Oakland, California

How does one honor the call to “black out black Friday” for Mike Brown & Ferguson, to Boycott Walmart and to connect all the dots by showing solidarity w/ Palestine and BDS? Here’s How:

In the Bay Area protestors know how to be creative. In the past week since the acquittal of Darren Wilson in the murder of Mike Brown demonstrations have moved away from symbolism to strategy through diversifying tactics:

Freeways have been taken over multiple times to stop the flow of commerce and business as usual, Bay Area Rapid Transit was shut down on Black Friday by The Black Out Collective to stop the flow of shopping in downtown San Francisco, even the rioting has taken a more strategic direction that hasn’t been seen since the early days of the Oscar Grant uprisings with some street fighting and barricades (mostly on fire) slowing down police advances while others looted to sustain the protests with food, water and materials to either throw at the police or to help with more barricades (to set on fire). The annual Shell Mound protests led by indigenous activists confronted shoppers in Emeryville’s Mall built on Native burial grounds (on top of stolen land). And you can watch: the best vine ever here from Black Friday in San Francisco where police who were beating and arresting a protestor got attacked with a flying street sign, knocking over one cop and angering another who tried and failed (hard) at giving chase to the assailant. In short, it has been a good week for the resistance in the Bay Area.

One group going by the name “The Lost Voices of Oakland” got our attention by connecting all the dots: Oakland to Ferguson to Palestine, Capitalism to Colonialism, Black Friday to Boycott Walmart and so on…

Bay Area Intifada spoke briefly with the Lost Voices of Oakland and they had this to say:

“The Black community stands with Palestine from Oakland to Ferguson. We are calling for international intervention in America and Palestine… there is a genocide taking place. We are second class citizens in our homelands.” When asked what to expect next The Lost Voices responded: “There will be more actions to come we are calling on all supporters to take action in their city”.



Some of the targets were: Soda Stream, Nestle, Gerber, Colgate and Playtex. Here are some pictures of their action:

[Below] Video From Brandon Jourdan / Global Uprisings Nov. 24 2014



Oakland 11/24/14: Justice For Michael Brown from brandon jourdan on Vimeo.

[Below] Video From Tom Goulding Black Friday

Black Friday Protests in SF from Tom Goulding on Vimeo.