Thursday, August 24, 2017

White Supremacy at Oakland Whole Foods--FB friends comment


Just hearing about yet another racially charged incident at Whole Foods on 27th street in Oakland... The latest involves a paying customer and editor of the Movement newspaper named Adam Turner..
He was recently eating lunch at WF when who saw a homeless person with mental health challenges in distress outside the store. Turner went over to help him..
The homeless man was having an episode when Turner saw a security guard and asked for assistance. The guard told him the only help needed was a call to 9-11. When Turner explained calling the police wasn't necessary, the guard cursed at him and told him to F-- Off..
When Turner told him his response was unprofessional, the guard pepper sprayed him and called him a N---..
This is the 3rd or 4th incident I've heard about over at Whole Foods.. What is going on with that place? Have other folks had similar encounters?? If this place has so much animosity toward patrons, why is it still in biz?
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Graal Swartz Lol. I've had run ins with folks at that spot. I've also had some good interactions with some of the managers once I reported some racist shit there. 

Some guy in customer service came out to address a concern of mine awhile back when I was shopping t
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Yesterday at 8:32amEdited
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Desley Brooks The incident where they left the guy unconscious and bleeding was enough for me.... .I purposefully haven't shopped there since then
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Yesterday at 8:47am
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Thandisizwe Chimurenga Wasn't there a boycott of WF going on?
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Yesterday at 8:52am
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Frank Sosa Over a year ago I was assulted by a white tech bro type in that store in front of my daughter, he literally grabbed me and attempted to toss me for saying something to him for rudely getting in my way. I reported to the manager who spoke to him and let him go without even getting his name.
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Yesterday at 9:36am
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Tasha Anderson I never have problems with security there. People are helpful and go out of their way. Now some cashiers including black ones can be a little dismissive but then I remind myself that drones will soon take their place.
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Yesterday at 9:39amEdited
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Sandra Jacquez Wow. Just curious, what response or statement has HF made if any? Smdh...gentrification sure has made my city change. I sure won't be shopping there.
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23 hrs
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Jessica Scott This fucking guy. Has he been fired and put in jail yet? Needs to happen STAT. Not only fired.
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Lisa Tiny Gray-Garcia serious anti-poor people -anti -poor mama moves over there -they called CPS on me cuz tibu at 10 years old was sitting in the car in their parking lot and then threatned to call poLICE when i complained -i truly try to avoid that place and agree they shud b outed and kicked out
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23 hrs
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Deborrah Cooper You actually should call 911 in a case like that, but specifically ask for THE CRISIS RESPONSE UNIT. This is important, because trained mental health professionals will be dispatched vs regular ole silly cops. The individuals will usually be taken straight to John George for a 48 hour observation and get them further help if necessary. Hope this helps.
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CB Smith-Dahl Dear God. Adam is an upstanding guy - with experience at Frick. I wonder if the guard even lives in Oakland - woulda seen Adam at many many events taking photos and video. How would this EVER be acceptable behavior for a security guard at any establishment.
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23 hrs
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Mario Wright I think whole foods is a place where many different worlds collide. Racially and economically... However issues with security would probably get handled faster by talking to the sercurity company where the guards are employed from.
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22 hrsEdited
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Duane Deterville Wow! Just hearing about this. I've met this brotha before too.
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Dlaniger Sirrom A dude named 7 used to work there but quit because he said yt customers would regularly come in and call employees niggars and he said mgmt wouldnt do nothing about it so he quit
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Frank Sosa Whole Foods needs to be accountable you can't shrug this off on independent contractor security when this has been an ongoing prob
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Rashidah Grinage i never shop there.
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Travis Gavin When did this incident happen?
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Kimberly Barnes Vanessa Jackson see that Travis..(in my auntie Fee voice)
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Kristi August Never been never will
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Burnierose L. Wilson B-O-Y-C-O-T-T.

