A Black Bloc protester stands with shield ready at Fourth and Hill streets in downtown during the occupy movement’s May Day march. (Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

The occupy movement’s recent May Day demonstrations have been somewhat overshadowed by media reports from Seattle and San Francisco where protesters, dressed in black, vandalized banks, retail outlets and cars.

Called “Black Bloc,” these protesters wear masks, carry shields and do not shy away from confrontations with police. Because of their battle-ready uniform, they are often mistaken for a group or gang, but Black Bloc is a set of tactics that involve mostly defensive actions.

Black Bloc’s origins go back to the 1980s in Germany. Most recently they have received criticism by some for tarnishing the occupy movement, arguing their tactics alienate many possible supporters.

In Los Angeles, however, the scene on May Day was much different.

Black Bloc protesters were seen keeping the march route adaptive and fluid through downtown. They played a cat-and-mouse game with police, ensuring the route was never obstructed or, even worse, trapped.

“We’ll keep Bank of America’s private army following us around,” shouted a Black Bloc protester after leaving the Bank of America Center, which was heavily defended by police.

A Black Bloc protester (far left) directs marchers after a brief stop at the Bank of America Center where demonstrators chanted, “Bank of America, bad for America.” (Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

However, “B of A’s private army,” also known as the LAPD, were waiting for demonstrators and blocking access to Hill Street south of Fourth Street. It was here particularly that Black Bloc tactics were employed.

Seeing that police failed to adequately block the sidewalks, Black Bloc protesters exploited this weakness, pushed through the line and encircled the police allowing other demonstrators to pass through unmolested.

At one point, for reasons that are not clear, police shoved protesters on the north side. Seeing this, Black Bloc protesters, as well as others, from the south shoved back. Police returned with swinging batons, but the line of protesters pulled back and no one was injured thanks to the make-shift shields many were holding. Eventually the crowd dispersed and the march continued.

After exploiting a weakness in the police line, protesters encircle police who are attempting to block off Hill Street. (Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

The LAPD made 13 arrests on May Day. None occurred during the downtown march and rally. For the most part, the march was peaceful, and despite the traffic congestion due to the march, some motorists were heard honking their car horns to express support for the demonstrators.

“O” was one of the protesters that surrounded the police at Fourth and Hill. (Black Bloc protesters interviewed for this article asked to be identified only by their first initial.) What happened at the intersection is indicative of Black Bloc techniques, he said, which ensured the protesters’ First Amendment rights, as well as served to protect other demonstrators who may otherwise prefer to avoid confrontation.

“We are there to provide that buffer for them,” he said. “We have chosen to be on the front line and, if necessary, confront police oppression.”

It is part of the reason why the Black Bloc wears black, explained “O,” which is to signal other demonstrators that if a situation gets heavy, and they are not interested in the action, to stay away from them.

They also protect those who may be under attack, explained “O.” The Black Bloc considers itself the assigned security force, or the “people’s militia,” of demonstrations or mass movements. They also educate themselves on first-aid to assist demonstrators wounded by police attacks.

“The thing that I personally thought was most dastardly, was that I saw police with batons going after people who did not have shields,” he said about the confrontation at Fourth and Hill. “I made an attempt in one of those situations to run over there with my shield, because, the point is, [the police] are obviously trying to harm and intimidate people, than actually try and confront somebody that is trying to confront them.”

After police shoved protesters, and protesters shoved back from behind, police turned around. Moments later they would begin swinging their batons at the protesters in an attempt to break up the crowd. (Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

Even though they may use aggressive tactics, they maintain they do not do anything that isn’t uninvited. Another Black Bloc protester, “R,” said the Black Bloc does not impose its beliefs on others, understanding that social movements are best if kept communal.

“We did not do anything that was not requested of us,” he said. “There are a lot of people that make it seem as though we show up uninvited and do these things that are not welcomed by the community, which is not true.”

They viewed the police blockade at Fourth and Hill as an illegitimate act by the state and their responsibility to resist it. “M,” a Black Bloc protester, said the Bloc is about giving the movement an “ethic of self-defense,” which employs such items as face masks, shields and gloves.

“It is important to recognize that the working class, women, queer folks and people of color are victims, but it is also important how all these communities can defend themselves and the Black Bloc is propaganda of the deed in showing how that can be done,” he said.

In February, author and Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges, called the Black Bloc the “cancer of the occupy movement.” In his column, he described them as obstructionists who counter efforts to organize and engage in criminal behavior by looting and vandalizing.

“M” said Hedges misunderstood Black Bloc, thinking it was a movement or a group as opposed to what it really is, which is a set of tactics. He has no problem with Hedges criticizing the actions of Black Bloc protesters, but called Hedges’ portrait of them as a group that has no respect for the movement “just plain wrong.”

Hedges also missed the point about the self-defensive nature of Black Bloc, said “M.”

“When you get into smashing windows, that is a different matter,” he said. “But when you have shields, gloves and masks, that is self-defense, and there is nothing wrong with self-defense.”

The actions of some on May Day was just the kind of thing Hedges was concerned about. According to the Los Angeles Times, Seattle’s downtown shopping district was vandalized by “black-clad” demonstrators. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and branches of Wells Fargo, Bank of America, HSBC and Homestreet banks were vandalized. Homemade incendiary devices, along with bags of feces, were confiscated by police.

In San Francisco, over 100 masked protesters, dressed in black and gray, vandalized restaurants and retail stores in the city’s Mission district, according to the Times. Even the neighborhood police station was not spared, while demonstrators broke windows and defaced cars.

