by Stephanie Simon/LA Times Staff Writer

Denver — IT has been six months since Brad and Libby Birky opened a small cafe on a grungy strip of Colfax Avenue. They have no idea how much money they've made. Or how much any of their customers has paid for a bowl of the chicken chili or a slice of the organic pesto pizza.

Prices, profits — those don't mean much in the SAME Cafe. The acronym stands for So All May Eat, and that philosophy is all that matters.

After years of volunteering in soup kitchens, Libby and Brad wanted to create a place that would nourish the hungry without setting them apart. No assembly-line service, no meals mass-produced from whatever happened to be donated that week. Just fresh, sophisticated food, made from scratch, served up in a real restaurant — but a restaurant without a cash register.

Pay what you think is fair, the Birkys tell their customers. Pay what you can afford. Those who have a bit more are encouraged to drop a little extra in the donations box upfront. Those who can't pay at all are asked to work in the kitchen, dicing onions, scrubbing pots, giving back any way they can.

The Birkys could probably feed more hungry people, with far less effort, by donating the cash they spend on groceries to a homeless shelter.

That's not the point.

"It's not just the food," Libby says. "Often, homeless people, people in need, don't receive the same attention and care. Here, someone recognizes them, looks them in the eye, talks to them like they're just as valuable as the next person in line. That's why we do this."

Brad has turned away several panhandlers. He's not rolling pizza dough for four hours a day to give handouts. He and Libby aim to build a community in the SAME Cafe, one that draws in bankers and students and women living on the streets in double layers of clothes. They want their small space to fill with conversation — and with fellowship.

On this warm spring afternoon, James Duncan, 44, pedals up to the cafe and locks his bike to a banged-up rack. His T-shirt is ringed with sweat; his hair is matted.

But Libby lights up when she sees him, abandoning her post at the sudsy kitchen sink to perch on a chair beside him. She's been meaning to ask his opinion on the Dixie Chicks documentary.

They haven't chatted long before another regular comes in, an older woman with brassy black hair who has introduced herself to the Birkys simply as Dee. "What about that hat?" Dee squeals, laughing at Libby's boxy chef's cap.

"I have these silly bangs and they're getting in my face," Libby explains. Dee pulls up a chair next to James and they're off, marveling at how young people these days like the oddest music. "The other day, the band over there was 'Saliva,' " Dee says, nodding across the street at a seedy lounge.

Abruptly, Dee stops talking and peers into James' bowl. "What kind of soup is that?"

"Potato," he answers, and pushes the bowl toward her. "Try some! Try some!"

She dips in her spoon. "How did I miss that?"

"You want a cup?" Libby asks, jumping up.

Until she discovered the cafe, Dee lived on instant noodles and cold cereal, with a fast-food burger now and then for a treat. Now she lunches in the cafe at least four times a week (and Libby often packs her a meal to take home). When she can, Dee pays $3 or $4. When she can't, she mops the floor. Today, she has money, and lingers over Libby's sugar cookies.

James, a part-time math teacher, is out of cash today. He carries his empty bowl to the kitchen, pulls on rubber gloves, starts washing.

In the back of the restaurant, Will Murray, 52, is wondering how much to drop in the donations box after a meal of soup, salad and pizza. Ten dollars, he decides. On the wall behind him are framed quotations about giving: "A person's true wealth is the good he or she does in the world." And: "Be the change you want to see … "

"Maybe I'll toss in a few more," he says.

BRAD, 31, and Libby, 30, came up with the concept for the cafe as a way to help the hungry while letting Brad indulge his passion for cooking. Friends told them they were crazy. But the Birkys began scouring online auctions for secondhand restaurant gear.

They paid off their car — they figured if they went broke, they'd at least have something to their name. They drew up a financial plan. Several prospective landlords took one look and turned them away.

"It was a very alternative business model," Brad says, grinning. "It took some convincing."

To make their case, the Birkys pointed to the success of the One World Cafe in Salt Lake City, which has been serving up organic food on the pay-what-you-can philosophy since 2003. Its founder, Denise Cerreta, helped the Birkys map a start-up strategy, including applying for nonprofit status and setting up a board of directors.

In October, the couple opened the SAME Cafe, tucked under a green awning a few doors from the Kung-Fu Karate Studio and Purple Haze Smoke Shop. Other neighbors include a Salvation Army thrift shop, a liquor store and a tattoo parlor. But this area is slowly beginning to gentrify, attracting an art gallery, a clothing boutique, even a sushi restaurant.

The cafe is tiny, just seven tables and a narrow kitchen. Behind a tangle of plants in the big bay window, the room's sunny yellow gives off a cozy feel. The Birkys hung a string of origami cranes in the kitchen and decorated every table with a bud vase of orange silk daisies.

Brad hopes eventually to pay himself to run the cafe. For now, the Birkys live off Libby's salary as a teacher of gifted elementary students and Brad's part-time work as a computer consultant.

Because they're the only employees, they keep the cafe open just five days a week: Tuesday through Thursday for lunch, Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Brad changes the menu daily, using seasonal ingredients to create two soups, two salads and two varieties of gourmet pizza. Libby's in charge of the desserts: her grandma's sugar cookies (the recipe is pinned to the spice rack), fruit tarts, brownies, cheesecake or a rich banana-sour cream pie, served with a dollop of peanut butter.

To curtail waste, the Birkys don't set portions for their food. Customers take plates from a stack by the entrance and tell Brad how to fill them: a taste of the couscous with olives and feta cheese, a full bowl of the creamy squash soup, a thin wedge of the pear-and-gorgonzola pizza. They are always welcome back for seconds.

Brad's a largely self-taught chef — unless you count his high school job at Dairy Queen — and his food wins raves from customers. In a neighborhood dominated by fast-food chains and greasy diners, it's rare to find anything as inventive as his black-bean-quinoa salad, or the spicy tomato soup spiked with lime and finished with chunks of chicken and avocado.

BUT it's not the food alone that draws customers.

"You feel like you're helping them help others," says Bob Goodrich, 64, who walks to the cafe with his wife, Iris, several times a week. They give $15 or $20 when they can, $5 when that's all they have.

"It's like coming over to our friends' for lunch," Bob said.

While her husband gabs, Iris polishes off two slices of pizza and a green salad studded with dried cherries and pecans. "I cleaned my plate," she calls. "Can I get a cookie?"

Libby comes over with a tray of sweets. Bob turns to Brad. "Hand me your cloth," he says. "I'll wipe down the tables." The retired maintenance worker, wrapped in a cardigan sweater, lugs a bucket of soapy water to an empty table and gets to work.

By 1 p.m., the lunchtime crowd is gone. Libby dumps flour in a bowl for another batch of cookies. Brad leans against the fridge, trying to estimate the cafe's budget.

"Libby, you did those deposits recently. What do we take in?"

"Well, two weeks ago it was $850," Libby answers. "Last week, it was $200."

Brad shrugs, his interest waning. "Plus or minus a few hundred," he says.

In a few weeks, the cafe's board of directors — including a chef from a Denver culinary school and a nun who helps run the Catholic Worker shelter — will meet to review the books from the first quarter. All Brad knows, all that counts, is that the donations have been covering the rent and groceries.

Both Birkys grew up religious. Libby was raised Catholic; Brad, Mennonite. These days, they don't belong to any organized religion — except, maybe, the cafe.

"If we didn't have faith in the goodness of humankind, we wouldn't be doing this," Brad says. "This is our church." He pulls out a rolling pin and gets to work on another pizza crust.

stephanie.simon@latimes.com

by tiny

The morning I got out of jail, I walked through the ice-like streets of
Oakland, California touching ivy and running my fingers along the sides
of buildings, cars and the trunks of trees. It wasn't that I had
forgotten how they felt. It was just to know that they, things, trees,
buildings and cars, were still there, even when I wasn't, helped to
ease the shudder, the ache and the tension that was now permanently
lodged in my head

Due to some extremely innovative lawyering by a local civil rights
attorney I was given a chance to write as a way of working off my
several thousand dollars of fines and jail time for crimes of poverty.
In me and my poor mixed race mama's case, this was for the sole act of
being homeless in the US- a citable offense. My writing/media
production assignment was completed, albeit slowly, while living
through the devastating experience of being a youth in a homeless
family who had to drop out of school in the sixth grade to support and
care for my family

The resulting story, a first person narrative about my attempt to get
our PG&E turned back on through county aid, was published. As a
youth dealing with incarceration and grinding poverty, the sole act of
being published, being heard, about me and my families' struggle to
survive, was revolutionary and life-changing, in fact, it was so large,
that it gave me the strength, the hope, to go on for another day. I
began to consider myself a writer. My scholarship valued.

From that first radical intervention, and subsequent acts of media
resistance, along with mentors that included Angela Davis, Velia
Garcia, and Erica Huggins, me and my mama launched POOR Magazine,
an intentionally glossy , nationally distributed literary magazine
written by poor folks on issues of poverty, racism, disability, police
brutality and more, which put forth actionable solutions to every
problem we discussed.

The magazine led to the eventual founding of a grassroots, non-profit,
arts organization of the same name (POOR Magazine) and several
education, arts and culture based programs and media production
projects such as PoorNewsNetwork(PNN) (an on-line news-service on
poverty and racism), a Pacifica radio show, POOR Press, and The Race,
Poverty and Media Justice Institute for youth, adults and elders, The
Po Poets Project and the welfareQUEENs, and many more. The most
important thing about all of these amazing projects is they are led by
what we at POOR call race, poverty, youth, disability and elder
scholars who are trying through media and art, to be heard, about their
experiences, their solutions and their scholarship.

