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Black Student Unions Call for University of California Prison Divestment

Published

9 years ago

December 18, 2015

The Afrikan Black Coalition, the largest statewide coalition of Black students, recently reported on the $25 million investment in private prisons and $425 million investment in Wells Fargo by the University of California (“UC”).

After learning further about the for-profit industry of mass incarceration, the Black Student Unions at all nine University of California campuses have unanimously voted on a resolution calling on the UC regents to divest immediately.

The formal resolution calls on the UC Regents to divest from private prisons, divest from Wells Fargo, and to create a Socially Responsible Investment Screening Committee. For Black students, the decision was simple from both a personal and political standing.

Black students are intimately familiar with the disproportionate rate at which Black bodies are rounded up and fed to the carceral state. The impact of mass incarceration on Afrikan and immigrant folks in the United States cannot be ignored.

We must not forget that we live in the United States, where the legacy of criminalizing Blackness is a constitutive element of the nation’s fabric.

And if we truly believe that #BlackLivesMatter from the hood to the academy, we must stand with our brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins and extended family members who are currently incarcerated or are at a higher risk of incarceration because of their very Blackness.

We must not forget about leaders who came before us and who still remain trapped as political prisoners in a futile attempt to isolate our revolutionary elders from our Black masses. This is not empty rhetoric.

Addressing the reality of this problem includes addressing the sheer number of our lives earmarked for incarceration in order to feed a system of modern-day slavery. Some of us “make it” to college only to remain shackled to student loans for life, some of us are targeted in modern day lynchings, and most of us are enslaved anew.

Slavery never disappeared. A caveat was attached to the 13th Amendment of 1865 that declared slavery an unlawful entity, except when serving as a punishment for a “crime”.

Prisons are the latest iteration of slavery and the newest repackaging of Jim Crow. The FBI states that violent crime in the U.S. has dropped since 1991, yet the amount of people in private prisons has steadily risen.

While many other countries were busy reducing the numbers of prisoners and frequency of imprisonment, the U.S. created a racially coded “War on Crime,” mandatory minimum sentences, and a three strikes policy.

These punitive approaches combined with a focus on “law & order” are blatantly racist and classist. For example, Black and white folks use drugs at similar rates, yet Black folks are much more likely to be arrested.

In 2010, Black men were incarcerated at a rate of 5,525 per 100,000, compared to 1,146 for Latinos, 671 for whites, and 43 for Asians. For women, the Sentencing Project reports that the lifetime imprisonment rate is 1 in 56 for all women.

Yet the lifetime imprisonment rate for white women is 1 in 118 for white women versus 1 in 19 for Black women.

And in 2010, Black women were incarcerated at a rate of 133 per 100,000 women, which is nearly 3 times the rate of white women. However, the population most at risk is Black youth (under 18 years old). Young Black women are the fastest growing segment of the juvenile justice system and the criminal justice system.

So we must ask ourselves, what could the Black community accomplish if these invisible people were made visible and released from America’s chains? When private prisons make $122/day from each prisoner, yet each prisoner makes anywhere from one to five dollars a day, who is profiting? While the state of California only built three CSU campuses and one UC campus in the last 30 years, 23 prisons were built in that same timeframe.

Private prison divestment is not merely a personal, political or an academic issue for Black students, but a human rights issue. It is clear that investment in private prisons does not align with the proposed values of the UC and the Black students at the UC have spoken in unison and with piercing clarity: we must divest now.

The demands call for divesting from CCA, the Geo Group, and other private prisons; divesting from Wells Fargo as long as the bank has business relations with the private prison industry; and reinvesting the university’s funds in in education and companies that are owned or controlled by the formerly incarcerated.

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Alameda County

Oakland Acquisition Company’s Acquisition of County’s Interest in Coliseum Property on the Verge of Completion

The Board of Supervisors is committed to closing the deal expeditiously, and County staff have worked tirelessly to move the deal forward on mutually agreeable terms. The parties are down to the final details and, with the cooperation of OAC and Coliseum Way Partners, LLC, the Board will take a public vote at an upcoming meeting to seal this transaction.

Published

5 months ago

January 11, 2025

Oakland Post

Alameda County Board of Supervisors Chairman David Haubert. Official photo.

Special to The Post

The County of Alameda announced this week that a deal allowing the Oakland Acquisition Company, LLC, (“OAC”) to acquire the County’s 50% undivided interest in the Oakland- Alameda County Coliseum complex is in the final stages of completion.

Oakland has already finalized a purchase and sale agreement with OAC for its interest in the property. OAC’s acquisition of the County’s property interest will achieve two longstanding goals of the County:

The Oakland-Alameda Coliseum complex will finally be under the control of a sole owner with capacity to make unilateral decisions regarding the property; and
The County will be out of the sports and entertainment business, free to focus and rededicate resources to its core safety net

In an October 2024 press release from the City of Oakland, the former Oakland mayor described the sale of its 50% interest in the property as an “historic achievement” stating that the transaction will “continue to pay dividends for generations to come.”

The Board of Supervisors is pleased to facilitate single-entity ownership of this property uniquely centered in a corridor of East Oakland that has amazing potential.

“The County is committed to bringing its negotiations with OAC to a close,” said Board President David Haubert.

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Arts and Culture

Rise East Project: Part 3

Between 1990 and 2020, Oakland lost nearly half of its Black population due to economic and social forces. East Oakland, once a middle-class community, is now home to mostly Black families living in poverty.