The Black Bloc protesters interviewed did not endorse violence, but did take issue with how violence is portrayed when acts of vandalism do occur during demonstrations. When it comes to the state’s monopoly on violence, they said, there is no comparison.

“What is rarely acknowledged in the mainstream discussion, and even among the left, is the disproportionate nature of violence of the state in acts all around the world,” said “O.” “We are engaged in three wars — Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia — we have covert wars in Iran, we have structural violence here at home through poverty, budget cuts, police brutality, and when one person throws a rock through a window it is treated as an out-of-context violent act.”

Not all Black Bloc protesters are anarchists. However, Black Bloc tactics are easily embraced by those who prefer to resist the state and foster collective action.

A masked protesters bangs on a drum while facing off with police. (Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

For protester Rick Young, the Black Bloc protesters, who he affectionately called “the anarchy guys,” were the heroes on May Day. He joined the protesters as they surrounded the police on Hill Street. Young’s experience on the “front lines” caused him to see the Black Bloc as soldiers in a battle for social and economic change.

“The anarchy guys were the only guys that showed real solidarity today,” he said while resting in Pershing Square, the final destination of the march. “They were really together. They were the ones that allowed the marchers to come down Hill Street.”

Young speaks of his face-off with police as a “band-of-brothers” moment, where differences quickly dissolve in a group action borne out of the necessity of self-preservation.

“I don’t even know their names … but let it be known that the anarchists today broke the police line at Fourth Street and allowed the marchers to come down here,” he said.

Called “The Four Winds,” occupiers are planning four separate caravans of cars and bicycles that span the entire city and will converge at Sixth and Main streets at 2:30 p.m. Each caravan will have over-arching issues in common, but they will also encompass ones that are synonymous with their region of LA.

A woman reaches for a flier about the May 1 general strike during a M1GS outreach at Second and Los Angeles streets on April 15. (Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

Once they meet in downtown, activists plan to enjoy music and food, and possibly initiate direct actions in the financial district. A general assembly will be held in the evening.

Occupier John Hays, who was assisting with event outreach last weekend, hopes the general strike will help “show the power of the people.”

“The overwhelming majority of people, in this country and around the world, can make life as they know it virtually impossible for those who have the bulk of the power, wealth and control over the rest of us,” he said. “If we choose to, we can shut them down.”

The idea of the general strike, which is commonly referred to by its acronym “M1GS,” and pronounced “migs,” originated within Occupy LA as far back as November of last year. Since then, occupy activists have been reaching out to a wide range of organizations and communities far beyond May Day’s historical roots of advocating the rights of workers and union membership.

As would be expected from an occupy event, M1GS is an attempt to gel into May Day as many issues as possible facing the “99 percent.” Jared Iorio, a M1GS organizer, explained that while a labor coalition was being formed, occupiers got busy working with those outside traditional organizations.

“At the same time, we concentrated on organizing unorganized people, being that organized labor is only 10 percent, if that, of the workforce,” he said.

The messaging of M1GS is as varied as the groups participating in it. The issues range from immigration, anti-war, housing, education, civil rights, police brutality, civil liberties, economic inequality and beyond.

“It is not easy to say what the overall goal is, except to shutdown LA for the day, stop the flow of capital into the pockets of the one percent and connect the occupy movement with some of the community organizations that are working for liberation and economic and social justice,” said Iorio.

In short, M1GS connects a multitude of social ills into a single core issue. Karo Szymanska, a M1GS organizer, said the smorgasbord of issues addressed in the general strike are all interrelated and one problem cannot be adequately dealt with without first addressing society’s systemic shortcomings.

“One of the things we really need to break down are these single-issue actions, because you can’t just fix one of these things,” she said. “You can’t fix unemployment and not also worry about health care, education, wars and everything else that goes along with that.”

M1GS is not a permitted event and how the police will react to roaming caravans of political dissidents is anybody’s guess. Szymanska said activists have contingency plans in the event of police harassment.

For occupy activists, it has been a long road to May Day. Back in November, the main focus was on a Dec. 12 general strike at various ports that targeted SSA Marine, a company partially owned by Goldman Sachs. Occupiers in Oakland and Portland acted in concert to shutdown their respective ports while activists in LA focused on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The port action proved to be a tough learning curve for Occupy LA. In November, occupiers had their encampment, were endorsed by the city council, the police were friendly and anything seemed possible. Occupiers hoped to create a large coalition among port workers, community residents and unions who would be willing to strike. However, the action was not the success that many hoped for.

Michael Novick, editor of the anti-racist publication Turning the Tide, wrote about the problems facing occupiers at their first attempt at a general strike.

Novick noted that two major unions withdrew their support for the port action, taking away much needed assistance. At the same time, many occupiers were still dealing with legal issues from being arrested during the city’s Nov. 30 shutdown of their encampment.

Also, it was a logistical nightmare. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are “huge, remote and fed by numerous roads, highways and rail lines,” making a shutdown next to impossible, wrote Novick.

The Los Angeles Times criticized the action for targeting a company that is partially owned by Goldman Sachs, but not responsible for Goldman’s role in mortgage-backed securities and crashing the economy. They called the attempted strike “both unfair and strategically clueless.”

It was a low point for Occupy LA, which was still reeling after the police raid on their encampment, but the port action was always meant to be a build-up to a larger general strike.

But how large M1GS will be is uncertain. It is endorsed by Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Oakland and others. There are several Facebook event pages pertaining to the general strike, one of which shows over 20,000 attendees. Organizers in LA expect a few thousand to participate.

