Public water systems are a cornerstone of democracy. Public water systems are a city’s most valuable infrastructure. Handing over New Orleanians’ most valuable asset to a private company is an appalling abdication of public service. There are more than 300 jobs at Seweragee and Water Board that need to be filled now. More than ever, it is clear New Orleans needs a real and urgent commitment to its public water system. We need true accountability for the management of our whole water system and our community needs jobs. Instead of focusing on solutions to strengthen and reform New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board, Mayor Landrieu is selling out New Orleanians to the bottom line of private contractors and corporations. Mayor Landrieu’s privately-contracted “Interim Emergency Management and Support Team” released an RFP on October 23rd that would privatize operations, management and multiple levels of water system positions through a public private partnership with a corporation for “up to three years.” On October 27th at a pre-bid meeting, the contractors asking about the RFP asked if their employees had to have valid Louisiana Drivers Licenses and professional certifications – they don't plan to hire locally. New Orleanians need jobs, right now! New Orleans needs an accountable, transparent, high-functioning public water system and our community needs good, local jobs. We can work together on a win-win solution. A first step is stopping Mayor Landrieu’s takeover of Sewerage and Water Board—Don't take us back to 1898.

The People's Dispensary has a vision of healing, freedom, and empowerment for our beloved community of Oakland. We are in a unique moment, that comes along once in a generation, to build a marketplace that fundamentally serves the good of the community in which it exists. With that vision in mind, The People's Dispensary has applied for one of the four Oakland general dispensary licenses! Here is a little bit about us: ► We are collectively owned ► We are 100% owned by Bay Area residents (Oakland & San Leandro) ► We are 75% owned by people of color ► We are 75% owned by women of color ► We are 100% owned by LGBTQ people Our co-founders are Chaney Turner, Charleen Caabay, Christine De La Rosa and Michael Schlieker. Each of them has a different lived experience that brought them to cannabis. But the common thread they all share is the belief that a dispensary can do more than sell cannabis products, it can heal, uplift and transform entire communities using the profits of cannabis. The People's Dispensary has developed a three prong Equity Plan specifically for Oakland and the Bay Area. ► We have created an opportunity for small and non-accredited investors to legally invest in the cannabis industry. ► We have plans to refurbish existing dilapidated multi-unit residential complexes in Oakland to provide affordable housing for employees, enabling them to live in the community they serve. ► We are creating an Impact Fund that allows our dispensary and our investors to reinvest a portion of future profits into Bay Area initiatives focused on ending criminalization and supporting disenfranchised and vulnerable communities. As one of the general applicants, The Peoples Dispensary is committed to providing monetary, material and mentorship support to equity businesses. In our quest to find values-aligned equity partners we chose three equity cannabis start-ups to incubate. LIV Dispensary and LIV Manufactoring owned by Jennifer Johns and Ajayi Jackson and Coastal Cannabis Delivery owned by Karissa Lewis and Audrey Smith. These equity cannabis businesses are: ► 100% owned by Oakland residents ► 100% owned by Black and Indigenous people ► Committed to creating jobs for the Oakland community We love Oakland and have been investing in its present and its future for decades. The co-founders of The People's Dispensary collectively own Benefit Health Collective Dispensary delivery service, Town Biz retail shop and Craft & Spoon restaurant. These businesses employ 20 people of which 95% of our employees are people of color, 70% are women, 65% are part of the LGBTQ community. We believe in Oakland and Oakland has believed in us. Built into our business model is our commitment to: ► Providing no cost health services for its clients in the form of on staff nursing, mental health professionals and holistic healers ► Hiring formerly incarcerated people and family members of incarcerated people ► Creating jobs and opportunities for advancement for our communities ► Investing in the future of Oakland We believe that we deserve to have a stake in the cannabis market in Oakland as a dispensary. Through granting a license to the Peoples Dispensary, Oakland can help us fulfill our dreams to create and shape a marketplace where everyone wins. Signing this petition is a vote for Oakland, for communities of color, for marginalized communities and for reversing the trends of criminalization and disinvestment. Please sign this petition, post and share this petition. WE BELIEVE WE WILL WIN. We are The People's Dispensary