Poverty, Race, Disability and Youth Scholars become Media Scholars at the USSF

Poverty, Race, Youth and Disability scholarship will be leading all of
the media production at The Ida B. Wells Media Justice Center at the US Social Forum in Atlanta. In a revolutionary collaboration
between independent and corporate media producers, acts of media
resistance will happen throughout the forum

For example, a workshop on immigrant rights will be reported on by what
POOR/PNN would call immigrant scholars or poverty scholars, i.e.,
undocumented poor workers currently fighting racist, classist
immigration laws and deportations. Similarly, a report on the current
crisis of displacement in the aftermath of Katrina would be co-authored
by a resident or former resident of New Orleans fighting displacement
and/or a survivor of displacement in another city in Amerikkka. Both
reports would be written and/or taped in English and Spanish and
hopefully several more languages. The reports would be written, audio
or video taped in the first person, debunking the myth of objectivity
promoted by all corporate and even many independent media makers, and
the reports would be led by the people experiencing, first-hand, what
they are reporting on

The independent and corporate media producers at the conference would
work in collaboration with the poverty scholars to facilitate a media
report across several media platforms; radio, on-line, print and/or
video and in perhaps the most radical act of all for the corporate,
alternative, ethnic and independent media present, the finished piece
will be co-authored and both parties will share the precious by-line,
co-production real estate.

Whether it be radio, TV, on-line or print, it all often comes down to
the by-line, shared or singular, which is always based on who does the
actual writing, editing or scripting, rather than who is the subject of
the story, who the actual story is about, whose story is being told,
whose struggle or struggles are being reported on. It is this tension
that informs the inherently voyeuristic industry of Journalism, and
most media production. Contrary to this notion POOR/PNN believes that
if you are reporting on any issue, struggle or action felt or
experienced by poor folks, working folks, disabled folks, youth and on
and on, it should be led by the folks who have experienced these issues
personally.

Writing, reading, thinking imagining speculating. These are luxury
activities, so I am reminded, permitted to a privileged few whose idle
hours of the day can be viewed otherwise than as a bowl of rice or a
loaf bread less to share with the family, excerpt from Women, Native,
Other by Trinh T Minh-ha

Due to the many struggles inherent in a life lived in poverty, poverty
scholars are often dealing with a deficit of resources, money,
security, and time. literacy, formal education, a minute to spare away
from the pursuit of a loaf of bread, whereas, most (not all) corporate
and independent, ethnic and alternative media producers are coming from
a place of some form of privilege, not necessarily just an
over-simplified notion of race and or class privilege, but the far more
subtle privilege of an organized life, a family that supported you,
emotionally and/or financially through college, or perhaps the most
precious of all, the privilege of time to think.

Because of multiple forms of crisis and lack of privilege our voices,
the voices of poor folks, disabled folks, poor youth of color, poor
workers, single parents, elders children and homeless folks, are rarely
if ever heard within the media, we aren't leading the stories about
ourselves and our communities our families. or our solutions.

Finally, to achieve the mighty and timely goal to make another world
possible, the Media Justice Center will also be
creating new inroads of access for unheard voices, unheard struggles,
and urgently needed scholarship and community led solutions in a very
exciting, non-hierarchical form of inclusionary, non-competitive media.
We will be creating new national and international collaborations;
media access channels, reporting opportunities, syndications, and
co-authorship opportunities, which will live far beyond the one
powerful week in Atlanta.

Together we will make another world, another world of media production.

by Leroy Moore

I should be happy for Billy Ray Johnson, a Black disabled man of Linden, Texas, who received a little bite of justice recently for an attack he suffered in 2003 at the hands of a group of White men. Although I am happy, I’m not completely satisfied. The group of attackers were acquitted of serious felony charges and instead handed down lesser convictions with a recommended sentence of probation and on top of that many White residents went on record saying it wasn’t a hate crime and blamed Billy Ray Johnson for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

After almost seven years, Johnson finally got some justice from a lawsuit that was brought against his attackers by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The jury, which had only one Black man on it, and the judge awarded Johnson nine million dollars for his medical bills and for past and future physical pain, mental aguish and physical impairment.

But I still don’t understand why Johnson still remains in a nursing home while the state pays for it using his money! A trust fund was created for his living and medical bills and the nine million will cover his needs for the rest of his live.

According to news reports, Johnson was living with his mother and family before the attack, so it seems completely senseless that he would stay locked up a home, costing more money and providing less support. Reports claim that because of his injuries, Johnson must remain in a nursing home.

Of course I don’t know Johnson’s family and their ability to care for him or to hire live-in care attendants but I do wonder if he was wealthy with support if he would be in a nursing home. I wonder if James Byrd, another poor Black disabled man beaten in Texas in 1998, would be in a nursing home today if he had survived his attack.

Bill Ray Johnson finally received long overdue justice in his case and I am extremely happy for him; however the question still remains about why he sits in a nursing home without his family. His winnings of nine million dollars can surely pay for a house and round the clock care. I only hope that after he recovers from his injuries physically that his lawyer and family will free him from the nursing home and he will have a solid supportive network around him!

I have yet to find a website dedicated solely to Billy Ray Johnson’s case; however if you google his name you can find more information. Also check out the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center at www.splcenter.org

www.leroymoore.com

by Staff Writer

OBJECTIVE: The creation of a collaborative media training, resource, support and PR center for the first-ever US Social Forum this summer in Atlanta. This grassroots center will create media coverage, documentation and first-person storytelling of the Forum through a journalistic model that up-ends traditional relationships between reporter/subject, rich/poor, white/non-white, citizen/undocumented, able-bodied/disabled (among others). By privileging the unheard voices of the movements with media access and support, the Grassroots Media Center will resist corporate control of media production and create a model of community/people-led news-making in the tradition of POOR/PNN’s Community Newsrooms for use in Atlanta and beyond long after the USSF

The media center’s work can be separated into several components:

1) Preparation: PR and Outreach.
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Before the Forum, it will be crucial that respectful and appropriate outreach is done for key groups, organizations or individuals who could most benefit from the Media Center but may not be aware of its resources. The focus in the outreach work will be in making personal connections and addressing the barriers such groups experience when creating their own media. This work will result in the recruitment, before and during the Forum, of the grassroots activists and organizers who will do core-issue reporting in collaboration with the media center.
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This outreach effort will be mirrored by the work of a PR team who will establish relationships with major media outlets through press releases, PSAs, web and other media. This work will bring forth the media interest needed to obtain mainstream coverage of the Forum.

2) On-site Training and Support of Community Journalists, Media Activists and Voices of Resistance.

Poor Magazine’s Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute will lead media workshops at the USSF. These will train and offer resources to attendees as reporters and storytellers in various forms of digital media (radio, web/print, and video).
-

Poor Magazine Poverty Scholars will provide daily on-site media training in the production of non-colonizing, community integrated media coverage on the issues of the forum.
-

A daily (afternoon) media production strategy meetings, (led by Poor Magazine Poverty Scholars and attended by the USSF PR personnel, independent media producers, and all media volunteers) stories and press liaisons to outside media will be discussed and assigned to community journalists.
-

Poor Magazine Interns and other independent media producers and volunteers will facilitate equipment access and support story completion/delivery at Forum Media Center. (Intern duties will include equipment management, technical support, transcription, translation, and helping with phone and web communications).
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Ongoing tech workshops will help train and support attendees to use equipment as needed.

Scenario 1: Independent media producer from KPFK in LA would support/facilitate with John X race, poverty scholar and survivor of police brutality to cover a workshop on police brutality and the prison industrial complex for radio and on-line media-

Scenario 2; John x would be one of the spokespeople for that morning’s Press Conference to Corporate media and part of the corporate media headline production

2) Integration/Infiltration of Corporate Media Coverage with Grassroots Journalists and Journalism. The Grassroots Media Center will create its own diverse body of documentation of the USSF (radio, print and TV) while co-opting corporate media coverage with community reporting and press liaisons:
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Journalists at the media center will produce on-the-ground reporting on the events, people and ideas of the Social Forum. To be fed to partnering media organizations (KPFA in Berkeley, Indymedia, among others) via radio, internet and TV. The reporting created by grassroots journalists will be fed to mainstream media organizations whenever possible.
-

The PR working group (part of the media center) will hold daily morning press conferences for both community journalists and mainstream media. This daily event will assign and check in on stories by Center journalists, as well as feed leads to the corporate press and pair them with journalists and press liaisons who will assist them finding and creating their coverage. All corporate media will make and maintain contact with the USSF through the PR group working at the media center.
-

A PR working group will strategize community story coverage and communication with the corporate media at daily afternoon production meetings with the collaborating groups and journalists of the media center (POOR magazine/PoorNewsNetwork(PNN), other local and national partners).

3) Systematic Documentation
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Breakout sessions will train digital storytellers to create radio, print and video pieces in a narrative (rather than journalistic) format. These documentary-style pieces will be made using first-person, observational and investigative techniques (not always possible in a journalistic format). These stand-alone pieces may also be integrated into a longer documentary on the Forum as a whole.
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A documentary crew (who will also participate in POOR/PNN’s media workshops) will also be on-site at the Forum to shoot events and key interviews as determined by the Media Center Council. This footage will serve as the backbone of a comprehensive documentary about the US Social Forum, and will ensure effective video coverage of the week’s events. Some documentary pieces and journalism produced through the Media Center may integrated into this longer piece.

4) Final documentary and Compilation DVD. After the Forum, the documentary producers, in collaboration with Forum media center journalists and organizers, will edit a comprehensive video showing the week’s events, people and ideas.
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The final documentary will be packaged onto a DVD with a complete collection of all the media (video, radio, and print) produced at the Media Center. This will provide an hour-by-hour archive of the Forum’s events as well as a powerful collection of grassroots documentary pieces by attendee journalists.
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As part of this proposal, an outreach strategy for effectively using distributing, exhibiting and teaching with this DVD will be developed, using website outreach and delivery as well as local and national community networks and exhibition opportunities.

5) Nationwide Community Newsroom Network, with new locations in Atlanta and beyond… In the process of creating and implementing the Grassroots Media Center in Atlanta during the USSF, a longer-term goal of the Center will be to build the capacity, resources and connections to maintain a sustainable weekly Community Newsroom in Atlanta based on a model established by POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork, also establishing freelance reporting opportunities for all poverty , race, youth and disability scholars with POOR/PNN and other media agencies relationships with Visiting activists and journalists will also leave the Forum with clear guidelines and connections to begin similar newsrooms across the country. The relationships fostered during the Forum will allow these diverse locations to establish a national network of Newsrooms, sharing stories, information and resources to build on.

Media Center Schedule

Media Center will be open 7am – 12midnight (???) to facilitate equipment access, support and story delivery.