When WH-Oakland security beat that Brother down and left him bleeding and unconscious on the pavement in front of the store a couple of years ago and WH corporate said they were changing the security and did not, I stopped shopping at WH. Hit them in the only place they'll feel it: Their wallets. Nothing else will work in Capitalist America.
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19 hrsEdited
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Michelle Mathers FUCK YOU WHOLE FOODS IMMA SHARE THIS IMMA GET MY WHITE BF TO KNOCK THAT WHITE SECURITY GUARDS ASS
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Nefertina Abrams There is a definite this is "OUR" special place stench at WF... I prefer comeunity owned cooperatives like Mandela Market. Or even Rainbow grocery outlet. Too elitist and self entitled for my taste. 😑
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Ray Ysaguirre Man f*** Wholefoods you got Trader Joe's you got farmers markets Galore you got Chinatown f*** Whole Foods
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Caribelinq Omnimedia Because You People keep it in bizness....
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Vanessa Jackson Do unto others as they have done unto you. Lol
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Marvin X Jackmon The Movement Newspaper calls for an immediate boycott of the white supremacist Oakland Whole Foods Market on Bay Street @ Harrison, until the high priced market makes amends for the security guard's unprovoked pepper-spraying and verbal abuse of our De...See More
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17 hrs
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Saad Hayes Sodaye i know a good way to address this matter. and who is this guard
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Susanne Sarley The last incident I know of ended in a man being beaten and bloodied. I didn't go back until i heard theyd gotten a new security company. Now again with this bs? I'm permanently boycotting that store.
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Duane Deterville https://twitter.com/TheRoot/status/893944714377822208
“Could Black Harlem disappear because of Whole Foods? https://t.co/RIOC5z1MhN
TWITTER.COM
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Gregory Lewis Send the Black Bloc at 'em. They fear that s--t. #SmashySmashy
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Toure Cevie P. Toure WTF I know Adam Turner was this at the whole food in Oakland, oh HELL NO!
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George Galvis Fuck Whole Foods! These fools need to be held accountable!
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Malkia Cyril We need to go over there and have a conversation with management about this trend, and get some demands met. Calling for a boycott is fine, but it only works if you actually organize it. Meaning you have to go door to door, make presentations, get like...See More
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Zahieb Mwongozi Shut 'em down, NOW! Damn "Whole Wallet". 
Safeway
No way
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Thembisa Mshaka This is not ok. Has WF responded?
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Cynthia Gómez I'm going to be skeptical here. This hasn't been reported anywhere else, and the kind of interaction described here -- going straight from zero to 60 without any provocation -- is the kind you'd expect to get a lot more coverage.
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Marvin X Jackmon when does the fake news get the real news? get real, skeptic!

Racist Whole Foods acquired by Amazon



Amazon's Whole Foods Deal Wins Swift U.S. Antitrust Approval
www.bloomberg.com


Amazon.com Inc.’s proposed $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods Market Inc. won quick U.S. antitrust approval, showing that concerns in Washington about the growing power of technology companies weren’t enough to derail the online retailer’s biggest-ever acquisition.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission approved the deal within a 30-day review period without an in-depth investigation after determining the tie-up wouldn’t hurt competition, the agency said Wednesday.
The deal came together against a backdrop of concerns that technology companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook Inc. and Amazon are becoming too dominant. A Democratic lawmaker had called for a more thorough review of the proposed the merger.
The FTC approved the deal because Amazon and Whole Foods are not close competitors and shoppers will have plenty of other options to buy groceries, said Norm Armstrong, an antitrust lawyer at King & Spalding LLP in Washington.
"When you combine the two, the question is whether it will substantially lessen competition or have an anticompetitive effect on the marketplace," said Armstrong, a former deputy director of the FTC bureau that reviews mergers. "The answer is no."
Amazon closed down less than 1 percent in New York at $958. Whole Foods was little changed at $41.68.

Trump Tweets

President Donald Trump heightened the stakes for the merger review after repeatedly criticizing Amazon and its Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos. Bezos owns The Washington Post, whose news and opinion pages have taken a skeptical line on the president. He said in July that Amazon has a "no-tax monopoly" and told Fox News host Sean Hannity last year that Bezos has a "huge antitrust problem."
While the FTC didn’t pursue an extended investigation of the merger, the companies did give the agency additional time to consider the tie-up when they withdrew and refiled their notification with the agency in July. Whole Foods shareholders approved the takeover Wednesday. The deal requires approval from Canada.
Amazon said it has achieved multiple steps to get to the close of the deal and everything is on track.
The review of the deal comes as technology giants like Amazon and Google are drawing greater criticism about their dominance of markets, from e-commerce to online advertising. Democrats are calling for stepped-up antitrust enforcement against mergers, saying in their new economic agenda, "A Better Deal," that big deals that harm consumers are too readily approved.
The FTC said in its statement that it "always has the ability to investigate anticompetitive conduct should such action be warranted."

