Bread and Roses Collective Oakland
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RADICALIZING MENTAL HEALTH: Addressing Mental Health Issues in Radical Communities
March 2nd, 2013
2-5pm
@ The Holdout
2313 San Pablo Ave, Oakland CA
This event is FREE
Childcare will be provided!
Come join us for our first ever event & seminar! We are hoping this will be the first event in a series addressing various issues in mental health, focusing on mental health within radical communities. We will be discussing systematic oppression and trauma, depathologizing and demedicalizing mental illness, how to talk to a therapist, etc. We also hope to provide a full resource list for mental health help in the Bay Area.
Future events will be covering: anxiety, depression, trauma & PTSD, the patriarchy, queers, trans, and poc & mental health (respectively), spirtuality and healing in radical communities, etc etc. We are super open to suggestions.
For questions or concerns email: breadandrosesEAD@gmail.com
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Bread and Roses Mental Health Working Group is an anti-capitalist collective interested in broadening political analysis by removing mental health from the medical and personal contexts and addressing it as a community and social issue that intersects with struggles against white supremacy, patriarchy, colonialism, and other forms of oppression. We want to open a regular space for conversations about mental health that deepen our understanding of these intersections, address the ways our community might replicate oppressive structures, and develop skills to be with one another in our daily lives and in the streets as a strategy to attack the state and resist oppression. Strong communities build strong resistance.TODAY!
See y’all there this afternoon!
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Check out the interview about Bread and Roses a few of us did last week for Radio Autonomia -
Pack The Courtrooms For The ACAC 19
Come pack the courtroom on February 8th to support the ACAC 19!
Solidarity is our weapon against the state! Our love for our comrades is stronger than their cages and their courts!
When: Friday February 8th, 12:30PMWhere: 850 Bryant St. San Francisco, Department 16What: Pack the CourtOn Friday February 8th, 2013 members of the Anti-Capitalist Anti-Colonial (ACAC) 19 will be appearing in San Francisco Superior Court at 850 Bryant Street for a pretrial motions hearing. We call on you, supporters, friends, and comrades to pack the courtroom. Support comes in many forms: banners and signs on the court steps, people in the courtroom and spreading the word about the trial. Let us show the District Attorney that our comrades are not alone in their relentless struggle against colonialism, capitalism and the state.
The ACAC 19 is a group of anti-colonial, anti-capitalists who were beaten, arrested and then subjected to a media smear campaign by the San Francisco Police Department on October 6, 2012. The arrests occurred during a series of demonstrations on Columbus Day weekend against colonization and empire, as well as the racist celebrations of genocide and conquest. The actions were organized in solidarity with indigenous struggles in the Bay Area and beyond.
After being released from jail, two defendants found threatening leaflets in their neighborhood with their home addresses and photos printed on them. At least one member of the ACAC 19 has also experienced continued police harassment at his workplace. In early December, two defendants received word that their Twitter accounts had been subpoenaed – evidence that the SFPD is using the case to map and surveill radical political networks in the Bay area. In the wake of a year of rebellious and militant political activity across the country, we see this as one of many attempts to harass, intimidate, and control radical movements.
On January 5th the San Francisco District Attorney withdrew the Twitter subpoenas due to a successful call-in campaign and mounting public pressure from organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. While we recognize this as a limited victory, the withdrawal of the Twitter subpoenas shows the strength of community support and solidarity. It is imperative that we show the District Attorney and the SFPD that repression will not stop us!
The ACAC 19 are currently facing multiple misdemeanor charges ranging from unlawful assembly to battery on a uniformed officer. We stand in solidarity with all those working to resist state repression and those who have been directly targeted by it. Come support your comrades on Feb 8th!
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Update from Bread and Roses Oakland
The next collective meeting will be on Saturday February 2nd at 7pm. It will be a combination meeting and potluck, so bring something to eat! (Host requests vegetarian food only.) It will be held at 832 42nd Street, Oakland, CA, near the MacArthur BART.
The Mental Health Working Group will be hosting a panel on radical mental health on Saturday March 2nd from 2-5pm. We are really looking forward to this event, and would love some help from the wider community! If anyone is interested in helping get food or to do childcare/ children’s programming for the event, please contact Lauren at johnson.laurenelizabeth @ gmail. More details to come, but put it in your calendars!