“I assume that as we get closer to the center of town its going to be building up more and more, because we have several points where we will be meeting other groups of people at,” said Hays. “So, its going to be building as it progresses and reaches downtown.”

Szymanska hopes that people will “feel empowered” by the May Day event and realize that there are more ways than just voting to participate in their governance, such as grass-roots organizing.

“We are really hoping that people are going to start talking amongst themselves and start forming their own neighborhood assemblies,” she said. “Basically, all these problems that have been created by Wall Street, the financial crisis and capitalism, we [hope to] help people battle those, take them down and create a more just society.”

(Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

On Saturday, April 7, several occupy activists assembled in Santa Monica to protest the recent pepper spraying of Santa Monica College students by campus police.

The pepper-spraying incident, which occurred on April 3, happened during a student demonstration over proposed tuition hikes.

Members of Occupy LA, Occupy the Hood, Occupy San Fernando Valley and Occupy Venice met at the Third Street Promenade, a downtown shopping and dining hub, in an effort to draw attention to the SMC event and fee increases to passersby.

SMC is currently under criticism for considering implementing a plan that would offer some courses at a higher price beginning this summer session. Under the plan, tuition for English and math classes could jump from $36 to $200 a unit.

“It’s creating a two-tiered system of wealthier students who can afford classes and struggling working-class and low-income students competing for the scraps of what’s left; it’s definitely a move in the wrong direction,” said student government President Harrison Wills to the Los Angeles Times.

To express their outrage against the plan, 100 protesters tried to make their way into a Board of Trustees meeting. Police officers used pepper spray on the crowd. According to the LA Times, three people were taken to the hospital and as many as 30 people were treated at the scene, including a four-year-old girl.

While many of the demonstrators at the April 7 protest are not students at SMC, they were acting in solidarity to support the students and their protest against tuition hikes. Occupy LA protester Callie Little was one of them. She was present at the campus protest as well.

“People realize that if this two-tiered system passes at Santa Monica College, then it is going to go to the entire community college system,” she said. “These policies only help the rich and it’s a community college, so it is very difficult if it starts going down that route.”

Little explains that the SMC demonstration was meant to be peaceful and was “not a radical thing at all.” However, when the student protesters were told that the Board of Trustees meeting could only hold 20 of the 100 students, and that the remaining protesters would have to go to an overflow room, the protesters were angered that they were not in a larger room where everyone could be heard.

“We felt like it was unfair, like it was almost like they had deliberately chosen a venue that was too small so that the public could not speak,” she said.

Occupy protester Allan Eaton, who attended the demonstration at the Promenade, was angered by the police’s actions to use pepper spray on the student protesters.

“It’s something that should not be happening when students are protesting against tuition hikes or for any reason at all,” he said. “Pepper spraying on college students is something that we should not be having to deal with.”

Steven Loux had attended the SMC demonstration. He mirrored the anger felt after the board’s decision to limit attendance at their hearing.

“We wanted to be heard,” he said. “We wanted the board to see the people whose decision it would be affecting.”

Loux did not anticipate the protest would escalate into “chaos.”

“I thought it was family-friendly event,” he said. “I thought it was just a bunch of students and we were going to make sure that they got their voices heard.”

Since the April 3  student protest, SMC has decided to hold off on its plan. According to the LA Times, the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to postpone the plan and instead obtain further input from students, faculty and staff on ways to increase access to classes.

Although many SMC students are relieved that the plan is no longer being pursued, the Occupy protest at the Third Street Promenade represents the anger that many people feel toward campus police.

“It’s a cold comfort, but why did it have to come to pepper spray for these students to have agency in their lives?” said Loux.

Walking along Crenshaw Boulevard toward Leimert Park, a protester participates in a solidarity demonstration seeking justice for the killing of Trayvon Martin. (Brian White / LA Activist)

The death of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager who was killed late February by George Zimmerman, a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, has sparked demonstrations across the country by people who are demanding his arrest.

In Los Angeles, far from Sanford, Fla. where Martin was killed, there have already been three solidarity demonstrations with more to follow. Justice is on the mind of these activists, but it is not solely Martin’s death that motivates them. Conversations with civil-rights advocates quickly reveal that the broader issues surrounding race and justice are fueling their campaign.

Jubilee Shine, who is currently acting as an organizer for the Los Angeles Committee for Justice for Trayvon Martin, is an advocate for community control over police. He has participated in many justice campaigns for victims of police shootings, many of whom were just like Martin — young, black and unarmed. He can quickly rattle off the names of police victims in seconds — Donovan Jackson … Devin Brown … Deondre Brunston … Oscar Grant …

“They all have the same pattern,” he said. “They are all the same in the sense that they were no danger to anybody else.”

It is the police connection in particular that pulls the Martin case into the fray. Though Martin was not killed by law enforcement, many feel the police were complicit in protecting Zimmerman from arrest. The fact that Zimmerman’s father is a judge only heightens their suspicions.

At a rally in Leimert Park last Sunday, April 1, the Black Riders Liberation Party, a group that calls itself the “next generation of Black Panthers,” led the march chanting: “Here we go again … same ol’ shit again … marching down the avenue … twenty more pigs and we’ll be through.”

The Black Riders’ chief of staff, who goes by the moniker “Lala,” likened Zimmerman to a slave overseer. She connected the death of a Virginia slave in 1799 who, she said, was murdered for being on a public street, to Martin’s death because he was killed while being on a public sidewalk.

She also urged black citizens to arm themselves and “meet violence with violence” against police or racial attacks.

