by Muteado Silencio/PNN Voces de inmigrantes en resistencia

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El Derecho alas Tierras Ancestrales

“Para la gente Nativa Americana la tierra es todo”

Tube la oportunidad de escuchar a Danny Blackgoat, maestro (Sha’olta’i) interprete, guia de la gente Diné. Los Navajos se nombraron Diné, o “la gente’. En 1868, un “tratado de paz” fue firmado dando el derecho ala gente Navajo a regresar a sus tierras. Ahora la tribu Navajo representa la mas grande en las Amerikkkas alargandose en los altos desiertos y bosques de los cuatro esquinas de Arizona.

Ahora los Diné estan haciendo confrontados con la lucha de mantener sus tierras Ancestrales. Quienes estan haciendo desplasados y reubicados por leyes introducidas por el govierno Amerikkano.

En Montaña Grande en Black Mesa en tierras Navajo, donde

generaciones han venido y pasado, donde 150,000 lunas de oraciones han transformado la tierra y el cielo.

En lenguaje Navajo no hay una palabra para describir la reubicacion, reubicacion es desaparecer y nunca ser visto.

Estan siendo desplasados y reubicados por hecho de que en Black Mesa contiene los depositos mas grandes de carbon en Amerikkka, como 100 millones de barriles de petroleo, 25 trillones cubicos cuadrados de gas natural, 80 billones de libras de Uranio.

En este momento los que toman desiciones en Washington D.C. planean formas para quitarles las tierras y extraer minerales de la tierra. Las
Compañia de carbon estan dando fondos a los Republicanos y Democratas porque tienen interes para que los ayuden.

Peabody Compañia de Carbon es las mas grande en el mundo, yactualmente planea expander sus operaciones.

Peabody Compañia de Carbon ha destruido tumbas, lugares sagrados, santuarios designados especificamente para ofrendas, prevencion de practicas rituales.

Podemos analizar como una y otra vez corporaciones desplasan a gente Indigena no solo en Norte Amerikkka pero tambien la tribu Mapuche en Ecuador en Sur America donde luchan contra Chevron que derramo petroleo en la Amazona.

Donde gente esta siendo forzada de tomar agua contaminada o morir de sed, donde se encuentran toxicos en la tierra.

“ El genocidio continua contra la gente Indigena con mucha fuerza, que podemos hacer”

Habra una caravana de gente una vez mas quienes viajaran cruzando estados de la union Amerikkkana para mostrar su apoyo a la gente de la Montaña Grande, en la nacion Navajo. En parte de la gente, sus tierras Ancestrales sagradas y por la futuras generaciones, estas comunidades siguen luchando y resistiendo los efuerzos del govierno, quien actua a favor de los intereses de Peabody Compañia de Carbon, cuales a desvastado comunidades y ecosistemas tambien el clima del planeta con la violacion de Black Mesa.

En este mes de la Historia Nativa Americana nos levantamos, protestamos, luchamos juntos a nuestros hermanos y hermanas de cualquiera manera necesaria.

“Una lesión a uno es una lesión para todos”

Right to Remain on Their Ancestral Lands

“For native people land means everything”

I had the opportunity to listen to Danny Blackgoat, teacher (Sha’olta’i), interpreter, guide from the Diné people. The Navajo refer to themselves as the Diné, or “the people”. In 1868, a “peace treaty” was signed allowing the Navajo people to return to their homeland. Today the Navajo Tribe represents the largest Indian Tribe in the Amerikkkas and stretches across the high deserts and forests of the four corners region.

Now the Diné are been confronted with struggling to keep their ancestral land, who are been displace and relocate by a policy introduce by the government of the united snakes of Amerikkka.

In Big Mountain in Black Mesa on the Navajo reservation, where many generations have come and past, where 150,000 moons of praying have shape and bound land and sky.

In the Navajo language there is no word for relocation, to relocate is to disappear never seen again.

