2006

by Charles A. Houston/A Homeless Poet

Passed by as though a crook

I took the time to look

His old black shiny face

Still bore the trace

The depth in his eyes/shown no disguise

Of his true station

Right world/wrong nation

Revered in his motherland

A leader in his clan

An elder, a “Groit” and so

Protected, respected

Above suspicions

A holder of oral traditions

In America, an old manumit,---ne’griot

Holder of false papers

Holder of a fallacy

Holder of empty Starbucks’ cup

7th St. and Market/ at quitting time

Brother can you spare a dime

© 2005

by Tiny/PNN

"I used to live in the Bayview, then the rent got too expensive and I lost my job", the large brown eyes of Lillette Durton grew quiet for a minute as she reflected on her struggle to stay housed in San Francisco, "then I became homeless" with this last assertion, her strong voice broke up a little. She sort of swallowed the rest of her story which included almost seven years of houselessness until she found housing in the Tenderloin area in the San Cristina hotel, a Single Room Occupancy hotel managed by Community Housing Partnership(CHP) which is currently facing their own struggle against Mid-Market gentrification efforts.

I had the pleasure of meeting Lillette, who was holding a small hand-made sign that said LETS GET OUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT, at a press conference at City Hall on Mayor Newsoms reduction of the City’s affordable housing goals. This is the Mayors latest re-invention of the wheel, i.e, the mayor has a very busy press office that seems to release press advisories on everything from housing policies already in place, to homelessness and the environment and in the process of his re-invention he reduces/changes or dismantles these urgently needed policies and budgets.

"We are not going to let the mayor reinvent housing policy in his press office," Housing activist, Calvin Welch, one of the speakers at the conference outlined how the Mayor and his minions unilaterally re-wrote a little thing called The City’ s Housing Element of the General Plan, which with one stroke of his mighty pseudo pen, or in this case his mighty mouse (attached to his press secretaries’ computer, that is) he has reduced by 68% the City’s affordable housing production goals which were approved by the Planning Commission, the board of Supervisors and the State of California in a document called the 2004 Housing Element.

"The Housing Element is a solid document and the mayor is changing them through press releases," the days emcee Rene Cazenave from The San Francisco Information Clearinghouse addressed the rather large crowd gathered on the steps

"Washington DC has specifically said it does not care about housing the poor," Sara Short, one of the Housing Justice Summit participants who called todays action spoke to the crowd, " so for Newsom to not target funds to house the City’s poorest citizens is not only wrong, it is a guaranteed recipe to bring more homelessness and poverty to San Francisco"

Sara and several other housing and land use activists called the Housing Justice Summit in July to create a grassroots, progressive, proactive agenda about the City’s Housing, in other words, to not let the City’s working class, poor and homeless residents continue to be pushed out of this increasingly homogenous, rich people only town.

To add insult to injury the mayors press release actually characterized the new goal ( his new goal, that is,) that reduced the number of affordable housing units to be built in the city by 7,200 units as being a "housing opportunity made for everyone"

And for conscious Bayview readers, I am quite sure the Mayor was including the 1600 toxic shipyard units planned for the Hunters Point Shipyard, notwithstanding the vehement protests by Bayview residents and activists.

"San Francisco is increasingly becoming a city completely unaffordable for the majority of families living in this city, " Ntanya Lee, fierce activist on youth and racial justice and executive director of Coleman Advocates, also a participating member of The Housing Justice Summit

Ntanya concluded with her usual flare for breaking it down "We must stop the conversion of family housing into luxury housing, housing justice is the key to making this a City of families"

As the press conference ended with a chant, what do we want? Housing! when do we want it? Now!! My mind reflected on the determined eyes of Ms. Durton, who is now on the CHP board since her homefulness began at CHP answered my nervous question about the possible closure of her current residence, "No," she said resolutely, "we won’t let that happen, because we will continue to fight that!" and as she spoke I realized, one of our biggest fights will be fighting the lies and mistruths of Mayor Newsom and his overly ambitious press secretary.

by Teresa Molina/Reportera para Prensa POBRE

For English please scroll down

Era una tarde humeda y fria como cual quier tarde del mes de diciembre. Estaba en la parada del autobus en frente de los projectos de Sunnydale en San Francisco donde vivo esperando para ir a trabajo. A mi derecha se encontraban dos personas que temblaban de frio igual que yo. En ese instante nos tiramos al piso sin importar que nos golperamos y que acabaramos ensima de uno y de otro.

Escenas como las que acabo de describir son frecuentes en los proyectos de Sunnydale. La violencia es tan usual en este vecindario que la gente ya esta acostumbrada a ver heridos, muertos, a esquivar las balas y a tener miedo. Lo ironico es que solo la gente que vivimos alli nos damos cuenta de lo que pasa. Los medios de comunicacion no se molestan en darnos la importancia de reportar sobre nuestras situacion. En esta sociedad, comunidades pobres y de color como mi familia son aislados y marjinados. Esta misma marjinacion y desolacion que existe en mi vecindario es en si violencia contra mi comunidad.

A simple vista el vecindario aparenta ser tranquilo. Es usual ver gente afuera sonriendo, sentados platicando como si todo estubiese bien. Pero todos los dias al salir de mi casa veo una escena que se contrasta con grupos de personas que beben cerveza y usan drogas en las calles. Al continuar mi partida noto que las casas son de colores verdes, azules y rosados como pasteles. La pintura de las viviendas estan descascaradas como la cascara quebrada de un huevo herbido al prepararse para comer. En la calle siempre hay bolsas de plastico de basura que hacen que el vecindario huela a ropa mojada y a comida echada a perder. La unica escuela que exciste en mi vecindario es una escuela primaria con paredes similares a las viviendas. Solo ay una tienda que suele vender verduras, carne y comida preparada a precios inflados. No tenemos bibliotecas, centros de recreaciones para niños y jovenes, no tenemos lavanderias, no tenemos nada.

“En lugares como Sunnydale la gente no tiene oportunidades economicas, de salud y de educacion. Los pobres somos vistos como basura y la pobresa se ve como un poblema psicologo”, nos conto Sharon Hewit, directora de la organizacion comunitaria Comunidad de Liderasgo Academico de Respuesta de Emergencia (CLAER).

CLAER es una organisacion de base comunitaria que da servicios directos a familias afectadas por la violencia. Tienen programas de abogacia, recaudan fondos para familias y hacen trabajo de capacitacion de liderasgo de su base. Esta organizacion esta localizada en una zona aislada del Sureste de San Francisco por el Cow Palace y de los proyectos Sunnydale que son los mas grandes de la ciudad. Pero sin embargo nunca se escucha sobre las condiciones en las que viven la gente alli. Segun Sharon esto es problematico.

Tensiones raciales son comunes en zonas como Sunnydale. Al preguntarle a Sharon que piensa sobre la violencia entre Latinos y Afroamericanos ella contesta " Pienso Mierda. No ay violencia de Morenos contra Morenos ni Latinos contra Morenos, ni Morenos contra Latinos. Lo que pasa es que eso nos hacen creer los medios de comunicacion. Nos dicen que la violencia la traemos en nuestros genes. La razon por la que se pelean es por que viven juntos y son vecinos. Si gente blanca estubiera en esa situacion economica ellos se pelearian tambien. ¿Por que no se habla de la violencia entre blancos?"

Sharon Hewitt nos informa que la violencia es un sintoma social que surge cuando ay falta de justicia. Para combatir la violencia, Sharon cree que necesitamos abrir espacios de dialogo y analisar los factores exteriores. Sharon nota que es dificil combatir la violencia que surje en las calles cuando tenemos un gobierno que se vasa en ella. Esta violencia es propagada por este gobierno hacia sus ciudadanos y las personas de Iraq pormedio de la guerra. Tenemos que analisar el papel de los medios de comunicacion y como toleran la violencia y los asesinatos. Segun Sharon tenemos que cambiar la constitucion de este pais, en particular el derecho de tener armas. Este articulo de la constitucion Estado Unidense es irrelevante ya que se usa contra nuestras familias.

Como madre de cinco hijos, e inmigrante de bajos ingresos, tengo que proporsionar vivienda economica a mi familia pese la violencia. Al analysar esta situacion de violencia, me eh preguntado ¿que es la violencia? La violencia no solo es propagada por los balazos y el miedo. La violencia se impone en nuestras comunidades dia tras dia y es la de no tener accesso a escuelas, a tiendas, a programas para jovenes y al cuidado de nuestra salud. Las raises de la violencia bienen de la marginazion, del racismo, de la pobresa y de la injusticia, que son impuestos por el systema. El gobierno nos muestra violencia y a la gente no nos queda otro remedio que sobrevivir al responder con mas violencia.

CLAER esta localizada en el 299 Sunnydale Avenue en San Francisco.

Violence in our Communities

It was a cold and moist afternoon like any other December day. I was standing at the bus stop in front of the Sunnydale Housing projects in San Francisco where I live waiting to head out to work. To my right there were two people shivering from the cold just like me. All of a sudden, we heard bullets buzzing next to our ears. At that moment we hit the ground without caring if we hurt ourselves while landing on top of each other.

Scenes like the one I described are frequent in the Sunnydale projects. The violence is so common in this neighborhood that the people are used to seeing people getting hurt, people dying and to dodge the bullets. Ironically, only the people who live in this area know of the situation. The media does not bother reporting our situation. In this society, poor communities of color, poor families such as mine, are marginalized and isolated. This kind of marginalization and desolation that has existed in my neighborhood is in of it self violence against my community.

