One member’s thoughts on planned Police/Protester Forum

Wingnut member Mo Karnage has a blog post on the announced public forum between Police and Protesters in Richmond.

Check it out:
http://mokarnage.com/2015/01/30/public-forum-set-between-richmond-police-and-protesters-really/

Solidarity Speak Out to Support South Boston Workers

This is tomorrow yall! I have work and cant go, but please share and support. Fast food workers are raising up and fighting back against poverty wages and racism in the workplace.
Thursday Jan 29 @ 12 noon at the McDonalds in Carytown!!

Facebook event link:

https://www.facebook.com/events/704901572964509/

Egalitarian Community in RVA Meeting Feb 16

If you missed the amazing presentation at the Wingnut last night you can listen to this audio version. Thanks again to GPaul and Paxus as well as all the folks from Acorn and Twin Oaks who brought food and knowledge to share.

https://m.soundcloud.com/point-a-gpaul/income-sharing-across-the-pond

And a cheat sheet on different egalitarian communes:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5nVwwOVpVHYbnF1Q0NCT2NMSFE/edit?pli=1

We are having our next meeting on the subject on February 16 at 6:30 pm and it will be a potluck.

We are currently looking for people interested in joining/forming an egalitarian community in Richmond using the Wingnut house as a starting point, but with the hope of expanding to include multiple residences and properties.

At the February meeting we will be talking about what an egalitarian community with the Wingnut in Richmond might look like.

This is part of an ongoing series of educational, explorational, and conversational events we are hosting throughout 2015 in our attempts to form this organization and begin living an egalitarian lifestyle. Please come out to talk, network, share ideas, ask questions, and collaborate.

Raise Up Planning Meeting Feb. 2 @ 6pm

Here is an update on the Fast food workers / Raise Up campaign:

Hello everyone,

Seven million workers have increased their wages since the fast food worker campaign began two years ago, but that’s not how I know we are winning.

Last year I saw a proposed bill, that would’ve increased VA minimum wage to $8.25 over 3 years (crap, right?), go down without a chance. One year later a proposed bill for $10.10 went down without a prayer There was even talk about a bill for $15.15. So in one year, we went from not passing $ 8.25 to not passing $15.15. I know that sounds sad, but for a life-long Virginian I’m stoked as hell! I know this campaign is working!

2015 is going to be the year for a living-wage! April 15th is going to be our largest mobilization ever and we cannot do it without you. So please join us for a community allies planning meeting next Monday Feb 2nd, 6pm-7pm, at the BCT Local 203 on 231 E Belt Blvd, Richmond Va 23224.

Please contact me with any questions and please feel free to invite any organizations or individuals who are down for the cause.

In solidarity,
Guillermo Zamora
VA Raise Up
703-629-2199

Presentation on Egalitarian Communities

If you are curious, skeptical, interested or passionate about building a better world and community please come to this presentation on Tuesday January 27th at the Wingnut. We are doing a year long exploration/study of egalitarian communities so that we can transform this building into the home of one. Definitely looking for people to join ranks with us on this project but also looking for people who are doing similar projects elsewhere and want to network.

Presentation on Egalitarian Communities

If you are curious, skeptical, interested or passionate about building a better world and community please come to this presentation on Tuesday January 27th at the Wingnut. We are doing a year long exploration/study of egalitarian communities so that we can transform this building into the home of one. Definitely looking for people to join ranks with us on this project but also looking for people who are doing similar projects elsewhere and want to network.

#BlackLivesMatter protest takes Broad!

Some pictures from tonight’s march and rally for #blacklivesmatter!! Organized by Justice RVA with participants from pretty much the same wide swath of people who came out to disrupt City Council on Monday night.

Light up letter signs spelling out #blacklivesmatter
We blocked Broad street at 9th and had a die in. We also sang Amazing Grace, We Shall Overcome, And This Little Light of Mine, listened to speakers, and black participants made a memorial to their ancestors at 11th and Broad.
Look out for more actions over the next days, week, and year.
We will be working towards the list of demands until City Council acquieces or time comes to boycott and disrupt the UCI Bike races.

Thanks to All Saints Theater for making and bringing beautiful puppet memorials.

If anyone has a picture of two undercover cops please let us know. They were a pair of white guys (obvi), the taller one in a red hoodie and the shorter huskier one in a black sweatshirt. We followed them back to their car, a white jeep SUV which was parked in the law enforcement only zone at the John Marshall court building.