They are been displace and relocate for the sole reason that Black Mesa has one of the largest remaining deposits of coal in the Amerikkkas, about 100 millions of barrels of oil, 25 trillions of cubic of natural gas, 80 billions of pounds of uranium.

At this moment the decision makers in Washington D.C. are planning ways to seize tribal lands to extract mineral resources. The coal companies are funding both the Republican and Democratic parties because they have huge interests.

Peabody Coal Company is the world’s largest coal company, currently has plans to expand its strip mine operations.

Peabody Coal Company has completely dug up burials, sacred sites, and shrines designated specifically for offerings, preventing religious practices.

We see over and over again companies displacing Indigenous people not only in North America but also the Mapuche tribe of Ecuador in South America that is fighting against Chevron who spill oil in the Amazon.

Where people are force to drink contaminated water and high levels of toxics can be found on the ground.

“The genocide continues for Indigenous people in full force what can we do about it”

A caravan of work crews will once again be converging from across the country in support of residents of Big Mountain regions of Black Mesa, Navajo Nation. On behalf of their peoples, their sacred ancestral lands and future generations, these communities continue to carry out a staunch resistance to the efforts of the U.S. government, which is acting in the interests of the Peabody Coal Company, to devastate whole communities and ecosystems and greatly de-stabilize our planet’s climate with their Black Mesa coal mining operations.

In November which is Native American History Month we stand with our brothers and sisters to fight to defend to not give up, by any means necessary.

“A injury to one is an injury to all”

by Tony Robles/PNN

Working for C & H Security is a trip. Been doing it little less than a year. You meet all kinds; people that have worked in other professions, traveled extensively by plane, train, bus or by not even leaving the ground. In security you are told your primary function is to observe and report; you’re told to be on the lookout for suspicious looking persons and/or activity. Some guys who do the job take it much too seriously, as if auditioning to appear on the TV show “cops” (as the pursuer, not the pursued, of course).

I have met interesting people; Latinos who have forgotten they are Latino, Samoans who share their last bit of food with you and others who walk, breathe, talk and love in their own way.

Some guards have forgotten that others like them (that is, those with arms, legs, noses, armpits, etc.) are human and not criminals. They make comments and tell jokes that show their petty biases and prejudices. One such cat is a Filipino guy who I worked with for several months. He would talk about black people at the supermarket he was hired to guard by the supermarket owners. He said that the black people had this black attitude. When people say this, what it means, as far as I am concerned is that black people somehow don’t love their elders, their mothers and fathers, their children. They don’t see the beauty in plants, the ocean, the moon, nature; that God doesn’t love them like he loves other people, and that, of course, they deserve to be locked up in a variety of jails or prisons, because that is, of course, where God thinks they should be. Then he told a joke that kind of went like this:

Where do you end up when you cross the Bay Bridge?

Answer: Africa (because of the large black population)

I got up and walked out of the room. Sometimes this happens. You can’t find the words to counter the stupidity and you feel like a coward afterward. I should have told him a little about the history of African-Americans in the Philippines, namely the Philippine-American War; a war in which the US took over the Philippines after the Spanish-American war. This war killed hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who were fighting the colonial Spanish and, after they had been defeated, were once again colonized by another colonial power, the US. Black soldiers from the US known as “Buffalo Soldiers” were sent to fight in the islands (as well as in Cuba). When many of the soldiers saw how the Filipinos were being shot and dehumanized, those soldiers jumped to the Filipino side and fought against the United States. I didn’t tell him this. Maybe he should have known. Maybe he did know and forgot, or maybe he knew and just didn’t give a damn.

But after a couple weeks I came up with a joke of my own

What do you call a Filipino guy working as a guard for C & H Security?