On the surface the neighborhood appears to be tranquil. It is common to see people outside their homes smiling and sitting down while enjoying a conversation with out a worry in the world. However, everyday as I leave my home I see a contrasting scene of people in the streets drinking beer and doing drugs. As I walk on, I notice that the homes are of pastille green, blue and pink; the paint of many is chipped and cracked like the shell of a boiled egg that is about to be eaten. Out on the streets there’s always ripped plastic trash bags which make the neighborhood smell like wet clothes and spoiled food. The only school that exists in the neighborhood is an elementary school whose walls are similar to those of the homes. There is only one store that sells vegetables, meat and prepared food at an inflated cost. We don’t have libraries, youth centers, we don’t have laundromats, we don’t have anything.

“In places like Sunnydale people don’t have the economic, health and education opportunities. Poor people are seen as trash and poverty is seen as a mental problem” said Sharon Hewit, director of CLAER (Community Leadership Academy of Emergency Response), a community organization.

CLAER is a community based organization that provides direct services to families who are affected by violence. They have advocacy programs, they raise money for affected families and develop member leadership. This organization is located in an isolated area in Southeast San Francisco by the Cow Palace and by the largest projects in the city: the Sunnydale projects. Ironically, we never hear about the conditions that people live in this area. To Sharon, this is problematic.

Racial tensions are common in areas like the Sunnydale projects. When Sharon was asked her opinion on brown and black violence she answered that she doesn’t think “Shit. There is no brown on black violence, black on brown, or black on black violence. What happens is that is what the media makes us believe. They tell us that we carry the violence genes. The reason why they fight is because they are neighbors. If white people where in the same economic situation they would fight amongst each other too. Why don’t we ever hear about white on white violence?”

Sharon Hewitt informs us that violence is a social symptom that surges when there is a lack of justice. To stop the violence, Sharon believes that we must open up spaces for dialogue and that we need to look at outside factors. She notes that it is difficult to fight the violence that surges in the streets when we have a government that is based on violence. This violence is perpetrated by this government towards its people and the Iraqi people through the war. At the same time we need to analyze the role of the mass media and how it tolerates violence and homicides. According to Sharon we have to change the constitution and the right to bear arts for this amendment in the US Constitution is archaic and is constantly used against families.

As a low income immigrant mother of five children I have to provide housing for my family regarding of violence and fear. While analyzing the issue of violence, I have asked myself, what is violence? Violence is not only propagated by bullets and fear. The violence we live in our communities day in and out is manifested by the lack of schools, stores, youth programs, and health centers. The roots of violence come from the marginalization, racism, poverty, and from the injustice that is imposed by the system. The government shows us violence and as people we don’t have any choice but to respond with violence.

CLAER is located on 299 Sunnydale Avenue in San Francisco.

by Jack Tafari/by way of Street Roots

Introduction

It all started when Israel Bayer who I knew as Street Roots’ creative director asked if I’d like to speak at the Crisis Innovation’s Fair 2004 in London in the UK which he’d learned of through Michael Stoops who he knows at the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, DC.

Upon conferring with Dignity’s Treasurer and outreach co-coordinator Tim McCarthy who some know as tight-fisted and "a bit of a Luddite" according to Amy Haimerl’s feature article Pitching Tents in Denver’s Westword magazine and attorney Marc Jolin who many know as Dignity’s defender and Jo O’Rourke of the British charity Crisis UK who I knew from the contact information Israel provided about the hows and whys, I accepted the invitation to speak as a keynote speaker.

The juxtaposition of keynote speakers at the conference was as startling as the venue at the ABN AMRO Bank in the heart of London’s financial district was stunning. Who would have thought a poorly-educated Rasta and former doorway dweller would ever share a podium with a Harvard and Brown educated PHD senior social scientist of the World Bank? I know JAH who is my light and my salvation and who lifteth I up from the dust of the Earth and causeth I to sit at a table with Princes of Men is ever-living and all-powerful. And God alone guides our steps and protects His children.

Not all of what Dr Woolcock said during his presentation of the "social capital" theory at the conference which guides WB policy I agree with, particularly the vertical linking up and down between those at the bottom and those at the top of the social order. Using the vertical metaphor of a ladder it seems many rungs for the poor to climb from our present location in social space to the top rung where Michael Woolcock is perched. My reasoning was to write Michael the accompanying letter and go straight to the top as we now know each other from the conference.

Letter to the World Bank

Dear Michael,

My name’s Jack Tafari and you might remember that we shared a podium at last October’s CRISIS Innovations Fair on Homelessness and Social Exclusion in London, that we met and chatted over glasses of wine at Crisis’ Skylight Café the night before the conference.

The little village named Dignity where I come from and we talked about is poor at least in terms of monetary capital. We raise funding mostly by writing grants, a skill our grant-writing committee is just learning, and by passing the hat in various ways. We need funding to better serve our community and build the green, sustainable urban village of Our Proposal.

Your presentation of the theory of social capital at the conference, Michael, was strong and compelling, an eye-opener to one such as myself. I see Dignity’s formation now with different eyes and recognize our early bonding among next doorway neighbours for what it was in the terminology of the construct, also the networking across the wider community of our early campaign to gain support to extricate ourselves from those doorways and win sanction from the City. It really is in the power of who you know.

My presentation went less well, I’m afraid, as I hadn’t slept that well the night before. I’d spent the night on the streets of Brixton in S. W. London shivering under a market tarp on some cardboard I’d found due to a miscommunication with our hosts, something CRISIS UK rectified right away upon learning of it. Sleep deprivation is common enough among us homeless people who lack roofs over our beds. But be that as it may.

I’m glad we had the opportunity to meet at the Skylight, Michael, as it establishes a link between our organizations and thought we might network a little as per your theory. I’m wondering if the World Bank would consider extending Dignity Village a capitalization loan of US $1,000,000 to purchase the land on which to build the magnificent eco-village we envision and have sought for so long. I should think you’d be proud to see your "social capital" model in action.

You concluded your presentation by saying "The logic we believe we work to is that we start with an idea, debate the idea, try to measure it, and turn it into practice. A key part of moving forward is recognizing that it also flows the other way. At the World Bank, our directors sometimes spend a week in a village. After a week of going to collect water from a hole in the ground, some come back with the equivalent of a religious conversion and want to start basing policy on practice."

On behalf of our directors whose council I chair, I’d like to invite you and your directors to spend a week in our village. We’ve had many distinguished visitors and guests including a US Vice Presidential candidate and don’t worry, Michael, you won’t have to collect your water from a hole in the ground. Our village is built largely with the recycled scraps of what many people throw away and although the asphalt we live on blisters in the summer and floods in the winter, Dignity has the basic amenities.

We could talk about the possibility of such a loan with your visit, its terms, work out repayment schedules and so forth. I wouldn’t expect the equivalent of a religious conversion among your directors after spending a week in Dignity, but we could share great discussions about basing policy on practice.

Warm regards,

Jack Tafari

Chairman

Dignity Village, Inc

9325 NE Sunderland Road

Portland, OR 97211

(503) 281 1604

(503) 249 6927

http://outofthedoorways.org

Criminal Reality
by Jack Tafari Reprinted from the September 2004 issue of Street Roots

Call me criminal

Me seh call me criminal

Call me criminal beca’ me live inna de street

haffi scuffle ev’ry day fe get someting fe eat

Doan come a hypocrite

like no Sunday ginnal

Iman live inna de street

Gwan, call me criminal

Wage dem a low, price a rent fly so high

people barely see de shadow flyin’ by

When yuh cyaan afford de int’rest

never mind de principal

go live inna de street

dem a go call yuh criminal

Dem would a call yuh criminal

a nex’ dutty criminal

Gwan, call me criminal ca’ me live inna de street

haffi scuffle ev’ry day fe get somet’ing fe eat

fe put food inna mi belly

an’ shoes pon mi feet

Me seh call me criminal

ca me live inna de street

De workers of iniquity

mus’ wuk overtime

fe enact more laws

waan mek homelessness a crime

When so much poor people

livin’ pon de street today

at de stroke of a pen

dem increase de criminae

Create more criminal

Brand new criminal

Whole heap a criminal

Gwan, call me criminal ca’ me live inna de street

haffi scuffle ev’ry day fe get nuff food fe eat

Doan come a hypocrite

like no Sunday ginnal

Ah live inna de street

Me seh call me criminal

Ah beg yuh listen, politician, Mr. Francesconi
nah baddah blame poor people fe yuh poor policy
It is de Homeless System weh yuh haffi address
mek a institution outa homelessness

System mek we criminal

Mek poor people criminal

Me seh call me criminal beca’ me live inna de street

haffi scuffle ev’ry day fe get someting fe eat

Doan come a hypocrite

like no Sunday ginnal

Ah live inna de street

Me seh call me criminal

by Clive Whistle and PNN editors

People walking aimlessly in the streets. Food preparation on the sidewalk. People pushing shopping carts on the bridges and causeways filled with blankets, bits of clothes and a half-consumed jug of water. Homeless people? Panhandlers? Recyclers? No, survivors of Hurricane Katrina in the ravaged streets of Mississippi, New Orleans and parts of Florida.

And of course they are homeless, because they, the very poorest of our US citizenry, barely surviving on underground economies, food stamps, and SSI, on land that was long ago declared unsafe due to its proximity to weak levees, shores, power plants, roads and freeways were always at-risk of losing the only thing they had, the only thing all poor folks have if they have anything at all; day to day subsistence/existence.

All we have is our patterns of money collection, our little to-up roof, our broke down beds, barely working cars or bicycles, our few clothes, our chipped dishes, our static-filled TV's and a little bit better boom boxes, ….

And when those things are gone, due to eviction, disaster, emergency or crisis, we have lost it all.

It reminds me of my experience with the Northern California Earthquake of 89. When people talk laughingly about where they were, a shudder travels through my body. When that earthquake hit, we had just earned enough in our underground economy street based "job" to pay that months rent in our little Oakland apartment. When that earthquake hit, it meant we had to use the money just to eat cause there was no money to be made on the streets following that disaster, which meant we couldn’t pay the rent and we ended up homeless once again.

