2000

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Destiny Lucero


Slam Bio

Green


Cherry


Flower


Soft

Teddy Bear

Ignacio

Big 2 story house


Live wit my ma, my 2 brothers, my sister

My grandpa’s death is a big struggle to me

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Tiny and Mari from POOR Magazine's Indigenous Peoples Media Project collaborated with Ras K' Dee (Pomo/Afrikan) from SNAG Magazine and Cassandra Yazzie (Dine') from Four Rivers Institute to lead the Native Hip Hop workshop at the Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe located on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation. The Workshop included Hip Hop writing, poetry, beat-making, film and consciousness training for young people 6-18. It was a very powerful exchange of intergenerational knowledge, culture, art and indigenous resistance on occupation, land, poverty and de-colonization. Here is some of the written pieces.

Editors Note: Last week Cassandra Yazzie was killed in an automobile crash. All of us are extremely saddened by her loss and are dedicating this issue of POOR Magazine to her beautiful spirit.

November's PNN radio and Bay Native Circle on KPFA are also dedicated to her memory and family. Mari from Indigenous Peoples Media Project has wrote an article in honor of her at http://poormagazine.org/index.cfm?L1=news&category=35&story=2399

by Staff Writer

Communities from up and down the West Coast will converge in San Francisco to demonstrate our immense energy and BE THE CHANGE this administration needs to do what is right. Shoulder to shoulder we will take the necessary steps to win affordable housing and civil rights for everyone! For two days we will organize, dance, evoke the vision and spirit of MLK, Jr. and grow the movement for social justice.

January 20, 2010 marks the one-year anniversary of the Obama Administration. He came to power through a powerful grassroots campaign movement. That movement – driven by hope and change – has foundered on business as usual in DC.

We do know that change can come quick, just look at the +700 billion of taxpayer's dollars that went to bail out Wall Street. What did those most in need get? $1.5 billion in Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing funds! The change barometer reads: little to no change.

Organize or Die!

What are the consequences of these priorities? 39.8 million people living below the poverty line (17 million people in “deep poverty”), a 26-year high unemployment rate, 46.3 million uninsured people, and 49 million people who face food insecurity. Homelessness is up 12 percent in cities across the country.

In response to this growing crisis, many local governments and business improvement districts have created programs that force growing numbers of poor people out of gentrifying or neglected neighborhoods and into jails.

From anti-homeless loitering, sitting, and sleeping laws to immigration checks at health programs and public schools to arrest histories in public housing and employment, we must stop this pattern of oppression and demand our human rights. It's quite simple: organize or die!

by Staff Writer

Unity government is a watercolour government
It is a government that’s home to
Ministers and ministries without power
Like coded storylines of untested identity
Within the within is the same, only smaller here
It is its absolute refusal to doubt itself
That hustles us along to our hazardous fringes
Little by little, the big black lies
Strangling the music of our hopes

It is the oppressor’s music ruminating in
The vestiges of our now clogged minds
Stories of false hope bound together
In stoic controversies and contradictions
By two actors seeking out unearned recognition
Leading us astray is this liberal hypocrisy
Just a dialectical change

Hope in Zimbabwe is knit with lives lost
And plaited into a pattern of suffering
Hope afraid of unbraiding the past
Waits for others to undo the knots
The unmaking of our old pains
Whose intricate designs and clever joints
We have mistakenly re-knotted again
Hope acts the fool here, don’t see
Or we don’t want to believe what we are seeing

In Harare north, they still swim in harmless pools
Designing for our dreams
We swim in hunger drenched streets of Chitungwiza
Here they only listen for our voices of dissent
For if they hear us they would kill us with their guns
So we now talk silently like the empty skies
Our very bones hears the sounds of our silent weeping

Each night the empty plates from which we eat
Will be the fields from which you will harvest
New harvests without the words “silent diplomacy.”
And at night we crash into nightmares, thinking
That this deck of misfortune that we have re-created
Would keep shoving us to keep fighting
For the horizons are still ours
But we wish the sun would soften a thousand times over

Unity government is just what it is
Or pieces of what it should be
It is the way you live within it
That makes it unworkable for you
As if it’s a map you can read only once
But feel like you have read it many times
Because you cannot forget it
Whether you want to, or not

It is stinking masks of skeletons full of odour
It is a street-named “government of national unity.”
On a broken down stage called “Zimbabwe.”
It is like bits of old jokes without the laughter
But snarls like jumbled half-bars of remembered music

It is just an illusion, a dilution process
So let’s not shift our minds in reverse
Let’s not fall prey to this new resurrection
A master’s rendition, a repetition of 1987
Just another history waiting to be re-written
Through another trough of empty spaces of time.

by FELICIA FONSECA, Associated Press Writer

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn a water discharge permit for a controversial coal mining operation in northern Arizona pending public hearings.

The EPA's decision on the permit for Peabody Energy's Black Mesa mine complex comes after an appeal by environmentalists, who contend the discharge of heavy metal and pollutants threatens water sources that nearby Navajo and Hopi communities depend on for drinking, farming and ranching. Dave Smith, water permits manager in the EPA's San Francisco office, said Thursday that the agency believes the permit is solid but wanted to provide an opportunity for further public comment.

"Our job is to focus on the Clean Water Act piece of this right now and whether the water discharges have significant effects, and to make sure they are adequately controlled," he said.

