Dear Comrades,

Within less than a year after the murder of George Floyd, countless others, including Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Adam Toledo in Chicago, and Roger Allen in Daly City, were recently killed by police. These tragedies occurred during Derek Chauvin’s trial. Daunte Wright was killed just 11 miles away from where Floyd was murdered. Roger Allen was killed in Daly City, here in our own backyard. This cycle of violence is never-ending, and communities can rarely grieve the loss of one member before another gets shot by police.

No matter how the media portrays them, it is evident that this system has never “failed” — rather, it upholds white supremacy, systemic racism, and capitalism by design. 

That is why the system can never be reformed. 

There is no legal reform or policy change that will prevent police violence from happening if it doesn’t call for demilitarizing, defunding, and dismantling this very system that protects their interests over Black people and the working class. For example, the George Floyd Act, which was introduced on the House floor last summer, was supposed to ban racial profiling, overhaul qualified immunity, and ban using chokeholds. But what also happened was it gave more funding to various police departments, leading to more killings at the hands of police. 

Public safety cannot be delivered to the people through a system that, at its core, is designed to keep the status quo. Protestors have been demanding to defund the police and refund our communities because we know what keeps us safe: safe and accessible housing, worker protections, food, community infrastructure, and meaningful paths for self-determination as we work to dismantle the entire system of capitalism—not the police. We are committed to abolition, and we will continue to demand justice for all victims of police murder in San Francisco and across the country. As the Derek Chauvin trial reaches a verdict this week, the work must continue toward liberation for all.

In Solidarity,
Your DSA SF Steering Committee

Join DSA Today!

Upcoming Events

Reminder: Trivia Night

The Chapter Coordinating Committee’s Community Team is hosting another trivia night tonight, April 20 at 6:00 p.m.! Hop on the DSA SF Discord server to play!

If you’re a member of DSA SF and not on Discord yet, email discord@dsasf.org to be added!

Today! Stop Budget Cuts to CCSF: Join SF Grey Panthers Meeting to Fight Back

Once again, CCSF is under attack. As former CCSF Chair of Labor & Community Studies Bill Shield explains, “for many years, the neoliberal, corporate agenda has included a fierce attack on public education at all levels… More recently, the school wreckers turned their guns on public higher education, including community colleges.” CCSF students, faculty, staff, their unions, and the community are fighting back to preserve CCSF as a community college. Find out what we can do to save it by joining here this afternoon, April 20th,from1:00 to 3:00 p.m.

Tomorrow! Public Comment: Demand Permanent Housing, not Safe Sleeping Sites

District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman’s A Place for All legislation would require the City to provide each unhoused person a tent in a safe sleeping site. Tents are NOT permanent housing, and every dollar that goes toward these extremely expensive safe sleeping sites is a dollar spent on something that fails to get our unhoused neighbors into safe and stable housing. The SF Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee is meeting tomorrow, April 21, at 9:00 a.m. and A Place for All is on the agenda.

We need folks to call in and tell the committee that the City needs to put these hundreds of millions of dollars hard-won through the passage of Prop C in 2018 towards permanent supportive housing, not tents and further criminalization of homelessness. Our unhoused neighbors deserve pathways to stable housing, not another one of the City’s money-slick labyrinths designed to “solve” them by keeping them out of the sight of the housed. Dial-in info and instructions below – feel free to email homelessness@dsasf.org if you have any questions!

Instructions: 

  • Dial (415) 655-0001. Enter the Access Code (187 355 1611) then press ‘#’.
  • Press # again to join the meeting as a participant. You will hear a beep when you have entered the meeting.
  • When you hear the beep: stop and listen. Wait for Public Comment for the A Place for All item to be announced.
  • When the Clerk calls Public Comment, dial * 3 to be added to the speaker line. You will hear ‘You have raised your hand to ask a question. Please wait to speak until the host calls on you.’ Wait for your turn to speak.
  • When you hear ‘Your line has been unmuted,’ this is your opportunity to make your public comment after the beep. Tell the Committee that these hundreds of millions of dollars cannot be spent on a system that would hustle our unhoused neighbors from site to site and that they need to take this historic opportunity to use money from Prop C on stable housing for all!

This Thursday! People’s Earth Day Rally

Join the Ecosocialist Committee and other environmental advocates this Thursday, April 22, at 12:00 p.m. at City Hall and demand Mayor Breed and the Board of Supervisors to:

  • Declare a MORATORIUM on Lennar’s Shipyard development and unsafe soil excavation!
  • Declare a PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY!
  • Conduct full retesting, safe cleanup & removal of all radioactive and toxic waste at the Shipyard Superfund Site and Treasure Island!

Learn more here.