As us poor folks, barely holding onto our meager bits of nothing, in other parts of the country watch the descimation of our fellow poor folk in the South, we can only hope that if they even survive this disgusting new blow to their already difficult Amerikkan existences they are able to recoup a little modicum of stability/normalcy/peace in the long hard days to come.

Or perhaps, like me, through losing everything just one mo time, they will become angry enough to stop trying to just survive, and instead live to resist, the racist, classist system that is locked in place to hold them down.

Insider PNN Southern Poverty Report

By Clive Whistle/PNN poverty scholar________________________________

This is me, folks, Clive Whistle, PNN roving reporter and poverty scholar, writing from the flooded streets of my beloved hometown of New Orleans. The funny thing for me is I have been homeless on and off in my life, but when I go home, I do mean HOME, to my people, I am housed in heart and soul if not in house.

This is true in particular when I go home to my grandmama, who like my editor says, might as well be homeless as she has lived in a ramshackle shack with no decent roof on the edge of town for as long as I can remember, but who lives by the old adage, poor is a state of mind, and from her perspective and the whole community, she is about as housed as one human being can be

Now that I finally got public housing in Frisco, I went back " home" this time to visit and help family even poorer than me like Gramama who is still dwelling in unbelievably substandard housing in New Orleans, with open sewers, tenuous levees and walls that shake when anyone touches them.

This kind of Southern poverty is so intense that Peace Corps volunteers train for Africa by "volunteering" in places like New Orleans, Missipippi and Oklahoma.

So, I am writing now (through telephonic transcription via PNN staff in Frisco) to let folks no that yes it is very scary here, some of the untold stories, though are the heroes, who in this case are just everyday people, but also a lot of the storefront church pastors who, through daily spiritual guidance and physical help, have been amazing in all the worst scenarios.

As well, I am feeling the vibe of people like my PNN editors who are worried that this is just the next Bush/Cheny plan for massive poor people displacement, i.e., they are not letting people stay in New Orleans and they are not promising us any time sooon that we will be able to come back, Bourban Street- ala Disney Corporation.

The other untold story which is a heads-up to Leroy and all the folks working on race and disability issues is the way that all disabled people, white and Black, were treated in all this. Unless you had family caring about you - and you were disabled in the floods, you might as well have given up. Several poor ladies in wheel chairs in the Dome were just stashed in dark corners, left to die. I tried to help as many of them as I could, but there was no help, no respect, no sanity, no nothing.

Send us your love and prayers, I am still searching for my grammama, but so far no luck.

Peace and blessings, Clive Whistle/PNN

by By the poverty scholars in Villa El Salvador, Lima Peru; Writer Facilitator Amanda Smiles/PNN

I struggle to smile as the tall gringo shoves the lens of his camera in my face. Focusing on my small, crowded classroom, and the tiny, eager faces of my students, I ignore the expensive clicks and hisses his camera makes as he steals his image of poverty. This gringo, whose name I do not know, because he has only introduced himself once, hurriedly, behind is costly black box, has recently arrived in Villa El Salvador, a shanty town of Lima, Peru. He is a volunteer, come to witness the poverty that is more than a Pulitzer worthy photo- it is our lives.

It is summer here in Peru, sticky, sultry summer, when the children are out of school and the parents still have to work. In Villa, poverty is in our roots, we have all grown up in homes made of no more than plywood, tarps, and tin roofs, so we all know the importance of education. This small, but vital, community run school, ensures that our children continue to learn even without textbooks. At the best, our children are given another chance that our poverty has robbed of them…at the last they are guaranteed one full meal a day, something this does not come easy in these parts.

The gringo’s camera wheezes again, as he captures another moment of our “romantic” lives. In some cultures they believe a photograph steals one’s soul. I believe the gringo’s photographs are stealing our history, because how can you sum up our entire struggle in a single photograph?

Villa El Salvador was founded in the 1970’s, after a mass migration of peasants from the highlands left many families homeless in Lima. A group of families squatted on private land, during a key weekend when an important international meeting was held in Lima, preoccupying the police. This lended several days for more families to assemble on the land, and by the time the government had time to react, it was impossible to evict them. Eventually, after several armed conflicts in which the peasants didn’t budge, the government compromised and moved them to the sand dunes, now Villa, and legally gave them the land.

I watch as the gringo moves on into the toddler’s room, where instead of helping to hold and feed the little ones, he will continue on with his camera.

Once the land was given to the families, it was divided evenly amongst the squatters and everyone was given the same size plot to build on. Land was also set asides for school, hospitals, parks, and, eventually, a university. Groups of homes were divided into sectors and each sector elected a Sectary of Education, Health, Economy, and Security, who would take up and solve community issues. Also, these Sectaries met with the general sectaries of the entire community of Villa, to plan and organize the future of Villa. These Sectaries included the Sectary of Women, Youth, and Human Rights.

During the 1980’s, when the terrorist group the Shining Path massacred and committed genocide throughout Peru, a second wave of migration to Lima occurred. Again, poor peasant families from the highlands journeyed to Lima, leaving their homes and farms in order to flea the reign of terror the Shining Path held over the Andes.

These families, poor and with only what they could carry, came to Villa for support. In response, the community organized soup kitchen, in which everyone took turn participating in. Mother’s clubs, run by women, organized the Vaso de Leche program, which delivered milk to poor families throughout Lima, ensuring that every child drank one glass of milk a day.

The children gather around the gringo in the playground, begging to have their picture taken. I wish, instead of photos, which the gringo has graciously offered to post online, a luxury far from our reality here, he could offer them a glass of milk. Clean food and water are what our children need, not their photos on the Internet.

When the Shining Path finally burned its way into Lima, it was Villa El Salvado that was terrorized the most. By its very existence, Villa was the antithesis to the Shining Path, whose mission was to destroy everything in the wake of poverty and corruption. Villa, on the other hand, chose to build and create solutions to help its people. The Shining Path pinned Villa as its enemy, planting bombs in important buildings, like the Vaso de Leche storage warehouse, and assassinating some of Villas most influential community leaders.

Still, the community of Villa resisted the Shining Path and took an active role in speaking out against terrorism. Community leaders continued to organize, despite death threats, protests were staged, and programs like Vaso de Leche remained running, even through the Shining Path deemed them “treacherous”:

Due to its resistance to the Shining Path, Villa won international recognition and awards for human rights and in 1986 was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. More importantly, though, during Peru’s darkest hour of the 20th century, Villa burned as an inextinguishable candle, illuminating the lives of Peru’s poor with hope.

Today, we are still taking an active role in planning for our future. Last year, the community finalized plans for the next 15 year, where we want Villa to be in 2021. Any person elected in Villa must follow these guidelines set forth by the community, ensuring that the needs of the residents are met and that we will continue to strive.

The gringo heads toward the courtyard, making his way out of the school. For a man who has everything, wealth, education, fair skin, he has, surprisingly, left our community with nothing. Yet, our community, which began with nothing, not even land, and still sustains on barely any resources, has given everything we can to create a ladder, or at least a safety net, out of poverty. While the gringo is now a ghost here, we have our history, of hope and resistance, etched in the scars of our streets, left behind for our children, when their turn comes.

by Laurence Ashton/PoorNewsNetwork

I am back jack

From an illegal occupation

Invasion..colonization..

That is totally whack

Done kilt, and spilt

With no thought to who

To’ up with guilt

And now I am back jack

With a mixed-up mind

Wanting to know

who I should blame

and what should I do

(kilt and spilt by Corporal P)

As I walked home from the powerful anti-war, anti-colonization march and rally in March the words of my friend and poet, Corporal P, who just returned from Iraq began to flood my mind., "Watch out brutha, they’ll get you next"

My friend spoke in his deep, foreboding voice which makes him seem a lot older than his 19 years. He was trying to scare me about an upcoming draft which he is convinced the current Amerikkan goverment has in the pipeline. At first I didn’t listen but recently, my editor suggested I look at the Bigga Pikcher i.e., the impact of what my editor refers to as the No Child Left Alive Act (No Child Left Behind) on the youth of amerikka.Upon examination of the messed-up "act" which was co-opted by Bush Cheny Inc for their latest coup it requires that parents who enroll their children in public schools automatically register them with selective service.

Selective Service spends every hour of every day planning for the heinous crime of conscription. That is who they are. It is what they do. They are like the Terminator- they would draft your grandmother if the order came down.

In my research for information on the draft I discovered www.draftresistance .org who refers to selective service system as the Selective Slavery System and lists 7 reasons why you should Never register for Selective Service including the fact that the more people register the more it appears like Selective Service could actually launch a successful draft.

Personally as a very low-income young African Descendent man who is trying to come up and out of poverty by getting an education, I ended up registering cause I thought I had to but through this website I learned that that too! is another fallacy. They gave an alternative resource for college funding; The Fund for Education and Training (FEAT) will give you money for college if you refuse to register. So don't register! FEAT address: 1830 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington DC 20009-5732 202 483 2220 fax: 202 483-1246

And of course all of this draft mess will, like all military recruitment have the worst impact on poor folks. College not Combat held an anti-military recruiting coalition protest in front of an army recruiting office in downtown San Francisco in March. The main point of their campaign is kicking out all army recruiters from Bay Area schools because the military systematically targets for recruitment those most harmed by the misplaced priorities of the political establishment: working class children and people of color and more often than not like in the case of my now homeless Iraqi veteran friend, the military promises of financial support amount to nothing.

As I got on the Bart to return to Oakland, filled with truth from the day and the strength to resist the pervasive pro-military lies, I couldn’t help noticing a pile of military recruitment brochures emblazoned with the oldest lie of them all, Be all you can be, or as my friend re-named it kill all that you can see

by Diane Manning & Leroy F. Moore Jr.

