In February, educators Moses Olanrewaju Omolade and Andre San-Chez in Oakland, CA began a hunger strike to stop school closures. The school district plans to shutter seven schools, merge two, and decrease grades taught in two, all lower-income schools where Black and Latino students are overrepresented. On Day 18 of the hunger strike, the strikers spoke at a special Board of Education Zoom meeting for the community to speak out. Below are excerpts from presentations from the strikers. See video of the full meeting at https://bit.ly/oaklandvid
Photo / Facebook
Hunger striker Moses Olanrewaju:
Tonight is kind of like, you know, a sham . . . shame on them. Yeah. This past 18 days has been rocky. We’ve laughed, felt cranky, been hungry. We’ve been loved on . . . but we’ve also had to rub shoulders with some of the people that have power in this country and city. And, we’ve learned that some have been bought. Some are here to do damage . . . Tonight I will be ending my hunger strike. And the way that happened was very, very slimy . . . We were hoping they would do an act of faith by putting this [community] meeting on. But they wanted us to commit to ending a hunger strike . . . Westlake [school] is a place that houses passion, love. . . we consider ourselves family. . . [until] our community was shattered, hurt . . . and to build strongly with so much love and to have these cowards sit in these seats and make decisions . . . none of them ever visited Westlake. It wasn’t until they put Westlake on the docket that they started to come . . . shame on y’all. No due process.
I’m gonna tell y’all. . . if they come to your schools don’t let ‘em in . . . We are dealing with a global pandemic, mental health issues . . . suffering . . . and they decided to make these decisions . . . So kids gave up. . . saying forget school . . . we started politicizing these babies, letting them know this is your school. That they ain’t gonna make none of these choices without you. . . we got to run these folks out of this office. . . we paid for these buildings with our tax dollars. They’re not taking it from us . . . we gonna keep this fight going. It’s our schools. Nothing for us without us. Cowards.
Excerpts of Presentation by Hunger Striker Andre San-Chez:
These closures are just a small action in a plan that has its roots in state and national campaigns that go back over 20 years. Also the threat of closing Parker Elementary and Community Day School has caused unimaginable emotional harm to already vulnerable students . . . school closures are inequitably distributed and can precipitate negative consequences for students and neighborhoods. This research goes back to 1980. So telling us that small schools don’t work, or that they’re not sustainable, and/or that closing schools does no damage is a flat-out lie . . . I say to the Board, to the District, to the Privatizers, we will not be divided . . . We must prevent these people who are backed by billionaire dollars. Call them out in public . . . make their meals uncomfortable, just the way that they’re making our lives uncomfortable . . .We will not allow you to rape us and separate these families . . .
We will take over these schools. We will host teach-ins. We will bar ourselves to these buildings. When our schools are under attack . . . we stand up, and fight back. Not one more school!
