High School Students March Against Police Brutality
By Ana Lapota/PoorNewsNetwork RYME Youth Skola at Deecolonize Academy
On August 15, 2014 in Oakland, California there was a protest led, held, and planned by students on the issues of police brutality. It was held at the Fruitvale Bart Station where Oscar Grant had unfortunately lost his life at the hands of Bart police officers. There were over 200 students that had gathered to have their voices heard and they would not take no for an answer.
There were various hardcore and inspiring speeches given by youths who were angry with what was happening. One speech was given about the Oakland Unified School District bringing military tanks to schools and making it seem like it's the students who are the savages and criminals. Another speech was given talking about how they are tired of seeing people of color die on the news.
We also had the privilege to hear from Francisco, who was a victim of police brutality. He was a disabled young man from Oakland High School that was hit repeatedly by one of the security guards at his school. As he spoke I can feel everyone's energy and spirit begin to rise like warriors that are ready for battle.
However, the funny thing is that the government spends millions of dollars for police officers yet when it comes to students education they only spend around thousands of dollars. And they turned a school, that had the best restorative justice program in the state, into a police station after the government was so called “low on funding.” This probably explains why my school can”t afford air conditioning, quality cafeteria food, or even new textbooks.
Overall, it was really an inspiring movement held by students who care more about their community than officers. They then had their die-in for 4 minutes and 28 seconds to represent how long Michael Brown lay on the ground exposed to his community.
After that, they marched from Fruitvale to Lake Merritt chanting as loud as they possibly can, “Michael Brown was 18. Do you know what racist means?” or “No justice, no peace, we're taking over our streets.” banging on bus windows and some people even got out of their cars and walked with us.
At Lake Merritt they then had a candlelight to honor all the victims of police brutality.
It was truly a #Free Oakland movement and with everything that happened on this day we were one step closer to freeing everyone of oppression, incarceration, inequality, but most of all police brutality.