Diane Manning, mother of Michael Manning, wrote in her August 16, 2005 email to friends and allies "The Final Chapter has been written!" She is talking about the seven year battle for justice on behalf of her disabled son in which Poor Magazine, San Francisco Bay View Newspaper and I stood beside the Manning family in the early beginnings to uncover and bring to the media the injustice that was handed down from the justice system to this family who at that time had very little media attention. Thank God for the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper, the only Black Newspaper who has consistently gave room to the voice of African Americans with disabilities in our society facing blunt discrimination in every arena i.e. the justice system. Diane Manning constantly acknowledge that Poor Magazine and the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper were the only ones that exposed this story to the world and played a big part of Michael’s freedom today. For background on the case of Michael Manning check out Illin-N-Chillin at www.poormagazine.org. Michael Manning's mother wrote,

“On June 22, 2004, Michael had a Hearing in front of
Judge O'Brien. At that time Judge O'Brien released
Michael with time served. This decision was not to
the Probation Board's liking. They had 10 days to
appeal the decision, but failed to do so. They
decided to appeal the 2004 decision this year. A
Hearing was held in June of this year because the P.B.
felt that Michael should be reincarcerated & finish
his sentence. The judge heard the appeal and handed
his decision down 30 days later. The judge once again
denied the appeal. The PB then filed an appeal with
Supreme Court. We were informed today (8\23\05) that
the Supreme Court denied the appeal. PRAISE THE LORD,
it's finally over!!!! Recently, our lawyer told me
that if the PB insisted upon appealing the decision
they would be the losers & that's exactly what
happened.”

So after being attack by two young men one with a baseball bat and another with a knife at a gasoline station in the village of Scotrun, PA., on June 16th 1997 then being accused of murder by a disabled white judge who come to find out used racist comments in cases involving other African Americans and DA, Mark Pazuhanich, who didn't believe Michael had a disability and actually said that "Michael was lazy and not contributing to society;" Michael ended up serving almost four years on what comes down to self-defense and faced a justice system filled with racism and disablism pouring from the Judge and the D.A., Mark Pazuhanich,

In September of 2002 I traveled to Pa, to visit Michael in prison and by the Summer of 2004 Michael and family sat in a Philadelphia's bookstore watching Molotov Mouth Outspoken Word Troup perform (which I'm a member of). After being released in December of 2003, DA, Mark Pazuhanich, was still trying to convince the courts and public that Michael should be back in jail even though he himself, the D.A. was in hot water involving inappropriate behavior with his daughter and other unlawful activities.

What is important now is that the Manning family is back to "normal" and today Michael has continued with his career in the music industry. Diane Manning, the catalyst of Michael's campaign for justice has been the author of her son's life. Michael has picked up this pen from his mother's palm to continue to write his future as a devoted son, boyfriend, advocate and member of a hip-hop\gospel group, TANAJ, who has a full length CD out entitled CALLING. Michael and his gospel group will be in the Bay Area for Harambee's Disability Awareness Weekend at Downs Memorial United Methodist Church in Oakland, CA on October 15 &16 with other local disabled visual artists, poets and special guest, Pastor S'Wayne, from Buffalo, NY who is the first disabled hip-hop artist that is a Pastor etc. As we closed this chapter of Michael’s life, I hope other African American newspapers, progressive organizations and disability organization learn from the dedication of the Manning’s’ family, Poor Magazine, The San Francisco Bay View Newspaper and the now dissolved Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization, DAMO

For more information about Harambee\Downs Memorial Untied Methodist Church Disability Awareness Weekend contact Sonia Jackson at
(510) 547-7322..

by Kristen Darrelle Chambliss

My cycle of life was hand-crafted by oppressors who hate me. The cycle they put together was to fail. With only a few ways to escape it and they are to go to a professional sport, sell illegal drugs, or death. My vision is to change that and get my education and succeed in life. I will never be like the others who I call sellouts who sell drugs and their bodies on the street. Or ones who walk on the street and act like they know everything and have twenty and hundred dollar bills in their pocket, and see everyone else around them not to be on their level. We are not different.

This all goes back to what one of my teachers Mr. Zarazua was talking about how living in a poor society leads to poor education, the leads to a low paying job. Growing up for me was and still is hard for me. For eighteen months when I was a little baby me, my sister, and my brother was taken away from my mother and put into a foster home. After she got us back for a few years we kept moving form home to home looking for a good place to live in east Oakland. Time after time the bills got higher and more people became homeless. If it wasn’t for my mother, a single parent who loves and supports me, a young black man, I would be dead or in the streets selling illegal drugs.

With every school I went to, I did the best ii could to get my education. The schools that I went to had barely enough money to stay open. Now it is even worse in the new year. Schools across the nation are being shut down while people, innocent people, die oversees. I might not be the best person that I can be but people will never hear about me being arrested after a drive-by shooting, or in a courtroom with a first, second, or third strike against me.

I will break the cycle of failure and try my best to help those around me who needs it. Many people say that he or she will succeed in life but end up in getting caught up in the system. Do I believe that you can change your destiny? Well just ask and I will tell you that you can. I’m not saying that it is not hard but it can happen.

by Charles Houston

The black rappers rants of "bling"

Clueless of words they sing

For diamonds and gold /

If the be told

Are Africa's resourses plundered

Then sold

The land of their seed

Feeds the greed

There, in the soil, blood and toil

In a mine you can find /

Generations left behind

Bloated bellies, skin on bone

The haunting looks of those yet grown

No amelioration, not one nation

Mental-knuckle dragging

Britches sagging

Adding cadence, this near do well

For the black continents march to hell

The black rappers chants of bling

Damn the bling!

"Of the I sing"

by Jack Tafari/Dignity Village

Time dem a rough

JAH know de time getting' hard

When Rasta doan get fe live

inna no tenement yard

No, not a tenement yard

an' not a government yard

but get live inna de street

out upon de boulevard

Ah'm a tellin' yuh right now it is a hell of a ting

when yuh poor an' yuh Rasta fe get some housing

But it doan just Rasta yuh mus' andastand

plenty people got a housin' prablem inna Portland

Now Ah bu'n up de sensi, Ah'm a confess

Ah love mi sensimilla, it a pure niceness

Ah wrap it inna Rizla, bu'n it in mi chalwah

den Ah lift up mi hand dem an' give praises to JAH

But seem seh bu'nin' de herbs an freedom of religion

A go mash up yuh chance fe dem 'commodation

Ah'm a tellin' yuh right now it is a hell of a ting

when yuh poor an' yuh Rasta fe get some housing

But it doan jus' Rasta yuh mus' andastand

plenty people got a housin' prablem inna Portland

Between dem waitin' list at Housin' Authority

an' a nex' concern name Central City

dem got nuff poor people runnin' to an' fram

dem waan sign yuh up fe dem homeless program

waan come inna yuh life an' invade yuh space

an' put a case manager deh pon yuh case

Ah'm a tellin' yuh right now it is a hell of a ting

when yuh poor 'bout yah fe get some housing

No, it doan jus' Rasta yuh mus' andastand

plenty people got a housin' prablem inna Portland

An' it doan jus' Portland yuh mus' andastand

poor people got a housin' prablem all over disya land

people got it inna Canada an' fram dehso to Japan

an' inna disya time it is a global candishan

by JusticeFor Tyrell

On Friday morning, Sept.9 2005, the San Francisco Police Department brutally terrorized and gunned down 18-year-old Tyrell Taylor. They never once said freeze or stop, stated Ebony, a neighbor and Hunters Point native, who watched from the top floor of her apartment on Northridge Road as the police shot at Tyrell numerous times as he ran for safety, his shirt and jeans dripping with his own blood, into the house of Lata Price, another neighbor and close family friend.

"Amerikkka has been at war with the African American community since the beginning of slavery. Today, instead of slave masters terrorizing them, it's the terrorist police. Instead of calling it slavery, it's jail and prison. Instead of using whips and chains, their weapons of choice are bully clubs, guns, pepper spray and tasers.

We can't allow the police to terrorize our communities and treat us like dogs. It's time for us to stand up and fight for our lives and the lives of our children. You may not have known Tyrell, but what happens when the police attacks one of your children or someone close to you?

We've swept enough brutality under the door, but it's time for us to take out the trash. This isn't the first time they've done it and it won't be the last if we don't get it together as a community and do something about the way police terrorize our community and the places we call home". (Quote from Apollonia Jordan, reporter for the SF Bayview National Black Newspaper)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Justice4Tyrell/

Please join and post a message of Love and Support to 18yr. Tyrelle Taylor and his courageous family ! Please forward to your contacts !

by Jack Tafari

Introdukshan

Me seh what a weh de policebwoy dem a gwan

inna disya Oregon,

disya Salem, Oregon

Seem seh ev'ryweh me tu'n appear Babylon

inna disya Oregon,

disya Salem, Oregon

Dem approach I fram mi lef'

an' dem come fram mi right

an' dem ax so much question is mus' book dem write!

Dem waan know mi name an' weh me come fram

weh Iman did born

an' weh me a galang

weh me got inna mi pocket dem

an' up under mi tam

an' when me eat mi brukfas' even weh me 'ave fe nyam!

