hella occupy

Proposition 30 was Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax plan that would avoid steep cuts to public education, including cuts to the public University of California system. 

Okay, cool. 

Thing is, the UC Regents have been threatening us students with a 20% fee hike if Prop 30 doesn’t pass.

That is fucking coercion. “Vote this way, or we make you pay even more money to go to a public university.” Keep in mind, tution has more than doubled in the past 6 years and  has gone up $2,000/year just in the 2 years I have been a student. 

I am angry that no one is talking about this. The UC Regents are essentially going to make sure they get the money no matter what. This is not democracy. This is not public education. This is students at a public university being threatened with the privatization of their education if they don’t vote the way a bunch of (mostly) old white dudes tell us to. 

Remember that guy who threatened to fire his employees if Obama was re-elected? And how everyone was all “Voter suppression!” and “Voter coercion!” about it. This really isn’t any different.

Fuck the regents. Fuck Brown. Fuck this entire system. Education is a right—not a privilege, not a means of extorting money out of students and/or taxpayers. 

dandieelyon:

truth. speak it

Fuck the person who wrote this article, fuck the person who blogged this article, and fuck everyone who reblogged this article.

It is NOT “macho” to smash windows. At least half the black bloc were women, and many people of color. Have you not heard of Laila Khaled? What about Comandante Ramona? They were fucking soldiers.

Look at every other social movement in the world—will you condemn Egyptians for torching government buildings when by doing that, they are now running their own country instead of living under an oppressive authoritarian regime? Do you think the U.S. left Vietnam because they sat in peaceful protest while the United States blew their heads off? No. 

It’s called resistance. I think a huge reason there’s so much “peace policing” happening at this protest is because so many white people—and poc who are fooled into their racist bullshit—are involved. I talked to a “hippy” white man on the way to the docks, and he said: “I don’t have a problem with undercover cops. That’s their job.” Yeah, seriously. Undercover cops have never fucked your shit up because you’re a white man who owns land. But they destroyed black families with crack. They killed Chicano leaders when they were actually starting to get people’s attention. 

What the fuck did white liberals ever do for me? My mom couldn’t get welfare anymore because of Bill Clinton. White conservatives? She couldn’t get housing assistance because Bush cut the program that was helping her out. The white man created the circumstances that gave birth to my psychopathic gangster of a father. I don’t owe them shit. I don’t owe them an apology if I smash a fucking window—which I regrettably did not. I don’t owe ANYBODY an apology for exercising my freedom of speech when I write words on a public wall. That’s the people’s wall. It’s my wall. The corporations should be apologizing to us for filling our world with hideous advertisements.

But you are absolutely right: I’m not part of the same 99% as privileged white people who grew up believing the rich white man’s version of history. I’m not part of the group of poc that have been fooled by the white man’s lies. What the fuck do you have to be angry about? You don’t have a mercedes? You can’t afford 40,000 channels on the Dish anymore? You can’t easily pay for your shitty kids to go to school? Well guess what, my people have been dealing with that for our entire history, and we still are experiencing real oppression. 

You don’t understand why preaching nonviolence is racist because you don’t understand violence. You don’t understand what it’s like to live in a place where you might get shot every time you step outside your door. You don’t understand the violence we experience when the police treat the families of criminals, like criminals. You don’t understand the violence I experience every time I turn on the television, and see my people portrayed as either whores, day laborers, or maids. When I fight back, it’s not violence—it’s resistance. 

I wish I could say I had more white friends that sympathized, that tried to understand the oppression of my people—but they are few. I love them. I trust them. But I don’t trust the rest of you white people to back up me or my people when we get radical. I don’t fool myself into thinking you’re getting together to change things for me. You do this for you. I’m not part of your 99%, and I don’t want to be. 

Maybe I’ll add more to this later.