A Report from the Bay Area

Bay Area Katrina Commemoration Draws 200+
Rebecca Ruiz-Lichter
rebecca415@gmail.com

29 August 2008

Bay Area, California- On the heels of media announcements that Hurricane Gustav could hit the Gulf Coast with devastating effects, Bay Area activists demand a halt to ethnic cleansing and disaster capitalism on the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

More than 200 Bay Area residents demonstrated outside of developer Lennar Corp.'s Headquarters in San Francisco and then headed to Oakland to rally in front of the Oakland Police Department (OPD).

The local chapter of the Right to the City Alliance, a national coalition of more than 35 social justice organizations, along with allies and supporters, aimed to bring attention to rouge developers, gentrification and criminalization of communities of color from the Bay Area to New Orleans.

Lennar Corp, a housing redevelopment corporation based out of Miami, plans to redevelop Bayview Hunters Point but Bayview residents are calling for more affordable housing and a stop to the project, which has been sending toxic dust into nearby homes and schools.

Outside of Lennar's San Francisco office, Katrina Survivor August Foreman spoke about the connection between community displacement and corporate greed, calling the Bay Area's decline in Black and working class residents a "dry Katrina."

Because of the constant threat of displacement, Foreman said, "We are all Katrina evacuees."

Protesters drew attention to Lennar's lack of accountability to the people of Bayview, much of which materializing in the violation of as many as eleven environmental regulations during construction on an extremely toxic federal Superfund site--the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Through a powerful visual representation, a delegation of organizers with People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) attempted to deliver a large illustration of an inhaler to Lennar's HQ to symbolize the environmental hazard they say Lennar has caused in Bayview, but they were denied access through to the offices by security.

Speakers noted that the displacement of communities of color was not only economic but in many cases closely connected to the demonization of youth of color through such tactics as gang injunctions. Oakland resident Sister Beatrice X explains, "The Oakland Police department harasses working class communities and just recently raided a housing complex in West Oakland with military tanks and swat teams, they are using brute force to literally push us out."

Demonstrators also drew parallels between recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in the Gulf Coast and the spike in ICE enforcement in California. Protesters demanded that OPD stop working with ICE and criminalizing the migrant community.

The Bay Area Right To The City chapter was working in solidarity with the survivors of the Gulf Coast disaster to call for community controlled cities and an end to corporate driven policy both locally and globally. The alliance declared that if Lennar and the OPD continued not to recognize the human rights of Bay Area residents, they would be back.

______
Organizations in attendance included: Just Cause Oakland, People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), PODER, St. Peters Housing Committee, The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, The Katrina Solidarity Network, Critical Resistance, The Nation of Islam, Town Center and Courtyards and Acorn, the DataCenter, the Center for Media Justice, Priority Africa Network, Chinese Progressive Association, St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church, Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition, Community Justice Network for Youth, in solidarity with the Right to the City National Alliance

For more information on The Right To The City please visit: http://righttothecity.org/