Day One (Wed)

Media Center Events

Forum Events: March, Festival and Opening Program (including performances by the Po’ Poets and Welfare Queens)

Other: Documentary crew will be shooting arrivals and preparations for conference as well as all the events of the first day.

Days Two – Four (Thurs, Fri, Sat)

Media Center Events

Forum Events: Poor Magazine Poverty Scholars will host events and panels to address issues of criminalization of poverty, poverty voyeurism and key strategies for media resistance (see description below). The Po’ Poets and Welfare Queens will also perform when possible at events at the Forum.

Other: Documentary crew will be shooting key events and interviews through these days.

Day Five (Sun)

Media Center Events: 9AM FINAL Press Conference. 3PM FINAL Production and Strategy meeting - next steps and how we will maintain our work and connections after the Forum.

Forum Events: Final Forum Events, Concert, Youth-Led Music Event

Other: Documentary crew will be shooting key events and interviews and final wrap up events and goodbyes.

On-going Forum Events to be covered (an incomplete list at this point):
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Family Reunion and BBQ for the former inmates, their families and the families of those currently incarcerated.
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Unity Soccer Tournament
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Poor People’s Economic and Human Rights Campaign Tent City/Marches, etc
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Youth Led Space
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Queer Tent Space
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Women’s Working Group Space and Events
---

Post-Forum Timeline

TBA – a schedule for delivery of final edited documentary and DVD compilation of works.
Participants at the Media Center will create a plan to maintain connections and continue their work at Community Newsrooms in their hometowns.

MEDIA CENTER COUNCIL

This group will be made up of the scholars and instructors from Poor’s Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute, documentary lead producers, and key members of the Communication Working Group (especially PR and any liaisons with the corporate media), including local media and organizing partners. This group will establish the organizing principles of the Center, fulfill development and implementation of the Center, locate resources and funding, and collaborate with community journalists about the priorities and coverage to be created by the Media Center.

Members:

Poor Magazine Scholars/Teachers (8-10 people)

POOR Magazine is a non-profit, grassroots organization dedicated to providing revolutionary media access, education, as well as advocacy and resources to very low and no income adults and youths locally and globally. POOR produces several forms of media covering issues such as racism, poverty, police brutality, the criminal (in) justice system, gentrification and homelessness through the voices of the real experts, what we at POOR call poverty and race scholars, those who have experienced/lived through these positions of oppression themselves. POOR accomplishes these goals by producing a Pacifica radio show, online news service, a public access TV segment and print edition of POOR Magazine, a literary, visual arts publication. Another arm of POOR’s media resistance is its Race Poverty and Media Justice Institute, which provides extensive training in media, journalism and multimedia to people living in poverty, and struggling to survive and resist.

POOR Magazine was founded over ten years ago from nothing by a homeless mother/daughter team. Throughout its history POOR Magazine has worked tirelessly to get the real voices of poor people heard to stop the criminalization and marginalization of poor people all over the world, which we believe is furthered by messages created by corporate media. POOR is trying to create real change by fighting these messages, stereotypes and structures that allow poverty to continue all over the world. By changing the hands of the mic from those who are simply poverty voyeurists to those who have experienced poverty, welfare, racism, disability, immigration issues, homelessness and/or incarceration, POOR Magazine continues to challenge its viewers, listeners and readers to fight the lies and misconceptions the corporate media produces everyday about poor folks of color.

Poor Magazine Interns (4-6 people)
Poor Magazine interns have studied and worked with Poor as journalists and allies. These volunteers will facilitate smooth running of the Media Center. Must be proficient in web and digital audio and video programs.

Documentary Producer:
Gretchen Hildebran

Gretchen Hildebran is a filmmaker with a creative passion for social justice. Before starting Stanford’s Documentary Program in 2003, she worked as an advocate for formerly homeless adults confronting issues of poverty, mental health and substance abuse.

She also taught video production to at-risk Bay Area youth through TILT (Teaching Intermedia Literacy Tools). She also interned as a community journalist with Poor Magazine, a media training and resistance program for and by homeless and no-income people. In collaboration with Poor Magazine, she produced and directed a television campaign opposing a local ballot measure that proposed to cut aid to homeless people in San Francisco.

Her documentaries include the internationally screened CARVE, WORTH SAVING, (which was presented in HBO’s 2004 Frame by Frame documentary showcase) and OUT IN THE HEARTLAND. Gretchen is currently based out of New York and is producing a series of short videos to train California law enforcement about needle exchange.

Other Members: (need more info on these)

Local group representation: Indymedia Atlanta, WRFG (free speech radio station), and others TBA

Community Outreach Working Group

Media Center Technical Directors – members of Communication working group

Press Relations working group (reps and liaisons)

Media Center Equipment/Technical Needs:

1)Location: secure, consistent on-site space, available for all hours of the conference. One large room which can accommodate meetings and workshops of 20-50 people, and 2-3 smaller rooms available for breakout sessions, interviews, workshops, etc.

2)Workshops/Production Meetings:
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White board/butcher paper
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Notebooks
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Pens
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Markers
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Tape
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TV monitor (with DVD/VCR attached if possible)
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Video Projector (pie in the sky – but then we could have nightly screenings of work)

3)Tech needs:
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High Speed Internet Access
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Long-distance telephone lines (3?)
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3-5 Telephones, with conference-call ability

4) Equipment needs: Computer lab:
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up to 10 computer workstations, high-speed internet ready, with functional word processing, photo processing and web applications. Several of these workstations should have digital audio and video software included.
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500 GB hard drive space for media storage
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2 black and white printers.
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Cables, power strips as needed

Equipment resources (to be checked out by journalists/storytellers):
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up to 10 still digital cameras
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up to 20 minidisc recorders
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(40) minidiscs
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up to 10 minidv videocameras

NAQs (Never Asked Questions) From the Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute at POOR

1. What is non-colonizing, community-rooted media production?

Media production that is led, designed and shaped by the people traditionally "seen" and "heard" as the "subject" of the news; i.e., poor folks, disabled, youth, incarcerated, houseless, elders, families, day laborers, working poor, etc. These are the leaders at POOR Magazine. We have created a new form of scholarship - a new canon of poverty, race, youth and disability scholarz. As folks who have experienced these positions of oppression first-hand we have personally felt, struggled, understood, dealt with and solved the extremely complex problems related to living and surviving through our lives.

The other crucial and radical aspect of this news is that it is led by what it can do for the community, not the reporter, the corporation, the news service. So for instance, a corporate media series "on homelessness" is created to "talk about what we can do about homelessness" - whereas our kind of media production would be led by the homeless folks themselves and would focus specifically on getting folks housed or dealing with issues affecting the homeless folks at the place where they convene or a law, policy or form of harassment impacting us such as the rise in criminalization of houseless people.

This concept of a caring and rooted media is contrary to most media production; corporate and independent, which is inherently voyeuristic- reporters come in and do the story - perhaps they "embed" or follow the story for a period of time - they write, report or produce the media and then go on the next story. Our form of media production isn't "embedded" or on a story for a period of time - its an integral part of community problem solving and community care-giving: to re-unite CPS (Child Proctective Services) separated families, to embarrass a landlord into stepping away from an illegal eviction, to stop a gentrification effort, to open the NIMBY-istic locked bathrooms of a neighborhood park for the use of undocumented workers, to name a few of the campaigns that POOR has collaborated on.

This form of media production plays one more important role- as a direct advocate and support. For example, reporting is only one part of creating change when it comes to the pending eviction of an African Descendent elder. Other work would include helping her with all parts of her life, including the worst-case scenario of helping her to move and find a new apartment.

2. Why should these voices lead media production? Why is it important to create this kind of Press room/press community (space) and why do these voices matter?

When our voices as poverty and race scholars shape our stories, the activism and the media organizing efforts are from the "inside." We know what we need - we know what needs to be done - for our communities, for our families, for our world.

3. How do Indymedia, other community-rooted and local media and corporate media integrate into this project?

All forms of media partners are an extremely important part of this project’s concept. We define the roles of these groups/organizations as supportive partners. This is an effort to break through the hierarchal position these media entities often hold in the structures of production and the inherent education privileges of most of these professionals.

Our vision is that corporate media actually listens and has a mutual exchange with the lead poverty, race and disability scholars who are the core sources and reporters on the story.

Independent media- just like POOR’s interns- should be filling what we call the role of media facilitator. This means to facilitate the media production/stories of the poverty race, youth and disability scholars, through listening and mutual critique, media analysis, writing, technological capacity-building, and ultimately co-authorship.

PARTICIPATION SCENARIOS:

Scenario #1: A community group of undocumented laborers is attending the conference to draw attention to and support around harassment they experience in their home community. Once at the Forum, the group finds out about the media center and sends two representatives to report on the group’s work at home and at the Forum. The community journalists are connected with Poor Poverty Scholars who are also undocumented workers, paired with independent journalists who assist them in pitching, writing and producing their stories. These stories are posted online and broadcast on national radio affiliates. At the morning Media Center press conference, the PR liaison asks if they’d like to be interviewed by a local reporter who is covering issues about immigration at the Forum. They educate the reporter about the issues that brought their group to the Forum and bring her to the plenary session that afternoon on immigrant civil rights.

Scenario #2: An independent print journalist attends the conference in order to report on the anti-war movement. At the Media Center, the journalist is assigned to work with a group of youth reporting on military recruiting in their schools. The journalist facilitates the youth find and pitching stories, and gives assistance with finding sources and doing interviews, as well as feedback on their final stories. The journalist gets invaluable insight into the lack of resources available in many school districts and writes a companion piece about education funding and militarism. The pieces are all posted together online.

Scenario #3: The local paper decides to cover the Forum when they learn about the Family Reunion and BBQ for former inmates, their families and the families of those currently incarcerated. The reporter covering the story is told to attend a morning press conference to find out more information about the event. The paper is also contacted with a press release by a press liaison assigned to the Reunion. The press liaison is also a trained community journalist with a personal connection to the event. The liaison pitches a story on the event to the paper and meets with them before the BBQ to discuss it. The liaison brings the reporter to the event, and introduces them to several other community members, all of who feature prominently in the final story.

by Leroy Moore

The usage of the R word, retarded, by Black leaders and entertainers is another example why this country desperately needs a Black disabled movement! As the Black community stood up to the latest verbal racial attack by a radio DJ, I and many others like me are standing up to our non-disabled Black leaders and entertainers to say you can’t be silent on the recent verbal bullets fired by some Black entertainers and so-called Black spokespersons. Check out the below quotes.