Now Ah could a get vex

an' gaan pon de attack

but listen carefully 'ow me answer dem back

Me seh, "Mi name is Jack Tafari,

me nah come fe do no wrong

mi name mean Peace inna de Amharic tongue

an' when yuh look inna mi pocket nuh

yuh nah go find no gun

ca due to Jah protekshan now

me nah go walk wi' one

Now some claim seh me is a Englishman

an' some nex' one seh me is a 'merican man

but case yuh never know

me is a conscious man

an' Ah did born right yahso inna Creation

So run mi damn ID nuh, man,

den leggo mi han'

an' come out a mi life wi' yuh bagga question

Me seh run mi damn ID nuh

an' den leggo mi han'

an' come out a mi life wi' yuh bagga question"

Me seh what a weh dem policebwoy deh a gwan

inna disya Oregon,

disya Salem, Oregon

by tiny/PNN

“He was our Moses”, they stood together, bodies swaying slowly back and forth as if to carry their weary bodies through and out of the tragedies they had seen– eyes staring straight ahead – skin the color of the earth –holding hands that had held struggle, had brought forth life and had carried humanity to safety. “…

“..and had it not been for him barbequing on the roof the helicopters would not have seen us – and that’s how we got saved” The soft voice of Amika Wilson, Hurricane Katrina survivor and lifelong resident of New Orleans, was referring to her fellow Katrina survivor and husband Benjamin Lorenzo Wilson. The couple took turns relating their experiences of barely making it out alive of the tragedy that was Hurricane Katrina.

The couple were one of several New Orleans families that spoke to a crowd of artists and activists gathered in rapt attention at the First Congregational Church in Oakland last Saturday at an event entitled HONORING GULF COAST FAMILIES:Mourning Lives Lost and Celebrating the Spirit of Resilience

“I am pleased to be here today, I thank god to have another chance to see life – I want to try to explain to you all what happened today,” Benjamin continued their story, “the day when the storm was broadcasted – we couldn’t get no gas – every one was trying to leave at one time – they (gas stations) started to raise the prices of gas – from 2.50 a gallon to over 3.00 and a lot of people tried to leave, but couldn’t get beyond a few miles out of town, cause they ran out of gas or they got stuck on the road. We only had a few minutes to leave and we could hardly take anything but we took a butane tank and our bbq grill.

“We went to a church school – and when we got there – we moved up to the second level by the first night of the storm- we didn’t have any water- people were trying to come in and they were floating by – we had no rope so we had to throw people an extension chord – some houses all you could see was the pitch roof of a house- at night it was pitch black – you could hear babies crying –people screaming -and we had no food – there was no plumbing” Mr. Wilson sometimes spoke so softly that you could barely hear him, almost as though he was in the midst of tears.

Amika took over the microphone, “No-one expected to see mothers throwing babies into our school building so they could be saved. The first night you could see rooftops coming off of buildings, we had a great aunt who was 400 pounds and we had to take her to the second floor, so my husband and our nephews had to lift her to the next level as the water rose. By the third day we had no food, hardly any water and we had people coming into the space who were hungry , cold, despondent and the hostility was very high”

“Everyone was out for themselves- we had some young folks who tried to take what little we did have but my husband wasn’t letting that happen.”

“By the third day, I asked the Priest to let us cook what little we did have on the roof’s barbeque, but he said no, and in my mind I wanted to say, ‘Pharaoh you gonna let our people go’ but then the next morning he came to us and said who has the Barbeque, cause the wind is not blowing, so you can cook, and so we went on the roof – we fed 200 people – there was no ice- there was no fresh water –and we had to ration what we did have, and I really don’t know where the food came from. And because of that barbeque the helicopters saw us and picked us up and took us to the Dome

Amika continued on with her story, her eyes focusing off into a place far above our heads, to somewhere in the middle of a racist and classist government sponsored death and destruction, a place that even she had trouble believing she lived through, somewhere that no human being should have to go, a place where poor folks are forced to go everyday all over the world, “When we landed they put us under the bridge, her eyes glazed over as she continued, “there were no restrooms, the reek of human waste was so bad we could hardly breathe, with babies screaming and people crying for food and water and it was so hot.”

“They (officials) did not treat us with respect; they would pitch water at us – warm water at that, cursing at us the whole time, calling us names”.
“So After 10 hours of standing there under the bridge waiting for the “bus”, my husband said, ‘we are gonna walk’ so we gathered up our family, all of us stayed clumped together, like the children of Israel, until we got way out on the causeway, where we laid down our all of our belongings on the road and went to sleep. And I actually had reservations about leaving where we were because I thought well we are at least in the line, but my husband was right cause when we we woke up at 5:00 am we were at the head of the line and one of the first families onto the bus.”

The crowd clapped and we felt a moment of collective relief before Amika went on, “So we left one pit and went to another pit, (Houston) but it was a little bit better cause there was water and it was a little bit cooler, but there was horrible stuff going on – including the rape of 6 year old girl – some gang activity, and a lot of other horrible things, but we stayed together, no-one separated.”

Amika concluded by telling us that they escaped because their brother-in law who resides in Richmond rented a van and managed to find them in Houston, she added, “ There were so many wrong things that happened, including the fact that law enforcement did not do there jobs – people were just trying to get food – and they were being shot at - we were one of the chosen people and I am still praying for my brothers and sisters who are still there and desperately trying to get a way out”

After the Wilson’s’ tragic story I stepped outside to finish crying a gush of tears that have not stopped since the corporate and non-corporate media coverage began of this tragedy.

In the lobby of the Church I spoke to another survivor, life long resident of New Orleans, school administrator and principal of one of New Orleans largest high schools, John F. Kennedy,James Gorey, “We lost everything, we lost our homes, we lost two vehicles, we had to make some decisions , my wife and I have three beautiful children, and so we made a decision for them and for our future to relocate to the Bay Area”

“My brother in law is a dean at Cal State Hayward, so I have that option , I have choices that a lot of folks don’t have.” To this last assertion, I, always searching for the position of people who have a voice versus those who don’t, had to ask Mr. Gorey how he would consider himself in terms of economic stability, “I would consider myself middle or upper middle class, and that’s why we had those choices, but there is a large percentage of folks there( New Orleans) who had lost hope, economically, systematically, and that’s why we were doing stuff with the school system to give back hope to the young folks who had lost hope.”

I also asked Mr. Gorey about another sector of folks who are not even being mentioned in this tragedy, which isn’t unusual – cause they are rarely thought of without a tragedy- i.e., about the homeless folks in New Orleans, “There is a significant number of homeless people in New Orleans – and the reason people could survive homeless in New Orleans – is because people in New Orleans are caring people- and there were a lot of children in schools who were homeless = and we were working on programs to make permanent housing available for homeless people, but it hadn’t happened, and of course these folks had no options”

I asked Mr. Gorey what his opinion of the way that the whole thing went down, I blame our state, local and federal officials. Period. New Orleans has always been under-resourced and now it’s coming to light.”

After talking to Mr. Gorey, I went back into the auditorium and had the privilege of hearing from elder survivors, like George Sr, 80, who along with his family had walked through chin-high water for miles just to reach safety, which in his case meant project housing, where they could only stay a little while until they were taken to the Astrodome, and locals like Pastor Carl from Richmond who gave respect to his mother , father, sisters and brothers and knew that even though he was in the middle of his life in Richmond and one day away from having to pay the rent on his church had to rent a van and drive to New Orleans to find his family and bring them home to safety, family who were living in motels and about to be put out on the street because they didn’t have any more money left.

Pastor Carl concluded, “And we got there right on time, because God is always on time, amen.”

As I left the powerful event which was sponsored by the First Congregational Church and Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and included scholarship from activists Van Jones, and Poet Laureate Devorah Major, I remembered one of Van’s comments following the families stories’; “These are the people that the government abandoned,”

And then as if in answer to those words I remembered the final comment of educator/survivor, James Gorey, “ the only reason people survived at all is because of all the beautiful people in California and Texas who have helped us all.”

by Byron Gafford and Tiny

When the side

Of the road is

Marked by death.

With pictures, balloons,

Teddy bears, alcohol bottles,

And Candles.

Where drive by shootings

Occur leaving bodies

Where they drop.

An excerpt from WHEN THE SIDE OF THE ROAD IS MARKED BY DEATH by Byron Gafford, poet,author and co-director of A Walk of Resistance through Poverty, Homelessness and Homicide a POOR Press PRoduckshun ©2005

"Another death occurred on the block in my neighborhood…that's Bertha Lane"
Poet, author and poverty scholar, Byron Gafford and I were meeting to discuss a showing of our new film at a workshop we were going to run at Unity High School in Oakland next week when he unveiled his newest group of poetryjournalism based on a drive-by shooting of a young African Descendent male in his Bayview neighborhood. The disturbing thing is, this shooting and Byrons' new poetry were the very issues that we had focused on in our short narrative documentary film; A Walk of Resistance through Poverty Homelessness and Homicide.

"It was a year ago when another young man was gunned down on the same street not far from this recent shooting" Byron continued on to relate the fact that since this most recent shooting another shrine appeared which included the remnants of this young mans' short life; Pictures, Balloons, Teddy Bears, Alcohol Bottles and candles for the spirit that remains.

Homicide (murder) is the leading cause of death for Black youth;14-24 years of age and the second leading cause of death for Latino youth in the US. "

The saddest thing of all is Byron and I weren't surprised. In the process of making the collaborative film which was co-written, co-directed and co-filmed by the youth and adult poverty scholars in POOR Magazine's Digital Resistance Program we all brought our personal experience as residents of the Bayview, the Mission, The Tenderloin and across the bay in Oakland to the planning process, which included the experience of having friends and family shot down in their youth. We also explored related issues such as the root causes of poverty, racism, gentrification, media stereotyping, substance abuse redlining, police harassment and homelessness and how these issues have a direct impact on the youth and their families trying to survive in these communities.

After discussing all of these issues we did research on the actual numbers of families in poverty, facing homelessness, and being killed by a firearm in Amerikka. Our findings were truly frightening.

In 2003 the number of Americans living in poverty rose by 1.3 million"

Our research made us more determined to try to affect change in our respective communities through education, awareness and grassroots media production. So after all the poverty skolars/ filmmakers were schooled in the basics of how to operate a camera, direct , edit and write a film they set about producing POOR's recent form of media resistance. A Walk of Resistance, that is.

