Extra

Celebrate Peace and Justice on Thursday Night and Boycott Breitbart

George Lippman, Vice-Chair, Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission
Saturday September 09, 2017 - 11:46:00 AM

The Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission celebrates three decades of fighting the good fight for peace and social justice. You could say we put the “People’s” in People’s Republic of Berkeley.

WHEN: Thursday, September 14, 6:30pm to 9:30 pm

WHERE: North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst at Martin Luther King

We hope you’ll join us on Thursday. We’ll use the occasion to look at the state of human rights in Berkeley and beyond. We will commemorate the generations of movements that we have supported and learned from. But our main focus is to look ahead. We’ll discuss the importance of having a peace and justice commission in the 21st century, and how we can together transform the city and its government to put human rights first.

Also: we understand that former Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro will be speaking on campus the same day. We urge everyone who wants to participate in the development of a positive, future-oriented vision, rather than Shapiro’s return to the 50s—or the Middle Ages—come join to the Peace and Justice event instead. It will be a lot more constructive and much more fun. 

We are proud of our expansive mandate to act on all issues of social justice. We will highlight the commissions’ accomplishments and challenges the city faces in areas such as: 

* Racial justice 

* Women’s and girls’ rights 

* Nuclear weaponry 

* Socially responsible investing, banking, and procurement 

* Militarization and peace 

* Public education 

* Indigenous rights in Berkeley 

* International solidarity and the Pacific Rim 

* National security state and police accountability 

A social justice spoken word piece by youth from Youth Spirit Artworks will be performed. 

Berkeley leaders have been invited to commit themselves to the social justice mandate of the Commission, and to present their own visions of how the city can realize its 1990 declaration as a Human Rights City.