on the verge of tearing open, hearts and lungs
that stop beating and expanding at the moment they pull the tigger, the only thing lef
0 do was to come together and make them temble before us. Everyone saw the video.
Atleast it scemed that way at the time. A young father's last breaths press against a cold
ain platform, a cop holsters his firearm and calmly pulls out his handeuffs, Why would
they kill an unarmed man with so many people around? Why dorit we know how to re-
spond? I wanted to break windows, o set fites, o strike fear into every cop on the sereets
that nighe. Twanted to show the powerful that they: too, would learn the meaning of
violence, just s we have been forced to learn i time and time again. They needed to
understand that we dorit forget, we needed to feel chat we were still aliv.

But what could we do? We were so weak then, we didn't know each other. Somewhere I
heard call for a demonstration week later. I came alone.

A warm winter night, not 100 long ago, a long march and then the sun sets. Shordy
afer,there i a fire and kids are jumping on top of a police car, shards of glas glimmer
along the asphale, and strangers are, for the first ime, coming together. To see people
who hours earler hung their heads in fear of the police, people who were aftaid to step
into the stret, inally come together and stand up to the cops was amazing. Days earler
we ran from the police, that nigh, when we were all together, we ran toward them. No
one will ever forget that evening; the moment those kids jumped onto the roof of the
police car was the most beautiful moment I've ever witnessed.

For an instant, we ralized that we are strong, watching the police tremble a they.
cowered on the other side of the interscction, we got a glimpse of our potenial. Later
chat night, as the cars were still burning, we talked with frends, discussing ways o keep
fighting, ways to ensure that the memory of the dead continues to haunt the living, In
the following weeks, we continued to fight i the srcets.

Ttwas on those warm January nights, evenings which now scem so distant, that T met
some of the greatest people I have ever known. Our friendships have created the foun-
dations of a network of struggle and formed bass for a different kind of communicy.
We learned so much from the courage of some of the youngest people on the scrces in
those nighs. For weeks afer that firse night of outrage, everything felt different. People
held their heads higher and the feeling of anger toward the police was finally out in the
open. The violent and repressive nature of the police was the main topic of discussion
everywhere I went. People openly disobeyed and insulted the police to ther faces every
day and the cops were on the defensive. We could finlly breathe.

July 8,9:30pms A jewelry store s being looted. 30 people tear apare the ot gate and
flood the store. Acoss the stret someone is writing 2 message about Oscar Grant on the
wall of a business. A block away, people continue to fight with police, in some places
separated from the advancing lines by small fires.

‘Wete moving slowly avay from the center of downtown. On Broadway the crowd is
extremely thin, about 80 people spread acoss two blocks. Police are everywhere, yet
are unsure of how to bring the situation under control. A bank window shatters and

20 people rush inside auempting to take anything that isn bolted down. Nearby, a ire
is burning inside a department store. Two blocks cas a larger crowd is advancing near
the ke, tiled closely by armored police as they break the windows of stores and throw
their contents into awaiting hands of the crowd that surrounds them,. That nigh, the
night of the verdict, we were reminded how ltl our ives mean to this system, and that
police offcers do, in fact, get away with murder

Demanding jusice is not enough. The concepr of justice for an individual doesn'
address the need to dismantle the system that murdered him. It doesnt prevent any of
us from being killed by the police. What is important now is not speaking in terms of
justice, but atacking and weakening the instiuion of policing that continues o wage
war against us.

For people who hold the weigh of the carth on their shoulders, the fastest way from
the bottom to the top is t tun the world upside down, to throw the property of the
tich into the street and to dance on the roofs of police cars instead of riding in the back

“When the South has trouble with its Negroes — when the Negroes reuse to
remain in their place'— it blames ‘outside agitators”
— James Baldwin

“The term “outside agitator” was popularized during the civil rights sruggles of the
19505, when southern politicians would blame the growing unrest in exploited black
communities on the presence of (ofien white) radicals from outside of the city. Present-
Iy, isa term used by Oakland poliicians (and aspiring policicians) to try and keep the
siuation under control, o prevent local marginalized people from realizing the power
they have.

Today, we face enemies that we could have never conceived of before this. Sometimes,
i the people thar pretend to be on your side that are the most dangerous enemies. The
non-profic world has, for 18 monhs, waged a campaign againt this movement. Many
non-proficsthat function independently of the local government have disparaged us.
“They oppose collective uprisings and spontancous activity because they fel the need o

control the movement. These organizations view themselves as they saviors of the down-
trodden; when dominated people rse up on their own terms, it threatens the posicion
of leadership these organizations occupy in their imaginary worlds.