* April, 2007 — Halle Berry gets her Hollywood star on the walk of
fame and states 'I’m an emotional retard.'

* March, 2007 — Chris Rock calls President Bush a 'retard.'

* January, 2007 — Jesse Jackson says 'that’s retarded' in an interview
on CNN.

Earlier this year, one of my favorite Black comedians, Paul Moony, made a promise to never use the N word in his act after Seinfeld, Michael Richards, used it when he went off at an African American audience member in a L.A. club. The same promise or contract should be made between the disabled community and Black entertainers from Hip-Hop to the big screen without us having to picket against them until they promise to never use the R word.

Many people don’t see the problem using the R word until it used against them. Recently the NAACP of Washington, PA wanted Mayor Kenneth Westcott (D) to resign because he wrote “retarded” next to a name of an African American individual who was speaking at a hearing at City Hall. It took over a hundred people with developmental disabilities and their allies to convince legislators during a rally at the steps of the Statehouse in Montgomery to pass bills removing the word "retarded" from state language.

It is 2007 so why are we still going through basic 101-disability awareness? It is very hard to only blame Black leaders and entertainers when the word, Retarded, is all over the newspaper and other media. Many organizations have the R word in their title and it exists in laws and in the music we listen to. It has been ingrained into the fabric of our society so much that we can’t even compare the R word to the N word.

Who is to blame for this? In the early days of the disability rights movement our lives and language were in the hands of others like doctors, scientists, professionals. Have we, people with disabilities, really reclaimed our language? By the recent trend of using the R word and a lack of penalty towards people using this term, it makes me wonder as a Black disabled man, how far the disability rights movement has really come!

As you notice I didn’t touch on the recent popularizing of the R word in Hip-Hop in this article but if the Hip-Hop industry and the rest of society including my Black community and mainstream media wants to learn how to improve their language toward my community, I urge them to purchase Krip-Hop Mixtape Hip-Hop by disabled artists or better yet follow the quote from KRS One, “you must learn!” And the only way you will learn is by listening to us or better yet by us, the people with developmental disabilities, becoming the reporter, the politician, the hip-hop artist or the comedian!

By Leroy Moore Jr

www.leroymoore.com

by Joseph Bolden

Have You Wash Folks Flipped?

Yes,it’s a question,I thought being a so called Republic,capitol of Democracy this stuff didn’t happen anymore as with other cities.

Washington still has bugs in its system like everyone else’s.

Let me explain,a friend of mine recently moved there learning,works, earning,getting housed,and networking.

Though we never see eye to eye and anything political she being a political savant,me using my sense history,of lifes lessons rarely came to the same conclusions though socially there is no one I would trust if my life too more than she.

Today,on Myspace (yes,old guy me on myspace.com)

She took a web photo of me as a joke when I visited her place my own pc is still not working thanks to me unable to pay the phone bill for months now years at a time.

Anyway,I read her bulletin (public myspace communiqué’) to those on its site for various ads, promotions,movie/tv premieres,tickets, bookings,to artist’s their shows or personal appearance’s,and economic opportunities,also it’s a gathering of like minded souls(excluding myself) for get-togethers social and/or personal reasons.

Used it as date site reminds me change profile excluding 18-25 years olds
30-40+ for me-mature women's energies more dynamic most younger ladied too delicate at least in my experience.

I can say I met one person through this though at the we both has prior appointments preventing us from seeing each other socially.

Let's get to the awful incidents happening to my friend in Washington,D.C. so called seat of democracy.

It’s a long bulletin so I’ll try to get to its gist by Mari.



Date: May

9,20077:40 AM.

Which is 10:40AM in San Francisco (3 hrs. behind for me forward for her.

(In her own words on a myspace bulletin)

Oh,Myspace users are 80’s-90’s folk use phonetically sounding out words,making up,or creating new ones so bare with me.

Subject "Redbone", "Redskin", "Pochantas", "Chiefin"

SO since I been here in the DC metro area, I have heard some

words str8 up overt overt overt racial slurs agianst Native f

folks that are so commonly accepted to say around the first

one of course is "Redskins", cuz of that stupid foot ball team

(which makes me hate professional football even more)

then I heard "chiefin" which was told to me is someone

smoking weed,and when I point out that the word Chief is in I

it,everyone is like oh yeah... like the light turns on or

something...

People have called me Pochantas when I walked down the

street,and even have yanked my braids to the point where my

head goes back (it was men who have done this)... I have been

called Pochantas many times before,esp in the bay area

growing up... but have never had my hair pulled back in a

sexualized way while it was said...

Then the other day someone was breaking down DC slang to

me,and they said I would be called a "Redbone". I have never

heard of this word ever before,but my heart cringed and I got

upset. I was like why would someone call me that? I was

pointed out that it had nothing to do with my Native ancestry

but my light skin... I knew this was probulay a messed up word

for mixed race folks like the word "mulatto". so I wikipedia

it... here is what is says... and it is messed up! I do not have an

"unknown" ancestry! I dont know how to deal with all the very

overt racism that is so commonly accepted, sometimes I feel

like I am in old school days... Its not just white folks either, its

all folks! Actually many Raza folks defend these words... esp

since many see themselves without any native roots, since

many call themselves "Spanish" or "Hispanic", which both

honor the Spanish (AKA colonizer) but stay clear of have any drop of Native ancestry.

Yeah,DC is very hard when it comes to this... I mean I have to

agrue about why saying these things are wrong... its very

draining... esp if I speak about the word "Redskins" I mean

people try to dress like stereotypes of NAtive folks on those

games days and think its ok...

ANy advice peoples? I am going crazy here...

Redbone (ethnicity)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Redbones, are a mixed blood group of people of unknown

ancestry. Often times light skinned,African Americans are

referred to as redbones, particularly,females. Many of these

people may in fact have some of the ethnicities mentioned

below, but due to it being much diluted refer to themselves as

Black or African American. The multi-ethnic Redbone group

below are not part of the African American community.

Possible Roots

The ancestry is said to consist of a combination of two or

more of the following ethnicities; Northern European,

Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, South Asian, Native American

and African ancestry of various degrees and mixtures. The

origin of this group is probably from Southern states,where many minorities freely mixed.

The Native American tribes in these groups may include the

Choctaw,Creek, Chickasaw,Coushatta, Cheraw,Tuscarora,

Nansemond and members of the Powhatan Confederation.

Names

Redbones often have these surnames;Ashworth,

Bass,

Bedgood,Bennett,

Butters,Buxton,Chavis,

Clark,Cloud,Cole,

Collins,Davis,Dial,

Doyle,Dyess,

Garland,

Gibbs,Gibson,

Goings,Green,Hall,

Hyatt,James,Johnson,

Keith,Maddox,

Mayo,Mullins,Moore,

Nash,Nelson,Orr,

Perkins,Pinder,Rivers,

Short,Smiling,

Strother,Sweat,

Thompson,Ware,White,

Willis,Wisby

There's no Pt.II.

I already had my say publicly on the matter replying to myspace bulletin.

for Mari who's politically,socially savy to fight this using media of radio and or tv.

My column may do little to help but...

I want her knowing how incensed I am at her treatment.

Years ago,don’t know how long we're walking up Market Street in San Francisco near my residence I hear"Bitch"by a guy just ahead of Mari and behind me.

I am a quiet person, rather run than fight out of conflict.

Though my martial arts is rusty a quick side fist to head or throat can stun anyeone for a few minutes.

I felt quick rage with- in me for this loud slight to my friend.

I heard it she may have too.

Quick,I asked the guy

"What did you say, apologize!

The brother looks at me and the Mari saying

"S-sorry,I didn’t mean her,talkin’to myself."

I’m still,pissed,hot- ready.

Mari says "Joe,saw my face,the guy,instantly gets it walks us faster past my place.
"Never seen you like that."(unless angry at something else).

Surprised me too,guess some of the New Yorker in me and mama's and Catholic training of respect for women.

My advise for her was travel with friends.

I know most of D.C. are full of dedicated,devoted, intelligent,and

emotionally balance folk.

But somewhere there are others who are making our capitol

look F'd up.

you must find these idiotic dullards

and not take this crap from 'em.

If ever a stupid guy does attempt it again.

She is within her rights to

punch,hit,use heels-on-foot or

the most

painful grab a handful of groin,pull hard,punch,knee,or

otherwise aim a kick to their scrotum.

In her defense.

Attack-The-Sack.

He gets personal.

You get personal.

Even though its awful

to do all women have the

right to

protect themselves from imminent harm.

And not because its

good for a laugh.

Mari can because she is fear of bodily harm.

[She Has Already Been Harmed!]

She’s not in Washington now.

I hope she brushes up or takes more defense courses in light of

this incidence.

If Mari moves away from Washington.

It is Washington that has loses more than a good solid worker in equal justice for all.

This is how nations
getbrain drained because of the

stupidty of some of its so called civilized citizens!

A great human being of honor,ability,strength of character and is a poorer nation because

of such insensitive, inane,stupid childishness of these so called men?

The whole of

Washington’s other men and women should find these men and have

them publicly shamed for their act of cowardice and warped stupidity

because it can lead to worse things.

I dislike thinking what my resolve would be if anything else happened to her its bad enough at what has already occured.

What have you Got to Say People of Washington?

Guys,Fathers,Son's,Brothers or relatives in/of Washington Area.

What would you do if this happened to your Mother,daughter,sister,GF, or relative(s)employer/ee you know and and respect?

Any comments go to Ask/

Tell Joe at

Poormagazine.org or send views to Myspace.com.

by Staff Writer

"A new mythology provided the ideological cannon fodder for the attack on the poor and people of color. That mythology equates growth in poverty to growth in an underclass which is primarily Black, Latino and female. This was the basis for the myth of the 'welfare queen'. Maurice Glele-Ahanhanzo in a report to the United Nations about poverty in the United States.

