SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Hundreds of protesters gathered in Berkeley on Sunday for a “Rally Against Hate” in response to a planned right-wing protest that raised concerns of clashes and prompted a large police presence.
Police set up barricades around a city park where the right-wing rally billed “No to Marxism in America” and a counter protest were underway, with officers checking bags of people and warning them that a long list of items were banned — including baseball bats, dogs and skateboards and scarves or bandanas to cover their faces.
Counter protesters largely outnumbered right-wing supporters as the dueling protests began, with participants on both sides engaged in peaceful but tense exchanges.
Karla Fonseca, holding a sign that said “Together We Stand” yelled at Latino man holding a “God Bless Donald Trump” sign.
“You are an immigrant,” she said. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Several others also yelled at the man, who said he was born in Mexico but supports Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the southern border.
Another counter protest called the “Bay Area Rally Against Hate” took place Sunday on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, despite calls by university police for demonstrators to stay away.
The Berkeley rallies happened a day after a rally planned by a right-wing group fizzled amid throngs of counter-protesters in San Francisco. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee declared victory over a group he branded as inviting hate.
Berkeley is the city that gave birth to the 1960s Free Speech Movement but authorities refused to issue a permit allowing Sunday’s event. The city and campus have been the site of political clashes and violence over the past year.
Sunday’s organizer Amber Cummings, a transgender woman who is a supporter of President Donald Trump, has repeatedly denounced racism. Cummings canceled her event — saying that demonization by mayors in both cities and left-wing extremists made it impossible to speak out.
Cummings said she would be the sole attendee — but several supporters turned up anyway.
Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin urged counter-protesters to stay away.
Cummings has said on social media and in media interviews that Marxism is the real evil and that members of the anti-fascist movement are terrorists.
“I’m not safe to walk down the road with an American flag in this country,” she said to reporters in Berkeley last week.
Saturday’s event was organized by a group known as Patriot Prayer. Its leader Joey Gibson has also repeatedly disavowed racism. Asked Saturday whether he had any plans to go to Berkeley, Gibson, the leader of Patriot Prayer, said he would “analyze the situation.”
Student activism was born during the 1960s free-speech movement at Berkeley, when thousands of students at the university mobilized to demand that the school drop its ban on political activism.
However, the deadly confrontation in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12 during a rally of white supremacists led San Francisco police and civil leaders to rethink their response to protests.
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Associated Press writers Jocelyn Gecker, Janie Har and Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco contributed to this report.
I’d really like it some one would start a collection data sets on these people, and specifically what I want to know is age, race, gender, where they grew up, and what level of schooling they attained. I swear to God the No Child Left Behind was way too late (sarcasm).
PIEDMONT, CALIF.
The mayor of Piedmont in the San Francisco Bay Area has resigned after causing an uproar with what he calls “inflammatory or insulting” postings on Facebook.
Jeff Wieler stepped down as mayor of the tiny city on Sunday, although he’ll remain on the City Council member.
Wieler apologized in a letter to fellow council members.
At a council meeting last week, resident Conna McCarthy read what she claimed were Wieler postings that said: “Black Lives Matter encourages cop killing,” ''Democrats are the plantation slave masters of today" and “Transgenders are mentally ill.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article169685137.html#storylink=cpy
If you can’t stand Marxisms, you can leave in a huff. If that’s too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff.
…and what she was doing in my pajamas I’ll never know…
“I’m not safe to walk down the road with an American flag in this country,” she said to reporters in Berkeley last week.
Yeah, but not because you’re toting an American flag.
Probably meant the “real” American flag - you know, the one with the Blue X in the middle of it.