The Mental Health Working Group will be meeting every Saturday from 11-12pm in North Oakland. Please email the list for the exact address. The best way to stay up to date with the MH Collective is to join our googlegroup: br-mental-health@googlegroups.com
The Children and Families collective is in the process of creating a childcare availability calendar. If you are interested in providing childcare, or if you are a parent in need of childcare, please email the main B&R email (breadandrosesoakland @ gmail) to sign up.
The Children and Families Working Group will be meeting every Tuesday from 7-8pm at 540 23rd st (doorbell code 039).
Finally, if anyone is interested in holding a meeting for either the Food or Roses Working Group, please email the main email (breadandrosesoakland @ gmail) or come to the collective meeting.
Love and Rage,Bread and Roses Oakland -
Parents, take the childcare working group's survey with your children here: -
Bread and Roses January Calendar (if an event time/place is not listed, email us at breadandrosesoakland @ gmail. Times/locations will be posted as soon as they are known!)
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Bread and Roses Oakland Collective Meeting: January 5th @ 2:30PM
Interested in finding out more about B&R? Want to hear about what projects are happening and how you can help? Come to a meeting and say hello!
The next Bread and Roses Oakland Collective Meeting will be on January 5th at 2:30PM, located at the Holdout (2313 San Pablo, Oakland). Childcare will be provided!
Email us at breadandrosesoakland@gmail.com if you have questions or want to be a part of our email list.
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BREAD AND ROSES COLLECTIVE OAKLAND
CALL OUT MEETING
NOVEMBER 17th 2-4PM @ THE HOLDOUT
2313 SAN PABLO, OAKLAND CA
The Bread and Roses Collective is an act of mutual aid.
In light of recent state and police repression, and in solidarity with the long history of anti-racist, anti-capitalist struggle, we seek to create networks of practical support and solidarity.
We reject the sexist notion that caregiving is secondary to any other sort of organizing. Instead, we place this work at the center of building sustainable networks of radical support. We acknowledge the toll that collective and individual trauma has on our lives and we work to create spaces in which we can heal.*Bread and Roses is a small group of people who have been involved in Occupy Oakland and other Bay Area struggles. We’ve been dreaming about this project, but don’t want ownership or control. We want this to be a collaborative effort that can grow into something that serves the community.
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” –Audre Lorde
breadandrosesoakland@gmail.com breadandrosesoakland.tumblr.com
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Bread and Roses Oakland Call Out Meeting!
Join us for our first meeting November 17th 2-4pm at the Holdout (2313 San Pablo) in Oakland, see you there!
Childcare will be provided during the meeting.
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SUSTENANCE IS RESISTANCE
The Bread and Roses Collective is an act of mutual aid. In times of crisis, trauma, and repression we seek solutions from inside our own communities. We celebrate our myriad ways of surviving and commit ourselves to doing the work of healing from within.
We acknowledge the real effects of oppression, trauma, and violence on our communities. We stand with survivors of police brutality, state repression, sexual assault, and everyone who suffers oppression under capitalism. While we can be found in the streets and in the courtrooms, we propose an additional means of support.
Imagine you are in jail. Lawyers are supporting you legally. Friends and comrades are with you in court. Supporters appear to pick you up from jail and drive you home.
But what happens after the immediate crisis passes? When you are exhausted, anxious, depressed, experiencing PTSD symptoms?
Bread and Roses has got your back.
Sexist logic posits caregiving and radical struggle as two diametrically opposed forces. We are reclaiming the systems of care that communities of resistance have always provided one another. Throughout history any struggle has been supported by people who cook, who clean, who care for children, people who listen and care. We situate ourselves in a long history: church ladies baking casseroles, Sunday dinners, soup kitchens, the Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program, queer chosen family. We sit wake with our fallen comrades; we say “PRESENTE” for those who have gone before us. We staff crisis hotlines; we walk beside the PTSD flashback, the panic attack, and the hole in your gut. Our communities talk a lot about the need for “self-care” an idea that, while important, seems cut from the same competitive, individualistic cloth as capitalism. We do not need merely to care for ourselves, we must care for each other.We propose a collective of practical support as a means of creating spaces for healing.
Imagine a network of comrades dropping off food, doing your laundry, watering your garden, or feeding your cat. Imagine a hand to hold or a peer councilor to talk to. Imagine help coordinating childcare. Imagine notes of solidarity and encouragement, flowers on your doorstep.
The love of our communities is stronger than their cages. You are never alone in the struggle.