The film is told in 8 multi-generational, cross cultural voices, walking through five neighborhoods opening with Byrons' journey through Double Rock (Housing Projects), progressing to a bi-lingual tour of East Oakland's youth violence told from the poetic perspective of immigrant youth skolar Muteado and proceeding back to the tenderloin with the voices of houseless African Descendent elders and houseless and at-risk families, and back to liquor stores on Third street in the Bayview ending with a visual and meditative tour through Sundial Park and an ironic voice from POOR's grandmama. A walk of Resistance is truly educational, speaking the truths of poverty and oppression, struggle and survival from the folks who experience it firsthand

Don’t be afraid those
Are the spots where
A mothers child lost
There life…..BY GUN FIRE.

A walk of Resistance Through Poverty, Homelessness and Homicide is in DVD format /running time 15 min. To book a showing or purchase a copy please call POOR Magazine at (415) 863-6306 or email us. As well as a piece of literary and media art in film we also view it as an educational tool for low-income youth and adults, so the Filmmakers are also interested in conducting live presentations/panels and workshops on these issues at schools, community organizations , film festivals or other venues.

by Human Rights Watch/courtesy of Corey Weinstein, of California Prison Focus

As Hurricane Katrina began pounding New Orleans, the sheriff's department abandoned hundreds of inmates imprisoned in the city’s jail, Human Rights Watch said today.

Inmates in Templeman III, one of several buildings in the Orleans Parish Prison compound, reported that as of Monday, August 29, there were no correctional officers in the building, which held more than 600 inmates. These inmates, including some who were locked in ground-floor cells, were not evacuated until Thursday, September 1, four days after flood waters in the jail had reached chest-level.

Of all the nightmares during Hurricane Katrina, this must be one of the worst,” said Corinne Carey, researcher from Human Rights Watch. “Prisoners were abandoned in their cells without food or water for days as floodwaters rose toward the ceiling.”

Human Rights Watch called on the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct an investigation into the conduct of the Orleans Sheriff's Department, which runs the jail, and to establish the fate of the prisoners who had been locked in the jail. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, which oversaw the evacuation, and the Orleans Sheriff’s Department should account for the 517 inmates who are missing from list of people evacuated from the jail.

Carey spent five days in Louisiana, conducting dozens of interviews with inmates evacuated from Orleans Parish Prison, correctional officers, state officials, lawyers and their investigators who had interviewed more than 1,000 inmates evacuated from the prison.

The sheriff of Orleans Parish, Marlin N. Gusman, did not call for help in evacuating the prison until midnight on Monday, August 29, a state Department of Corrections and Public Safety spokeswoman told Human Rights Watch. Other parish prisons, she said, had called for help on the previous Saturday and Sunday. The evacuation of Orleans Parish Prison was not completed until Friday, September 2.

According to officers who worked at two of the jail buildings, Templeman 1 and 2, they began to evacuate prisoners from those buildings on Tuesday, August 30, when the floodwaters reached chest level inside. These prisoners were taken by boat to the Broad Street overpass bridge, and ultimately transported to correctional facilities outside New Orleans.

But at Templeman III, which housed about 600 inmates, there was no prison staff to help the prisoners. Inmates interviewed by Human Rights Watch varied about when they last remember seeing guards at the facility, but they all insisted that there were no correctional officers in the facility on Monday, August 29. A spokeswoman for the Orleans parish sheriff’s department told Human Rights Watch she did not know whether the officers at Templeman III had left the building before the evacuation.

According to inmates interviewed by Human Rights Watch, they had no food or water from the inmate’s last meal over the weekend of August 27-28 until they were evacuated on Thursday, September 1. By Monday, August 29, the generators had died, leaving them without lights and sealed in without air circulation. The toilets backed up, creating an unbearable stench.

They left us to die there,” Dan Bright, an Orleans Parish Prison inmate told Human Rights Watch at Rapides Parish Prison, where he was sent after the evacuation.

As the water began rising on the first floor, prisoners became anxious and then desperate. Some of the inmates were able to force open their cell doors, helped by inmates held in the common area. All of them, however, remained trapped in the locked facility.

The water started rising, it was getting to here,” said Earrand Kelly, an inmate from Templeman III, as he pointed at his neck. “We was calling down to the guys in the cells under us, talking to them every couple of minutes. They were crying, they were scared. The one that I was cool with, he was saying ‘I'm scared. I feel like I'm about to drown.' He was crying.”

Some inmates from Templeman III have said they saw bodies floating in the floodwaters as they were evacuated from the prison. A number of inmates told Human Rights Watch that they were not able to get everyone out from their cells.

Inmates broke jail windows to let air in. They also set fire to blankets and shirts and hung them out of the windows to let people know they were still in the facility. Apparently at least a dozen inmates jumped out of the windows.

We started to see people in T3 hangin' shirts on fire out the windows,” Brooke Moss, an Orleans Parish Prison officer told Human Rights Watch. “They were wavin' em. Then we saw them jumping out of the windows . . . Later on, we saw a sign, I think somebody wrote `help' on it.”

As of yesterday, signs reading “Help Us,” and “One Man Down,” could still be seen hanging from a window in the third floor of Templeman III.

Several corrections officers told Human Rights Watch there was no evacuation plan for the prison, even though the facility had been evacuated during floods in the 1990s.

“It was complete chaos,” said a corrections officer with more than 30 years of service at Orleans Parish Prison. When asked what he thought happened to the inmates in Templeman III, he shook his head and said: “Ain't no tellin’ what happened to those people.”

“At best, the inmates were left to fend for themselves,” said Carey. “At worst, some may have died.”

Human Rights Watch was not able to speak directly with Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin N. Gussman or the ranking official in charge of Templeman III. A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department told Human Rights Watch that search-and-rescue teams had gone to the prison and she insisted that “nobody drowned, nobody was left behind.”

Human Rights Watch compared an official list of all inmates held at Orleans Parish Prison immediately prior to the hurricane with the most recent list of the evacuated inmates compiled by the state Department of Corrections and Public Safety (which was entitled, “All Offenders Evacuated”). However, the list did not include 517 inmates from the jail, including 130 from Templeman III.

Many of the men held at jail had been arrested for offenses like criminal trespass, public drunkenness or disorderly conduct. Many had not even been brought before a judge and charged, much less been convicted.

by Tiny/PoorNewsNetwork

"I wouldn’t have made through College without them", When I told my good friend Martina that I was writing a story on the Betty Shabazz Family Resource Center at City College of San Francisco she revealed a little known fact to me about her educational background, " I was barely making it financially with my two kids and then trying to go school on top of that, there would have been no way without their great program" My friend is now a graduate student at Howard University and there is no stopping her. I was thrilled to hear her experience but the disturbing part of it is how close low-income single parents teeter on the edge of survival and how important places like the Family Resource Center really are….

"Do you have Calworks?"

"I already told you I can’t qualify for Calworks….but I am very low-income, I am working poor and I am trying to go school to improve my situation isn’t there some support you can give me?.."

"Well , then there’s nothing we can do for you…"

Martina’s revelation brought me back to a horrible conversation I had in December of Last year. I had been told that " nothing we can do for you" line far too many times in my homeless, poverty stricken life but somehow this time it cut even deeper. The bearer of that disaffected news was an Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS) "advocate" at City College of San Francisco who seemed to have a case of job burnout. The "help" I was asking for was a referral for a child care subsidy, a center or something to help pay for the exhorbitant costs of child care if I wanted to go to school. But in the end the lack of help and flagrant disinterest I got from (EOPS) was just one of many "no’s" that I and countless other low-income mothers and fathers receive daily when we try to get any kind of support and in particular when we seek affordable child care

Currently the rate of most child care providers is running at approximately $10-12 per hour. If you are only earning $12-15.00 per hour that is over 90% of your salary, and for middle income folks its hovering at %75. The other sad fact is single mothers and fathers are not rewarded by this society to care for their own children, i.e., parenting, even in the supposed modern, conscious and aware 21st century is still not viewed as a valid form of "work" even though those of us doing that parenting know its one of the hardest jobs you will ever do. Welfare dictates that single parents get a job, any job as soon as their baby reaches 8 months old

And to further that inane logic, if you are on Calworks, the system (i.e. welfare) values child care "work" at below minimum wage, i.e, the going rate they pay for child care is $4.50 per hour under two which drops to $4.00 once children reach the grand old age of two. And of course this whole situation is so shameful when you compare it to countries like Canada, France, Germany and many parts of Europe which provides free, yes I said free, child care for all parents.

So with my head hanging very low and barely able to muster up a goodbye me and my stroller bound son stumbled out of the EOPS bungalow onto the CCSF campus. With tired feet I pushed the stroller outside into the bright, cool January sun. We climbed slowly up a hill to a hidden elevator in the back of the building and began the ascendance up to the Student Union plaza. As the creaking metal doors of the elevator opened, the corner of my eyes caught the faster than light movement of several baby legs through a floor to ceiling glass wall in front of me.

I shook my head thinking my mind was playing tricks on me, but then when I looked back someone was waving at us through the glass. "Tiny, how are ya doin?"
It was the singsong voice of my companera, Tracy Faulkner, former welfare mom, fellow activist and tireless advocate for the rights of poor single parents

Within seconds I had poured my dilemma out to her. "Well, Tiny it looks like you came to the right place do you know about the PEP project?"

"NO!?"

"The Parent Education Project (PEP) is a project of The Betty Shabazz Family Resource Center that provides parents with 9 hours of free child care per week and in exchange we only ask the parents to volunteer 2 hours of their time per week." Tracy who is the executive director of the Center went on to tell me that although there was a waiting list I had a chance of getting in for the upcoming semester.