Peabody's five-year water discharge permit went into effect Oct. 1. With the withdrawal, the EPA said Peabody can continue operating on a previous permit that expired in 2006 but has been administratively extended.

Peabody spokeswoman Beth Sutton called the environmentalists' claims frivolous and said the company has a record of compliance with the Clean Water Act. The mining will continue in a "business as usual fashion" and Peabody will maintain best practices to assure good water quality, she said.

PONDS HAVE LEAKS

The mining complex that includes the Black Mesa and Kayenta mines sits on nearly 65,000 acres that Peabody leases from the Navajo and Hopi tribes and has been in operation since the 1970s. Coal from the Kayenta mine supplies the Navajo Generating Station near Page. The Black Mesa mine supplied the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev., until the power plant was shuttered in 2005.

Water discharge that includes storm water and runoff from mining, coal preparation and reclamation areas is held in more than 230 ponds at the mining complex. About 33 have leaks, and the EPA has said some of those don't meet water quality standards, need additional monitoring or need removal.

The EPA said many of the ponds are internal and used for treatment and storage. About 111 ultimately discharge to the Little Colorado River system through a series of washes and tributaries.

NEW PERMIT AN IMPROVEMENT

Stephen Etsitty, executive director of the Navajo Nation EPA, said the new permit was an improvement over the last, including new regulatory requirements for reclamation areas and revisions to monitoring plans. He said the Navajo EPA's monitoring of discharge in the mine area hasn't raised any red flags.

"We're pretty confident in what's contained in the permit is going to withstand any additional preview," he said. "We're just hopeful that this doesn't drag out the process of putting a necessary permit in place."

Environmentalists commended the EPA for reconsidering the permit and said the action would force Peabody to comply with the Clean Water Act. It also will give the EPA a chance to remedy what they say has been environmental injustice.

"The tribal groups know the heavy metal and pollutants are affecting their livestock and ecological community," said Amy Atwood, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. "We need to see EPA disclosing what those impacts are, where they are occurring, and in the process, find a better way to contain them."

The EPA initially denied a request to hold a public hearing on the permit. Smith said the agency reconsidered in light of the appeal and will hold two such hearings next year on the Hopi and Navajo reservations.

"We do not prejudge," he said. "That's why we have public hearings. If we need to adjust the permit, we will."

This article was reprinted from the Associated Press and is intended only for educational purposes.

by Bruce Allison and Thornton Kimes/PNN

The Governor’s 4 crazy ideas (restricting in-home care workers to the state and/or local minimum wage; family members banned from being in-home care workers for relatives; banning convicted felons from being in-home care workers; physical incapacity is okay, being a hoarder/clutterer isn’t enough for in-home care) have been zapped with a restraining order. Peter E. Sheehan, of The Social Justice Law Project requested the restraining order on behalf of Mark Beckwith and others.

The case will be heard in the Superior Court in Oakland, CA, January 29th, 2010, by Judge of the Superior Court Frank Roesch, at 9a.m., unless a possible move to a friendlier court (Lake County is, in this elder poverty scholar’s opinion, high on the list of anti in-home care worker “friendly” spots for a venue move) happens. Otherwise, get there early to get a good seat!

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote on a resolution to ban finger printing of elders and their in-home care providers, and unannounced visits by “fraud cops”, on December 19th, 2009 at the Public Services Committee meeting. Call the Clerk of the Board of Supes for information on the time of the meeting. Some elders (including cancer patients) have lost their fingerprints due to medication side effects. Age also wears out some folks’ fingerprints.

The most common discovery of in-home care clients’ “fraud” by investigators is in the range of 75 cents to $2 per month due to age-related deterioration of math skills and memory problems. This elder poverty scholar is not aware of any in-home care client with an gazillion dollar off-shore bank account generating giant sucking sounds from the taxpayers of California.

Stayed tuned to the Bad Bruce Channel for more updates.

A note from Thornton Kimes. Governor Schwarzenegger appeared at a Bay Area food bank the week of December 7th- 11th, 2009, to ask everyone to do their part for poor people. I’m amazed my television didn’t turn blue, the words I was saying. The unbelieveable chutzpah and high-order irony factor certainly should have.

Maria Shriver, “the Wifeinator”, who has been challenged by many asking her to confront her husband about his budget cuts hurting the poor (and in-home health care clients) more than anyone else in California, recently hosted another of her annual conferences celebrating women. Women have been threatened and/or hurt more than anyone, yet the Wifeinator said no. I’m hoping people remember this in 2010 when Maria wants folks to be happy campers about yet another of her annual conferences.

by Staff Writer

How much longer will Motlanthe
allow migrants like hearing a song’s end
and see Mugabe's corpses
swarming through Limpopo river.

Corpses scrambling out of Zimbabwe
gasping for fresh air, while South Africans
squirm from this encroaching pestilence.
Some of which makes it to high ground.

But what habitation, what work
will they find? Only a few
melting through to the top.
And the rest, is a frigid motley-lot.

Huddled along the tarred roads.
Waiting for a day's cleaning job
or to fix and fit, load and unload
some rich man’s looty-booty.

Crowds standing shoulder to shoulder
under the bright southern sun.
Their browned shaggy bodies
can't support them against ridicule.

Political and economic refugees
migrating into an alien culture.
Where scrambling wars are the norm
and greedy officials feasts upon them.

