Page 6 of 6
Being on the outs with white leftists isn't an unfamiliar feeling for Garza. During Occupy, she supported the movement and worked with other grassroots organization to shift the focus to people of color and immigrants, but there was a certain disconnect.
"Our people have been talking about the 99 fucking percent and the one percent forever. It was not a new concept for us. We were like, man, the white people caught on, but no, I'm not camping out," she says. "I'm not sleeping out when I'm trying to pay rent. Why would I not sleep in the bed that I pay for?"
Though many in the media — and on the left — have connected the upsurge in protests during the Occupy movement to the uprisings against police violence over the last year, Garza draws a meaningful distinction.
"There was this really interesting current of leaderless democracy that was really appealing to white folks," she says.
The Black Lives Matter movement, by contrast, is "leader-full."
On Tuesday, Nov. 10, a group of labor leaders entered the office of Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley, sat down, and refused to leave. Almost a year after the Black Friday 14 stopped BART service for two hours, O'Malley continues to pursue criminal charges against the protesters despite a public outcry that they are being targeted for selective prosecution. The protesters have been charged with interfering with the operation of a train (a misdemeanor). The protest was coordinated with Fight For 15, a national group of fast food workers advocating for $15 an hour wages and union rights — the result of growing cooperation between organized labor and Black Lives Matter.
"Nancy O'Malley needs to get her priorities straight," Wei-Ling Huber, president of Unite Here Local 2850, the Oakland hotel workers union, said in a statement. "We elected her to pursue justice, but instead she has wasted her office's resources by prosecuting our brothers and sisters fighting in the tradition of our civil rights and labor movements."
The sit-in ended after a few hours — without a response from O'Malley — but the protesters plan to "flood" the BART board meeting next Thursday, Nov. 19, to continue the call for charges to be dropped.
When I ask Garza to reflect on the hours she spent chained to a train on the BART platform, she says that the experience had been transformative and rejuvenating.
"Literally putting our bodies on the line transformed us in ways that I don't think we'll ever come back from," she says.
The members of the Black Friday 14 are represented in numerous community organizations around the Bay Area, and Garza credits their work with BLM in helping to push the region's progressive organizations "to reconsider how they're doing their work and to have more focus on black people" — a focus that might have made a difference in the Prop. F fight six years ago.
I ask Garza if she was scared the BART action wouldn't come off.
"Completely. I was scared shitless," she says. "I was worried that the train wasn't going to stop. But you know," she smiles — ever the organizer — "good planning avoids that."
A previous version of this article misstated the weight of a BART car. We regret the error.
Showing 1-8 of 8
Comments are closed.