When does survival become criminal? When do poor women, poor mothers, become "the other"? And who determines who is "deserving" versus "undeserving" of aid?

According to 2007 census figures nearly 37 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. That’s almost half of all American’s subsisting below the federal poverty line. As poverty rises to record levels in the United States, the criminalization of poor people, poor families and poor mothers increased exponentially. For example, in 2005 in San Francisco, citations given to people for the sole act of being homeless increased by 400% .

Through intentional use of the highly problematic objectifying label/stereotype of 'welfare queen', originally coined by Ronald Reagan as an extremely derogatory reference to poor mothers who were receiving cash aid from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the welfare QUEENS project will re-contextualize the word and who it refers to in the framework of a post welfare reform, U.S. society. This society makes it illegal to be poor; this society does not recognize, support or legitimize the "work" involved in raising children; and this society is quick to accuse poor mothers of the crime of being poor rather than recognize the heroism of their survival.

Through the creation of a play, movie, publication, education and media project of the same name, a group of mothers, daughters, sons and fathers who have survived, struggled and dealt with this ongoing oppression will tell their stories, enact their struggles and realize their dreams of survival, thrival and resistance.

The team of poets, writers, and storytellers in poverty who are or have been on welfare, struggled as working poor, migrant or houseless parents, sons or daughters, have written, co-directed and acted in this play in an ensemble cast. The team is led by poverty justice organizer, poet, poverty scholar, journalist, co-founder of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork, and author of the recently published memoir, Criminal of Poverty – Growing up Homeless in America, Lisa Gray-Garcia aka Tiny. The project is collaboration between POOR Magazine and the Betty Shabazz Family Resource Center at the City College of San Francisco.

The welfareQUEENS are available for speaking, performance or workshop presentations from the Race, Poverty, Media Justice Institute at POOR Magazine or by calling (415) 863-6306

by Joseph Bolden

A Night Of Stars or
A Night With The Stars

Quicky Review

Ok,this has to be somewhat quick because of time.

Soon,I’ll be a working desk clerk somewhere in the City.

Last night I a free bus ride to and from The Brava Theater where the event was held.

There was great appetizers of fried balls of meat,chicken pockets, chocolate Moose,and fruit

topped with cream along with bread,wine,water,

and juice drinks.

Many people I’ve not seen years are there.

Ms.Janice Edwards,NBC11 is Mistress of Ceremonies.

Sometimes before she can introduce the talent most people knew who they are.

She tells who from for each performer

keeps the continuity of the show for those not knowing the players who were performing that night.

Rocky start but with technical problems though all the talent on stage are ready everyone is ready, seated for the show.

(1) April Zinn,"Da Movement.

Ms. Zinn seems boneless in her effortless timed movements.

(2) Charlie Sharp, "Vision" Knew I missed it so I’ll go on.

(3) Dwight "Butch" Jones rendition of "Back To One"

A rousing romantic power ballad of a love had the audience who know its

lyrics place fingers counting in time to the Mr. Jones powerful artistic

soulful singing of this popular tune.

(4) Mark Myer’s–"A poem About The Donner Party" is serious yet with tongue planted slight if not firmly in cheek.

The audience loved Mr. Myer’s way of reciting a gruesome lesson of historical significance.

(5) John "Jonikhan" King –"Let Me"

About a individuals plight and the laws of the land song made

many pause listing to lyrics,melody,and strumming Mr. King’s guitar.

A great set.

(6)Neaplensah Yarnway– "Day-Day & The Jazzy Girls"

All I can say is I was Conflicted between the younger girls,one you man, and a very enthused young women

in the background dancing up a storm.

Yeah,tried keeping eyes on all the dancers but the young woman in the back was really shaking her all and the whole audience (especially males)

had to take notice in our defense I say we

couldn’t help seeing here most of us were

completely under and ancient tribal hynotic trance.

Only afte the dance is over did most of us recover from the heady dancing.

The two glasses of water I had drunk deserted me through perspiration.

(7)Tony Thomas–"Home" Mr. Thomas’s way of singing ‘home’ pleased the crowd.

The song about a someone’s who’s job or career

keeps him on the road and all he wants is get back to his loved one is a sad yearning that by the

lyrics end his journey is where he will end up "HOME"

All the people on stage are talented and judges found it difficult choosing which one of the stars would be number one.

But Neaplensah Yarnway – "Day-Day & The Jazzy Girls"

are the winners some mumbling of the crowds to do over but the

judges word decision is final.

Day-Day’s Jazzy Girls win over very talented compition.

With that some

more eats downstairs out in the lobby,

some mingling,hand shaking,ice-water,

and its time for me and others to take a return bus safely home what a great night.

Who knows,I might try my voice next year but dancing is out (maybe if I can do both simutaneously in rythm to music its possible).

by Lola Bean/POORNewsNetwork

"Put your purse on the table and step through." The armed guard pointed to the metal detector and I quietly did as I was told. I stood and waited as he rifled through my purse and directed the woman behind me to wait her turn. He turned over my cell phone, my wallet, my camera, my pen and my paper a number of times before handing me back my bag and allowing me to
pass.

On this day the San Francisco 8, former Black Panthers, elders in the Black community, and mentors to generations of resisters would stand in court on charges stemming from a 36 year old case.

I was at the courthouse at 850 Bryant to re-port and sup-port the San Francisco 8 for POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork. With numerous other supporters I chanted "Free the SF8!" in hopes that they could hear us from inside the building and know we are there for them.

Like many others born into violence and discrimination, my life has been characterized by struggle and resistance. My struggles led me to the tenderloin office of POOR Magazine and into a family of resistors dedicated to defending their communities and giving voice to those without. We are scholars in abuse, race, disability, and poverty that have come together to deconstruct the margins of oppression and much of our scholarship is rooted in the collective struggles of elder resisters like the SF8.

I followed a woman that I had recognized from outside past the elevators and around the corner to the hallway in front of Department 12. The area was filling up rapidly and soon I found myself leaning up against the wall outside of the courtroom surrounded by concerned members of the community.
The waves of concerned chatter rolled through the San Francisco courthouse and above crowded sounds my ears caught the words, "How can they do this? They are our heroes!"

It was here in the Bay Area in 1966, just over 40 years ago that the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was formed. During the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panthers sought to provide much needed social services to the Black community. In San Francisco, they began their Free Breakfast for Children Program which would eventually feed over 10,000 children across the United States every morning. They provided vocational training, educational resources, and community enrichment programs. They distributed clothing, food, and provided medical services. They were models of community self-empowerment and mentors to generations of resisters.

Their historic struggles laid the foundation for organizations like POOR Magazine, who provides the community with programs that are focused on teaching non-colonizing, community-based and community-led media, multi-media and art with the goals of creating access for unheard voices, preserving and de-gentrifying rooted communities of color and re-framing the debate on poverty, homelessness, disability and race in the US as well as creating short and long-term social change and racial justice.

For their contributions to the Black community, in 1968 President Hoover described the Black Panthers as "The greatest threat to the internal security of the country." By 1969, the Black Panthers had become the prime target of the federal counter-intelligence program, COINTELPRO. COINTELPRO carried out arrests, torture, and assassination of political dissidents and resisters. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense organized to protect community members from violent state attacks and their lives were put in danger because of it.

"Everyone get in a single file line!" 3 uniformed guards appeared at the front of the courtroom. 2 had metal detecting wands. It was 1:30pm and finally time for us to enter Department 12. When I reached the front, one of the guards asked me to spread my arms apart so I could once again be searched. He waved the wand over my arms and legs and stomach and pointed me
in the direction of the third guard. This uniformed man took my purse and searched through my belongings.

In 1971, Sgt. John Young of the SFPD was murdered in Ingleside. At the height of the investigation, 13 Black activists were arrested in connection with the murder in Louisiana. The late John Bowman, Harold Taylor, and Ruben Scott were among those detained and interrogated in New Orleans in 1973. Two San Francisco detectives, McCoy and Erdelatz, supervised what
would turn into days of the interrogation and torture of these men. They were handcuffed to chairs and beaten. Plastic bags and hot blankets were wrapped around their heads and bodies until the suffocation found them unconscious. Cattle prods were used to shock their genitals and anuses.

After days of enduring this horrifying torture, law enforcement agencies succeeded in extracting "confessions" for the 1971 murder. In 1975, a San Francisco court recognized the torture used and dismissed the case citing that statements made under torture are neither credible nor legal. The men were free to continue their lives.

I took my purse and walked through the doors and into the courtroom. There were rows of old wooden chairs that folded down. A few were broken. I found one in the center row on the left hand side of the room. I was fortunate to have found a seat. There were more supporters in the courthouse than there was room to hold us.

The SF8 have spent the last 30 plus years as leaders in their communities. Richard Brown has worked in the Fillmore community for decades. Richard O'Neal works for the city of Dan Francisco and at a community center in the Bay View. Ray Bordeaux has worked for LA county for the past 25 years and has been involved in the community in his area. Harold Taylor continues his activism in Panama City, Fl. Hank Jones is a community elder in Altadena and Frank Torres works with trouble youth. Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaquim have been political prisoners for over 30 years, but continue their struggle from prison.

The SF8 have been productive members of society, elders in their community, and mentors to those of us struggling in society. The impact of their work was clearly exhibited by the outpouring of support from the seats in Department 12. In San Francisco and throughout the United States, organizations like POOR Magazine continue community based, grass-roots service and resistance for communities of struggle. Individuals such as myself personally engage daily in resisting state oppression and supporting communities of struggle. In this witch hunt against political activists, my fate, the fate of POOR Magazine, and the fate of all those engaged in the struggle against oppression may all be determined at 850 Bryant St.

In 2005, over 30 years after the charges had been dropped, post 9-11 legislation, especially regarding the use of torture, and restructuring of law enforcement and intelligence agencies has enabled detectives McCoy and Erdelatz, the same detectives that supervised the torture of Bowman, Taylor, and Scott, to combine forces with the FBI to once again reopen the case against SF8. On January 23, 2007 these community leaders were targeted for arrest stemming from the 36 year old case in which false confessions were extracted through the use of torture.