Published

2 years ago

October 12, 2023

Oakland Post

CEO of Black Culture Zone Carolyn Johnson, a native from Deep East Oakland is making the change she wishes to see in her community and in her people. Black Culture Zone has created a power base of Black folks making a difference in Deep East Oakland. Photo by Kumi Rauf.

The Black Cultural Zone’s Pivotal Role in Rebuilding Oakland’s Black Community

By Tanya Dennis

In 2021, 314 Oakland residents died from COVID-19. More than 100 of them, or about 33.8%, were Black, a high rate of death as Blacks constitute only 22.8% of Oakland’s population.

This troubling fact did not go unnoticed by City and County agencies, and the public-at-large, ultimately leading to the development of several community organizations determined to combat what many deemed an existential threat to Oakland’s African American residents.

Eastside Arts Alliance had already proposed that a Black Cultural Zone be established in Deep East Oakland in 2010, but 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic galvanized the community.

Demanding Black legacy preservation, the Black Cultural Zone (BCZ) called for East Oakland to be made an “unapologetically Black” business, commercial, economic development community.

Established initially as a welcoming space for Black art and culture, BCZ emerged into a a community development collective, and acquired the Eastmont police substation in Eastmont Town Center from the City of Oakland in 2020.

Once there, BCZ immediately began combating the COVID-19 pandemic with drive-thru PPE distribution and food giveaways. BCZ’s Akoma Market program allowed businesses to sell their products and wares safely in a COVID-compliant space during the COVID-19 shutdown.

Currently, Akoma Market is operated twice a month at 73^rd and Foothill Boulevard and Akoma vendors ‘pop up’ throughout the state at festivals and community-centered events like health fairs.

“Before BCZ existed, East Oakland was a very depressing place to live,” said Ari Curry, BCZ’s chief experience officer and a resident of East Oakland. “There was a sense of hopelessness and not being seen. BCZ allows us to be seen by bringing in the best of our culture and positive change into some of our most depressed areas.”

The culture zone innovates, incubates, informs, and elevates the Black community and centers it in arts and culture, Curry went on.

“With the mission to center ourselves unapologetically in arts, culture, and economics, BCZ allows us to design, resource, and build on collective power within our community for transformation,” Curry concluded.

As a part of Oakland Thrives, another community collective, BCZ began working to secure $100 million to develop a ‘40 by 40’ block area that runs from Seminary Avenue to the Oakland-San Leandro border and from MacArthur Boulevard to the Bay.

The project would come to be known as Rise East.

Carolyn Johnson, CEO of BCZ says, “Our mission is to build a vibrant legacy where we thrive economically, anchored in Black art and commerce. The power to do this is being realized with the Rise East Project.

“With collective power, we are pushing for good health and self-determination, which is true freedom,” Johnson says. “BCZ’s purpose is to innovate, to change something already established; to incubate, optimizing growth and development, and boost businesses’ economic growth with our programs; we inform as we serve as a trusted source of information for resources to help people; and most important, we elevate, promoting and boosting Black folks up higher with the services we deliver with excellence.

“Rise East powers our work in economics, Black health, education, and power building. Rise East is the way to get people to focus on what BCZ has been doing. The funding for the 40 by 40 Rise East project is funding the Black Culture Zone,” Johnson said.

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Alameda County

Help Protect D.A. Pamela Price’s Victory

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is asking supporters of the justice reform agenda that led her to victory last November to come to a Town Hall on public safety at Montclair Presbyterian Church on July 27.

Published

2 years ago

July 25, 2023

Oakland Post

D.A. Pamela Price

By Post Staff

Price is facing a possible recall election just six months into her term by civic and business interests, some of whom will be at the in-person meeting from 6:00-9:00 p.m. at 5701 Thornhill Dr. in Oakland.

“We know that opponents of criminal justice reform plan to attend this meeting and use it as a forum against the policies that Alameda County voters mandated DA Price to deliver. We cannot let them succeed,” her campaign team’s email appeal said.

“That’s why I’m asking you to join us at the town hall,” the email continued. “We need to show up in force and make sure that our voices are heard.”

Price’s campaign is also seeking donations to fight the effort to have her recalled.

Her history-making election as the first African American woman to hold the office had been a surprise to insiders who had expected that Terry Wiley, who served as assistant district attorney under outgoing D.A. Nancy O’Malley, would win.

Price campaigned as a progressive, making it clear to voters that she wanted to curb both pretrial detention and life-without-parole sentences among other things. She won, taking 53% of the vote.

Almost immediately, Price was challenged by some media outlets as well as business and civic groups who alleged, as she began to fulfill those campaign promises, that she was soft on crime.

On July 11, the recall committee called Save Alameda for Everyone (S.A.F.E.) filed paperwork with the county elections office to begin raising money for the next step toward Price’s ouster: gathering signatures of at least 10% of the electorate.

S.A.F.E. has its work cut out for them, but Price needs to be prepared to fight them to keep her office.

In a separate sponsored letter to voters, Price supporters wrote:

“We know that you supported DA Price because you believe in her vision for a more just and equitable Alameda County. We hope you share our belief that our criminal justice system has to be fair to everyone, regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or socioeconomic status.

“The Republican-endorsed effort is a blatant attempt to overturn the will of the voters and a waste of time and money. It is an attempt to silence the voices of those who want real justice. We cannot let these election deniers succeed.

“Will you make a donation today to help us protect the win?

“Please watch this video and share it with your friends and family. We need to stand up to the sore losers and protect the win. Together, we can continue to make Alameda County a more just, safe and equitable place for everyone.”

For more information, go to the website: pamelaprice4da.com
or send an e-mail to info@pamelaprice4da.com