Now, too far from home.
Doomed to be butchered
by black South Africans' melting impatience
and negrophobia(xenophobia) fangs.

by Lizzy

In the Silence, we pray to our Creator

The words that came out, shows what our sister love is all about

The love, caring, and respect we have for one another

Dancing in a circle with our people

Each time our feet touch the earth, the drumbeat bangs with a celebrating sound.

by Teresa Molina/PNN Voces de Inmigrante en Resistencia

Scroll Down for English

La mañana estaba fría y afilada, mientras yo, una inmigrante trabajadora, madre y reportera de Voces de Inmigrantes en Resistencia en Prensa POBRE estaba parada entre cientos de trabajadores emigrantes en San Francisco City Hall mas temprano en este mes en solidaridad con todos los trabajadores de la nación luchando por justicia--luchando para ser pagados por nuestro trabajo--peleando la epidemia del robo de sueldos. Todos est·bamos emocionados que nuestra voz sea escuchada, hacen acto de presencia y que miles y miles de empleadores que no han pagado sus trabajadores, algunos desde el 2006 seran puestos a la luz. Estos empleadores han motivado la epidemia del robo de sueldo.

Hilary Ronen de La Raza Centro Legal dice que esta acción y protesta fue dada porque, "ay una epidemia del robo de sueldo!". En esta manifestación, estuvieron presente como ochenta personas, y varias organizaciones, como La Colectiva de Mujeres, La Raza Centro Legal, POWER, MUA, Filipinos por Acción Afirmativa, La Asociación Progresiva de Chinos, Filipinos Community Center, Young Workers United, y Prensa POBRE.

Muchos de los empleados injustos no les pagan a sus empleados, o les pagan lo que les da la gana. No es justo porque estos empleados criminales, ponen a trabajar a las personas horas extras y no lo reconocen, y no les dan descansos; y los abusos siguen sin parar. Los patrones abusivos siguen explotando al trabajador, y este problema no solo se enfocan en la industria de trabajadoras domesticas o jornaleros, también se han visto afectadas las personas que trabajan en hoteles, cuidadoras de niños, y trabajadores de restaurante. Por eso estamos aquí, reclamando al gobierno para que se haga justicia. Que ajusten a los empleadores que no pagan y que los arresten. Ya basta! Que cumplan con las leyes porque no estamos haciendo respetados. Somos los que hacemos los trabajos mas peores y mas pesados.

Todos aqui presentes, de cualquier modo expresamos los abusos que pasamos con nuestros patrones. Uno de ellos es Julio Loyola, un jornalero del Day Laborer Program, quien expreso sus sentimientos hacia los abusos de los jornaleros, "que nos han puesto a trabajar y los exponen a quÌmicos peligrosos y los ponen a trabajar sin equipo de protección, y aparte le roban su sueldo."

Al preguntarle a Hilary Ronen, una abogada de La Raza Centro Legal, ìcuales son sus esperanzas al tener esta manifestación?" ella respondió, "espero que la cuidad se envolviera mas en recursos y hacer cumplir a los patrones de San Francisco sobre las leyes laborarles. Es ley que todo trabajador debe recibir su sueldo independientemente de su estatus migratorio."

Aqui en prensa POBRE estamos cansados de la injusticia y es la razon que salimos a luchar. Porque si no luchamos no seremos escuchados, porque nadie va luchar por nosotros. Con la unidad siempre ganaremos! Solos no podemos.

Unete Pueblo a la Lucha!

Ingles sigue

The morning was cool and sharp, as I, a migrant worker, mother and reportera for Voces de Inmigrantes en Resistencia at POOR Magazine stood with hundreds of migrant workers at San Francisco City Hall earlier this month in solidarity with workers all across the nation struggling for justice – struggling to be paid for our work- fighting the epidemic of “wage theft. We were all excited that our voices would be heard, and that thousands of employers who have not paid their poor workers, some since as far back as 2006, would be brought forth today. These employers have fueled the epidemic of wage theft.

Hilary Ronen, from La Raza Centro Legal, said that this action and protest took place because, “wage theft has become an epidemic!” There were many powerful community organizations present such as, La Colectiva de Mujeres, La Raza Centro Legal, POWER, MUA, Filipinos for Affirmative Action, Chinese Progressive Movement, Filipinos Community Center, Young Workers United, and POOR Magazine.

Many of the unjust employers have not paid wages, or they pay them whatever they want. It is not fair, because these criminal employers make the workers work overtime, then do not recognize the hours or they do not give the workers any days off; and the abuses continue without a stop. The abuse employers continue to exploit the worker, and this is not a problem that only focuses on domestic workers or day laborers, but it also extends to hotel workers, nannies and restaurant workers. This is why we are here, to demand the government in order to seek justice. Arrest the employers who do not pay their workers. Ya Basta! Enough! We are not being respected and these employers are not abiding with the law. We are the ones that do the heaviest and dirtiest jobs.

All of us present, in one way or another expressed the abuse we have endured with our employers. One of these people is Julio Loyola, a day laborer from the Day Laborer Program, who expressed his feelings about the abuse that many day laborers face, “that they put them to work exposing them to dangerous chemicals and they make them work without any protective equipment, and they still steal their salary.”

After asking Hilary Ronen, a lawyer from La Raza Centro Legal, “What are your hopes in having this protest?” she responded, “I hope that The City gets involved with more resources and make the employers abide by the labor laws of San Francisco. It is law that all worker gets paid for their work independent of their immigration status.”