Members of the SF8, the eldest 71 years old, entered the courtroom shackled and in orange jumpsuits. These men, fathers, grandfathers, and great-grand fathers, looked with warm eyes out at the packed courtroom. They are chained at the waist, wrists, and feet and are kept on 24 hour lock down. Their bail is set at $3 million. No one has ever been charged for the torture that was carried out in New Orleans. Two of the men began speaking to each other. "SHHHHHHH." Warned a young, black woman in uniform. They weren't allowed to speak to each other.

The hearing lasted only a handful of minutes. Some technicalities were argued and the courtroom was cleared. We are still early in the process and the SF8 will see many more days behind bars before they will be brought to trial. The crowd disperses with promises to return to show support at the next hearing.

The government is sending a clear message to us. Resist and we will never forget. Resist and we will never stop going after you. Resist and we will find a way to destroy you no matter how long it takes. The government is spending millions of dollars to go after resisters past and present. If it doesn't stop here with the SF8, who's next? Will I find myself and the other members of POOR Magazine in shackles and orange jumpsuits or plastic bags and hot blankets. Will they come after us now, or 30 years from now.

Please show your support to the SF8. Come to 850 Bryant on May 4 at 1:30pm.

by Lisa Gray-Garcia

It was dark and I was cold. The wind whipped through the holes in my pants. I could barely see the phone in my hand. The chill was starting to get to me. It had been 24 days since the PG&E worker lumbered into the lobby of our apartment building carrying his globe-size Orewellian time clock and asking everyone in a voice that reached up six flights of stairs and out through the fire escape, "Where is apartment 5? I’m here to turn off the utilities for nonpayment."

I considered pretending not to be home, hoping that would delay the inevitable. Instead I chose a direct desperate please. I ran downstairs to the foyer, motioned furtively to the PG&E man, trying not to look at the crowd of neighbors that had gathered.

"So Miss Gray-Garcia, are you prepared to pay your bill or should I proceed with the shut-off?" he asked.

"But we asked for a five day extension- my little sister is sick. We can’t be without heat. Aren’t’ you a public utility?" He stared at me and pronounced very loudly, "We are a business, not a social service."

Thirteen calls to advocacy agencies elicited two refrains: "We have no more funding for utility subsidies" or "You are no longer eligible- you already applied once,"

That was last year. I worked but was still barely able to afford utility bills.

Now I am scared. I am still very low-income. And, as I watch my utility bill skyrocket even higher, I wonder how I and my fellow low-income residents in the Bay Area will be able to pay these rates. Many of us will not be able to afford the luxury of heat and light. Many of us will be forced to decide between food and a warm shower or light to read by.

I have listened to corporate spokesmen try to offer a rationale for this energy situation in California. They intone, "Conserve, conserve, conserve." Poor people have always conserved. We share bath water and limit our showers to 45 seconds. We turn off the heat and warm our hands over the stove. We buy blanket after shabby blanket. That is not the answer.

Consumer groups such as Global Exchange and TURN, the Utility Reform Network, have offered the only light (no pun intended) at the end of the tunnel. One of their possible solutions is to re-regulate. Another is for folks to demand that their cities follow the lead of Palo Alto and Alameda, municipalities that own their utilities and operate independently of PG&E. And finally, consumers might "strike" and pay their utility bills based on old rates.

I’m not sure what I and other poor people should do, faced with this energy crisis. Everything including our daily survival will be difficult. Will we sit shivering in our apartments, dreaming of a home-cooked meal- or maybe just a cold glass of milk?

Lisa Gray-Garcia is the co-editor of POOR Magazine

by Sam Fuller/PoorNewsNetwork

"We may look like a rag tag army but we are the salt of the earth." Chris Daly's voice boomed over the large crowd gathering in front of the Metreon Theatre last Tuesday in the warm breeze of the San Francisco sun. Signs waved in the bright blue sky reading, Homelessness is not a Crime, Give me a Home and I shall not Roam and Ser Pobre No Es Un Crimen.

This rag-tag, yet powerful army, of which I was a part as student reporter and poverty scholar with PoorNewsNetwork, was marching against the war declared on the poor and homeless by Mayor Gavin Newsom's proposed "Community" Courts or what we poverty scholars call, poverty courts.

These poverty courts are the latest effort of Newsom to "clean up the City" by eradicating people struggling with poverty and homelessness all over San Francisco. The courts, which are based on Rudy Giuliani's disastrous clean up; The Manhattan project, would immediately send people to jail and/or give other punishments for committing status crimes, crimes that are unavoidable to people living on the streets. (i.e. sitting on a sidewalk, vending, camping, sleeping outside or in a car) This plan, disguised as a "compassionate approach to quality of life issues," is yet another that disproportionately targets and criminalizes poor people in the Bay Area.

Not only is this plan poor policy and a misuse of funding, but it also poses a huge threat to the rights of houseless individuals and families and doesn't address the root causes of poverty and homelessness in any way.

"We don't need poor people courts to punish poor people for being poor," exclaimed Daly. I nodded my head vigorously in agreement as crowd members shouted their approval out.

A hush fell over the crowd when San Francisco poet Jack Hirshman took the stage and read a powerful poem about living on the streets. His hands shook with intensity as he bemoaned the sweeps of the poor and homeless "Streets swept clean of every bit of spontaneous life," his voice cut through the silence.

As I listened to Hirschman 's powerful words, I examined the sidewalk beneath my feet. Indeed the streets below us looked freshly cleaned and manicured without a spot of humanity left behind. I compared the spotlessness of the streets to our army of poverty, race, disability, immigrant and youth scholars with our torn jackets and backpacks; each of us bursting with emotions and feelings about justice and equality.

As the crowd marched to the brand new federal building I glanced up at the buildings lining the sky of the financial district. I couldn't help notice how much TLC these million dollar buildings received every day. Every need is catered to and every problem fixed at once. When I glanced down I noticed the people, citizens of the richest nation in the world whose festering wounds and illnesses are ignored or criminalized. In San Francisco, a new shining building gets more care and attention than a living, breathing human being.

"It is illegal to be poor in the US�, Renee Saucedo who acted as emcee for the day's march spoke with Teresa Molina, one of POOR's reporters from the Voces de Immigrantes en Resistencia Project, she continued," under these kind of legislations and similar ones that incarcerate poor immigrants, poor workers and poor youth we are all at-risk of incarceration, deportation and harassment.

"We can spend 484 billion blowin'up people we can sure as hell spend some money to take care of each other," Paul Boden, Executive Director of Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) told the crowd. "Homeless people are not the problem the problem is cuts in housing," he said powerfully.

With the marchers filing by, Jennifer Friedenbach from the Coalition on Homelessness, which works to create permanent solutions to homelessness, spoke with me about the problems of poverty courts.

"Gavin Newsome's idea of poverty courts is an idiotic idea. They use a ton of money to prosecute people who don't have a home�police are used to clean the streets of the poor and homeless," she stated. She explained the benefits for politicians to support this criminalizing legislation. "They receive large donations from the tourism industry�it works to their advantage."

As our conversation ended, a large chant boomed out from the crowd. "We demand housing and health care. We don't want your poverty courts they are anti-human."

As I shouted in approval, I turned around and noticed that we had attracted some new soldiers for our march. Three SFPD squad cars and Homeland Security were following closely behind us and I realized the full extent of this criminalization.

After the march ended with major voices speaking in opposition to this plan the Chronicle published a glowing profile of the Manhattan poverty court's judge above the fold on the Sunday paper. In response, my editor, Tiny, a formerly homeless poverty scholar who just released the new book; Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America spoke with Juan Prada, Executive Director of The Coalition on Homelessness His response was simple, "The Newsom administration is working on a public relations campaign because this is an election year, these kinds of legislations are not planned to be funded or supported in the City"

Later while thinking about the day�s march and reflecting on the police presence there, I wondered is this any way to treat the salt of the earth?

Sam Fuller is a student and poverty scholar in POOR's Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute at POOR Magazine. Join tiny and other poverty, race and disability scholars from POOR at a Dialogue on the Criminalization of Poverty with Jeff Adachi, Renee Saucedo, James Garrett, Ross Mirikarimi, Leroy Moore and the welfareQUEENS on Monday May 21st, at 7:00 pm at the Roxie Theatre at 16th and Valencia

by Tiny

OPINON: I’m not sure why the new movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, starring Will Smith and his son, Jaden Smith, based on the life of previously homeless Chris Gardner’s rise to millionaire, is so hard to write about. I’m rarely at a loss for words, especially about poverty, homelessness and racism. Perhaps, it’s because this movie made me so sad that even as I try for the 40th time to write this, my eyes well up with broken tears. Not tears for the amazing Horatio Alger, old school, pre-New Deal, up-by-the-bootstraps, 1930s-esque, blind-to-flagrant-racism-classism story.

No, instead my tears are deep and blood-filled for myself and my mama, homeless in broken-down car for years upon years on the bitter cold streets of Oakland; for fellow poverty scholars and formerly homeless welfare queens and POOR Magazine staff members; for Jewnbug and her mama, Vivien and Jasmine Hain, Laure McElroy and her son, and all the other unseen children, adults and elders who subsist homeless in America barely holding on through countless overnight stays in the sidewalk hotel. Tears for the fact that homelessness can happen with the regularity that it does, that every year Sister Bernie Galvin from Witness for Homeless People mourns the loss of hundreds more people who have died on the streets of San Francisco, one of the richest cities in the world.

Or, perhaps they are only tears for Gardner, a poor man of African descent, who was so driven to "make it" in this capitalist reality that he didn’t see the tragic paradox of his own situation- his continual denial of the rampant racism in his Dean Witter internship. Tears for a man who came so close to not making it in that palace of oppression, as he and his son slept on the floor of a bus station bathroom.

Or maybe they’re just tears for the myth of the bootstraps and how there is no place for that lie in the 21st century as more and more people locally and globally hover on the dangerous precipice of homelessness, wrongly believing it’s just about working hard enough and anyone can achieve what they want.

Or maybe they’re tears of admiration- for an amazing dedicated father who no matter what was there for his son, like so many of us poor mamas and papas.

Or maybe the tears are because Gardener, when asked on a radio show if he believed that there was an essential problem with him and his son being homeless in one of the richest cities of the world, replied with a resounding no: it was just about working harder, and anyone can achieve anything they set out to do.