Answer: Nigga

© 2009 Tony Robles

by Queennandi

Po’lice brutality is a disease that has spread amongst and infected more than just the black and brown communities, and when it happens outside the “minority circle”, heads start to roll immediately. The response to SJ state student Phuong Ho’s unprovoked assault by po’lice was an typical outrage, but one can’t help but ask would Mr. ho’s unfortunate experience become the “posterboy” case of po’lice misconduct that leads the movement against po’lice terrorism?

No case of po’lice brutality should go unheard, nor unpunished. However, when someone from an non-black or non-brown nation falls victim to this illegal elimination process, the case usually becomes a high priority. Again it poses a question to rather if it is a “high priority”, or if the po’lice are simply being “corrected” for “overstepping boundaries” of “who to, and not to violate”. The recent rise of po’lice terror and murder, particularly in the Asian communities has gained a lot of media attention, but it must not overshadow the many lives already lost from this age-old method to “patrol and control”. The lesson learned here is that no non-white community is immune to this type of treatment, and that it is arrogant for ANY nation to turn its’ nose or head up to the fact that po’lice terror exists.

Another fact that receives little attention is the war the po’lice have declared on our youth. The children have been criminalized for not being able to rise above the oppression implemented with intentions on destroying them in the first place, thus resulting in a staggering rise of our children becoming a target for abuse and incarceration. Parents are constantly being denied the right to protect the well-being and destinies of the youth, while the nay saying political figures have unlimited means to systematically abuse our children.

National day of protest against police brutality took place this past Thursday (22nd) where families and survivors alike came in small masses to tell their stories. This was the national day that fallen comrades and leaders such as Idriss Stelley, Cameron Boyd, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Bobby Hutton and Chairman Fred Hampton were remembered. For some of us at the gathering, it was an almost-new experience, but for those such as myself it was a wound re-opener and a slap-in-the face fact that regardless of our heroes and sheroes’ waterfalls of bloodshed, the struggle continues.

by Staff Writer

Mamaz, Micro-Business People, Artists, Muralists, Myth-Makers, DJ's, Poets, Musicians and (Low-cost) Migration Attorneys will all be at the Mercado de Cambio/Po Sto' Community Art Market and Knowledge Exchange!

We will have art, jewelry-making,social justice wrapping paper lessons for children and adults , Po' Poets, Poverty, Race, Disability, Indigenous and Migrant Skolaz presenting all day long as well as the Amzing Akademik Skolah in Residence, Jose Cuellar, with a preview of the PeoplesKool Winter Semester offering- Please come and Support us with your PalaBraz/WORDZ, EDD/SSI checks/SALARIES and/or Trust Funds!

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Abriana Baker

Age 12


Slam Bio

I like red

I like _______

They mix together

Just like you

My smell is cool

Bear

Town of Ignacio

Living with my sister and brother and gramma

Going to School

by Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia/PNN

“I conclude that section 16 of the Slums Act is inconsistent with the Constitution and invalid.”..Statement from the Constutional Court of South Africa

When I heard about the revolutionary resistance of our South African brothers and sisters in Abahlai base Mjondolo (The Shack Dwellers Union) in South Africa, a revolutionary group of landless folks in Capetown and Durban, South Africa who successfully overturned the deadly Amerikkkan style criminalizing legislation called “The Slums Act” which would have given South African Po’Lice the ability to legally demolish, destroy and evict poor peoples from their shacks without notice. I cried.

As a person whose life has been rife with the terror of eviction, displacement, landlessness and criminalization, I was devastated by the stories of destruction of poor peoples in South Africa and equally inspired by the resistance of the young people who organized, hit the streets, chanted, danced and sung for freedom for post-aparthied Amandla in 2009 and eventually overcome that terror and Won!

I remembered the power of the poverty scholars I had met from the Shack-Dwellers Union. Scholars who protested, organized and led resistance from the grass-roots. Scholars like Maswi, a young revolutionary care-giving brother and visionary.

In his soft voice he related the struggle of his family and community to deal with the deadly war on the poor that was raging in the post-apartheid south Africa.