“We have a constitutional right to bear arms and defend our people, children and families by any means necessary,” she said. “We have a God-given right to self-preservation.”

At a recent forum over Martin’s death, John Parker, the West Coast coordinator for the International Action Center, accused the police of a cover-up.

“This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened where a black youth was assaulted by racists and the police either got rid of the evidence or decided not to prosecute,” he said to a reporter.

Members of the Black Riders Liberation Party lead the solidarity demonstration along Crenshaw Boulevard on April 1, 2012. (Brian White / LA Activist)

Because of the way Martin’s death has captured the nation’s attention, some have likened the incident to that of 14-year-old Emmett Till, whose violent death in 1955 helped spark the civil rights movement.

Shine said when Till’s mother allowed Jet magazine to publish the photos of her son’s beaten and mutilated body on its cover, it helped confirm “what people already knew” about racism in America. A similar thing, he said, occurred when the 911 tapes over Martin’s death were released.

“Everybody could hear enough of the detail to get a sense of what happened and know that something was not right about the way this story was being swept to the side,” he said.

The other side of the debate has focused more on Martin’s reputation than race. Right-wing bloggers began to work-over Martin’s reputation by hacking into social media sites and showcasing his use of obscene gestures, as well as highlighting his being suspended from school over an empty marijuana baggie.

Los Angeles Times op-ed columnist Jonah Goldberg referred to the civil-rights leaders’ reactions to Martin’s death as “playing the race card again” with “weak-tea Marxist rants” about “the system.”

“The aging race industry that continues to see the world through a half-century-old prism of Jim Crow, and still wants you to see it that way too, is determined to bum-rush Zimmerman into his assigned role, heedless of facts or the lack of them,” he wrote.

“Weak-tea Marxist rants” aside, “the system” is definitely a point of contention with civil-rights advocates. In her speech to demonstrators, Lala directly mentioned the system, saying it has been “building off our death in the streets.”

Larry Aubry, a columnist for the Los Angeles Sentinel, also discussed the construct of society. He told LA Activist that institutional racism “still exists, but is not as potent.” He said the clearest example of this is in the public education system, which was the subject of one of his recent columns.

“Black kids are at the bottom of the ladder through out the nation,” he said. “That is a manifestation of racism, pure and simple. It has nothing to do with intelligence.”

Some also believe that racism is not the only factor in Martin’s death. In a recent New York Times op-ed, Rich Benjamin, a senior fellow at Demos, a nonpartisan research center, wrote about the psychology of gated communities and its role in profiling Trayvon Martin. He said these neighborhoods were “self-contained, conservative and overzealous in [their] demands for ‘safety.’”

“Mr. Martin’s ‘suspicious’ profile amounted to more than his black skin,” he wrote. “He was profiled as young, loitering, non-property-owning and poor.”

Activists acknowledge that classism and agism played a role in Martin’s death, but focus on race as being the main culprit. It is a sentiment shared by Parker.

“If it wasn’t racism,” he said, “then why would so many black people immediately feel so angered about this situation? It is because they are reflecting on the racism in their own lives.”

When asked about class and age, Shine brings up the story of Henry Louis Gates Jr., a black Harvard professor who was arrested in 2009 for trying to break into his own home due to a jammed front door. The case gained national attention when President Obama said police “acted stupidly.”

Despite Gates being a respected scholar living in an upscale neighborhood, he was still “treated as a problem,” said Shine.

“He’s not a poor, exploited worker at the bottom of society,” he said. “He probably travels among the highest circles of America, but when it comes to that face-to-face interaction with some knuckle-head police officer with authority it doesn’t really matter what rank he has attained because he’s still just a black person in America.”

Some still insist that Martin’s death is not over race, such as Fox News commentator Mike Huckabee, who criticized unnamed persons for using Martin’s death to increase their popularity and fill their coffers.

“Since we don’t yet know what really happened that night in Florida,” he said, “maybe fewer speeches and more tears would be in order; maybe less taking it to the streets and more taking it to the churches; maybe fewer demands for revenge, and more for reflection of the unnecessary death of a kid would be in order.”

Aubry, who was “taking it to the streets” at Sunday’s march and rally, sees things a bit clearer about racism and its role in society and in Martin’s death.

“I don’t have any answers,” he said, “but I can tell you the difference between crap and ice cream.”

(MC Barnes / LA Activist)

Inmate advocates plan to formally petition the United Nations this week to investigate what they say are human rights violations occurring within the California prison system.

The action, which was organized by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, was initiated last year after the treatment of inmates held in long-term solitary confinement spawned state-wide prison hunger strikes.

The issue centers on California prisoners who have been kept in solitary confinement for decades. For many, their confinement is based solely on perceived gang affiliation rather than violent behavior.

Inmates held in what are called Security Housing Units (SHUs) or Administrative Segregation Units (ASUs), are kept in their cells 23 hours a day with no direct sunlight. For approximately an hour they are let outside in a large cage within 20-foot high walls to exercise.

According to Kendra Castaneda, who has been assisting the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law on this project, there are 22 main plaintiffs on the petition. There is an additional 400 prisoners who signed the petition, but their testimonies will not be made public.

Castaneda said inmates in SHUs or ASUs report suffering from a lack of food and health care.

She explains that inmates in general population are able to prepare their own food, however, in solitary, the prison guards make the meals. She said this “lack of oversight” leads to ill-prepared food in insufficient quantities.

“Many men have complained, and have written me personally, saying, ‘I’m hungry all the time,’” she said.

According to Castaneda, inmates turned over documents showing that their requests for medical treatment were being denied. Because of this, the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law is also asking the American Red Cross to enter the prisons and treat inmates.