Or maybe they are in fact tears for my son, who watched his mama cry from depression and the reality that no matter how hard you pull up your threadbare bootstraps and pound the pavement and pinch pennies and beg your landlord and stand in food lines and look for jobs and affordable child care, you still won’t make it.

Tiny, also known as Lisa Gray, is the author of the new book Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America, published by City Lights Foundation, and the founder of POOR Magazine

by Dee Allen

Headed to the "promised land" in droves

Attracted to bright urban lights

Like a swarm of sepia-toned moths

They arrive

In search of work

Safer homes

Altars to pray to

In search of the peace that

Living in the so-called

"Bible Belt"did not give them.

What kind of god

Would allow its own children to

Endure the jail cell

The slurs

Out of the mouths of babes & rednekkks

The noose that broke the neck

From a tree

Strung-up

For the crime of

Being born Black

The white hoods that made their Heaven

By making innocent lives Hell?

What kind of god

Would abandon its own children

To the mercy of hate?

To doors being shut to them

Because they are descendants of the enslaved?

They arrive

With a different kind of home in their hearts

Amongst the dark mass, a

Tslagi teenage girl, her Black carpenter husband and their

Two daughters [one a half-breed] leave Virginia in the dust

Headed to the "promised land"

In the shadow of the Great Depression.

The Deep North welcomes them all.

by tiny

"Another quarter please." The bus driver was glaring at me and my seventeen-month-old son as I fumbled for an additional quarter. My fingers clawed their way into the dark recesses of my backpack. Brushes, crumpled receipts, paper clips, pens and old address books intertwined with new addresses books, erasers, old watch bands and…oh, ahhh, could it be true? A quarter? Clutching the sliver of metal, my fingers climbed back up through a hidden passage of Mt. Backpack. But, alas, it was just a nickel. "Would a nickel be ok? It’s all I have right now," I plead.

"No it’s $1.25; you can get off at the next stop."

Since I started school in January, I’ve been taking Muni more than usual, and a bus pass was too rich for my meager, working poor single parent budget, so every week I begged, borrowed, or stole my way onto San Francisco’s main transportation system. Until now.

The Municipal Transportation Authority is proposing a rate hike to $1.50 a ride to offset its $24 million budget deficit. This fare increase would make it impossible for very-low-income folks like me to ride the bus at all. And considering that we make up the majority of bus riders, I have to ask: Who is the MTA targeting for these rate hikes?

Yes, it’s true that in San Francisco, conscious, privileged people with homes and high-paying jobs ride the bus because they want to- after all, it’s better for the environment—but so do poor immigrants, fixed income elders, youths, poor workers, and disabled and houseless folks. We all have different reasons, but we all ride.

"All services are hurting because of California’s budget," was MTA’s statement about the 2003 Muni rate hike from $1 to $1.25. at that time Muni cited the fact that the system needed to offset a then- $55 million deficit.

Of course, all public services in California are facing budget deficits—but let’s take a moment to connect the dots, or rather, the corporate welfare recipients. We could start with Enron, which stole all of California’s surplus with its fake energy crisis, and the Governator, who didn’t go after Enron for that stolen revenue (he also owns energy stocks) and who decided owners of expensive cars, like his Hummer needed to pay less taxes, which took a major local revenue source away from desperately needy city budgets.

Coporate-esque MTA board members like Ted Tedesco, previously with American Airlines, and bank executive Thomas O’Byrant are voting against their own best interests when they make public transportation increasingly costly for poor workers. Cheap transportation enables the urban/suburban apartheid they rely on to get through their daily lives. If it weren’t for cheap public transit, the poor service workers like maids and dishwashers couldn’t get from the poor areas of the city to the wealthy neighborhoods across town, where people like those MTA board members reside.

Last week a new coalition representing some of the poorest citizens of San Francisco presented its own "Platform for Transit Justice" to the MTA, declaring public transportation to be a human right.

The coalition believes that as a transit-first city, San Francisco should encourage use of public transit instead of cars and proposes a variety of revenue-raising measures that would eliminate the deficit.

As the Muni bus doors close on me and my son with an extra whumph, I consider illicitly entering through the backdoor of the next bus without paying the fare. Then I remember when they hiked the rates in 2003, they also jacked up the issuing of tickets to people trying to ride without paying the fare—criminalizing the poor while targeting the poor. Without options, I gather our stuff and we begin the long walk home.

Tiny is an editor at POOR Magazine.

by Joseph Bolden

Bystander By
Joseph Bolden

I'll explain.
This is an over due multi -bits of plays review by me.

How do I explain the sampling of dramatic readings or parts of a play?

Here is my bite sized example:A CD sample of various artstist's music, songs,or comedy bits.

Intersection Theater

I’m don’t critique or praise any artistic endeavor precisely because artist’s work are their own creation and only they, their family, or loved ones shouh dhave say or sway over them.

(and not even then,we know how critical family or friends can be).

Hence its always a problem for me with my own odd artistic leanings.

Intersection Theater For The Arts "Have Been Creating Alternatives Since 1965" That’s the blurb on triple pea green colors and contrasting black – white flyer announced simply this literary series.

Last month, on Wednesday March 28, 2007 Intersection celebrated their 42nd year.

I may have been there once before my memory is flawed about when, date, or event.

First: Mr. TheArthur Write, an elder artist that has taken hidden artwork revealed using bleach while also writing of hidden Black History as well.

Second: Mr. Colm O’ Rain and Ms. Sundaralinghma, Pireeni of Shi Lanka who's country suffers through fractional war.

Poet,writer and Mr. Rain’s creative Irish musically, beatifically shows oppression blended in Irish-African cultures both artists spoke in perfect English,Shi Lankin, and Gaelic.

Third: 40 To The Head is a powerful snippet or tasted of a the struggles, drama,violence, and humor of life for youths in gangs of Mexican American’s.

This dramatic reading shows how drifting vicariously in their daily lives, the gentle to brutality of individuals.

1 woman and three males embody the play give it 3D texture,vivid in its harrowing depiction of life lived now.

A savage beating of a stranger by the three young men, accidental shooting death of one the players so true to life and how instantly can taken away was a heart searing, painful process to see.

If most of the work of "40 To The Head is dramatic, shows as much realism as that compact read I seen This Play and it Author(s) may be headed toward greatness in years to come.

This is why I don't do reviews I don't express the medium of theater clearly.

My apologies to both artist's,Intersection Theater,audiance,current,and past reader's for this bumbling attempt of theater reviewing.

by tiny

It was a warm night

the kind that drips
with pain

It was a warm night
filled with whispers
and screams

you can peel that
kind of night away
with your fingernails -

you can cry into
that kind of night
and no-one will hear you

it was a warm night
filled with you ...

you were depressed
they say-

I’ve been depressed like that-

so depressed that
only hollywood can fix it

they say you said
“i’m gonna die tonite”- -

i’ve said that
many times..many times

poverty, conflict, confusion, and distress-
it drips too...

onto our collective foreheads...

when we’re trying to think

it fogs our minds -

“I just need to finish school - -everything will be ok -
I can get through this... but I
can’t” –

I heard your silent screams

I heard you being tired of feeling that pain

and I heard it whispered in the halls of that gentrified palace

that palace of mirrored

glass and the blood of a thousand of poor elders
who once lived on that earth - who

died trying to stay there.

I heard you through all that burgundy carpet,
popcorn and glass-

I heard you - cause I’ve been there..

I am there...

and I don’t know you but I do cause I know that kind
of pain - I know that kind of conflict-

but poverty and conflict don’t carry guns-

confusion and distress don’t shoot you

8 Big men who are hired to gentrify us out of
theatres and concerts, houses and
neighborhoods. .who are paid to not understand –

8 men who have the blood of
other men on their hands and

the agenda of other men in their pockets-

these people shoot us and take away our life and our
breath and our thoughts and our

laughs and our time and our pain

and take it away...

... forever-

by Leroy Moore

Hello Illin-n-Chillin readers,

How are you? Many of you might already know me but
those who don't my name is Leroy F. Moore Jr. Besides
writing for Poor Magazine I'm also a journalist, poet,
activist, and radio producer here in Berkeley, CA.

I'm posting this because my new book, Black Disabled
Man with Big Month & High I.Q, will be coming out in
November of this year and I'll be touring in the
winter '07\spring '08 .

I would like to come to your town\city in the winter
or spring of 2008 to meet you all and do some readings
and workshop. I have a workshop entitled Black Blind
Blues to Krip-Hip-Hop about Black disabled musicians
from Blues to Hip-Hop and have lectured about disabled
people of color and the struggles we face, such as abuse,
poverty, crime, and our rich history of activism and
art etc.. In January of 2007 I produced the first of
its kind, Krip-Hop Mixtape of disabled Hip-Hop artists
from around the world. You can check out my writings,
services and items on my website at www.leroymoore.com

I'm looking forward to my book tour this winter and I
hope you're interested in having me. Please get back
to me. Check back for book tour dates, reviews and
more

Leroy F. Moore, Jr. writes with all the fierceness and
urgency of a poet who consistently puts his body on
the line. Although he reports "From the Outskirts,"
Leroy is unwilling to accept the label of outsider.
As a "Black Disabled Man with a Big Mouth and a High
I.Q." his words and his community work push his voice
insistently into the center and the spotlight, which
is exactly where he belongs. His work is not about
charity, tolerance, liberalism, or tokenism, his work
is about liberation. From his krip hop performances
to his poetry to his race and disability consulting,
Leroy reminds us all to love our bodies, to trust our
brilliance, to find the humor, to build community, and
to keep up the fight for justice against all
oppressions.

-Aya de Leon, writer/performer of "Thieves in the
Temple: The Reclaiming of Hip Hop"

In the tradition of History's word warriors, Leroy
Moore pens full-frontal confrontations that blast away
the last nasty vestiges of Faith-based America's
biases against the poor, the disarranged, and the
different.