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/06/the-fbi-has-identified-a-new-domestic-terrorist-threat-and-its-black-identity-extremists/ In August of 2017, the FBI's Counter-Terrorism Division report entitled, “Black Identity Extremists Likely Motivated to Target Law Enforcement.”, obtained and released released by "Foreign Policy", stated: “The FBI assesses it is very likely Black Identity Extremist (BIE) perceptions of police brutality against African Americans spurred an increase in premeditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement and will very likely serve as justification for such violence.” Incidents of “alleged police abuse” have “continued to feed the resurgence in ideologically motivated, violent criminal activity within the BIE movement”. This issue proliferates as racial tensions have increased and become more mainstream during the Trump Administration. This would be an optimal time for the President to utilize his platform and leadership to condone racism while utilizing the FBI to dismantle actual domestic terrorists and their racist and detrimental practices. Instead, efforts are spent deflecting the legitimate criticism of policing and labeling citizens exercising their 1st amendment right to protest as domestic terrorists- an organized faction that now pose threat to police officers. The Black Lives Matter movement is not a domestic terrorist movement. Martin Luther King Jr. was not a communist. But if we do not hold our government and its agencies accountable, history will repeat itself. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has a history of implementing Draconian and often illegal and/or immoral practices within the black community. Similar to the use of COINTELPRO in the 1960's, the actions of black activists are criminalized and, consequently, the narrative focuses on isolated violent responses instead of the organized peaceful tact of official movements. With intrusive surveillance legislation such as CISPA and The Patriot Act, it is imperative for the black community to protect itself from political persecution by galvanizing lawmakers and applying political pressure on government agencies and officials.

Neville Pinto and Mayor John Cranley, We will not tolerate racism, hatred and violence on our campus! I can’t understand for the life of me why you would allow a person such as Richard Spencer to speak at the University of Cincinnati knowing his background and the destruction and death he caused with his rallies. You all keep bringing up this whole freedom of speech B.S., but not allowing him to book a facility is not denying him freedom of speech. He shouldn’t be allowed to book a facility at the University and use it to incite violence and hate! You have majority of the students and faculty saying they do not want him there, but yet you are still allowing this. What about the voices of those who make the University of Cincinnati what it is today? If it weren’t for those students you would not have the position you call “president”. I am a concerned parent and when I attended UC’s orientation I was assured that safety was top priority when it came to students and staff. But clearly this was a lie or a tactic in order to get your student population up or flat out just about money! I am absolutely sure that freedom of speech does not include the right to incite actions that would harm others, and if your lawyers didn’t know that, then you need to get new lawyers! I would like for the University of Cincinnati to change it’s decision and not allow Richard Spencer to book a facility to speak at the University. If you allow this man to speak, then you are aiding in the harassment of your students and staff along with placing everyone there in a hostile environment. You will be destroying the integrity of the school should you allow this event to take place! Keep in mind that Richard Spencer is taking full advantage of your lack of strength and unity you have with the school and all of its occupants! This is not about the freedom of speech that everyone has, but about inciting violence and hate by threats of fake lawsuits that you are buying into! Again no one is denying freedom of speech but you do not have to facilitate any speech! We all know Richard Spencers background, why would we want to host someone who want to cause a criminal disturbance? You have to know that violence is inevitable if you’re in preparation of extra safety and security measures! Do not facilitate Richard Spencer, stand by your University and choose love! Thank you Parents, Family, Friends, and Supporters