Here at POOR Magazine we are tired of such injustice and it is the reason we are out here resisting. If we do not resist we will not be heard, because no one else is going to fight our struggles. With unity we will always win! Alone we cannot win.

Community Unite and Join the Struggle!

by Staff Writer

Our nightmares starts
Out of “there is no cholera in Zimbabwe”
Out of the dead men from cholera
Out of the dead women from HIV Aids
Out of the dead children from hunger
Out of the dead young adults from political killings
Out of little children become war soldiers
Out of the vengeance of Mugabe’s CIO
Out of the beast ZANUPF, police and army
Out of a country now locked in political gridlocks

Out of the lunatic moans of Mugabe against Britain
Out of the lunatic bile of Mugabe against the west
Out of the forthcoming breakdown due to this defiance
Out of cry songs that now stains the whole region
Out of the stench of South Africa’s silent diplomacy
Out of the stench of SADC and Africa’s denial
Out of a conspiring humanity
Out of this chaos is a journey that leads across Limpopo River.

We are footfalls walking through the dense forest
So many frontiers that we have crossed
So many shadows of so many at one side
And our silenced dreams on the other side.

The raven’s voice falls silent in the darkened leaves
The trees are the only ones who pray for themselves
For the moon always passes on top of them
And in the dark nights we wait for the moon
To tell us to venture into the hungry crocodiles in Limpopo
And I can see their red tongues stretching out
To lick the slime of our yoke and blood.

We are another one among these marauding herds
Limpopo River is now a mixture of silt, blood, bones and scars
Where other traumatised adults giggle chorus of grief
And every anguished cry feed these fat crocodiles
We are now bones within this river’s churn
Soon fish will have to negotiate us.

by Muteado Silencio/PNN Voces de inmigrantes en resistencia

Espanol debajo

“The wealthy landowners that came to today’s hearing are worried that developers will not want to invest in San Francisco real estate because there will be more restrictions if this law passes, shows how little they care about the people that keep them in business, tenants! This legislation is not about developers it is about renting families!”, this comment was said by person wanting to remain anonymous who I met at Monday’s Just Cause Eviction hearing in San Francisco

He concluded, “I say f**k them!, they want to turn the City into a place only for rich people who can afford to buy a condo”

At Monday’s hearing by the San Francisco City Council’s Land Use Committee tenants packed the hearing room. POOR magazine was there in solidarity with advocates wanting to protect tenants from unjust evictions, along with tenants rights organizations throughout San Francisco, including: Senior Action Network, Community Housing Partnership, SF Tenants Union, Eviction Defense Collaborative, Chinatown Community Development Corp, Housing Rights Committee of SF, Tenants Together, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center and St. Peter’s Housing Committee.

This legislation, sponsored by Supervisor John Avalos, will extend “just cause” protections to tenants living in properties built after 1979, thus extending the SF Rent Ordinance to cover all buildings from unjust evictions.

In addition to tenants and their advocates, the hearing room was full of people in suits, property owners, elders from all walks of life and class, all wanting to be part of the hearing and to voice their opinions and concerns.

Tammy Hung, senior community organizer spoke in favor of the amendment to the ordinance, asking members of Chinatown Community development Center the organization she was representing, to stand up in support, thus showing a strong presence in support to this legislation.

After the hearing, I interviewed Sara Shortt from Housing Rights Committee on camera to ask her more details on the legislation.

As I finished this article today I learned that Mayor Gavin Newsom is planning to veto the legislation that was approved at Monday’s hearing because it would make it tougher for landlords to evict tenants living in an estimated 20,000 rental units in The City.

Call the Mayors office in San Francisco (415) 554-7111 to express your opinions on his proposed veto of the Just Cause ordinance AND and Supervisor Bevan Dufty (415) 554-6968 for his support on this veto

Espanol Sigue

“Los ricos propietarios que estuvieron presente están preocupados que la gente no quiera ‘invertir’ en San Francisco por las restricciones que habrá si esta ley pasa, enseña lo poco que les importa la gente que les da para comer, los inquilinos”, este comentario fue dicho por una persona que quiere mantenerse anónimo quien conocí en la audiencia sobre el desalojo de Causa Justa que hubo en San Francisco el lunes.

La persona anónima, concluyo diciendo, “que se jodan! Quieren convertir la cuidad en condominios y solo para la gente rica que tiene el dinero para comprarlos.”

En la audiencia que ocurrió el lunes por el comité del Uso de Tierra por el Cónsul de la cuidad de San Francisco había muchos inquilinos en el cuarto. Prensa POBRE estaba ahí en solidaridad con grupos que quieren proteger los inquilinos de desalojos injustos a la par de: Senior Action Network, Community Housing Partnership, SF Tenants Union, Eviction Defense Collaborative, Chinatown Community Development Corp, Housing Rights Committee of Sf, Tenants Together, Bernal Heights Neighrhood Center y St Peters Housing Committee.

Esta legislación propuesta por el Supervisor John Avalos, extenderá la “causa justa” protecciones a inquilinos que vivan en propiedades construidas después de 1979, y con esto extenderá la ordenanza del inquilino de San Francisco para cubrir a los edificios de los desalojos injustos.

Con la adición de los inquilinos el cuarto donde tomo lugar la audiencia estuvo lleno de organizadores comunitarios, gente que la legislación beneficiará, gente en trajes, propietarios, ancianos de diferentes caminos de vida y clases, para tomar parte de la audiencia para opinar.

