In similar fashion to despised Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, Mayor Ed Lee travelled abroad to China over the holidays, where he was able to side-step confronting a press conference concerning Mario Woods on the steps of City Hall. The next week, Police Chief Greg Suhr cancelled a meeting of his African-American Community Advisory Forum when he found out people who actually represent the community would attend.
A secret meeting was then planned with Lee and the same group of hand-picked sellouts, but Black Lives Matter organizers along with members of the Last 3% Coalition got wind of the meeting and held an opposition presence.
Convening meetings in secret violates the City’s Open Government and Sunshine Ordinance that reads in part, “The right of the people to know what their government and those acting on behalf of their government are doing is fundamental to democracy, and with very few exceptions, that right supersedes any other policy interest government officials may use to prevent public access to information.”
In a not-so-secret ceremony on January 8, Ed Lee was inaugurated for his third consecutive term as Mayor of San Francisco. Many of California’s most recognizable ruling-class politicians were in attendance, including Gov. Jerry Brown, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Alongside them sat the city’s bourgeoisie.
The event was intended to be a grand spectacle of political theater, but the charade was made impossible thanks to the Justice 4 Mario Woods Coalition. The Coalition represents over 40 different organizations and numerous individuals seeking justice around three demands: the firing of SFPD Chief Suhr, murder charges for the cops involved and an independent investigation.
The Justice 4 Mario Woods Coalition publicly announced they would protest the Mayor’s inauguration, which drew a militarized police presence at City
Hall that corralled most of the group to a section of the second floor. Coalition members infiltrated the main floor and demanded “Justice for Mario Woods!” while those on the second floor kept up chants of “Fire Chief Suhr!”
Liberation News witnessed security ripping small paper signs from protesters’ hands and brutalizing others for nothing more than holding signs and chanting. At least ten people were handcuffed, detained, and removed from the ceremony.
Two members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and ANSWER Coalition, who were in City Hall with the Justice 4 Mario Woods Coalition, snuck in a banner reading “From the Mission to the Whole Bay Area Stop Racist Police Brutality” past security and hung it over the second floor balcony while Lee gave his inaugural address.
This reporter was one of those involved in the banner drop, and was pleased to see that Jerry Brown was visibly upset and also that our chants of “Fire Chief Suhr” prompted Mayor Lee to look up in frustration and say, “We heard you” as we were handcuffed and detained.
If Ed Lee really “hears” the Justice 4 Mario Woods Coalition, then listening is about all he is doing. In his inauguration address, he talked about being an activist in his youth but then moving “from fighting for change from the outside, to making change from the inside.” Lee’s speech was 20 minutes of empty rhetoric, and his remarks about moving past activism and into City Hall shows his allegiance to the status quo of capitalism, where the dictatorship of the rich solely empowers a tiny ruling-class of bankers, CEOs, and politicians.
Ed Lee is an enemy of the people, and any reference to him as a “progressive” is simply untrue. Ed Lee will speak publicly about addressing housing concerns, but then side with gentrifiers in proposed legislation. Ed Lee will speak publicly about police reform, but then back Chief Suhr every single time he justifies racist police terror.
Remember that President Obama has been and often still is characterized as a progressive, yet is at the same time responsible for increased drone warfare that mainly murders innocent people, while also overseeing racist mass deportations of immigrants in the United States. It’s not very hard to be labeled a “progressive” in a country founded on genocide, slavery, and white supremacy.
The Justice 4 Mario Woods Coalition is an example of the kind of multi-national organizing needed to build a mass movement that can challenge existing power dynamics. Phelicia Jones, a leader in the Justice 4 Mario Woods Coalition and member of the Service Employees International Union 1021 made this point on the steps of City Hall after the protest:
“We are demanding, we are not asking, we’re not begging, that Chief Suhr be fired or resign. We are not asking, we are not begging, that all the officers who were involved in the murder of Mario Woods be brought up on charges. We are not asking, we are not begging, that the independent investigation go forth and not by San Francisco Police Department, not San Francisco Police Commission, because they cannot investigate themselves. We are over 40 organizations here in San Francisco…all colors, gender, belief systems, different religions, and we are standing together as one…as you can see we mean business.”
The struggle led by the Justice 4 Mario Woods Coalition is helping expose the façade of “progress” in a country that has in no meaningful systemic way shed its roots in violent racism. In San Francisco, inequality manifests itself through political figures like Mayor Ed Lee and through the violent repression spearheaded by Chief Suhr and his police department gang.
Removing Lee and Suhr from power is not a meaningless gesture, as some cowardly liberals have suggested, but would send a message to every ruling-class politician in the country that injustice will no longer be tolerated, and at the same time would embolden the people to fight back.
Justice for Mario Woods and all power to the people!