Right now, the challenges our communities face are many. Imprisonment is a big one. Corporations and their politician friends have made it their life’s work to enact policies that keep our families and communities in jails. Every time someone in our neighborhoods is locked up, someone at a corporation makes money. These corporations, like Florida-based GEO and CCA, operate in the dark, away from public view and work hard to keep it that way. Their lavish vacations and retirement funds depend on it. On top of that, most people aren’t aware of how the prison industry operates and thus feel powerless to change it. We want to change that. Dream Defenders is a small, young organization with limited resources in the face of a goliath, seasoned system of paper pushers with unlimited resources. The prison system is tearing up our families, communities, and future generations. According to Miami New Times writer Jerry Ianelli: "Investigative reporters Carol Marbin Miller and Audra D.S. Burch obtained stomach-churning video of Florida juvenile offenders fighting one another after being groomed as attack mobs by state guards. Scores of surveillance videos show groups of teenage boys sucker-punching, stomping, and beating up other kids, breaking noses, eye sockets, and a host of other bones in the process. The Herald uncovered tales of rape, molestation, children beaten to death, and a justice system that let almost every guard involved walk free without consequence. The list of nightmarish allegations in the series is too long to fully recount. The Herald noted cases where staffers set up fights and bet on them; instances where the DJJ hired guards who had formerly been caught having sex with inmates; other cases where guards showed a teen pornography and watched him ‘fondle himself’; raped a transgender inmate; had sex with a child detainee in a closet; and abused one female detainee by using her head as a ‘toilet plunger.’ One Broward County youth counselor was allegedly so brazen about having sex with teen inmates she became known as the ‘cradle robber.’ The 12 juvenile deaths the Herald noted seem due to state negligence." In 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice condemning the state of juvenile detention in the country. A report of the National Institute of Justice, research arm of the Justice Department, added: “This ill-conceived and outmoded approach is a failure, with high costs and recidivism rates and institutional conditions that are often appalling… Every youth prison in the country should be closed, and replaced with a network of community-based programs and small facilities near the youths’ communities.” We agree. The Dream Defenders goal is to end the prison system's hold on our states’ policies, profits, priorities and people. We work in classrooms, communities and prisons to educate and organize to end this incredible threat to our lives. We can’t continue to watch this happening to the people in our communities, we have to act. If we can do this; if we can begin to break this massive machine by freeing our children from it's hold, then we can begin to collapse it in our lifetime. If we do not, we risk losing many more generations.

Why you should sign: In an effort to contribute to the momentum started by Colin Kaepernick and bravely expanded upon by more and more NFL Players and to combat the recent attempt to hijack the narrative by President Trump from police brutality to patriotism, we are setting forth a call to action to the community to rally our voices by SIGNING & SHARING THIS PETITION and connecting our collective protests and frustrations to a list of demands. It is our hope that fighting to reach 200,000 signatures on this petition we can show the wide array of support from throughout the community and country to support the protesting of NFL players to, 1. Effectively leverage their unified efforts 2. Aid in obtaining these initial but necessary police reforms in NFL cities across the country 3. Create a central point of support for those who have put their livelihood on the line to raise awareness and facilitate change

Update: October 7th, 2017 CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia— “You will not replace us” “Russia is our friend” “the South will rise again.” CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia—White supremacist Richard Spencer suddenly reappeared on Saturday night with torch-bearing supporters, two months after he organized an infamous hate march here. Spencer and his 50 or so followers gathered around a statue of Robert E. Lee in Emancipation Park chanting white supremacist slogans. “They were shouting ‘You will not replace us,’ ‘Russia is our friend,’ ‘the South will rise again,’ ‘we'll be back,’” said a University of Virginia faculty member, who wished not to be named for fear of retribution. Via @thedailybeast On Saturday, August 12th, white supremacist, terrorists marched through Charlottesville, communities and the University of Virginia campus, rallying around a statue of the Confederacy and carrying torches evoking a history of violent racial terrorism. The next day in Charlottesville they murdered someone in the name of their white supremacist symbols. Protesters were rammed by a car killing someone in a terrorist attack. These symbols were not chosen randomly. Confederate monuments have been erected and remain as a direct rebuke to the recognition of the full humanity of Black people. Confederate monuments were built and given places of honor in public space as gains in this recognition have been made and it is the commitment to the reversal of this recognition of humanity that draws white nationalists to these symbols. These symbols of white supremacy have always been memorials to the cause of slavery and the denial of humanity to Black people. Now they are being weaponized to rally white supremacists. We have the power to diffuse these modern-day lynch mobs by removing these statues altogether, instead of giving white supremacists a rally point. Confederate statues and named institutions are more than mere symbols of a heritage but instead, they are an assertion of the continued imposition of white supremacy and its current political power. Terrorists in Charlottesville understood this and were willing to kill in the name of this, we must be determined to persist in the face of this white supremacist terror. Removing all Confederate statues would be one step among many in sending the message that we are no longer honoring white supremacy at a societal level. We've already many communities take the step to address these monuments in cities like Tampa and New Orleans. Join with me today and pledge to work to remove all Confederate statues or names from our community. - [ ]