Tammy Hung, una organizadora comunitaria hablo a favor de la ordenanza y les pidió a sus miembros de Centro de Desarrollo de Chinatown, que se levantaran en apoyo, donde tuvieron una gran presencia en apoyo.

Después de la audiencia entreviste a Sara Shortt de Housing Rights Committee en camara, para preguntarle mas detalles de la legislación.

Me estaba preparando a publicar este articulo cuando me informaron de un articulo en el SF Examiner escrito por Mike Aldax, donde dice “ el alcalde Gavin Newsom botara la legislación que haría mas difícil el desalojamiento de una estimación de 20,000 unidades rentables en la cuidad, según la oficina del Mayor.

Llame la oficina del Alcalde en San Francisco (415) 554-7111 para expresar sus opiniones sobre su negacion de la ordenanza"causa justa" Y el Supervisor Bevan Dufty (415) 554-6968 por apoyar el Alcalde

by Leroy Moore, Darla Lennox, Maria Palacios, Zilwood, Tiny

Krip-Hop Kripmas Karol will be an international project and that means artists, writers, poets and musicians with disabilities and allies from around the world are welcome to send in their pieces.

Kripmas Karols form Around the World by artists, poets & musicians with disabilities and allies. Throughout 2010 Krip-Hop Nation will be asking for more poets, writers and musicians with disabilities to send their poems, songs lyrics, jingles etc to us to make a small pamphlet for the 2010 Holiday season. This is why, how it will work and what we’re looking for:

Why: Every Holiday season (December) mainstream media uses a charity frame to make people give and most of the times it is people who are poor, elderly and people with disabilities that are caught up in this frame with no voice. We have all seen it: “Serving the Homeless!” or “Toys for the Disabled!” And the list\framing goes on. So Poor Magazine & Krip-Hop Nation wants to help in taking back that frame with our own Christmas carols what we call Kripmas Karols. You don’t have to be a person with a disability to be involved with this project but u do need to spit/write some activist lyrics, poems, jingles ect.

What to submit: Original poems, songs, jingles, short stories with an hardcore activist message about the ways we are used as pity and charity during the holiday season are welcome. The goal is to flip the pity/charity message with our own Christmas carol, song, poem, story and whatever. Email them to Leroy Moore at kriphopproject@yahoo.com. Although this project will be ongoing there are two deadlines: 1) The end of Jan. 2010 to promote through the Internet to get more artists and (2) September 2010 to go to print for the 2010 Holidays. Krip-Hop Nation will try to send each artist a copy of the small pamphlet. The pamphlet will be used for education purposes and not for sale. Your rights to your piece stays with you and you can publish your piece elsewhere. Krip-Hop Nation only ask if you do publish your piece elsewhere just to mention it was printed for Krip-Hop Kripmas pamphlet of 2010. With your permission Krip-Hop Nation & Poor Magazine would like to also post your Krip-Hop Kripmas Karols on social network sites like Face book, MySpace and on Poor Magazine Site.

If you’re down then drop me an email at kriphopproject@yahoo.com Include your name, title of the piece, your email address and date when the piece was written and where are you located.

by Staff Writer

Consider this pinpoint of entry at Beitbridge

And loose control to the neurosis of this border

To paper passports, rubber stamps and ink

That simply professes where one belongs

Consider also the money-mongering border-man

Maybe he is trying to uphold the order of things

Maybe he is trying to survive through this order of things.



The order of things is now more stunning

That when they were running out of their country

Nobody showed anyone passports, rubber stamps and ink

Entries and exits were at every point

Without this stunning awareness of this border

So time, like water, flows away and is soon forgotten

And the raven shivers into the wind at this point of entry.



From a breathe of a connection

From the brutality of denying this connection

From borders become electric walls

From bonds broken by borders

From standing all day long at border post counters

From standing all day long at home affairs offices



From laws made to make us feel illegal

From eyes which tell which land belongs to which people

From sleeping all night long in tall birch trees

From a pack of hungry lions

From a pack of border-gangsters, hyenas and wild dogs.



The voices are still coming up from the river

The river roars into our ears one song

Of the history of a people who have lost their way

Over and over again.



It is a hammer’s job that trampled the place we were born

Our country is now a bleeding wound that cannot contain us

But in the looking we discover the absence of blood

Whilst we stumble along this mad road

Of becoming citizens in another country

And being fully human some day.



So we live in a remembered sorrow

The lost ones are like this-an unborn soul

The ones left alone, humankind’s bastard daughter

Just a colourless corpse!



It is an African phenomenon, I tell you

It is the thing that has come out of all of Africa

Like an imitation of an imitation

But always pretending to ourselves

What selves, I ask you

Broken men, broken women, broken children

Broken, broken, broken, broken, broken.

by Lisa Gray-Garcia/PNN

When I read with terror and disbelief about the proposed Gang Tours of Los Angeles, I was reminded of the well-meaning, neo-liberal, writer of the early 20th century, Charles Dickens, who launched a deadly media-based campaign of poor people fetishizing when he toured, surveyed, studied and reported on the Manhattan tenements a.k.a the dwellings/residences/ roofs of thousands of poor immigrants in the New York at the turn of the century. When Dickens published his report in the New York Times which became instrumental in the displacement of thousands of poor people out of New York, he characterized the tenements as deplorable cesspools. The subsequent demolitions of thousands of buildings in New York housing poor folks was for our own good, the social workers, city planners and real estate speculators told us, for the betterment of us seething, unwashed masses of poor people, unable to care for ourselves, speak for ourselves, or think for ourselves, our children or our homes.. Silenced people they were, we are, intentionally unheard , talked about, studied, gazed upon, critiqued and researched.

