Earth Day 2021 in San Francisco!
April 28, 2021
On this Earth Day, April 22, 2020, more than 120 fired up Hunters Point and Treasure Island residents and supporters gathered in front of San Francisco City Hall to call for real environmental and social change that comes from the people in the wake of complete disinvestment and neglect of our Black communities by city leaders. But we also came together to acknowledge, learn about and celebrate the amazing work of people and organizations like Dr. Ahimsa Sumchai, Greenaction, Hunters Point Mothers and Fathers Committee, Arieann Harrison, Elaine Brown, Dr. Aude Bouagnon, Ms. Margaret from West Oakland, investigative reporter Carol Harvey, Gloria Berry, attorneys Stanley Goff and Charles Bonner, Literacy for Environmental Justice and many more. – Photo: Griffin Jones
SAN FRANCISCO What does a safe space really look like? That question is reverberating among Asian American and Pacific Islander communities across the country, after shootings last month at three Atlanta-area spas killed eight people, six of whom were Asian women. The attacks came amid a 150% increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans since the start of the pandemic. Many of the reports of anti-Asian hate incidents and crimes are coming from California, a state that has long had one of the highest Asian populations in the country. Several high-profile attacks in the San Francisco Bay area have made headlines in recent months.
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Photo: Banner reads “We can’t breathe! Stop environmental racism.” Liberation photo
On April 22 a People’s Earth Day’ rally was held in front of San Francisco City Hall to demand health and environmental justice for residents of Bayview Hunters Point and Treasure Island.
The Hunters Point Shipyard in the Bayview district is a federal Superfund site; one of many polluted locations in the United States requiring a long-term response to clean up hazardous material contaminations. Dr. Ahimsa Sumchai from the Hunters Point Community Biomonitoring Project explained to an attentive crowd how clusters of people have been identified with the same toxins in their urine including arsenic, magnesium, vanadium and gadolinium. The statistical likelihood that 16 people would have these same four toxins in their urine without environmental contamination being the cause, she explained, is impossible.
City College under attack: Students organize to save 600 faculty jobs
April 20, 2021
by Jacqueline Puliatti
On April 11, 2021, over 150 students, activists and people from all over the Bay Area came out to the “March to Save CCSF” in the Mission to protest and call attention to the recently approved layoffs of over 600 professors at City College of San Francisco. Layoffs and budget cuts are, as usual, disproportionately affecting students and faculty of color and the curriculum that best serves them. Here protestors stop at the CCSF Mission Campus to be heard and to call out the inhumanity. – Photo: KZ
On Sunday, April 11, student organizers in the CCSF Student Coalition led a “March to Save CCSF” in the Mission District in San Francisco with over 150 people in response to the recently approved layoffs of over 600 professors at City College of San Francisco (CCSF).
The campaign launched in Civic Center Plaza with intergenerational discussions, storytelling and sharing of successful examples of allyship and why standing together is important.
Event participants assembled solidarity kits, which included children s books, family passes to the Asian Art Museum, mental health resources and information about public and personal safety.
The kits will be distributed to residents in Chinatown, Bayview Hunters Point, the Tenderloin and other areas.
San Francisco s measures to reduce racially motivated violence comes as crimes against members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities have soared since the start of the pandemic.
According to Chinese for Affirmative Action, there have been 3,795 reports of such crimes since March 2020 across the United States, 43% of them in California. And about 24% of all racially motivated violence reported in California occurred in San Francisco.