The new struggle in South Africa according to Maswi and his fellow freedom fighters is over the rights of poor people to be housed, to be listened to, to not be incarcerated “its not racism anymore, its poverty,” he had told me in an interview in august of this year. From The Bayview to Bayou, poor folks of color across the globe struggle with Amerikkkan style gentrification and criminalization. For the last few years Shack-Dwellers in South Africa come home from work and school only to find their homes have been demolished and then if they fight back the government turns guns on them.

This current push of deadly destruction by the South African government has been fueled by the transnational corporate interests in South Africa trying to build the world cup stadium for the 2010 world cup.

When I spoke with Maswi he explained how the south African constitution stated that no-one can be evicted once they have lived in a place for over 24 hours without due process, but that in the push to be the new corporate Amerikkkan-style “clean” city, there is no room for poor people, for the slums and so no-one follows the constitution. The Slums Act was the going to be the final tool to push poor folks into the streets, the jails or death.

Currently if poor children are found living on the streets are put in jail for weeks at a time if tourists are expected to come to Durban. Mazwi's stories of removal and criminalization reminded me of the ways that encampments of landless folks in the Bay Area are arrested and washed away with high pressure power washers when they are found in settlements under the freeways, under the bridges, in doorways, and other outside residences. The ways that poor folks in New Orleans face constant and ongoing gentrification and displacement, the ways that we in the Bayview, the Mission , Oakland and Richmond are constantly at risk of losing what ever little crumb we are able to attain, the hands of large corporate interests like Lennar Corporation and Chevron.

But mostly what I learned from Maswi and his fellow revolutionaries is that we, the poor, the disabled, the indigenous, the migrant, the silenced, the incarcerated, the profiled, the displaced, must Not give up! That we do have power, and that we will, if we are truly working in coalition with each other, triumph!

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Santana
Slam Bio

Purple

Brown

Spicy

BitterSweet, Sour

Soft hard

Scaley

Pink Panther

My culture is Latina/Mexican

And they are the shizz

I live con mi mami y mi abuela y mi hermana

My struggle is becoming the person everyone is becoming

Sometimes I wish I could give my life like I am a donor

I rub the struggle in like toner

by Tiny AKA Lisa Gray-Garcia

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OPINION: “Soy ilegal, Mama?” Me pregunta mi hijo de seis años que tiene un mestizaje de Mexicano, Chino, Puerto Riqueño, y Irlandés, mirándome con los ojos mas grandes y tiernos después de que habíamos visto un reportaje en las noticias comerciales sobre el Alcalde Gavin Newsom. En el reportaje, el Alcalde esta rechazando una legislación propuesta por el Supervisor David Campos, que le daría un proceso debido a los jóvenes migrantes que se involucran con el sistema criminal de justicia.

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Alana Watts

Slam Bio


Blue Sweet

Apples

Smooth

Im a grizzley bear

Strong

Southern Ute

Strong

Ignacio

I live in a big house

I struggle with loving

My mom and my dad

I live with my mama

She’s a single mama raising two kids

Just so hard

Love is pink

Fighting is hard

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Josh Jones

age 17

Slam Bio

Color Green

Taste Green Chili

Tortillas smell like sage after the rain

A bull elk running lots of power

And freedom

My tribe is anywhere in nature

I live out of town in the woods

With my dad

Our house is made of stone and its always comfortable there

I struggle with alcohol and anger

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Tricia

Slam Bio

My color is brown

My taste is spicey



My touch is soft

I think I would be a cute little fish

That swims with lots of other fish

My tribe is Ute

I think we function very well with lots of things im grateful for that other tribes don’t have

by Leroy Moore/PNN & Krip Hop

I like when things come together! I can�t ask for anything better. November 1st 2009 wrapped family, disabled musicians, traveling and my forty-second birthday all into one big present to myself.