Biggest Acquisition

Whole Foods would be the biggest acquisition in Amazon’s history, fulfilling a long-held company goal to sell more groceries. The takeover represents a dramatic shift in its business model, from selling items only online to adding a broad brick-and-mortar operation.
Amazon will gain access to the $800 billion grocery industry with Whole Foods, which has 460 stores and a fresh-food distribution network. Meanwhile, top retail competitor Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is converting its vast store network into grocery distribution hubs where customers can pick up online orders or have them delivered to their homes.
Whole Foods had just 1.4 percent of the U.S. grocery market in 2016, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, and is dwarfed by operators such as Wal-Mart Stores, which has 21 percent of the market and Kroger Co. with 10 percent. Amazon’s share is negligible.
Even though Amazon lacks a physical store presence of significant market share in groceries, approval of the Whole Foods deal is a missed opportunity for the FTC to push the boundaries of the traditional antitrust framework for reviewing mergers, said Lina Khan, a fellow at New America, a liberal Washington think tank, who has argued that Amazon’s dominance undermines competition.
The current framework centers on individual product markets and whether the merged company will be able to charge higher prices. But in today’s economy dominated by technology platforms like Amazon and Facebook, that playbook is insufficient for protecting competition, she said.
"Amazon challenges a lot of the current antitrust orthodoxy and at some point antitrust enforcers are going to have to confront that fact," Khan said.
— With assistance by Dina Bass




Davey D Cook
hardknocks radio, kpfa, berkeley

Just hearing about yet another racially charged incident at Whole Foods on 27th street in Oakland... The latest involves a paying customer and editor of the Movement newspaper named Adam Turner..
He was recently eating lunch at WF when he saw a homeless person with mental health challenges in distress outside the store. Turner went over to help him..

The homeless man was having an episode when Turner saw a security guard and asked for assistance. The guard told him the only help needed was a call to 9-11. When Turner explained calling the police wasn't necessary, the guard cursed at him and told him to F-- Off..

When Turner told him his response was unprofessional, the guard pepper sprayed him and called him a f....N---..

This is the 3rd or 4th incident I've heard about over at Whole Foods.. What is going on with that place? Have other folks had similar encounters?? If this place has so much animosity toward patrons, why is it still in biz?
 · 
 The Movement Newspaper calls for boycott of white supremacist Oakland Whole Foods Market



The Movement Newspaper calls for an immediate boycott of the white supremacist Oakland Whole Foods Market on Bay Street @ Harrison, until the high priced market makes amends for the security guard's unprovoked pepper-spraying and verbal abuse of our Design Editor, Adam Turner. The Movement Newspaper, Voice of the Black Arts Movement International, has discussed the Boycott with Oakland NAACP officials, associates of the John Burris Law Firm, members of the New Black Panther Party or Raiders, the Revolutionary Communist Party and Greenlining Institute. We hope to meet with Black Lives Matter, Oakland Malcolm X Grassroots, Cat Brooks of the Police Anti-terror Project, and  Uncle Bobby of the Oscar Grant Committee.



We welcome the support of all social justice organizations.  If necessary, we will boycott Oakland Whole Foods until it is shut down for a pattern of racist behavior as  per North American Africans. Before the Adam Turner incident, July 17, 2017, there was an incident at the same store in which a North American African man was beaten unconscious by the security guard over a food stamp card.
Walter Riley is the lead attorney on this matter. We appreciate his life long civil rights and human rights work.
  If you and/or your organization would like to support this social justice project to eliminate white supremacy or make donations,  please call 510-200-4164. Power to the People!

--Marvin X, Publisher/Editor
The Movement Newspaper
mxjackmon@gmail.com


United Nations committee issues 'warning' over USA racial tension

UN racism committee issues 'warning' over US tensions
www.yahoo.com
Supporters of the Ku Klux Klan hold a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on July 8, 2017 to protest the planned removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee, who oversaw Confederate forces in the US Civil War (AFP Photo/ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS)
Geneva (AFP) - A UN committee tasked with combatting racism has issued a formal "early warning" over conditions in the United States, a rare move often used to signal the potential of a looming civil conflict.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said it had invoked its "early warning and urgent action procedure" because of the proliferation of racist demonstrations in the US.

It specifically noted the unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which a woman was killed after an avowed white supremacist ploughed his car into a group of anti-racism counterprotestors.

The racism committee, part of the UN human rights office, can issue a formal early warning to help prevent "existing problems from escalating into conflict" or to "prevent a resumption of conflict where it has previously occurred", according to the rights office website.

