Kanaky Libre Solidarity Rally, Challenging Colonial Copaganda, Stop LAPD Spying Coalition Part 1, Justice for Sonya Massey Oakland

Thursday, 1 August 2024 - 7:00am to 8:30am
People laying flowers and handwritten notes at a street-side altar set up to honour Sonya Massey.

 

Acknowledgement of Country//

 

Headlines//

 

We played a recording of two speakers at the small but powerful Kanaky Libre Solidarity Rally, which was held on Parliament steps on the night of Friday 26th July, discussing the history of Kanaky (so-called 'New Caledonia'). This excerpt also includes a discussion about boycotting the Olympic games in Paris, as the opening ceremony was held on the same day.//

 

We listened back to an excerpt from Brisbane Free University and Radio Reversal's 'Challenging Colonial Copaganda' webinar, which brought together Professor Chelsea Watego, Dr Amy McQuire, Ronnie Gorrie and Associate Professor Amanda Porter to speak about the laundering and normalisation of policing in so-called Australia. In this segment, we hear Chelsea and Amanda critically discussing the normalisation of police presence at First Nations community events, and the machinations of police image-management through ties with other institutions.//

 

Last week, Priya caught up with Stop LAPD Spying Coalition's Hamid Khan and Matyos Kidane to talk about organising with unhoused community in downtown Los Angeles' Skid Row and beyond against militarised policing and surveillance by the Los Angeles Police Department. We played part one of this interview today.//

 

The Anti Police Terror Project joined organisations around the United States to coordinate a rally calling for Justice for Sonya Massey on the 29th of July in Oakland, California. Sonya Massey was a 36-year-old Black mother who was shot and killed by Deputy Sean Grayson of the Illinois Police Department on 6 July, 2024, after she called the police with concerns about an intruder entering her home. The rally was MC'd by APTP's Cat Brooks, and the recording we played in today’s show features poetry by Oakland's first Poet Laureate Dr Ayodele 'WordSlanger' Nzinga, as well as reflections from Uncle Bobby and Big Oscar, the uncle and father of Oscar Grant, who was killed on New Year's Day 2009 by Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland.//