On Saturday, August 12th, white nationalists marched through Charlottesville, communities and the University of Virginia campus, rallying around a statue of the Confederacy and carrying torches evoking a history of violent racial terrorism. The next day in Charlottesville they killed in the name of their white supremacist symbols. Protesters were rammed by a car killing someone in a terrorist attack. These symbols were not chosen randomly. Confederate monuments have been erected and remain as a direct rebuke to the recognition of the full humanity of Black people. Confederate monuments were built and given places of honor in public space as gains in this recognition have been made and it is the commitment to the reversal of this recognition of humanity that draws white nationalists to these symbols. These symbols of white supremacy have always been memorials to the cause of slavery and the denial of humanity to Black people. Now they are being weaponized to rally white supremacists. We have the power to diffuse these modern-day lynch mobs by removing these statues altogether, instead of giving white supremacists a rally point. Confederate statues and named institutions are more than mere symbols of a heritage but instead, they are an assertion of the continued imposition of white supremacy and its current political power. Terrorists in Charlottesville understood this and were willing to kill in the name of this, we must be determined to persist in the face of this white supremacist terror. Removing all Confederate statues would be one step among many in sending the message that we are no longer honoring white supremacy at a societal level. We've already many communities take the step to address these monuments in cities like Tampa and New Orleans. Join with me today and pledge to work to remove all Confederate statues or names from our community.

The state of Mississippi is moving to take over the Jackson Public School District (JPS). JPS is the state's second largest district, the only urban one and is about 97% Black. Mississippi has continually under-funded Black and poor districts for many years. Last year, JPS was under-funded by about $11.5mil during the last school year, while the conservative state leaders have continually changed laws and regulations to make it easier to privatize public dollars (i.e. charter, vouchers, tax credits), starting with 3 charter schools in Jackson. This is a national trend that disproportionately affects Black and Brown communities and has shown negligible gains for our children. We are asking for your support in pushing our state leadership to prevent this takeover. The state of Mississippi has never cared about the Black children of Jackson, and they aren't about to start, so we need your support in letting the leadership know this and allow us to keep local control (achieved through a democratic process). JPS went through an unfair, and unprecedented audit in order to create the sense of chaos in the district. On Aug 31, we got the results of the year long audit and it was completely off base. We had the opportunity to respond in hearings on September 13 and 14, but the state board still recommended takeover to the governor, without ever reading our responses, documentation, and exhibits. These are the most pressing reasons why this is an unjust and unfair takeover that is very clearly about the re-colonization of our city and pulling away our resources: Specifically, we are requesting the governor make a decision to not sign the take over of the Jackson Public Schools for the following reasons: 1. The Jackson Public School District has addressed and corrected a substantial number of the audit findings in the Audit Report released Thursday, August 31. 2. The students, parents and community members stand ready to work in partnership with the district to address those remaining issues within their purview. 3. Many of the audit findings that form the basis of this proposed takeover are administrative and procedural, not educational in nature; yet, a state takeover will directly and negatively impact the instructional capacity and effectiveness of the district. 4. Fact, state takeovers of school districts do not yield improvements in student achievement; rather, more often than not, student achievement is stagnated during the short term and delayed over the long term. 5. State takeovers diminish community engagement and involvement, necessary ingredients to increase and enhance district and student success. 6. Extracurricular activities are important components to student, school and community life. Students in Jackson deserve the right to participate in activities that will enhance their academic, social and emotional wellbeing while preparing for life after graduation. These activities often keep students in school. A take over will affect opportunities to engage in extracurricular activities. 7. The students, parents, community leaders, faith leaders and business leaders should determine the future Jackson Public Schools.