After two years of researching about paraplegic street musicians, Staff Benda Bilili (Staff for short), who live around the grounds of the zoo in Kinshasa, Congo; I found out that they released their album and was invited to perform at the annual WOMEX Festival, World Music Expo, who have moved their world music festival to Copenhagen, Denmark. Copenhagen, Denmark is also home to my sister, Pamela Juhl and her lovely two children. I had no excuse not to go and visit with my sister, nephews and at the same time meet and interview the members of Staff Benda Bilili with Copenhagen Voice that my sister started. Yes, both my sister and I are journalists for the people!

WOMEX, an international event that brings together professionals from the worlds of folk, roots, ethnic and traditional music and also includes concerts, conferences and documentary films. It contributes to networking as an effective means of promoting music and culture of all kinds across frontiers. This year WOMEX announced their 2009 awardees, which was Staff Benda Bilili.

After more than eight years, I finally had a chance to see my sister Pamela Juhl. As Pamela�s brother, I was so happy to create media content with her at the WOMEX Festival right in her office located in the center of Copenhagen the day before my fortieth-second birthday November 1st 2009.

CPHVoice agreed to have me on their media crew at the WOMEX Festival covering one of the most incredible bands I ever researched and wrote about - Staff Benda Bilili of the Congo. I had a chance to connect last year with the filmmaker, Florent de La Tullaye, who is shooting a documentary of the band who translated my first online interview with the group when Florent traveled to the Congo to continue shooting the film that will be out early 2010. Florent emailed me the band's replies, pictures and sent a copy of their CD almost a year ago which I am so grateful for. There are many reasons why Staff Benda Bilili caught my attention; one of them was, seeing an all disabled band really singing about real issues of their lives - like poverty, homelessness, disability and street kids � it just blew me away as a Black disabled activist, journalist, poet and lover of music.

So, now the day after meeting and interviewing the members of Staff Benda Bilili, November 2nd (My birthday) I�m still thrilled about the opportunity I had and writing what I have experienced and the interview below. Read on.

I almost didn�t make the WOMEX Festival! I was in Augsburg, Germany doing some Krip-Hop/Mcees With Disabilities, MWD business with Binki Woi when I found out that my credit card was denied after trying to buy an airplane ticket to Copenhagen, Denmark
but my sister, Pamela came to my rescue and bought me a ticket for November 1st to see Staff Benda Bilili's last CPH performance. Although I missed the award ceremony earlier that day where they received the 2009 WOMEX Artist Award. However, I was shocked when I asked my sister what did the group talk about during the award ceremony. Come to found out, the members of Staff Benda Bilili didn�t say anything after winning the award � each member kisses the Award and passed it to the next. The manager of Staff Benda Bilili, Michel Winter of Belgium, spoke to the Womex audience at Bella Center.

The night of November 1st was freezing; walking the dark cold streets of Copenhagen with the crew of CPHVoice and a friend of my sister, Line Mompremier, who is a Haitian-American living in Denmark and thank God she knew French and was down to be our translator on a last minute basis. We were heading over to Global club, where Staff Benda Bilili was about to perform and where the interview was going to take place backstage prior to their concert.

After reading other interviews online by different reporters, I noticed that there was very little written about the political views and the strong activism of the members of Staff, so I chose that to be my interviewer angle. The CPHVoice, Line and I stepped into a dark hall where two middle age people greeted us with some questions. They knew we were there for the interview thanks to CPHVoice prep for it. We were led to the stage that had a portable unstable ramp that pointed us to the backstage. Walking in, I first noticed that the group members of Staff were in regular wheelchairs not in their customize handmade tricycles that they travel the streets of Kinshasa in. You must go online and check out their handmade tricycles! Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZUk7qy_sbA&feature=channel�

The members of Staff Benda Bilili are Ricky Likabu, the bandleader, Coco Ngambali, who sings, plays the guitar and composed many of the band�s songs, Theo Nsituvuidi, the soprano singer, Roger Landu, a 17-year-old young man who was adapted by Ricky many years ago. Roger created his own instrument that is called Satonge: a one-string guitar and sings, Djunana Tanga-Suele is a singer, Zadis Mbulu Nzungu is a singer, Kabamba Kabose Kasungo also sings, Paulin �Cavalier� Kiara-Maigi plays the bass, Cubain Kabeya plays the drums and sings and finally Randy Buda plays percussion. Read more about Roger�s instrument at: http://www.myspace.com/staffbendabilili.