Some local coverage:

http://wtvr.com/2015/01/15/justicerva-protest-planned/

http://wric.com/2015/01/15/blacklivesmatter-rally-vigil-to-be-held-thursday-by-richmond-group/

Liberation March in Honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

Join Richmonders on Monday Jan. 19 @ 4pm in Monroe Park for a Liberation March in Honor of Dr. King.
No justice, no peace!
Facebook event here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1572215976325498/

National Day of Action for #blacklivesmatter

Come out today at 3:30 to the John Marshall Court building at 400 N. 9th downtown for a vigil and protest.
All of the events for the week are posted on facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/763669123671001/

It is super important for everyone to get involved and educate themselves and take continuous action – around #blacklivesmatter and all the other (connected) issues we are pushing in Richmond right now.

Put #RVA First – Boycott UCI Bike Race if Demands Not Met

Tonight at the Richmond City Council Meeting, the first of 2015, things got off to a fabulous start through organization from members of Black Action Now and Justice RVA.
They coordinated a #BlackLivesMatter action at the meeting which had participants from the Wingnut Anarchist Collective, the Nest Collective, Flying Brick Library, Collective X, Defenders of Freedom Justice and Equality, the Sierra Club, Food Not Bombs, Bainbridge Collective, and many more groups we are likely forgetting to name here, apologies yall.
During the public comments section, multiple folks got up to speak including Rebecca Keel, London Perry, Kendyl Crawford, and Vanessa Coleman (sorry if spelling errors please get in touch if you want changes here yall). They presented a list of grievances and then demands on City Council. We posted a picture of those in a previous blog entry. They promise that if the demands are not met by City Council, we will protest, boycott and disrupt the 2015 UCI Road World Championship Bike Races when they come to Richmond in September.
Whoever came up with that ultimatum for the demands was exactly the fire we need in Richmond to push our movements for justice forward.
Here is the text from Justice RVA:

Grievances
Richmond City Council and Mayor Jones are failing Black residents by:
1) Underfunding schools
2) Failing to address conditions in the jail and continued policies of mass incarceration
3) Maintaining and overworked understaffed social services department
4) Reducing access to public transportation
5) Working to bury black history under a private sports venue with stadium in Shockoe
6) Failing to invest in renewable energy
7) Mayor Jones’ lack of support for his very own food policy task force
8) Failing Richmond’s homeless community through the Monroe Park Conservancy Deal
9) Failing to improve the public housing access and conditions therein
10) Failing to support a living wage of $15 an hour
11) Enforcing harsh codes in the mobile home parks that mainly affect POC and immigrant families living in the Jefferson Davis Highway corridor

List of Demands
1) Engage in respect for Black life in this upcoming year as they vote and pass resolutions, approve budgets, and appropriate tax payer funds
2) Provide full funding for Richmond Public Schools
3) Require that the Monroe Park Conservancy Deal is written such that homeless residents are respected
4) Expand funding for the Department of Social Services
5) Adhere to the recommendations of the Food Policy Task Force
6) Allow for greater representation of citizens without the administrations involvement in the Monroe Park conservancy Deal
7) Require that anyone condemned from their mobile home through the code enforcement be offered relocation assistance
8) Stop CARE VAN increases
9) Protect Shockoe Bottom as a historic park
10) Have council boards.commissions appear in public before being appointed
11) dedicated funding source for GRTC with reciprocal funding for the counties
12) implement a more accessible citizens watch board for the Richmond City Police and Richmond City Jail
13) Support for rehabilitation and restorative justice and ending mass incarceration
14) Opposition of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and support and investment in renewable energy

~~~~
This list is pretty intersectional and awesome. Thanks so much to the folks in the Black Caucus at the Virginia People’s Assembly and others who put this together. Now it is up to all of us to hold the government to it. It’s going to be a fun time.

After the Consent agenda there was a period of text blasting at 6:45 to the City Council members on twitter. Then a little before 7, everyone started singing Amazing Grace, then chanting ‘there aint no power like the power of the people cause the power of the people don’t stop’. There were signs and banners and a few other chants then we left the room. We returned later to shout ‘ we told you we’d be back’.

If you haven’t been participating, tune in, catch up, and come out and join us. There are several more events for the #blacklivesmatter campaign this week which we have previously posted about on our website. Aside from that, come to City Council meetings, come to events at collectives around the City, and keep talking to your friends, family, and neighbor. It’s our city, and we are making it a better place.