Cassius Methyl

December 10, 2014

(TheAntiMedia) Last night, Berkeley anti-police protests effectively blocked Amtrak trains running through the city, as well as I-80, rendering the highway useless for over an hour and a half.

The California Highway Patrol said, “a large group of demonstrators destroyed highway perimeter fencing, flooded lanes and threw rocks and other objects at officers.”

150+ people were arrested for crimes varying from ‘resisting arrest’ to ‘obstructing justice’, to whatever the police could throw at them.

No private property was damaged, this was a completely peaceful protest.

The mainstream media continues to focus on the concept of these protests being for only Eric Garner and Michael Brown, but if you look at the protests themselves, and many other aspects of this collective expression of outrage, you find that these protests are largely fueled by every single instance of oppression leading up to this moment.

While institutionalized racism is certainly an aspect of this huge, complex collective oppression we face, the protests nationwide have seemingly expanded into an expression of dissatisfaction with the full scope of our oppression that has led up to this moment.

The individuals taking part in the protests are people who have seen family members incarcerated for years for non-violent crimes, they are people who have seen the consequences of sitting back and being helpless in the face of tyranny for years and years.

A statement this general could be made about the individuals who are protesting in every city, from Berkeley to New York to Ferguson, because we have all more or less directly endured the consequences of the US Government and police having this much power, as people living in the US.

Berkeley protesters block an Amtrack train LIVE updates: Protesters lying on train tracks, blocking Amtrak train in #Berkeley protests. http://t.co/zCG9xXDucA pic.twitter.com/feVlJXcuBE — SFGate (@SFGate) December 9, 2014

I hope the collective energy and inspiration to stand up for ourselves expressed in these nationwide protests doesn’t die off without something productive coming out of it. Please share this with anyone who could gain some perspective from this. Do you think blocking highways and trains is productive, or counterproductive?

This article (Over 159 Arrested at Berkeley Anti-Police Protests as Protesters Block I-80 and Train Tracks) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons License with attribution to Cassius Methyl and TheAntiMedia.org. Tune-in to The Anti-Media radio show Monday-Friday @ 11pm EST, 8pm PST. Image credit: Twitter user syndicalist