“Many have broken bones, heart problems, hepatitis, prostate problems and they are not being medically treated,” she said.

In 2006, U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson ruled in favor of federal oversight of prisoner’s medical care. At the time of the court’s decision, there was an inmate death every week, according to the Los Angeles Times. Due to improvements in the system since the court’s ruling, oversight will soon be returned to the state.

Aside from physical problems, segregated inmates are also reporting depression and anxiety as a result of their confinement.

Solitary confinement has long been criticized for its effects on a prisoner’s physical and mental health. In 1833, sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustav de Beaumont wrote, after observing a form of solitary confinement in Auburn, New York, that “It devours the victim incessantly and unmercifully; it does not reform, it kills.”

Charles Dickens, who wrote once about his experience visiting a prison in 1842, had few kind words as well. He called solitary confinement a “dreadful punishment,” which “no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow-creatures.”

“I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body,” he said.

Since the 19th century, many psychological studies have shed light on the effects of pro-longed isolation. A 2010-study, performed by Dr. Jeffery L. Metzner and Jamie Fellner, reported that the “psychological stressors” of solitary confinement “can be as clinically distressing as physical torture.”

Matzner and Fellner reported that “anxiety, depression, anger, cognitive disturbances, perceptual distortions, obsessive thoughts, paranoia, and psychosis” are some of the psychological effects inmates can experience. Also, suicides occur “more often in segregation units than elsewhere in prison.”

California prison authorities make no apologies for their use of solitary confinement, citing a need for security and keeping gang activity in check.

“An inmate who wants to rehabilitate himself cannot,” said prisons undersecretary Scott Kernan, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Not when he has an inmate, like the people we have in [isolation], telling him to go stab somebody or he will be killed.”

A press conference is scheduled for this Tuesday, March 20 in front of the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown when the petition will be formally released. Castaneda hopes the petition will inspire the U.N. to investigate the California prison system.

“We are trying to show the United Nations what is really going on in California,” she said. “I don’t care what crime you committed inside or outside of prison, this is not the way you treat human beings.”

[For related stories, click here.]

Working individuals and allies met by the park’s pond for a picnic, eating suggestive edibles: hot dogs and doughnuts — no innuendo was left unturned.

According to SWOP LA Director Jessie Nicole, a sex worker is defined as “one who consensually exchanges their own erotic labor or performance for agreed upon money, goods or services.”

It’s a broader definition than some might assume. Some groups often identified under this working definition include: dominatrixes, submissives, erotic dancers, escorts, phone sex operators, fetishists, “street walkers,” porn actors. It’s flexible depending on who’s asked.

The sun was shining and the mood was light in the park where a diverse cross-section of people — escorts, lookie loos, dancers, polyamorous trifectas, dominatrixes and allies — came together to commemorate the day. A SWOP banner hung between two trash cans and the group offered shirts with the words, “I Love Sex Workers” on it for a $20 donation. Buttons and literature were also on display.

According to the SWOP USA website, International Sex Workers’ Rights Day originated in 2001 in India when over 25,000 sex workers organized with the help of the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee. Based in West Bengal, India, the committee seeks to “integrate the sex workers movement with the broader global movement to establish rights of all marginalized communities,” according to its website. Since its inception, March 3 is now celebrated worldwide.

Dedicated to SWOP’s mission, Nicole travels around giving talks to help de-stigmatize sex work. She organizes benefits and mobilizes the community to speak out about their needs and the injustices committed against them.

Since she began organizing for SWOP, the group’s “membership has exploded,” she said.

LA’s local SWOP chapter holds a monthly social for sex workers that provides a safe space for people to be around others who understand. They can talk about work, or not — some people just need a break and a place to feel comfortable.

Holding her three-month-old baby, Parker, SWOP co-founder Stacey Swimme said the LA chapter is the fourth faction she’d been involved with since 2003. A former exotic dancer in the bay area, Swimme said her experience with the politics at strip clubs and federal raids under then-U.S. Attorney General Johsn Ashcroft led her to realize the importance of galvanizing the community to collectively advocate for their rights.

“I wanted a place where workers can discuss issues, a place where workers of all walks of the industry could unite,” she said.

According to Swimme, SWOP currently has nine active chapters across the U.S. In her words, SWOP is integral for some communities as oftentimes it’s the only “non-shame-based resource” at peoples’ access.

One year SWOP member and dungeon owner, Justine Cross, shared her experience in the industry. As a “lifestyle” BDSM for 10 years, she decided to open her own space with the help of her business partner, Eden Winter, and now offers private, hourly sessions for clients. She said the space, called Dungeon West, runs ads on different industry Web pages and other publications.

Cross expressed praise for Nicole’s work at SWOP.

“Jessie is really good at bringing different sex workers together,” she said.

SWOP ally and occupy activist Heidi Sulzdorf explained her presence at International Sex Workers’ Rights Day.

“One of the most destructive things about the legality of sex work is they go underground; not just to work, but they need an open community because there can’t be progress without an open community,” she said.

Dressed in a white dress with knee-high sneakers, a young woman who asked that her name be withheld, sashayed to a spot on the grass. Cautiously shooting incredulous looks, she divulged some details.

She’s worked in the industry for 10 years, working in everything from foot fetish work to escorting. She’s currently a musician, student and working woman. She shared some of her concerns with the industry.

“There’s a huge divide between outdoor and indoor workers, I’d like to bridge that gap. It’s like two different worlds,” she said.