President Donald Trump has been widely criticised for his response to the Charlottesville clashes, after he said "both sides" were to blame for the violence.
The UN committee urged Washington, "as well as high-level politicians and public officials, to unequivocally and unconditionally reject and condemn racist hate speech", without mentioning Trump by name.

"We are alarmed by the racist demonstrations, with overtly racist slogans, chants and salutes by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan, promoting white supremacy and inciting racial discrimination and hatred," committee head Anastasia Crickley said in a statement.

The committee monitors compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which the US ratified in 1994.
The US warning marks the seventh such alert issued in the past decade.
They mainly concern countries gripped by ethnic and religious strife, including Burundi, Nigeria, Iraq and Ivory Coast.

Drama Review: Ayodele Nzinga's Growing Home




Review: Another ugly facet of racism drives ‘Beyond the Bars’ in Oakland





Lower Bottom Playaz
Stanley Hunt plays a young ex-con who’s bitter and resists attempts to seek positive steps 
forward in “Beyond the Bars: Growing Home.”

PUBLISHED:  | UPDATED: 
Racism has been in the news more than usual lately, as white supremacists organize marches in cities across the country and crowds of counter-protesters show up to oppose them. But there are a whole lot of folks entirely unsurprised at the white supremacist undercurrent in this country, because they’ve had to deal with it all their lives.
The new play by Oakland’s Lower Bottom Playaz, “Beyond the Bars: Growing Home,” points a spotlight on one longstanding aspect of institutional racism — the high incarceration rates of African-American men in this country. As the play points out, one in three black men becomes involved with the criminal justice system in the United States, and there are more African-American men incarcerated now than there were enslaved in 1850.
As one character in the play puts it, “The prisons replaced the plantations.” As another says, more forcefully still, “When have we ever been free?”
“Beyond the Bars” was written by Playaz founding director Ayodele Nzinga (who also directs and performs in the play) in collaboration with the formerly incarcerated, coming out of a series of story circles in which people shared their experiences. The play takes the form of a similar sort of circle — a support group for former prisoners to check in about how they’re doing.
They hardly ever mention any details about what’s going on in their lives, just generally how they’re feeling today, often using affirmations they seem to have learned to keep them on track. Bronche TaySon plays a gently upbeat moderator who never pushes but simply makes space for people to share.
In fact, pretty much everyone tries to keep things positive, from a young self-described freedom fighter (amiable Joshua Weary) to an old veteran of the criminal justice system who’s never going back again (smooth and stylishly dressed Edward Jackson Jr.). There’s a sense of camaraderie between all of them — the young man haunted by a revenge killing (open and forthright DeJon Grant), the philosophical old-timer (serene Reginald Wilkins), the diffident young man just trying to keep off drugs (quiet and unassuming Edward Jackson III).
The play gives you a good sense of where that sense of community comes from. It’s split into four scenes, each of them a different meeting. We watch them all file in together, grab folding chairs and sit in the same places each time, giving a sense of a familiar ritual.
A couple of new presences shake up the familiar ritual. One is a skeptical new addition to the group (sullen Stanley Hunt), a young man who doesn’t want to be there and thinks it’s all feel-good nonsense that doesn’t reflect the reality on the street. The other is more complicated. Nzinga portrays a researcher who sits in as a guest, solemnly asking provocative, metaphor-heavy questions that shake the group members out of their relentless optimism to face how bleak their prospects really are. Initially she says she wants to help them come home and stay home, but ultimately she seems to be working out some inner demons of her own.
There are moments when she and others rattle off sobering statistics, and a there couple of poetic monologues between the first few scenes, but for the most part the story stays grounded in the simple repetition of these meetings and this group of people conscientiously trying to get by and stay out of trouble as best they can.
Nzinga’s effectively no-frills staging is bracketed by two stirring music videos by Oakland hip-hop artist, filling up the blank back wall of the set. An unconventional way to open and close a play, these musical interludes provide a crucial bit of uplift coming out of a thought-provoking look at an intensely vexing topic.
Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.

‘BEYOND THE BARS: GROWING HOME’

By Ayodele Nzinga in collaboration with the formerly incarcerated, presented by the Lower Bottom Playaz
Through: Sep. 3
Where: The Flight Deck, 1540 Broadway, Oakland
Running time: 85 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $20-$45; www.lowerbottomplayaz.com