"Oh my god, that would make school possible….Thank-you wonderful people"

That was over five months ago and since then, thanks to the innovative service provision of the Family Resource Center I have been able to pursue a formal education. The center includes a family friendly computer lab, and the amazing PEP project that allows working poor parents like myself to get free child care while we are in school.

"I wouldn’t have made it through school without this place" I spoke to Liz, another one of the staff about her experience. Liz, who like most of the multi-cultural women and men who work at the center began as a low-income mother on Calworks trying to pursue an education when she enrolled in the program.

"Dr. Betty Shabazz was herself a low-income single mother who with help from the community was able to raise her children and pursue an education and now has a Ph.d
We are trying to be ‘the community’ for the parents who come to our center" In a recent conversation I had with Tracy about the Center’s current financial needs she described the reason for the Centers’ namesake.

"Due to current budget cuts we are barely surviving and we need to raise funds just to provide our kids with snacks and pay for printer cartridges so the students can print out their papers for school in our computer lab" Tracy went on to explain that there is a huge demand for the Center to be open in the summer because otherwise parents can’t attend summer school at City College. I heartily agreed knowing that my now-frolicking 19 month old son in the next room will not only miss this great place but I won’t be able to afford to send him anywhere else which means I won’t be able to go to school.

As I left the Center that day the words of all the mothers and fathers I spoke to floated through my mind with one line being a constant, "I wouldn’t have made it through school without their support" which is why its up to the community to make sure that support is always there….

The Family Resource Center is having a fundraiser on Wednesday, april 20th at 6:00 pm at Sadies’ Flying Elephant at 491 Potrero Av ( at Mariposa) in SF ($10 donation at the door or whatever you can pay- 21 and over) For more information you can call the Betty Shabazz Family Resource Center at (415) 239-3109 or if you miss the fundraiser you can send them a donation in the form of a check or money order made payable to Student Parents United and send it to The Family Resource Center 50 Phelan Avenue Box # SU205 San Francisco Ca 94112.

by Leroy Moore/Illin n' Chillin correspondent, Black Disabled Activist\Poet

The Nation of Islam and the Black Panthers took the education to the streets. In July of this year Berkeley and Oakland lost more than a sidewalk scholar, former Black Panther, Union worker, father, people’s activist, poet, tailor, and outspoken speaker. We lost a piece of East Bay foundation and a source of revolutionary education and political truths! On September 25th I found out that Malcolm Samuel, AKA Brother Malcolm, passed away on July 29th 2005 from complications of diabetes but these complications came by the hands of police and the non existence medical care in prison and in so called vocational hospital.

During Malcolm’s memorial on September 25, 2005 at the Center for Independent Living, CIL, Berkeley, CA. where he was consider a life long consumer, I learned why I haven’t seen Malcolm at his regular place, outside of Amoeba Records Store on Telegraph Ave. in his wheelchair with his hard hitting spoken word CD speaking Black Panther truth to the youth. You see, his brother, James, and others at the memorial said that Malcolm was caught in a police sweep on Telegraph in April. Many people, friends of Malcolm that are involved with Catholic Workers who delivers meals to the people who were homeless told me that the Berkeley police performs three sweeps a year. They told me the schedule of the sweeps are as follows, one sweep before the school year to present a ‘new cleaner campus for U.C. Berkeley new incoming students; during the holidays for all the business owners on Telegraph so they can make their Christmas money and at the end of the school year for parents picking up their love ones. Malcolm was use to being harassed by Berkeley police.

Malcolm was swept up in April of 2005 and brought to a jail in Vacaville, CA. according to his brother he was then transferred to Duelle Vocational Center and then to Hospital Doctors in Montica, CA where he passed away. All of this time and Malcolm’ brother could not get the correct information of where he was and how his brother was doing. Tears streamed down our checks when Malcolm’s brother told us that his brother was cremated without his say and still today the jail refuse to send Malcolm’s remains to his brother in Berkeley.

The raw but true stories that were told at the memorial hit my ears voiletly. Stories about Malcolm’s run ins with Berkeley finest filled CIL with anger. His brother told us a story how the police thought Malcolm stole a wheelchair from the hospital when he was in for treatment for his dabites. Malcolm’s brother continued the story by telling us that the police actually handcuffed Malcolm in his wheelchair! Malcolm used to tell me in my ear bending over his wheelchair how the police continuously verbally threaten him to stay off Telegraph Ave. His brother told us that Malcolm was swept up by police because he was a Black Panther and his revolutionary sidewalk education he spread on the Avenue no other reason. Because Malcolm was a Black Panther the FBI had a file on him and his brother told us that Malcolm was closely watched after the 911 attacks in New York and in DC. Malcolm told me one day how he escape the draft for the Vietnam War by going to Canada and the time he saw Malcolm X speak.

Malcolm and I met a year ago this was the same time that he was getting services from Center for Independent Living of Berkeley. Mav from CIL told me that they helped Malcolm get temporary housing, disability benefits and the Executive Director and other employees of CIL came out of packets to get him food and clothes. I think because of CIL Malcolm got to know about Pushing Limits radio show on KPFA. He did a show with Kiilu Nyasha talking about his early years in the Black Panther Party and his job as a tailor for the Panther Party during Black History Month 2004. Malcolm lost a leg from diabetes. His brother remembered what he told Malolm after he lost his leg. He told his brother, “Now I’m your legs now!” His brother told us that he was the comedian and Malcolm was the political, grassroots educator/activist. In 2002 Malcolm with local artists like the Coup, his brother and others helped produce and package his CD entitled Brother Malcolm SPEAKS. Before Malcolm died his brother and Malcolm was working on his second CD and a DVD of his 2002 live performance at The Yellow Warehouse in Oakland. This project will be ready sometime this Winter or early 2006.

Malcolm’s poetry tells a story of unity, strength, the beauty of humanity and the need of self-determination without the two political party system. During the memorial, Siraj, a local poet and one of many Malcolm’s adopted young solider, spoke about his connection with Malcolm. Siraj in 2004 was hosting the open mic event at Blake’s on Telegraph and was trying to get Malcolm to come and be a feature. Finally Malcolm agreed and tore up the place with his poem “Rainbows” according to Siraj. At the memorial Siraj shared a poem he wrote to remember Malcolm. Siraj told us Malcolm was like his grandfather. He used to push Malcolm places when his electric wheelchair broke down and used to help him charge it in stores on the avenue. Siraj also shared with us that Malcolm was ready to take on anything from opening a recording business to performing by saying, “we should start this or that!” He used to tell all the youngsters the history of Berkeley and Oakland and the city’s ties to people’s power.

Malcolm was featured in the article in Street Spirit and in the East Bay Express of April 2003. A lady at the memorial gave us insights of the unselfishness of Malcolm when he offered his Chinese Cookies and other food to her and the rest of his friends on the Avenue. Although Malcolm was a revolutionary, poet, father and friend to many, he had strange craving for food. Another of Malcolm’s friends at the memorial said that his favorite meal was a mayonnaise & tomato sandwich. Yesterday I found myself outside of Amobia Records on Telegraph Avenue eating a mayonnaise & tomato sandwich with my portable CD player blasting Malcolm’s CD while looking up in the foggy sky waving hi to my disabled revolutionary Brother, Brother Malcolm. You’ll be missed!

by Ace Tafoya/PoorNewsNetwork

An 86-year old Bayview Hunters Point resident, was baffled when she received a letter from the City of San Francisco’s Department of Public Works Bureau of Street-Use and Mapping describing a construction project for underground wiring on her street. She was concerned because she didn’t have the money to pay for the project that the letter was describing. After putting $1500 on her credit card, she became so entrenched with worry about the fate of her home and the debt that she had just incurred on a fixed income that she, quite literally, worried herself to death.

Another 62 year-old Bayview Hunters Point resident, took out a high-interest loan at the rate of 19% to pay for the underground wiring.

Imagine their anger and disbelief when they found out that the City had funds to help residents like them pay for this work.

These stories are becoming all too common as the City and County of San Francisco embarks on a number of new projects to redevelop neighborhoods like the Bayview. On Saturday, April 16 on a typical San Francisco morning, POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights) and many residents of Bayview Hunters Point gathered at the Bayview Anna E. Waden Branch Library to voice their concerns and brainstorm solutions over the underground wiring and new construction going on in their neighborhood. POWER, an eight-year old membership organization based in the Tenderloin neighborhood, brought together residents in response to concerns they’d heard about this project.

Beginning late last year, residents in the Bayview began receiving letters from the City detailing an underground wiring process that involved placing the utility poles located in the neighborhood underground. The letters stated that homeowners were expected to pay for this work to be done by a certain date, or face the threat of a lien being placed on their homes.

After receiving a tip from a resident, POWER began to research this project and found that the City had a grant program that would subsidize up to $4000 per property for qualifying low-income homeowners. The vast majority of residents had never even heard of the grant program—some had paid for the work to be done out of their retirement savings, or had gone into debt to avoid having a lien placed on their homes. Many of the homeowners in the community are elderly families living on a fixed income.

"Improving the quality of life in San Francisco - we are committed to teamwork, customer service and continuous improvement in partnership with the community," reads the Department of Public Works Bureau of Street-Use and Mapping stationary. Judging by the presence of more than fifty residents and concerned citizens of Bayview-Hunter's Point at the community meeting, this mission statement is debatable.

"I can't believe City Hall," shouted Regina Douglas, a founding member of POWER and a former resident of the Bayview. "We don't have to look (at) Iraq. We've got terrorism right here at City Hall."

Douglas’ comments echoed many at the neighborhood meeting Saturday morning. Many expressed concerns for their elderly parents and relatives who have been receiving these letters and are taking extraordinary measures to try and make ends meet—and on top of it all, they are attempting to scrape together the money to pay for a project that many residents say they neither asked for nor knew about.