To be fair Dickens didnt invent poor people/indigenous people fetishizing, we have anthropology, ethnography, politicians and psychiatry to thank for that since the beginning of time. From Daniel Moynihan pathologizing , single, African descendent, mother headed households as broken, which led to the criminalizing welfare codes we welfare dependent mamas struggle with today to the poverty tours of favelas in Brazil people have been speaking for, studying on, and talking about poor people without ever really listening to us, talking with us, or properly compensating us for our images and knowledge for hundreds of years, but nowadays we have reality shows, tourism, corporate media and the non-profit industrial complex to truly progress us all into the complete and utter zoo-ifying of us poor people of color or as my fellow PNN poverty and migrant scholar Muteado Silencio says, "We are not animals in the 'hood."

And in the case of the bizarre, wrong-headed-ness of the LA Gang Tours and its non-profit organization of the same name, once again it is staffed by well-meaning advocates who aim to Save Lives, Create Jobs and Rebuild Communities, as their tag-line says. We are told by staffers and their corporate and non-corporate advocates that bus tours through gritty, neighborhoods peopled by poor youth of color caught up in violence, drugs and poverty, is for our own good. It will bring us jobs and opportunities and hope.

One of the many oxymoronic aspects of this concept is the notion, just like Dickens reported, that our neighborhoods, our communities, our corners, our schools, and our homes, are crazy, dirty, sick, disgusting and must be cleaned up, cleaned out and eradicated, hygienic metaphors about humans scattered about with impunity. And the complete and utter disregard for the fact that in everyone of these so-called, blighted neighborhoods, filthy apartment buildings and poor people schools, homes and communities, there are families and elders and children of color who are living, thriving, learning, and resisting. There are heroes, and leaders, and lecturers and healers, and dreamers and teachers, and poets and artists, revolutionaries and scholars. And it is only the people who have engaged in philanthropy pimping, colonized learning and formal institutions of helping that get honored, recognized and listened to for their heroism, beauty, power and agency.

It is the reason that POOR Magazine launched the PeopleSkool and promotes the notion of poverty scholarship. It is the reason we launched PoorNewsNetwork/PNN and a non-heirarchal form of media creation based on indigenous teachings and eldership. It is why we create our own research and up-end all forms of institutional domination. It is the reason we resist the notion that there is only one form of legitimate education, research and media production.

Try raising a child in poverty with very little money and almost no support, try taking care of an elder, or keeping your family fed, try healing outside of the western Medical industrial complex. Try eating well in the hood or being endlessly po'lice harassed, racially profiled and messed with. These things happen and they dont happen. Heroism happens, beauty happens, art happens, violence happens, just like it does everywhere.

Last year when I did a walk-through of the Tenement museum of New York, I learned that several hundred extremely poor mothers and fathers of 9 and 10 children managed to raise and feed and clothe their children with no indoor plumbing in a room the size of a closet. Try doing that. Tell me that mama or daddy isnt a hero, a scholar.

My poor single mama of color raised me alone in several of the neighborhoods slated for gang tours. In our Compton, Wilmos, East LA neighborhoods, we had gangs, which arguably were many more things than one colonized notion of violence, but we also had tamale vendors, muralists, break-dancers, poets, micro-business people, hip hop DJ's, low-rider car-art, lovers, grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles and aunties.

I started this piece by saying I had terror in my heart about the gang tours, but be clear its not terror for the poor, unsuspecting tourist, default colonizers and 21st century missionaries, stumbling and trampling over our communities and cultures as the well-meaning gang tours commence, rather, its terror for the residents of the proposed tour sites, and so I caution all of the community members, families and young people to hold on carefully to their purses, wallets, belongings, poetry, art and scholarship, cause, well, you know how dangerous those tourists can be.

by Staff Writer

Even though Eagles always have choices

In the great wide circles

Above and below them

But they never fight the wind!



Out of road bridges, tents and shack-towns

Out of refugee camps and dirty bins

Out of ghost towns

Our ghosts burns inside us with guilt

Out of the neon-glimmer of uptowns

Out of girls become bitches to survive

Out of fear, anger and poisoned hearts

Out of men became killing bastards

Out of the cold shivers of winter nights

Out of fires, floods and lives lost

Out of empty shells, empty lives, and empty beings

Out of traps sprung by the police on foreigners

Out of police trucks ferrying us back to Zimbabwe.



The policeman’s gun is pointing at me

His partner is picking on me

Curious animals sniffing for a bribe

This illegal war against immigrants

Breeds unfettered patriotism of citizens against foreigners.



They want to crack our skulls

They want to burn us alive

Laugh and rejoice around our dead

They want to kill every foreigner

Cut cords from our bellies

Suck blood from our corpses

They want to eat our flesh

They want to rape our women

Step on our babies

They want to dig our graves

And burn our bones

So that we cannot live anymore

Cannot die again

Cut of in our prime.





Our weakness is an affront to them

Always being quantified, measured

And tagged Makwerekwere, Makwerekwere.

