From the American Indian Movement-
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PROTEST: BOYCOTT EMERYVILLE'S BAY STREET MALL - RESPECT SACRED OHLONE SITE
Friday November 25 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM Meet at the corner of Shellmound and Ohlone Way in Emeryville.
Annual Black Friday protest at Emeryville's Bay Street Mall. The Bay Street Mall was built on top of an ancient Ohlone burial site after years of protest actions by the local Native American community. The construction of the mall unearthed THOUSANDS of human remains, many of which were taken away to landfill in the name of consumerism.
While the construction of the mall couldn't be stopped, we in the Bay Area Native American community ask the non-Native community to join us in protesting this obscene structure. On "Black Friday" every year we remind the public that this is sacred Indian land and the Bay Street Mall should be boycotted.
what is the goal of the protest? Do we want to convert the stores into a memorial site, and drive the stores out of Emeryville? Who is the loser if we kill Bay Street? The corporate stores can go elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThe Occupy movement should be in front of the banks, and financial institutions. Perhaps we should be protesting in front of the federal buildings for allowing this to happen, with lack of enforcement against the people who caused the problem.
In this case, the people who caused the problem, as you put it, is the Emeryville city council. They are the governmental agency that gave the final OK for the Bay Street Mall to be built as it is.
ReplyDeleteNative settlement in what is now Emeryville predates the pyramids at Giza, predates the Bible, predates Rome, Greece and perhaps the civilizations that formed in the Indus River Valley and in China. When Europeans were still living in caves and murdering each other, Native people were here in Emeryville. What should have been declared a UNESCO world heritage site---like Pompeii, Bourbadour, or the caves at Lascaux, were instead plowed under and destroyed to build an Old Navy, Apple Store, a multiplex and some ticky-tacky condos. Thanks Emeryville City Council!
ReplyDeleteThe plot reads like some bad Hollywood movie....complete with evil corporate greedsters. I think Steven Spielberg did some movie like this where a mall was built on a cemetery without proper removal of the remains. The ghosts haunted the evil mall builder. Only in Emeryville would you expect public policy to be so bad that it follows a cartoonish Hollywood portrayal of evil.
ReplyDeleteI don't shop at Bay St for various reasons, but this is the first argument on my list as to why I don't go there.
ReplyDeleteThis protest was mentioned in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/occupy-protesters-take-message-about-corporate-greed-to-black-friday-shoppers-around-calif/2011/11/25/gIQAKjK5wN_story_1.html
ReplyDeleteThanks to 3:50-
ReplyDeleteI posted the Emeryville part of the story.
After thousands of years of human habitation, just about everywhere on the planet could be called a burial site.
ReplyDeleteIf we stopped building on land where dead people were, we would just about have to stop building.
I personally don't go to bay street cause it sucks and is full of stores from soul destroying corporations.
If it was full of mom and pop shops (or maybe even ONE), then it might be different.
I should think the real protest is E-ville's city council selling out it's people for profit.