"We are organizing, we're together out here, we are going to make sure everyone entitled to it, gets it," Espanola Jackson, a long-time activist said, referring to the grants available to low-income residents, but hidden from public notice by city lawmakers conveniently.

"(We need) the Mayor's Office on Housing, the Public Utilities Commission and PG&E to explain to this community why nobody knew they had money available," Julie Browne, a lead organizer with POWER called out as she sauntered back and forth across the brick-filled meeting room.

Most of this underground construction will be done by PG&E, unless residents find an independent contractor to do it themselves. The smoke from PG&E’s power plant engulfs a community already crippled by high unemployment, police surveillance, and the highest asthma rate in the country. POWER members and residents of the Bayview are forced to ask: Why do the politicians and local representatives continue to ignore and terrorize this community? Why are we being forced to pay a corporation that has crippled this community, when that same corporation should be paying us reparations?

"They (City Hall) want you to give up...They want your house, they're doing everything they can to take it," cried Leboriae Smoore, a resident of the Bayview since 1974. "So you have to fight back to keep it!"

That's what this neighborhood meeting was called for – to fight back against the City agencies and corporations that promote the racist housing policies which push working class communities of color out of the city. We demand equality. We demand attention. We demand respect.

Residents of the Bayview and members of POWER will get the attention that they deserve—in fact, they will turn out in full force at 6pm Wednesday, April 27 at the Southeast Facilities Commission meeting which is being held at Southeast Community College in the Bayview. It is here at this meeting that representatives from PG&E will try again to explain why residents in the Bayview, a community with a median income of $18,000 per year, is being forced to pay for a project that they never even asked for, either with money, or with their homes.

If you received a letter requiring you to pay for your utility wiring to be placed underground, contact POWER today at (415) 864-8372 to find out more about the City’s CERF grant program. Or contact the city directly at (415) 252-3180.

by Tiny/PNN

"Arnold has thrown down with all the other haters," POOR Magazine Youth in Media intern, William W, 17, flipped his thin chocolate brown hand in the air toward a place where "Arnold" (Schwarzenegger) might be.

William, a very low-income, formerly houseless, African Descendent student at Oakland Technical High School and intern with POOR's Youth in Media program, was referring to Arnold's recent veto of AB1531 which would have allowed school districts to develop alternatives to the mandatory high school exit exam that California students have to pass before they graduate and receive their diploma. AB1531, along with SB385, which focuses on allowing English learner students to take the high school exit exam in the student's first language, were vetoed by the increasingly right wing leaning Govenator on Friday Oct 7th.

"Arnold, what if when you came to the United States someone told you that you had to take a test just to receive your high school diploma even though you only spoke German," asked Eduardo Ayala. Ayala, was one of several youth from Richmond High School who spoke at an emergency press conference sponsored by Fuerza Unida and Youth Together held on Thursday. They were requesting support from the community for these two bills, which were the last chance to save low-income students, immigrant students and students of color in California schools from the racist, classist exit exam which comes with the penalty of not passing high school and receiving your diploma.

As Eduardo spoke to the crowd of powerful youth, teachers, politicians and advocates gathered together to promote these bills in a last ditch attempt to save California's youth, I was struck by the irony of his heartfelt question to Arnold. In fact, as I did some research for this story I found that notwithstanding Arnold's anti-youth, anti-immigrant, jingoist stance, the Austrian school system which Arnold is a product of, teaches its children to master three languages. When confronted with an increasing mono-lingual Slovenian population in one of its districts, the schools began, without protest or fascist policy interlopers to incorporate the Slovenian language into their core curriculum. Not to mention the fact that Austria, like most of Western Europe, is a welfare state that supports its population with low and/or no cost healthcare, child care and housing, cradle to grave. Perhaps, as he states in his message about his veto of 385; As an immigrant whose second language is English, I know the importance of mastering English as quickly and as comprehensively as possible, in order to be successful in the United States, he should have added that he already knew English when he arrived in the US, because he had the privilege of an elementary and secondary education that included a tri-language curriculum, something all California would benefit from.

"This test discriminates against not just Latino students but all immigrants and students of color," Eduardo added

"We are representing all English learner students in California, that's over 1. 5 million students in public schools, that's one out of every four Californian students' speak a language that is other than English," Raul Alcarez, organizer with Youth Together who co-emceed the bi-lingual press conference with a young Raza student, Maria Celebon, addressed the crowd.

Raul and Maria continued in tandem, "If these bills are not signed many high school students and students of color will not be receiving their diploma - we are hard-working students - we are simply asking that this test be more fair, that there be alternatives to the exit exam or that it be given in the students' first language "cause one size doesn't fit all." Following Raul and Maria's introduction several mono-lingual and English learner students declared their extremely logical and well-reasoned requests to the Govenator to pass these bills. One of them was Elise Padilla, a direct, no-nonsense, Raza female who addressed the crowd in Spanish.

"Soy estudiante de Richmond High. Estoy en el duodicimo grado. El Gobernador fue elegido como representante de California, y ahora es el momento que de verdad nos demuestra que representa los intereses de nosotros estudiantes" (I am a student in Richmond High. I am in the 12th grade. The Governor was elected as a representative of California, and now is the time that he truly demonstrate to us that he represents the interests of us, the students.]

As well as students, teachers and counselors from Richmond High and Met-West High in Oakland and organizers from Californians For Justice, the press conference included the supportive voices of Richmond City Council members Gayle Mcloughlan and John Marquez as well as a representative from Representative George Miller's office, who stated that he, "hadn't weighed in yet on the state-based propositions." This was interesting, as Miller is one of the lead proponents of the highly problematic, full of lies and mythologies, No Child Left Behind Act( NCLB). NCLB is the frame in which the exit exam lives, and in and of itself is fraught with several punitive, anti-child, anti-learning policies, policies that have a dire impact on low-income schools like Richmond High and many others in West Contra Costa County. An act that I have re-named No Child Left Alive.

"The High School exit exam is a racist policy aimed at disenfranchising low-income students of color and making their communities more susceptible to poverty and its related ills," Olivia Araiza, Program Director with Justice Matters Institute, said. Justice Matters works on racial justice policy in education, specifically, changing harmful policies that impact low-income youth of color and immigrant youth across California and re-defining what schools for low-income children, children of color and immigrant children look like and act like.

"The high school exit exam is a state policy and it is used to satisfy one of the requirements of the federal NCLB act, but NCLB doesn't mandate a penalty on the exam. California added the penalty of not getting a diploma, which results in keeping our communities at the bottom, so creating a permanent underclass is now mandated by the state," Olivia concluded.

In addition to a huge outcry from educators, advocates and thousands of youth across the state, the state's own sanctioned research team, Human Resources Research Organization (HUMRRO) acknowledged in their just released study that due to the impact of the exit exams, over 100,000 students will be denied diplomas in 2006 and recommended implementing multiple methods of assessing English and Math skills to determine a students' real life academic ability.

In response to the veto, Assembly Member Karen Bass, (D. Los Angeles) who authored 1531 said, "I am disappointed that the Governor can't see the residual effect of mass failure of students whose schools do not have adequate resources."

Or as Liz Guillen, Director of Legislative & Community Affairs with Public Advocates Inc, stated, " The Governor believes that alternative assessments would lower California's standards, which is counter to the findings of the states own evaluator (HUMMRO) as well as a similar study conducted by Stanford (University) on the need for multiple assessment."

Because of these and other similar findings, North Carolina and Florida recently passed laws requiring non-test alternatives. New York's state senate passed a bill authorizing the use of portfolios and performance assessments as alternatives to the state tests. As well, Wisconsin repealed its exit exam after creating local performance assessments and Indiana developed an alternative based on students passing core courses linked to state standards. In addition, so-called "higher achieving" states like Oregon, Washington, Pennsylvania, Maine and Rhode Island all require performance assessments as part of their graduation decisions.

"These exams will have an immediate impact on Black, Brown and poor students in California," said Kim Shree-Mofas, parent and tireless advocate for San Francisco's student body. She continued, "Low-income students of color are not benefiting from this kind of testing at all."

From POOR's perspective Kim is more qualified than Arnold to judge what is good for California's student body considering she has an African Descendent 18 year old daughter who is still having trouble with California's already under-funded, under-resourced school system

"I don't see the point of high school for four years," Kristi Dyes, recent San Francisco high school graduate and now college journalism major said. In my discussions with youth of color scholars on this issue I spoke with Kristi. “ That means that high school would be spent preparing you for taking a test because if you failed the test that could prevent you from getting your diploma." Kristi concluded.

As Kristi spoke, I was reminded of my own experience as a very low-income child who was homeless for much of my elementary school years and eventually had to drop out of school in the sixth grade to care for my family, only to find out as an adult without a high school diploma that I was unable to qualify for financial aid in the state of California, making my struggle to come up and out of poverty as a low-income single parent, even more unattainable.

"The Governor's veto sends a message to students of color, disabled students and immigrant students that they don't deserve a diploma," declared Raquel Jimenez, one of the lead organizers from Youth Together. After the veto came down I spoke with Raquel who worked with Youth Together and Fuerza Unida to sponsor Thursday's press conference. "Therefore California is not willing to provide equal opportunities to all students," Raquel added.

When I asked Raquel what Youth Togethers' next steps would be, she added, "We need to step up our organizing and go the legal route."

"I am already having a hard time with school, but I have stuck with it….Now I feel like what's the point," William concluded. As I listened to William speak, his face filled with dread at the possibility that he would have to take the exit exam even though he has serious learning disabilities, I hoped Raquel was right.

Thanks to William Romero and Valentina Velez-Rocha from Justice Matters for research assistance