Maybe next time they would grind us into flour

Package and distribute us

And I think it would be more-instructive

More efficient, more cost-effective.

by Nube FC

Scroll down for English

Sobre el sonido de differentes voces, realize mi identidad, soy raza, queer, indigena, y migrante pero estoy muy conectado con todas otras luchas. Fue un domingo en la tarde y hubo una llamada para la unidad de gente queer y gente que es assosiada con nosotros. La junta fue acerca de la muerte de un joven Puerto Riqueno que fue asesinado y brutalizado por un crimen de odio en Puerto Rico; discussiones, enojo, coraje, tristesa, fuerza, y fe estuvieron presente cuando nos juntamos y conmemoramos la lucha de gente queer de color en el cuarto pequeno para planear una vigilia el domingo.

La semana de la vigilia, Domingo 22, siguio con un dia fuerte en el east bay que seria capturada y recordada por la collectiv@ y fuerza de gente increible y companer@s en solidaridad retomando el dia con amor y lucha. La apertura fue presentada por un Abuel@ Apache (Mescalero) y Huichol llamado Benny, un residente, organizador de la communidad, y una persona indigena en la area de la Bahia. La apertura de la ceremonia abrio lo que fuera un dia increible de lecciones de defensa personal, experiensas, y memoriales para differente gente de la communidad que habian muerto por acciones de odio contra gente queer (lgbtiqq).

Cultivando estas experiensias y reflecionando estas battallas llamo a mucha gente queer en la area de la bahia, para discutir los temas. Un problema que fue presentado fue la criminalizacion y que encarselar a la gente no es sufficiente para parar las acciones de odio. Nuestra combinacion de identidad como gente queer, gente trans, gente pobre, gente de color, y otras cosas fueron causas por la que el joven Jorge fue assesinado por homofobia. Todas estas cosas que pasan en nuestra sociedad desde la musica hasta el medio es causa por la cual vivimos en estas condiciones, que hace que la identidad de un hombre blanco que es gay sea la unica forma de identificar a gente queer en esta sociedad. Por esta razon no podemos contar en el sistema judicio para terminar y resolver estos hechos de odio y muertes. Necesitamos cambiar con entendimiento de esto y presentarlos a nuestr@s communidades. Es acaso que traer mas policia, legislasion y encarlamiento es suficiente?

Esta demonstracion de solidaridad trajo muchas propuestas de resistencia. Una de ellas fue que porque vivimos en un systema transfobico y misonogista, la justicia criminal solo es una parte y forma que crea oppression. Este pasado Domingo 22 trajo solidaridad y resistensia con gente de la East Bay y con mucha gente de los estados unidos, atrallendo communidades y movimientos juntos.

Este evento represento la lucha que ha formado por cientos de anos entre gente queer, gente de color, gente pobre, y otr@s. Nuestra liberacion esta basada en solidaridad, fuerza, esperanza, y inspiracion atraves de fronteras y luchas. Y esta vigilia represento el principio de unidad y accion con la gente que apoyo la vigilia.

Ingles sigue

Through the sounds of different voices, I realized I am brown, queer, indigenous, and a migrant, but I am united among struggles. It was late afternoon and there was a call for unity amongst queer folks and allies. The meeting dealt with the direct action as a response of the death of a young Puerto Rican kid who was brutally mutilated and killed because of a transphobic hate crime in Puerto Rico; discussion, anger, rage, sadness, strength, and faith resided while we gathered and commemorated the struggle of queers of color and queers in general in the small room in order to bring forth a vigil that would lead to rememberance and resistencia.

The week of the vigil, Sunday the 22nd, took forth as a day when the east bay would remember and capture the collective force of amazing queer folk and allies taking back the day with love and “lucha” (fighting back). The opening was presented by an Apache (Mescalero) and Huichol Elder named Benny, long time resident, community organizer, and indigenous ceremonial person in the Bay Area. The beginning of the ceremony opened what would be an amazing day of self defense lessons, experiences, memorials for different community folk who have past away from this battle, and unity amongst the east bay.

Cultivating these experiences, and reflecting on the struggles presented to queers in the bay brought many discussions to be talked on. One of them is the problem that incarceration and criminalization are not good enough. Our combinations of identity as queer people, trans people, poor people, people of color, and other things that have singled out Jorge as targets of homophobia are presented to us in everyday matter, from mainstream music to a socialized, “white male” gay identity; because of this we can not rely on the judicial system to be an end to these hate crimes and murders. We need a real change strating with awareness of these hate crimes that present themselves to our communities. Does increased policing, legislation, and imprisonment feel like justice?

This demonstration of solidarity brought many statements of resistance. One of them being that because of this transphobic misogynistic system we live in, criminal justice is just one of the tools that creates systems of oppression. That is why Sunday the 22nd brought a day of solidarity and resistance amongst east bay people and around the united states, bridging communities and movements alike.

This event represented struggle that has taken part for hundreds of years amongst queers, people of color, poor folks, and others. Our self determination is based on solidarity, strength, hope, and inspiration across borders and struggles. This vigil represented the beginning of unity and action amongst those presented.

by Staff Writer

From the loneliness of this time

From yesterday, today, tomorrow

From this hour, this minute, this second

From what might have been

From gazing at dreams rotting in the sun

From the need of closure from our illegal ourselves

From time served being refugees but still unwanted

From an echo of ourselves that no longer exist.