During the interview Ricky and Michel, the manager, answered almost all the questions. Staff Benda Bilili made a song in 2007 which successfully increased voter turnout by 70% in the Congo. This was a collaboration work with UNDP (distributors) and produced by UN Mission (Monuc) in DR Congo 2007. Although, the song was a hit before their album came out with a showering of international fame, they were denied their legal copyright �inalienable rights� for their song and no contracts were offered to secure their rights. They pretty much got stiffed in royalty earnings and a meager one time payment of 50 dollars each per band member. (See BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6612749.stm) Even though they had a lawyer during the time, it was unclear how this issue panned out. Today, the band replied, that with so much time elapsed, since the initial legal dispute with the UN, they had decided to let go of pursuing the case and wanted to simply move forward with more positive music partnerships.

Before this interview, what really made me love Staff was more than their music, it was their political views about life in the Congo as people living in poverty and being disabled. So, when I asked them about their political views and a quote about considering themselves as the real journalist of Kinshasa I was shocked when their manager spoke up, saying, �there was a misunderstanding and some journalist made the quote that Staff Benda Bilili were the real journalists but the group never said that.� - However, this is the quote from my online interview with them in 2008: �Staff Benda Bilili: Coco: We the SBB are like journalist; in our songs we are the true press. We talk about street life, the street kids and their dreams of happiness, we talk about corruption. The press here is a slave to the power. I consider myself as a journalist, my duty as a member of the SBB, is to say things as they are.�

I thought that was strange because if you read the insert of Staff�s CD, it says it right there. I also realized that members Staff were very tired and were dealing with a whole new way of tour living in Europe. The cold weather of Denmark, their new wheelchairs, clothes, getting used to the food, traveling and being managed must be a total new way of life for them now, and I bet they want to make sure that they can live off their music could be why that they may be cautious on what gets out and what should stay in the past. I wonder if I met them on their turf of the Kinshasa�s Zoo in the Congo, would Staff tell me some political stories that my questions were fishing for?

Getting into Staff�s songs and their lyrics that tell the life of poor people in the Congo one of the eleven songs on the CD is the song, Tonkara, track number 8, is a song talking about street kids who sleep on cardboard outside. Ricky said, they live & sing on the streets. The first track of Staff�s CD is entitled Moto Moindo that translate to Black Man. It�s a song warning Black men what is happening in Africa and how their food, the Earth, and nature is being corrupt so they, Black Men, should stand up, come together and take action. On that same theme, Staff used to have a center where they taught street kids how to build instruments, wheelchairs and play music. However, the center was completely destroyed in 2005 by a fire. Currently, local business people in the Congo, some private organizations and others from the US are in the process of building the center back up again.

Staff Benda Bilili is still looking for a US sponsor to facilitate their tour in the USA. Their music manager told me it is hard to get a US sponsor compared to Europe where they have been touring since last month (October). In the US, people with disabilities have held disabilities as a civil rights issue but in recent years, it has now become a cultural lens of insight; where we have our own history, art, music and ifestyle. Disabilities are not something you overcome, it is a part of the person. But I�m surprised when I travel abroad and even sometimes in the US of peoples perspectives of persons with disabilities. I hear a similar reply also heard by Ricky of Staff Benda Bilili, when I asked him to give some advice to Poor and disabled people around the world. The advice Ricky gave was, �disability is all in the head and you, people with disabilities, have to be independent.� I scratched my head and thought at that point, �was that advice too simple, too pull yourself up from your boot stripes kind of advice?� Ummmm!