Indoor workers are usually grouped as people who work as escorts, who visit clients at a location, while outdoor workers are typically seen as people who provide their services in public, “street walkers,” for example.

A thin woman with short blonde hair in pigtails walked over and plopped down on top of the other woman’s back while she was stretched out on the grass.

She, who also asked that her name be withheld, is a self-identified stripper and sugar baby. She kissed the other woman on the neck and when asked, they said they were girlfriends. They met through one partner’s husband and have been involved in a polyamorous triad for three years.

“I’ve been bemoaning the fact that we didn’t have a community for years,” she said.

According to Nicole, SWOP’s next big move is to organize in Washington, D.C. come July for the International AIDS Conference. She said the government has still been placing restrictions on visas for people traveling to the states who are known sex workers or drug users despite the timing. Her plan is to have a presence at the conference with other sex workers to show their support.

Women’s advocates rally at City Hall’s west steps to celebrate International Women’s Day. (Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

In celebration of International Women’s Day, a number of grassroots organizations joined forces on Saturday, March 10 to rally and march against the injustices of poverty, war and the separation of families.

The gathering began at 11 a.m. at the west steps of City Hall, with a performance from the Women Justice Juarez group, whose dance drew the attention of the protestors to the middle of Spring Street, where they watched and chanted, “What do we want? … Justice! … For who? … For all!”

After the performance, the demonstrators marched around the periphery of City Hall.

Since the gathering encompassed several different groups, many of the protest placards expressed a range of different causes. Some of them reading, “Women say No to Military/Corporate Occupation,” “Family Not Foster Care” and “Stop Military Targeting of Blacks.”

When the protesters arrived back to the west steps of City Hall, they gathered and waited for the speak-out to begin. A moment of silence was given for the people in Japan living through the aftermath of the Tsunami, whose one-year anniversary is next weekend.

KPFK radio host Margaret Prescod began the speak-out.

“We are back at the scene of the crime. Occupy LA is back,” she said. “They thought they were going to get rid of us, but they are never going to get rid of us.”

“We want a society that cares about the caring of people and the planet,” she continued. “We want to take our stuff back from the one percent.”

(Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

As the speak-out continued throughout the afternoon, some of the protestors mingled with other participating organizations.

A school bus, decorated with bright colors and a large banner across it that read, “Kids’ Village,” was parked in the middle of Spring Street. Occupy Kids’ Village began during Occupy LA’s encampment at City Hall. Shiela Nicholls, a musician and one of the founding members of occupy group, explained its creation.

“I have a four-year-old and when I got to occupy, I realized that there was no way for children to participate,” she said. “I go to a lot of gatherings and it seemed like the right thing to do was to create a space for kids. So I put a sign up, in hopes that parents would come around and they did. It’s become a really amazing space.”

Inside the school bus, which Nicholls has used as a tour bus, was a space for children and parents to sit, relax and talk during the gathering. Outside, many children spent their time coloring and hula-hooping.

Another organization, DCFS Give Us Back Our Children, was at the gathering. The organization takes action to correct what they say are injustices committed against the welfare of families by the Department of Children and Family Services.

USC student Erica Mastrobuono is filming a documentary about the group for her master’s degree in social work. She says many social workers do not understand the difficulties in trying to raise a child while in poverty.

“A lot of children are being removed from their homes because of the families’ lack of resources, it’s not because of abuse,” she said. “This is an issue where usually families of color and families who are at the lowest socio-economic status are being trapped by the system.”

Mastrobuono was introduced to the group through Margaret Prescod, who hosts the radio show, “Sojourner Truth with Margaret Presocod,” on KPFK.

“DCFS Give Us Back Our children helps families on an individual level, so that children are not unjustly placed in homes with strangers,” she said. “The group regularly participates in events, like Saturday’s Women OccupyLA, to vocalize their efforts and change the way that the foster care system works.”

Children play and create artwork at Occupy Kids’ Village. (Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

Members of the organization, CHIRLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, spoke during the speak-out as well.

Molly Trad, a CHIRLA organizer for the Household Worker’s Committee, translated the testimony of a household worker in Los Angeles to her audience. She explained how little she was paid for her work as a household worker and her difficulty in raising her four children with the amount she earned.

“For me, I am a third generation immigrant and I am at the point in my own history where I feel a little disconnected from where my family came from,” she said. “But I have to remember that my family are immigrants.”

“[Immigrants] provide a richness to this country and the way that they are suffering with our modern economy, the way in which jobs are being sent overseas is really unjust,” she added. “We need to work to fight this. Everyone who is a descendant of an immigrant needs to work to fix this.”

Trad praised the occupy movement, calling it a “beautiful symbiotic partnership of established organizations.”

“People from all over the world are coming together with different ideas and different strengths,” she said. “It is really a strong movement because it brings together organizations to create change.”

(Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

One participant, Cody James, touches on his own experience with the occupy movement. He was inspired to become more politically active after he and his partner had an abortion last year. When Planned Parenthood’s services were threatened to be defunded in 2011, James decided to exercise his political voice.

“One thing that is really important to understand is that there is no revolution unless there is an expression of all oppressed people and that’s why it is important that we are standing up for women and women’s rights,” he said.

Tanya Selig helped provide food for the event. She is heavily involved with the efforts of Global Women’s Strike and Food Not Bombs. Selig started participating with Food Not Bombs when she was 15.

“The main thing that I love about the fact that occupy is spreading all over the place is that it is a whole new group of people organizing and that is inspiring,” she said. “New people becoming politicized is necessary for any social justice in this country.”