This poem is the soft call of one lonely raven

That has lost her loved birth-ones

It is the voice of reason in times of pestilence

It is the voice of the spirit that left luggage

And bundles of bones in Limpopo River

It is the voice of flesh and blood that sustains

Fish and crocodiles in Limpopo

Year in, year out

It is the voice of the badger swallowing in grief

It is the voice of the raccoon chocking in blame.



It maybe is too late for us

To start our own definition

This is not the life we dreamt of

But it is the life we have

For life at this place is called

Everyone’s life is a burden

And the raven has left us to our disastrous methods



No one ever listens to us

So give me all your fears

Let me hold all your sorrows in my heart

This poem is yours

To harvest that which has been lost

To smell the heat still rising in our birth place

We are the way to the way it used to be

Foreigners in a new place, still waiting

Waiting for light, space and time



I know you are a whisper, a word, a song

Thrumming in the heartbeat of your own heart

Laughter shouting red blossoms into the wind

Greeting the sun, the moon, the stars

Resounding like ram’s horns in the synagogues of our souls

Melodies bridging over the abyss of this suffering

Let’s dream together like two wings of the same bird

Being carried away on the shoulder of these notes

Here is my voice that cannot sing to you.

by Leroy Moore, Darla Lennox, Maria Palacios, Zilwood, Tiny

It’s Kripmas

(My Krip-Hop Kripmas Karol)

It’s that time of season

Where we give for no reason

Liberal hearts are bleeding

It happens once a year

Strangers in shelters

Cooking our last super

Share in the Kripmas Guilt

A toast with eggnog & milk

Make it last cause its cold outside

Where many live throughout the year

Kids can’t hide from Jake Frost

And folks walk by holding their nose

Pretending not see or hear

Santa Claus dress up in a three piece suit

Making deals with the Grinch

Who stole the real spirit of Christmas?

Was it Alan Greenspan?

Kripmas guilt is not enough

For landlord’s hands

It’s Kripmas

Nursing homes, physic wards & prisons

Holiday bonuses to CEOs

States issuing out IOUs

Layoffs at NPICs

My nephews know their ABCs

Spelling out NO JUSTICE

Tears frozen like ice

Have to grow up fast

No talking reindeers

No fat man coming down the chimney

Standing in line for charity

Wearing the mask for media

So thankful this season

It’s Kripmas

Smile for the camera

Now give to the needy

Pulling on the heartstrings

It’s a tactic use by Jerry Lewis

It just went corporate & sang by musicians

Band Aid spreading throughout the world

Singing “Do They Know Its Christmas Time?”

Feed the world…” but only for one day

It’s Kripmas

So share the guilt this season

Like every year at this time

Roll out the red carpet

Pull out the cameras

And fill your heart with pity

It’s Kripmas time

It’s Kripmas time

Thank God its once a year

by Brother Y/PNN

I am fond of saying and will continue to state that government is like a theif at night who steals your wallet at night but by day break say’s “ c’mon buddy let’s go find the sum’bitch who stole your wallet no one treats my friends like that!”

Such is the case with the current initiative by California lawmakers to legalize,

Tax and regulate the use of marijuana for all state residents 21 or older.

The criminalization / legalization of marijuana has always’s been a civil rights issue.

The first law on record making marijuana illegal started as a city ordinance in

El Paso, Texas was used to target Mexican immigrants.

Due to the fact that there were no law’s against immigrating to the United States

During that time period white racist looked for the only way to discriminate against

Them and apparently this is the only thing that stood out.

In 1913 the state of California was the first state to make marijuana illegal,

Due to pressure from the pharmiceutical industry because of the competition!

In 1914 Utah followed suit due to a Mormon religious prohibition.

By 1930 30 stattes made it illegal, the greatest fear being they felt herion addiction

Would lead to marijuana, that’s not a typo you read that right!

During congessional hearings only 2 medical doctors were present the first one was the representative of the American Medical Association he was told to shut up and leave because he stated that there was no proof that marijuana was a dangerous drug.

The second was James Munch who injected 300 dogs with extract of marijuana 2 of which died.

When asked his conclusion he said he did not know.

Later he testified in court under oath that marijuana would make your fangs grow 6 inches and drip blood, and when he tried it turned him into a bat!

He served as the U.S. official “expert” on marijuana from 1938 until 1962.

AS far as common sense goes the greater issue’s at hand are 1. Many people who are voting age would not or could not benefit from the legalization of marijuana.

At the tender age of 17 with the permission of their parents or guardians young people could “die for their country” without ever being able to legally try marijuana regardless as to whether they inhale or not as a certain cowardly draft dodger claimed not to have done!

2.Many young people could spend the rest of their lives behind bars after being tried and convicted as adults again without ever being able to legally try weed, which could in some cases prevent them being placed in the cicumstance’s that could lead to their conviction to begin with.

3. The legalization of industrial hemp is far more imperative to the economy of the

California, The United States and a competive world market.

The arrogance and selfishness of man has lead to the eradication of many animal and plant species, and caused an imbalance to the eco system.

For all we know “legalizing” hemp could help bring back the honey bee!

It is a much better option to decriminalize 6 oz. or less marijuana for those 18 and above

Using monies confiscated from harsher drugs to provide funding for addiction education

During primary education and treatment on demand, instead of adding more and more taxes to treat the ills of society.

In reality the only ones who would benefit from the legalization of marijuana would be government fat cats, big business and a bunch of rich white guy’s who own the majority of the cannabis clubs.