Aching to Pupate

Femme, feisty, feminist, finding it harder to alliterate than I expected. Twenty-something, vegan, queer, sex- and body-positive, book-loving, Jewish, kinky almost-college graduate. My feminism is intersectional or it isn't worth shit. Directing my life marginally better than a butterfly in a hurricane.

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socialismartnature:

San Francisco’s thugs in blue

Clayton Plake reports on the angry response to a video, released online, of San Francisco police assaulting an African American college student.

SAN FRANCISCO police have sparked anger and outrage after officers were caught on videotape carrying out a vicious, unprovoked assault on Kevin Clark, a young African American man, in the city’s Mission district.

Footage of the attack on Clark was captured by what appears to be an anonymous bystander, using their cell phone camera. The video was posted to the Internet by activists from the Idriss Stelley Foundation—a leading organization in the struggle against police brutality in the Bay Area.

Over four minutes in duration, the video opens with an unidentified motorcycle cop riding his bike up onto the sidewalk near the 24th Street BART station and approaching a pedestrian now identified as 18-year-old Kevin Clark, a student at City College of San Francisco. The first cop was followed closely by another officer, also on a motorcycle. Neither cop appears to deliver a command for Clark—who was peacefully walking on the sidewalk—to stop walking or otherwise obey directions.

In the video, one cop uses his motorcycle—the front wheel pointed squarely at Clark’s body—and alternately accelerated and decelerates, seemingly to terrorize Clark. The terrified Clark yells, “Are you going to run me over?” Then the other officer, having stepped off his bike, grabs Clark from behind and throws him to the asphalt with staggering force, pushing him face first into a gutter.

Both cops then throw themselves on top of Clark. Each grabs one of Clark’s arms and pulls them up and back, and one cop digs his knee into Clark’s back. Clark’s screams of pain become interspersed with frantic pleas to be left alone. One cop, still keeping Clark’s arm in a locked position, starts to push the man’s face into a sewer grate.

In short order, a squad car arrives, as do a host of other police officers—no less than 10 officers were deployed to the scene, despite the fact that the victim appeared unarmed and was not resisting arrest. Comments from off-camera eyewitnesses reveal that this is the second African American man the police had stopped in the area in less than 10 minutes.

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What you can do

A rally and march against police brutality has been planned for February 7 at 5 p.m. at 24th and Mission Streets. Visit the Facebook event page for information.

"This year a black person has died on average every 40 hours at the hands of a police officer or — though to a lesser extent — a security guard or vigilante. In 1892, when lynchings reached their peak in the United States, a black person was strung up on average every 54 hours." 

highvoodoopussypope:

Reblogging this one more time to add:

• rThis number has changed. Now it’s a Black person every 36 hours.
• Think about it. You are killing more Black people now in “lawful” ways than you were when it was just outright racism.

"Racism in America’s police force is linked to their role as keepers of the status quo in an unequal society. They enforce laws written by politicians on behalf of the wealthy — laws that end up trapping poor and working-class people in desperate lives. Racial and sexual minorities, legal and illegal immigrants are seen as threats to the social order. When we protest the law and “occupy” a space we are beaten and arrested. When we commit a crime to “get some” we are beaten and arrested. And when we do neither but simply live we’re busted to make a cop’s stop-and-frisk quota."  - ‘They Think We Are Animals’: How America’s Police State Controls Black People | Nick Powers - Alternet (via newwavefeminism)