“I was glad to do this event because there is a great broad spectrum of organizations that are very old school and new school, so my hope was that the new organizers will be able to bridge and link with the organizers who have done this for a while,” she added.

Gerardo Quinones (center) marches for the return of his wife, Blanca Cardenas, who was deported to Mexico after being arrested for refusing to leave their home that had been foreclosed upon. Quinones and Cardenas accuse Bank of America, their mortgage provider, of producing fraudulent paperwork that led to their property being sold. (Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

Occupy activists and immigration advocates joined forces today in a battle to keep a family together.

On Feb. 22, Gerardo Quinones and Blanca Cardenas were removed from their North Hollywood home of eight years by the LAPD after Bank of America foreclosed on their mortgage. Because she refused to leave her house, Cardenas was arrested for trespassing.

After police discovered that she was an undocumented immigrant, Cardenas was deported a week later to Mexico.

Quinones and Cardenas say the bank filed fraudulent paperwork and dispute their foreclosure and eviction. They had also filed for bankruptcy, which is supposed to protect them from foreclosure, according to housing advocates.

Roughly 120 activists rallied at La Placita Olvera and marched through downtown demanding that Cardenas be returned to the United States.

“This is about a broken system with the banks. It has to stop,” said Carlos Marroquin, an occupy activist and homeowner advocate. “What banks are doing to families has to come to an end. Too many families are being destroyed; too many children are going homeless over the profits that the banks are making.”

Occupy Fights Foreclosures, a sub-committee of Occupy LA, had petitioned city council and the LAPD Police Commission to intervene in the case. They also met with staff of the offices of Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and City Councilman Tony Cardenas in an attempt to stop the deportation.

In all cases, the group’s pleas have gone unheard. However, by way of a candlelight vigil on March 5, Occupy Fights Foreclosures was able to get Quinones back into his home to obtain a few personal items.

Gerardo Quinones (left) and singer-songwriter Michelle 99 perform the “Ballad of Blanca Cardenas,” a song that calls for Cardenas’ return to the U.S. Michelle 99 called the deportation "a tragedy and a crime all rolled into one." (Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

Cardenas has been living in the U.S. for over 15 years. She has a one-year-old daughter with Quinones and a13-year-old son from a previous relationship. Both children are U.S. citizens. Quinones, who is also a U.S. citizen, recently took their daughter to his wife in Tijuana where she is staying with friends. Cardenas’ son is now living with his biological father.

Quinones told LA Activist that he and his wife acted on erroneous advice concerning her citizenship, which he now regrets. However, despite the hardship on his family, his spirits have been lifted by the support he has been receiving.

“I’m so grateful about this,” he said. “I think this is one of the best things that has happened: knowing that there are so many people who are willing to help you without asking for anything.”

Tomorrow, Occupy Fights Foreclosures will be demonstrating at the Los Angeles County Recorder’s office in Norwalk to demand an investigation into illegal foreclosures. There request comes on the heals of a recent audit that was conducted by San Francisco county officials which revealed a high number of foreclosures having  “legal violations and suspicious documentation,” according to The New York Times.

“Clearly, we need to set up a process where lenders are following every part of the law,” said San Francisco Assessor-recorder Phil Ting to The Times. “It is very apparent that the system is broken from many different vantage points.”

The protest was organized by CSULA’s two student clubs, the Students for Quality Education and the Campus Community for Social Justice.

The demonstration began at 10 a.m. with a few students assembled outside the campus bookstore, carrying posters addressing their anger and discontentment with the college’s budget cuts, as well as tuition and fee hikes.

As the SQE leaders led the march from the bookstore to the college’s King Hall, the number of student protesters quickly swelled from a march of 50 to a few hundred. Many of the students who joined the march were on their way to class, but having seen their peers protesting, decided to join the rally.

As the march progressed throughout the campus, the SQE leaders used mega phones to announce chants.

“Fewer classes, higher fees, the CSU is run by thieves!” said the protesters. “No cuts, no fees, education should be free!”

The walkout lasted for roughly an hour.

The SQE leaders then led the students to the Admissions Building to demand to see CSULA President James M. Rosser. However, the protesters were told that Rosser was not on campus. He was said to be in Washington, D.C. for business.

The protesters’ demands included having the Student Success Fee removed, the implementation of a student-run bookstore rather than a privately owned one, and a demand that the students be offered all four quarters. (The summer quarter at CSULA is currently privatized.)

From the Admissions Building, the SQE leaders led the students back to the front of the bookstore, where supportive faculty members spoke to the audience, expressing their pride in their students’ assemblage.

CSULA Professor Kimberly King was among them. She teaches Pan African Studies during the Summer Bridge Program at CSULA and asked the audience to make sure that the Pan African studies class is not cut.

“The faculty are united with the students on this,” she said.

However, because of the school budget cuts, the Pan African 180 class may be cut from the college’s course offerings.

CSULA Professor Mike Chavez also spoke to the students. He began with a quote by James Baldwin: “Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

“While administration might just see a bunch of angry protestors and while, indeed, we are all angry,” he said. “They might miss the love that we all share right here. We are all united to fight for our education that is supposed to happen here.”

A few of the student protesters read poems that they had written about their anger with the CSU system for cutting more classes and raising the tuition fees, to which the audience cheered in agreement.

“There are some that say we need not express our discontent about the cuts to the budget, but I am saying right now education is a human right,” said Funmilola Fagbamila, an SQE leader.

The rally then moved from the front of the bookstore into the bookstore, where students were encouraged to sit on the floor until a faculty member agreed to speak with them.