The members of Staff Benda Bilili are hoping that after the tour and the release of their film documentary that they can afford to buy their own house. Noticing that Staff Benda Bilili is an all men group, of course, my last question was have they sung with disabled women? Coco, once again, answered �Yes, they do.�

After the interview was the concert. To see Black talented disabled musicians singing about their lives with my sister the day before my birthday was a dream come true. It truly doesn�t get any better than this!

Thanks for the friendship of Florent da Tullays who helped me connect with Staff Benda Bilili almost a year ago and last but not least thanks to the members of Staff Benda Bilili for being you, your political lyrics and reppin' people who live in poverty and who are disabled!

Here is a link to my first interview with Staff Benda Bilili http://www.poormagazine.org/index.cfm?L1=news&category=2&story=2003

Question for the reader. What happens to people who goes from living on the streets, poor but speaking their minds about their situation to people who are managed by others who have the means to bring wealth and fame? What happens when people from outside your world can take you out of your struggle but at the same time you hold back your politics aka voice so you can make a living? These are the questions I have after reading both interviews of Staff Benda Bilili and meeting them live.

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Jacob Frost

Slam Bio

Green

Like a newly grown apple

Sour like lemons kiss

The smell of rain

Kissed leaves after a nights rain

Touch of soft silk

A red panda

Not many culturally centered left of my Ute people

My home is beautiful

I live in my world

My family fights to keep our culture alive

My sisters death was a difficult time to deal with

I was forced to grow up

At age 11

The streaming green light reminds me

To live in reality

But dream

like im asleep

by Staff Writer

We, the people, the oppressed need to be heard.

We are at the bottom of the pyramid.

The have nots of society.

Who are falsely accused of being the minority when we're really the majority, criminals, free, failures, immigrants, gang bangers.

These are just labels, ways to classify us, they're all lies.

Sons and daughters of the oppressed.

Who dream of a better future.

Who feel unheard, yet powerful.

Who need freedom, your help, and your voice to fix our community.

Who fear becoming another statistic.

Who gives a damn no matter what color, gender, or race.

Who would like to see a government that cares, people treated like human beings, and the people united, so stop labeling us.

Who will fight for what's right, be successful, stop ignorance, and prove them wrong.

Learn to survive.

We are the social justice academy, we fight for hope, justice, and freedom for generations to come, we are the people, the majority, the world.

We are not going to be judged by our race, but judged by the things we have done.

We did not get to choose, we were born as we were meant to be.

We will not be the pawns of society.

The people, united, will never be defeated because the people, united, can never be divided.

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Kayleen Monroe

Slam Bio

Tan

Orange

Orange

Orange

Caterpillar

P

S

C

O

S

L

S

U

WHOAH

WHOAH

by Staff Writer

Racism goes around�

Racism is all around�

then people were really sad and still is really bad.

and because of racism we are struggling, so many issues.

then the government says racism is gone, come to me, tell me, ask me!

FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!
 

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Takoda Armstrong

Slam Bio

My color is blue

My smell is apples

My touch is tough

I’m a bear

Got strong power

I live with my sister and my mom

Sometimes my sister could be a stupid punk

My mom cool

I struggle with school

Sometimes life could be like gun shootings

by Staff Writer

Is light coming?

Is light coming my way?

Or is it staying in its place, hoping it comes.

It�s hidden in the dark�

People say �hold on you have a long life to live.�

This is the way I live?

It�s not the right way to live.

by Boys and Girls Club of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe

Ricardo Rivera

Slam Bio

My colors red representing deplicting burn & desire like I gotta have it

My taste can only be described as a tall 40

Keep it so real I can smell the reality

My touch is ice cold just don’t know and wont tell

I would be a rabbit in a turtle race to riches

I Ute mountain Ute from Towac

I live with my moms

Emotions