The following is an email regarding Occupy Oakland released by City Hall in response to a request by the Bay Area News Group. Thousands of these emails have been released and we will be republishing some here. Emphasis added.
Marleen Lee (@MarleenLee) is an organizer of the anti-Occupy Oakland group “Stand for Oakland.” This email was originally posted here, pages 129-131.
UPDATE: Just to clarify, the posting of this email is not an endorsement of the stupid and offensive remarks it contains. On the contrary, it is meant to expose the opponents of Occupy Oakland as the clueless reactionaries that they are.
—– Forwarded Message —
From: Marleen Sacks
Dear Oakland Officials:
Below is an email received from the Montclair discussion group regarding the numerous illegal activities occurring directly outside City Hall in the “Occupy Oakland” encampment. It does not appear that there has been any effort by City police to address the illegal encampment, nor the illegal activities going on within the camp. When will the laws of this City be enforced? Has OPD been given a directive not to interfere with this protest because members of Oakland government sympathisize with their cause, and/or do not want to alienate voters by cracking down on the protest? If this is the case, please be aware that the City will then be required not to crack down on neo-Nazi protests, Tea Party protests, Impeach City Official protests, or other protests that City officials may not be as sympathetic toward. This is because Frank Ogawa Plaza is a public forum for free speech, and the City must remain “viewpoint neutral” on its enforcement of laws and speech.
As this email demonstrates, many Oakland citizens are not happy about the City’s lack of equal enforcement of the law, and we want our laws enforced. You are already losing votes – just not from the sort of people inclined to break the laws, urinate and have sex in public etc.
Marleen L. Sacks
Hi
Just an update on “Occupy Oakland”. They had an information/organization meeting at 7:30 pm tonight. I sat in for part of it.
I thought you might be interested in knowing what’s going on…and who was there.
The air was perfumed with pot.
About 300 people in attendance at the amphitheater
They warned about preventing the spread of tuberculosis throughout “The Camp” [what they're calling it]
They also asked for donations of (Ladies, close your eyes.) condoms and — (Close them tighter.) —- dental dams.
They are actively and publicly working on building “text trees”, phone trees, and email trees to build a large mobile communication network.
Friday night they have a vigil for Troy Davis (The cop killer executed earlier this month.)
They’re expecting 1,500 for a “Labor march” this Saturday.
Danny Glover is to speak before them on Saturday afternoon
David Hilliard (sp?) Chief of Staff of the Black Panthers, speaks on Monday.
Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1 FM will be airing live coverage beginning next Tuesday.
One of the take-aways I have from this is that they are surprisingly organized. I’m not sure opposition has anything like text, phone, or email trees. The “tree” approach makes communication a bit more intimate than broad cast approaches.
Many (most?) of the “occupiers” appear to be living so close to the edge…that getting arrested would be an improvement in their condition–and an expansion of their social network.
“Occupy Hollister” starts on Thursday 10/13.
HAHAHAH Oh Please is that a joke? that is hilarious!
send more! lololol
obviously these people are the ones out of touch with reality!
Hi Scott J. I’m on the Occupy Oakland Website Committee. You’re supposed to be a left wing site with three women on staff. None of them mentioned that this article title and line is stupid and sexist?
“They also asked for donations of (Ladies, close your eyes.) condoms and — (Close them tighter.) —- dental dams.”
Would you have said, “Gentlemen, close your eyes?” You are going back to the old sexist stereotype that women can’t handle the mention of sex. Oh yeah, it’s a joke, right? Except how is it fucking funny? Just because one woman from Montclair does not agree with Occupy, does not mean you immediately have free reign to express all of your sexist, bullshit opinions about women in the form of “jokes.”
Hi Gretchen, I agree with you. That comment is absolutely sexist and stupid. I do not endorse it in any way as I beleive women can handle discussions about sex and, yes, condoms and dental dams. I only posted it here because it is so messed up. The original author wrote it in an email to the Montclair group, and it was forwarded by Marleen Lee to city officials with this comment included. Marleen Lee is one of the organizers of the right-wing, anti-Occupy Oakland group Stand for Oakland. I posted this article to expose how stupid, offensive and out of touch she and her group are. I assure you, I am offended by this whole thing as much as you are, I just think the people who wrote these things need to be exposed and ridiculed. Lots of people on Twitter are passing this quote around, including women from the Occupy Patriarchy group as well as Susie Cagle who posted it here: http://susie-c.tumblr.com/post/18458476457/hi-just-an-update-on-occupy-oakland-they-had-an. I take charges of sexism very seriously, please let me know if there is anything i can do to clarify. Thanks.
Hi Gretchen,
So I think I’m the first person that brought this email out into the internet arena to be made fun of for it’s ridiculous sexism, so I feel inclined to comment here. It looks to me like when you were reading you didn’t see that this email wasn’t written by Scott, but was submitted to an email group in Montclair. I’m sure Scott posted it without directly responding to sexism in it because it’s so offensive on its face.
When I posted these comments myself, I posted just the cherry picked the most offensive quotes and posted them alone – the response to them was overwhelming. Of course these comments are sexist and offensive, and likely written by a stodgy old Montclair guy who thinks he’s witty.
I’m really glad Scott posted these here and I think the sexism within speaks for itself. The fact that of all the emails (of over 200 pages!) that he chose to post here, he posted these shows solidarity with women, “ladies”, feminists, queers, and anyone else who is negatively affected by patriarchy, a.k.a. just about everyone. The headline is awesome, because it’s eye catching to anyone with a brain who can see that it’s sexist and will draw people in to see how messed up these emails were. Certainly his blog gets traffic, and we need to let folks know that sexism is one more oppressive tool used to repress Occupy Oakland.
I’m concerned that you posted a long comment calling him out here for sexism, when his actions were actually working *against* sexism, and I hope you’ll come back to read these comments and see that you misread this post.
Oh sorry, I thought you (Scott J.) had written that response to Marleen Lee’s letter. Ok, the right wing group wrote that line,
“They also asked for donations of (Ladies, close your eyes.) condoms and — (Close them tighter.) —- dental dams.”
Wow, unbelievable, it was not a joke.
Maybe if you put a line above each letter like, “This is a letter from Stand for Oakland to City Hall Officials,” it would clarify.
Sorry Scott, Lauren, and Occupied Tribune staff! That word “ladies” alone really gets me going.
when will HOLLYWOOD look at OAKLAND Because elsewhere Including NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES and CHICAGO they have cool mayors the elected officials In OAKLAND are out of line I would leave this alone and not have to go the EAST BAY OF SAN FRANCISCO or SILICON VALLEY SAN JOSE SOUTH BAY to do my work plus I am doing a MANIFESTO about a SAN FRANCISCO NATIVE who lost her life early 30 years and still Ignoring the facts from 30 years 1981 and 1982 if OCCUPY OAKLAND OCCUPY LOS ANGELES and WE ARE ANONYMOUS can help me find my way HOME same with NATALIE then I guess a clown named RJ can go to HELL let all voices heard CITY HALL and POLICE well get thier EARS RINGING.