While waiting, more students and faculty members made speeches. One student rapped to his sit-in audience about how his Pan African Studies professor helped him and inspired him to pursue a political science major and raise his GPA from a 1.8 to 3.6.

“The system wanted me to be a fried chicken, but because of EOP, I’m a golden eagle,” the student rapped.

EOP is a six-week transitional program for under-served students at CSULA. Pan African Studies 180 is offered through this program.

Nearing noon, CSULA Provost Ashish Vaidya, agreed to meet and talk with the students in the bookstore. He expressed his understanding of the student’s demands and he thanked the student protestors for keeping the rally respectful.

“This is what a vibrant, civic democracy is all about,” said Vaidya.

At the end of the rally, the protesters met with CSULA Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. Anthony Ross. SQE leaders and Pan African Studies students expressed to him the importance of a meeting with Rosser, so that they can directly address their complaints.

Ross agreed that he would do everything in his power to arrange a meeting with students and Rosser.

SQE leader Funmilola Fagbamila said that she was “elated” with the turnout of the walkout, rally and public assembly. SQE and CCSJ joined forces and began planning for the March 1 protest a month ago.

“We decided to accumulate a list of demands that we would present to our campus officials,” said Fagbamila. “Our initial goal was to get Rosser to sign to our list of demands in a manifesto that we created.”

Although Rosser was not there to discuss the protesters’ demands, Fagbamila was not discouraged.

“[Today] was nothing like I had ever seen at Cal State LA’s campus,” she said.

Since 1998, the tuition for California State University schools has hiked from $1,506 to $5,472, a 263 percent increase.

It ended in an appeal to occupy.

Yesterday’s meeting, which was held on Towne Avenue south of Fourth Street, was a major step for this subset of Occupy LA, which brought together approximately 80 activists.

Kwazi Nkrumah put out the call to start occupying Skid Row. An organizer for Occupy the Hood and the MLK Coalition, Nkrumah, along with Occupy LA, has been working to keep homeowners from being foreclosed upon.

Kwazi Nkrumah speaks to activists about occupying Skid Row. (Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

Speaking to the crowd, Nkrumah said that society’s elites are “at war on anybody who doesn’t control capital.” He spoke of people like 63-year-old Van Nuys resident Bertha Herrera who is losing her home to foreclosure.

According to Herrera, who spoke with Inside-Out News about her eviction, she was told she could qualify for a loan modification if she missed three mortgage payments. However, after missing the three payments, her mortgage provider hit her with fees, bringing her in arrears to a sum of $6,000. Because she missed the payments, the bank began the foreclosure process.

“This is the next step,” said Nkrumah. “We have got to occupy and go to battle with the elderly, the women, the poor, with those being dispossessed through out our society. We are that army, and it is time for us to mobilize now to … battle with this system until we put a stop to these outrages.”

Nkrumah said that activists must work to together to “bring the harassment of people here on Skid Row to an end.” To that he added, he would pitch a tent on Skid Row twice a month “in support of their human rights.”

“And instead of a one-nighter, which happened last night, I want to challenge the rest of our army to get your asses down here at least one night a month until we have changed the situation down here,” he said. “Likewise, make it the thing for people to do, to show up when we put up an alert that a family is being put out of their home.”

Organizers used street theater — depicting typical encounters the homeless have with police — to educate activists of alleged injustices and violations of civil rights.

Gen. Dogon, an organizer for the LA Community Action Network, or LA CAN, spoke about the Safer Cities Initiative, which is the city’s strategy for policing Skid Row. The plan was to include an increase in social services for the poor. However, according to LA CAN’s Skid Row reader “Downtown Blues,” what the homeless got instead “was the addition of fifty patrol officers, about 25-30 special narcotics officers, and additional mounted police assigned to a fifty square block area.”

Dogon said city and business leaders hatched plans to redevelop downtown, which did not include the poor and homeless, most of whom are black. The Safer Cities Initiative, or SCI, made Skid Row one of the most policed areas in the country, according to Dogon.

“The only other place where they had more pigs than Skid Row was in Baghdad, and those were military soldiers on the war path,” he said. “We were under siege.”

Gen. Dogon talks about the Safer Cities Initiative and its effects on the Skid Row community. (Dan Bluemel / LA Activist)

Dogon said when developers saw they could get $1,500 to $5,000 a month for loft space they became interested in removing the indigent who were paying much less. But community organizers fought back and won protections for low-income housing.

“They tried by any means necessary to evict us,” he said. “It was organizers from this community that stood up and fought back.”

However, said Dogon, after that victory, SCI was launched.

“The first year of SCI policing, they arrested over 18,000 people,” he said. “How the hell do you arrest 18,000 people in a community of only 13,000? By repeatedly targeting them.”

According to Dogon, residents again fought back and formed watch groups to monitor police activities in order to keep law enforcement accountable for civil rights violations.

“But right now today, we are still fighting back, and that’s how we combine with Occupy LA, the 99 percent,” he said. “It is the one percent that is doing the development over here and pushing us out. [Gentrification] is a big-ass beast, a monster, that is coming through and eating up poor folks.”

Occupy Skid Row began to take root after the city’s shut down of Occupy LA’s sit-demonstration. It has conducted small acts of civil disobedience while slowly gaining momentum.

According to Ruth Fowler, a veteran of Occupy LA, yesterday’s meeting had been on people’s minds for four months and was the first general assembly with Occupy Skid Row, Occupy the Hood and Occupy LA.

“It is really important that we don’t forget about the poorest part of the community and concentrate on these bigger class issues,” she said.