The People's Hearing on Racism and Police Violence

One of my favorite films about globalization is the fictional narrative Bamako.  The entire film is set in a courtyard of Bamako, the capital of Mali.  Amidst the comings and goings of daily life, folks hold a people’s tribunal on the devastation of neoliberal free-trade polices on the global south.  Farmers and lawyers from Mali give testimony and argue against representatives from the World Bank.  It is incredibly powerful, and I highly recommend it. I'm reminded of it because of a similar type of "people's tribunal":

I had the privilege of attending the People’s Hearing on Racism and Police Violence this weekend in Oakland, which was open to the public.   From 9 to 5 on both Saturday and Sunday, at least 100 people at any one time sat in the gym of Edna Brewer Middle School listening to people speak about their experience with police brutality.  The amount of truth-telling and synergy in the space was off the charts!

Often individual’s stories of police violence are isolated, but at this event, everyone’s testimonies overlapped to create one powerful collective narrative.  Family members of Derrick Jones, Raheim Brown, and Gary King testified, as well as a close family friend of Oscar Grant.  A black panther spoke about being incarcerated as a political prisoner and tortured. Young organizers at the forefront of the Oscar Grant movement spoke about how Cointelpro tactics are alive and well today, documenting their own stories of repeated police harassment.  

Another testifier emphasized that the police are becoming increasingly embedded in people’s daily lives: the local police, probation, and parole systems in black communities, ICE in Latino communities, and the FBI in Arab and Muslim communities.  “When men are dealing with this level of violence in their daily lives, it comes into the home, which results in domestic violence.  But it’s not domestic violence; it’s state violence.”  Another organizer spoke about her first experience with police violence as an 8 year-old girl, and how political organizing saved her life.

Meanwhile, free childcare, free food, and free mental health services were available to anyone and everyone.

Four sessions were held in total: Racial Profiling, Police Killings, Cointelpro and Beyond, and Organized Resistance.  For each, about 7 people gave testimony on stage, while about 7 jurists (lawyers) shared the stage with them and asked questions.  The public had a chance to ask questions as well.  

Audience members were also encouraged to go to a breakout room and share their own experiences with police brutality.  The jurists’ legal summaries of the event, combined with video documentation of the testimony, will create a body of evidence of systemic police repression in Oakland.  This will be presented to international bodies documenting human rights abuses and the executive branch of the federal government, demanding that it “adhere to its obligations under the CERD Treaty and create a National Plan of Action to Eliminate Racism and Racial Discrimination.” 

History was made last weekend in Oakland, but history is never over.

WEBSITE (where videos of the testimony are now available): peopleshearing.wordpress.com

  

A version of this was posted at the Ella Baker Center blog.   I would also like to ask the question that one of the jurists did at the event: What does it take for middle class, predominantly white communities -- who don't know police violence as part of their/our daily lives -- to become sensitized (or perhaps even outraged) by police repression?  This, of course, is a big barrier to social change.