NEW! PRO Act: Phonebank & Save the Date for Bay Area Town Hall

DSA’s highest national priority is to pass the PRO Act (Protect the Right to Organize), which would strengthen unions, the power of the working class to organize on the job, and our collective capacity to win a just transition to a green economy for all. After successfully pressuring one of our target senators to co-sponsor the bill, we need all hands on deck to make calls targeting the other four holdouts. This month, DSA called 500k voters to rally support! ??Sign up for Phone-Banking shifts, Text-Banking shifts, and donate what you can to keep the campaign going strong.

Also, SAVE THE DATE: DSA SF, East Bay DSA, and other chapters will hold a Bay Area PRO Act Townhall, with exciting guests to be announced, on Tuesday, April 27 at 6:00 p.m.! Workers & the World Unite!

For more events, click here.

Impunity of an Empire: The Cost of Plunder in the Philippines

 Join us on Friday, April 30 at 5:30 p.m. to hear from Filipino Solidarity Activists about: 

  • The historical relationship between the United States and the Philippines and the dire consequences of its colonial dynamics
  • The current situation in the Philippines under the Duterte dictatorship
  • The popular struggle for democracy and against imperialism and the current demands of the Filipino people
  • How people in this country can support that struggle and oppose the neo-colonial domination of the US and the US militarization of East and Southeast Asia

The event will be co-hosted by the IRIS Committee and will include speakers from the Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines and the Malaya Movement. Learn more.

NEW! Film Screening of We Mean to Make Things Over: A History 

East Bay DSA and DSA SF’s Labor Committees are co-sponsoring a virtual screening of We Mean to Make Things Over: A History of May Day, a half-hour documentary video in progress, on Thursday, April 29 at 7:00 p.m. The screening will feature the filmmaker, EB DSA Member Fred Glass, and DSA DSLC Commissioner Daniel Dominguez. They will be discussing the film, as well as the Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, and will hold a brief Q&A afterwards. Register here and check out the Facebook event.

NEW! Intro to Socialist Feminism

How do we reconcile the socialist movement with the insights of liberal feminism? Join us Thursday, April 29 at 6:30 p.m. for a lecture exploring capitalist patriarchy, misogyny, intersectionality, and social reproduction theory. There will be time set aside for questions and discussion at the end. Sign up here.

Announcements

This Week on SFIJ

Hi there, comrades!

We think the following pieces of news from the San Francisco Independent Journal (SFIJ) may be of interest to you:

?First, hundreds of peaceful protestors gathered for a vigil and march last Thursday, organized by Defund SFPD Now, on the steps of Mission High School for Roger Allen, Adam Toledo, and Daunte Wright, all of whom were murdered by police.

?Second, we recently had the pleasure to talk with long-time socialist and DSA member Tom Gallagher, who has been involved in local progressive politics and continues to advocate for issues such as foreign policy.

?Finally, the San Francisco Board of supervisors voted to support Assembly Bill 20 (AB20), which would add California to the list of states that bar business entities from directly contributing to political campaigns.

If you have committee work or another story you want to be publicized by a friendly outlet, please submit tips to writing@dsasf.org.

Welcome DSA SF’s Newest Comrade

If you are active in the Ecosocialism Committee, then you know Tyler B, Eco’s mobilizer. Tyler has recently helped bring a new member to the chapter, so let’s all welcome Julian Aaron! Let’s make a better world for Julian.

We Need You to Build Socialism!

We need your help with the following:

  • Help Produce the Newsletter!
    • Every week we put out the very newsletter you are reading, and we need organizers to help write, edit and produce it. Contact comms@dsasf.org or #ccc-comms on Slack to help out.
  • Help Manage Our Social Media! 
    • You already live on Instagram and Twitter, so why not help build socialism instead of just providing data to targeted advertising algorithms? Contact comms@dsasf.org or #ccc-comms on Slack to help out.
  • Help Organize Our Monthly Meetings and Other Fun Events! 
    • If you have experience or interest in organizing events, our Community team could use your help. Social events, educational events, and of course our monthly meetings; none of them happen without organizers. Fill out this form, email community@dsasf.org, or #ccc-community on Slack to join the fun.
  • Help Our Tech Team! 
    • Want to be a part of a team that is actually making a difference in the world, not just talking about it on LinkedIn? Help build the infrastructure that DSA SF uses to build socialism. Contact tech-support@dsasf.org or #ccc-tech on Slack to pitch in.

DSA SF Membership Drive

Please consider becoming a member of National DSA, or making sure your membership is current, so you can stay up to date with what the National Organization is doing and participate in the member forums. Becoming a member also counts towards DSA SF’s delegate count for the August National Convention! As always, no one is turned away for lack of funds, all you need to do is fill out the dues sponsorship form. If you have any other questions or hurdles on membership, feel free to email steering@dsasf.org and we’ll figure something out together.

Reading Groups

The Antonio Gramsci Reader

The 21st Century Socialism Reading Group takes a dip back into the 20th. There will be four sessions every other Tuesday, continuing with our second session on April 27th from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. Register here!