During her terms in office, nearly 300 Los Angeles County residents have been killed by police, including #EzellFord, #KendrecMcDade, #JohnHorton, #NephiArreguin, #MichelleShirley, #RedelJones, #WakieshaWilson, #JRThomas, #KeithBursey, #JesseRomero, #EdwinRodriguez, #KennyWatkins, #BrendonGlenn, #BrotherAfrica, #ZelalemEwnetu, #CarnellSnell and literally hundreds of others. In the case of Brendon Glenn, the officer was actually recommended for charges by the Los Angeles Police Department. NO OFFICER HAS EVER BEEN CHARGED FOR THE KILLING OF A RESIDENT BY LACEY. Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriffs, and the policing units throughout the County lead the nation in the killing of community residents. For at least the last five years, LAPD and LA County Sheriff have led the nation in police killings. Yet, the District Attorney has not charged a single officer in any of these killings. The message sent to Los Angeles County law enforcement units is that they can kill residents and get away with it. Police cannot be relied on to hold themselves accountable, this is the work of the District Attorney. We are demanding that Jackie Lacey do her job and prosecute corrupt, abusive, and murderous police.

Underfunding public transportation forces poor residents to own a car in order to work, shop, or take their children to school. With proper funding and regular routes along main streets the city can benefit Black communities by making it much less expensive to live here. If public transportation is properly funded, then more working citizens in the Black community will have access to quality education for their children and a more stable living condition altogether. We need proper funding for everyone, for the city to operate better at large. Support this petition for a good example of a powerful narrative that highlights an impact on the Black community.

The National Center for Transgender Equality reports that, according to its figures, between August 2013 to August 2015, around 33 trans women have been killed across the U.S. Investigating that further, the majority of those victims have been women of color, specifically Black women. The NCTE goes on to say that in every case where a perpetrator has been identified, all have been men. According to the NTCE: “Yet, what is clear is that transgender women are killed at a disproportionate rate compared to their overall number in the population (less than one percent). The national homicide rate is 4.7 per 100,000—yet at a little more than halfway through the year, we have seen at least 11 killings among an estimated 350,000 adult trans women, almost all of them among trans women of color, who probably number fewer than 135,000.1 Whether they were killed by a date or a boyfriend, a neighbor or acquaintance, a complete stranger, or by a client while engaged in sex work, their transgender status almost always plays a role in why they are targeted and the brutality directed against them. ”In the United States, as in other Western countries, misogyny is still a huge problem. While this often creates subtle biases that manifest in non-lethal ways, such as fewer education and employment options for women, it also underpins intimate partner violence, rape and violent murders. When we have politicians and even judges who routinely overlook violence and exploitation of women, and treat violating women for the purposes of fighting abortion as a matter of collateral damage, we do not tackle that misogyny but give it room to grow. In addition, there is no escaping that the United States still has a serious problem with race. For trans women, who already face transphobia and the sexualization and objectification of their bodies, racial prejudice can compound the difficulties they face and prevent them from being able to get help when they need it. For example, after the death of Sandra Black in police custody, many women of color voiced their feeling that they wouldn’t feel safe talking to a police officer. Imagine adding that to the fact that trans women have been arrested for simply being trans–under the guise of “manifesting prostitution” among other trumped up charges–and we begin to see a huge gulf opening up between the public and the police who are meant to protect them. When trans people–of whatever gender or race–are assaulted, raped or murdered, they are routinely misgendered by both police and by the press. This means that tracking the numbers of trans people being murdered, and in particular being killed in a bias motivated attack, is incredibly difficult.