Chaney Turner of Oakland Rising discusses the Oakland City Budget with two special guests from the Oakland People’s Budget Coalition:
Vanessa Riles, born and raised in Oakland, is a queer, fat, Black, disabled, womanist, activist, organizer and lay minister. After an early start to her political education, activism and organizing, in her later years, Vanessa’s activism was reignited by her faith community as she participated in multiple campaigns for racial, housing, and land justice in Oakland. She was often seen speaking, praying, and singing at rallies, demonstrations and meetings of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and the Oakland City Council. Vanessa is currently part of the staff at East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy as the Oakland Campaign Coordinator where she is grateful to be able to continue to fight for racial, economic, land, and housing justice for the people of Oakland. She is looking forward to ensuring that there is visionary equitable development in Oakland that includes strong, effective, implementable and enforceable community benefits agreements, and that there is a fair and equitable city budget.
“Why are we spending more money to make people “feel” safe and to make property safe, but we’re not actually spending money to actually keep people safe – with phones, food, jobs, and sanctuary?” – Vanessa Riles, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE)
“Boards and commissions are being cut. These are one of the only ways that people actually have a say in what happens in city government. How do we actually have a say in what happens in the future – how do we actually get measures changed when we’re being cut off, when funding to even have a voice is being cut off?” – Vanessa Riles, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE)
Refilwe Gqajela is a formerly undocumented South African labor and community organizer from Oakland, California. She has a bachelor’s degree in Ethnic Studies from the University of California San Diego and has experience working on political campaigns throughout the state of California. Refilwe’s lived experiences has led to organizing understandings of: undocumented communities as system impacted i.e criminalization and prison to deportation pipeline, shelters/transitional housing programs as spaces for intervention as it relates to how they can perpetuate carceral realities and institutionalize gender, and youth as active participants in liberation movements. Refilwe’s work addresses the materially disadvantaged realities of Black/migrant communities, highlights the impacts of and struggles against systemic antiBlack capitalism, and explores the ways in which marginalized communities sustain and organize themselves.
“It’s a beautiful coalition because we’re able to see how all of our issues are related to each other. If we want thriving communities, if we want the Oakland that we all love to be able to prosper and for our community to be part of that prosperous vision – because it’s not a thriving Oakland without us [nothing for us without us] – then we have to have all of these components of people organizing for our workers, for our children, for the arts, for the culture.
We don’t have to adopt some state austerity mentality that the state likes to put us in because it’s easier to divide us than to actually have us come together.” -Refilwe Gqajela, Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP)