On March 21, 2016, we celebrated the 2nd year community commemorative of our brother Alex Nieto blessing us with his ancestral spirit. At the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco, a rainbow of his soul joined us outside in the sky. Supervisors, writers, poets, and community warriors spoke, singers sung, danzantes danced, and I made a few points:
- Without knowing it, our ancestor Alex blessed us. We are together and we have become stronger, smarter, and more loving through the tragedy of his death.
- Alex and I used to check each other about the movement. When we greeted each other, we would smile and ask, “What’s up with the movement?” Alex Nieto himself became the movement.
- In the coming weeks, I will be gathering together all the history of this beautiful international movement that we as a community have created together. Our people must learn about our creativity and sheer genius in the face of all this adversity. I plan to then hold circles of culture where we can learn about this history together and invent new ideas out of it.
- The trial taught us a few key lessons: we must take ownership of our own education. On a daily basis, we must challenge each other to read and write. We now have a public written testament of the entire judicial proceedings, and we can never forget what happened. We must grow from it. We cannot accept the books or the fantasies about justice that they teach our children.
- We must also be brave enough to stand on our own. That jury proved cowardice. There is no way they could have believed the SFPD story. But even though they felt all the contradictions and knew the physical evidence was against the police narrative, key jurors that could have stood for justice remained with the crowd, the majority; they got tired, and they wanted to leave and go on with their lives. We must train ourselves to constantly stand up for righteousness and to make compelling arguments. We must also hold endurance. This two year journey has been about endurance.
- We must continue, not forward, but upward, we march, we fly.
Our international story: Please read renowned author Rebecca Solnit’s article in one of the most widely read news sources in the world, The Guardian. This news publication was founded in 1821 and is recognized like The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times.
“Death by Gentrification: the Killing that Shamed San Francisco” by Rebecca Solnit
AMOR FOR ALEX NIETO!
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