‘We have also come under atack from non-profitsthat operate entirely under the
influence of the city government. One of these city-funded non-profis has taken up

a full Redged assault against us, using some of the $2 million in city money they have
received to wage a propaganda campaign against the unity we have found with each
other through this struggle. They have even used city money to pay young people o
come to their indoctrination workshops where they speak of the evils of people coming
together and standing up to their enemies. They have also helped to spread the ab-

surd logic of the Mayor's Office that only peaple born and raised in Oakland have the
right o take to the steets. This micronationalism is an avempt to foste collaboration
between disenfranchised people and their exploiters in a unifid front against the enig-
maic “outsiders” I is incortect to asset that nonprofits o this type have motivations
of their own. They are simply the hip mouthpeces of the city government that funds
them. Their agenda i the agenda of the Mayor’s Offce and the police deparement. They.
use the language of “peace” o try to preserve the instiutions that created them. We
have never been concerned with thei peace. The peace of the powerful is the silent war
waged against the dispossessed.

I the past, our enemies have attempred to divide movements by distinguishing the
“good” elements from the *destructive” elements. This time, it seems that the primary
division they created was ot between the “peaceful” and the *violent,” but a raial divi-
sion wedged beaween groups in the uncontrollable elements in an atempt to neurralize
our collctive srengeh.

1, idencifying with a man whose photograph was not unlike my own refection, won-
dered if people who did not sce themselves in Oscar Grant at leas saw in his image
theis friend, the neighbor, their classmate, someone whose life was worth fighting over.
Thoped that there were white people who, after watching a video of a black man being
murdered by the police, would be angry enough to break windows. In time, | met these
people, because they fought alongside us, throwing botles and chunks of concrete,
cursing the police and writing the names of the dead along the walls of the ciry:

July 17, 8:20ams The cops killed someone lse. Once again in Fruitvale. Forty cight
year old Fred Colins died afier being shot multiple times when five officers from BART
‘and OPD discharged their weapons.

July 18, 11:27pm: Shots fired at police from an upper floor of high-rise building in
the Acorn housing project complex in West Oakland. The officers were performing 3
wraffc stop in the area and had 1o take cover when they heard the shots, however, no

officers were hit by the gunfire
Today, the situation is every bitas dismal a it was esterday. Every hour of ou lives
spent at work creates the revenue that srengthens the army that confionts us. In Stock-
ton, in Livermore,in Bakersield; the police continue to open fire on us, we continue to
die. We have yet o create a force thar can subject them to the misery that will one day
confiont them, however, we have come closer than we ever thought we would.

Until now, we believed we were fighting battles. On the day of a demonstration, we
walked he streets, we fough, and we went home that night, unsure of what to do in
the time uncil the next barle presented tself, Today, we understand that we are at the
beginning of a war. Wars are protracted conflcts. Their results aren' determined at the
end of the day. The police have killed again, and, a of today; our response has been

less than forceful. In warfae, it is ecessary to develop weapons. We need to learn neww
tactics. There i stillso e we really know how to do. We could learn how to blockade
roads or shut down BART trains. With better communication, we could attack police
propery or raid supplies in places where the cops aren' waiting for us. We are working
toward developing the capacity 10 tespond forcefully every time the police kill one of
us. This movement has never had leaders. It i composed of independent and often dis-
connected groups of people. These groups tend to operate outside of the typical political
and social ustice necworks. So fa, their autonomy, thei lack of reiance on both the
non-profic world and the radical policical scenes, has been a srength. We all come from
vastly different places, and many people may not be wiling to work with one another,
Therefore, the poin ist 1o try to bring everyone together into one organization. What
is important is o begin providing supplies o people to assse their ablity to continue o
seruggle autonomously.

“Lkenow you'll win in the finish all ight. You have a formidable arsenal at
your disposal, and what have we got? Nothing. Well be beaten becase you're
the stronger and were the weaker, but in the meantime, we hope that youll
have 10 pay for your victory.” - A Rebel

We have spent 100 many nights living i fear of the police. When we strted fight-

ing back, the world that surrounded us began to fecl different. Today, we can tell the
children in our neighborhoods that we stood up for our communities, chat, when we al
stand together, nothing seems so frightening.

Since that warm January night, we have made the mistake of allowing this movement to
be confined to the borders of the city of Oakland. The BART police ae a regional prob-
lem, policing in general a global problem. Disruptions ar as relevan at Civie Center in
San Francisco or Downtown Berkeley as they are a 14th and Broadway: The movement
becoming entirely centered around the city of Oakland has confined us, it has weakened
us because it defines the struggle by the borders created by the powerlul instead of by
the lines drawn by the outraged. This system exists o erase memories, o eviet us from
our childhood homes, t incarcerate ou loved ones, o exceure the fathers of children
00 young to fully understand what happened. Our struggle has been an effort to create
memories that they can never take from us

Running toward the sunset, we have found that the horizon only moves farther avay:
‘We awake every morning to the same cycle of death and power that we escaped in our
drcams the nighe before. Yet we continue to trudge to the ends of the earth, we continue
o fight. Tt is when the airis sill when al scems quiet, that we are planning our next

At he vy last, we have inflicted harm on our enemies, and because of his, we live
with dignity: