Occupying Havana

It’s not the same old suspects. It’s not a bunch of tired lefties. It’s the new movement. It has its own energy, its own songs, its own language. And unlike protests of the past it has captured Havana’s imagination.

Now instead of her dragging us away from the protest, it’s us dragging her away.

The large encampment at Oscar Grant Plaza below Oakland’s ornate City Hall was like some kind of earthy, disheveled Disney Land for her. We’d walk through the scores of tents, over the wooden sidewalk to the mass kitchen, the library, the tech center, the supply center, the girls were in awe. “It’s like a whole village” Havana remarked as she longingly stared at the youth busy about their days in Occupy Oakland.

Havana has undoubtedly been politicized by her school being closed. While 5-year old Ilyana who had only just begun Kindergarten to hear her school was closing and is somewhat disoriented by the process, Havana is fighting mad.

On the day after the School Board announced its final decision to ignore parents, children and teachers and close 5 Oakland schools, Karen sat the girls down at breakfast to let them know we’d lost this fight. Havana who had doodled through the previous nights Board meeting, did not miss a thing. During the evening she had even asked me for the names of Board members.

On that next morning when Karen had sat the girls down for the bad news, Havana bounced up in her chair. “Well we need to have a flier for school today! A flier with all the pictures of the School Board on it. With boos next to the ones that voted to close our schools and yays next to the others,” she paused and then emphasized, “I need the flier to give out at recess.”

Bloody hell. . . .

Bloody hell.

Karen told me this story over cell phone while I was pounding nails at work at 7am. I was initially shocked and then I felt so happy, that it felt like something big rising in my chest that I couldn’t control.

And then yesterday the girls and I put on our Maxwell Park Elementary t-shirts, while their mom worked, and we marched with Occupy to another school on the closure hit-list. About 3-5,000 people marched by five big billion-dollar banks where we announced each banks’ profits and tax evasion numbers. It made the School District’s savings from closing schools look like pocket change.

About 10 of us collected hundreds of petition signatures for the Recall of the 5 School Board members. They’d voted to close schools so that the rich can stay tax-free and our wars can be fully funded.

Towards the end of the march Havana wanted to be at the front and wee Ily was so tired I had to put her up on my shoulders.

At Lakeview Elementary where thousands amassed, I spoke on the back of the Occupy truck with 3 other good comrades: two parents from Lakeview and Mike from Santa Fe.

I spoke about how our school had been a foundation of our neighborhood for 85 years and how many kids are the 3rd generation to go to our great school. I talked of the wrong direction the country is heading in, the need to kick out all those politicians that put money before people and the need to end the dictatorship that big business holds over this country.


I concluded by talking about the emotional impact of school closures. “What do we tell our children when they walk past the schools they were evicted from and see kids in the playground from the new charter-private school there. Or they see private businesses on our school ground?

“More than 80% of Maxwell Park children are eligible for free or subsidized lunch. Our students have had hard lives and now they’re being evicted. Will this make Oakland more safe and less dangerous? This has got to end.”

After we got in the car, Havana insisted we drive downtown to see the confrontation as several thousand people marched back downtown to takeover an empty city lot. There were a hundred cops waiting for them. As we got stuck in traffic by the march, the girls got out of their car seats, opened their windows and gave “v” signs to the passing marchers.

A PG&E truck was pulled up beside us; the driver got out and took pictures of the march on his cell phone. We chatted and then he summed up the current movement, “You know, all I can say is . . . it’s about time this happened. It’s about time.”

Havana and Ily’s generation will either be a part of tearing down what's rotten in this world or building the new world. A world where equality and diversity are cherished and where the 99% become the 100%.