- Wanda Coleman/Los Angeles, known as "the L.A.
Blueswoman," author of many powerful books of poetry
and pros

"Niggahhhhhhh wid Disabilities, here, there, EVERYWHERE.....!" - Words of
revolution shout at you from every inch of the new book; Black Disabled Man
with a big Mouth and a High IQ. Leroy Moore, race and disability scholar at
POOR Magazine's Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute and columnist with
PoorNewsNetwork, leaps off the page at you with truth, real-ness, humour and
poetic scholarship about our communities; our people and our resistance. ALL
communities that have EVER been marginalized, unheard and oppressed will
gain brute strength, thick inspiration and urgently needed scholarship from
his revolutionary words and images

-Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia, author of
Criminal of Poverty; Growing Up Homeless in America

My website is www.leroymoore.com

E-Mail address is sfdamo@yahoo.com

Phone: (510) 649-8438

Keep reading and supporting Poor Magazine!!

Leroy Moore
Author of an upcoming book, Black Disabled Man with
Big Month & High I.Q published by Gibbs go to
www.gibbsmagazine.com

by tiny

Homeless mothers
and poor mothers

Low-wage mothers
and no-wage mothers

Welfare mothers

And three job working mothers

Immigrant mothers

And incarcerated mothers

In other words

This poem is honor of

INS-ed with,

CPS-ed withed and

Most of all

System-messed with

mothers

This poem is honor
of all those poor
women and men

And yes

I said men

Cause don’t sing
me that old song

About gender again

Who fight and struggle

And steal and beg

In every crevasse

And corner

to keep their kids in a bed

Who dress and feed

with tired hands

Who answer cries

over and over again

This poem is in honor of all those Mothers

who deserve to be coddled

And loved

Fed and protected

Instead of criminalized,

Marginalized

and rarely respected

Who can barely make it but always do

And still raise all the worlds' people

Like me

you

and you

Can I get a witness?

This poem is honor of mothers

Who can barely make it

But sometimes do…

And still raise all the worlds' people

Like me

you

and you

by David Kelly/LA TIMES

Reprinted for educational purposes from the LA Times

THERMAL, CALIF. � Like most of their neighbors in the sprawling, ramshackle Oasis Mobile Home Park, the Aguilars have no heat, no hot water. On cold nights, the family of eight stays warm by bundling up in layers of sweaters and sleeps packed together in two tiny rooms.

Bathing is a luxury that requires using valuable propane to boil gallons of water. So the farmworker clan spends a lot of time dirty.

Jose Aguilar, a wiry 9-year-old, has found a way around the bath problem. He just waits until dinner. "My mom makes frijoles," he said, "then I take a bath in that water."

Jose and his family live in a world few ever see, a vast poverty born in hundreds of trailer parks strung like a shabby necklace across the eastern Coachella Valley.

Out here � just a few miles from world-class golf resorts, private hunting clubs and polo fields � half-naked children toddle barefoot through mud and filth while packs of feral dogs prowl piles of garbage nearby.

Thick smoke from mountains of burning trash drifts through broken windows. People � sometimes 30 or more � are crammed into trailers with no heat, no air-conditioning, undrinkable water, flickering power and plumbing that breaks down for weeks or months at a time.

"I was speechless," said Haider Quintero, a Colombian training for the priesthood who recently visited the parks as part of his studies. "I never expected to see this in America."

Riverside County officials say there are between 100 and 200 illegal trailer parks in the valley, but the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition says the number could be as high as 500.

California Rural Legal Assistance says as few as 20 parks are legal, and they are often as dilapidated as the illegal ones. When county inspectors locate a park without permits, they prefer to let owners bring the place into compliance through loan and grant programs rather than evict the tenants.

Some of the largest and poorest parks are on the Torres Martinez Indian Reservation where they are not subject to local zoning laws and the county can't monitor safety, hygiene and building standards. The reservation is also home to the worst illegal dumps of any tribe in California, Arizona or Nevada, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The federal agency has closed 10 of the 20 most toxic dumps and cited four of the largest trailer parks for health violations.

Despite the conditions, park owners say they are providing a vital service in an area where housing prices have soared.

"Before the parks, they were living in their cars, in the desert and bathing in the canals. Five guys would pay 50 bucks a month to share a camper shell," said Scott Lawson, a tribal member and co-owner of the Oasis park on the reservation. "Nobody cared when they lived like that, only when they moved into trailers. You can't expect the poorest to live like the wealthiest. They feel comfortable here; it's like being back in Mexico. They tell me that."

Lawson's 300-trailer park has been cited by the EPA for clean-water violations and was recently ordered to stop pumping raw sewage into the nearby Salton Sea.

"We had some citations about water but it's because we didn't know how to test it," he said. "I'm not ashamed of my place. There are a lot worse places than mine."

Exactly how many people live in the trailer parks is unknown, but social workers estimate tens of thousands. The biggest park, Desert Mobile Home Park, or "Duroville," has more than 4,000 residents and can be seen off California 195 near Thermal. Others are on private property and virtually invisible to passing motorists.

The tenants are almost entirely Latino farm or construction workers. Many are in the United States legally, but plenty are not. Their average income, according to county officials, is about $10,000 a year. Many parents rent out their children's rooms for extra money, leaving kids to sleep on floors or in sheds. Many families keep warm by burning grape stakes, which fill their trailers with toxic fumes.

In one nameless park on the reservation off Avenue 70 in Thermal, trailers with broken windows and unhinged doors sit against piles of trash. Box springs, tires, car parts are stacked 10 feet high. Sewage runs behind the trailers, and wild dogs yap and howl.

"This place has some of the worst conditions I have seen," said Sister Gabriella Williams, who does community outreach in the parks and is raising money to build a learning center for residents. "And it's actually gotten worse since I last saw it."

She picked her way through a yard that doubled as a trash heap.

"The park owners have to look into their own conscience as to why they run these kinds of places with these kind of conditions," she said. "They wouldn't want this in their backyard. They wouldn't tolerate it. We all need to recognize the dignity in each other."

Former resident Conrrada Valenzuela said she went three months without electricity, living by candlelight.

Maria Renosa, 35, from Guatemala, lives in the park now. She makes $7.25 an hour picking broccoli and shares a battered, sparsely furnished trailer with six other adults and her children, Edith, 2, and Frank, 3.

Renosa's husband was recently deported for being undocumented. "It would cost him $5,000 to return," she said. "I am not going back. What am I going to do there? I'd love to live somewhere else, but here it only costs $360 a month."

The EPA has cited park owner Robin Lawson for clean-water violations; Lawson could not be reached for comment. He is Scott Lawson's brother. Another brother, Kim, operated a vast, illegal dump for more than a decade that was shut down last year by a federal judge.

The presence of the parks on the reservation has frustrated Torres Martinez Tribal Chairman Raymond Torres.

"The owners started off with good intentions, then I think it overwhelmed them," he said. "I have a real problem with it. Someone is going to get hurt. I'd like to see the parks gone and the owners start over again."

But in the complex world of tribal sovereignty, Torres cannot close the parks; only the Bureau of Indian Affairs can. The bureau said last week that parks on the reservation are illegal because they do not issue bureau-approved leases to tenants. They are now threatening legal action against Duroville and said other parks could be next.

Trailer parks began springing up on Indian land largely because of a county crackdown. In 1998, after several fatal accidents caused by faulty wiring, Riverside County began closing parks that did not have permits and threatening to sue others not up to code. Faced with outrage from farmworker advocates and the Roman Catholic Church, who feared thousands could be rendered homeless, officials backed off, but not before many panicked park dwellers had moved onto the reservation.

"We wish we could wave a magic wand and make them go away," said County Supervisor Roy Wilson. "But we can't."

Adding to the misery is Kim Lawson's dump. Since 1992, it has burned paint cans, car batteries, plastic pipe and treated wood and other waste, throwing so many toxins into the air and soil that EPA said the dump represented an "endangerment [that] can be considered imminent and increasing over time."

And the dump, its smoke blowing for miles up and down the valley, sits right beside Duroville. A 2003 EPA memo reported some areas of the dump contained levels of dioxin 20 times the national average. Dioxin, a carcinogen, is one of the deadliest manufactured substances.

According to agency documents, soil samples revealed dioxin, PCBs and asbestos in Duroville itself. Citing the risks of cancer and other illnesses, the EPA urged the dump's immediate closure. The park remained open because the danger to it was not deemed "imminent," said agency attorney Letitia Moore.

Four years after the EPA recommendation, a federal judge in Riverside closed the dump in August. On Thursday, the judge ordered Lawson to pay $46.9 million to help clean up the mess. Since the facility was padlocked, there have been 20 fires � most the result of spontaneous combustion, said Ray Paiz, battalion chief with the Riverside County Fire Department. One fire in November nearly forced the evacuation of Duroville and nearby schools.

Smoke in the parks is as common as wild dogs and swirling dust. Health workers report that children suffer high levels of pulmonary illnesses, coughs, infections and skin rashes.

"These are almost Third World conditions," said Rosa Lucas, a nurse who runs the Oasis Clinic, across the road from a trailer park. "It's unbearable out there when there is burning. You literally can't go outside."

Although poverty is endemic in the parks, nothing rivals Duroville for sheer blight.

The 40-acre park is a grim, colorless warren of dirt roads with more than 300 trailers tightly packed inside. It's often hard to tell an abandoned scrap heap from a home. There are start-up businesses � car dealerships, a small taco stand and a restaurant specializing in Michoacan food � squeezed in amid the clutter. Trash blows here and there. Toddlers, some naked from the waist down, wander around in fetid muck. A wall surrounds part of the place, a thin barrier separating it from the dump.

What began as occupants of a few trailers seeking refuge from the county has turned into a vast slum bearing streets named after members of park owner Harvey Duro's family. Duro declined to comment for this article.

Efforts by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to close Duroville fizzled in 2003 when the owner agreed to make basic electrical and sewage improvements. Still, officials said, he has failed to provide tenants bureau-approved leases defining minimum living standards.

"He will have to come up with an approved lease or we will shut him down," said James Fletcher, the bureau's superintendent for Southern California.

Fletcher said all the parks on Indian land could be closed if they don't provide leases. "If that happens, where do the people go?" he asked. "I don't know."

Duroville is a bastion of poverty divided between the poor and the desperately poor. Among the most destitute are the Purepecha, an indigenous people from the Mexican state of Michoacan who speak neither Spanish nor English but their own language, Purepechan. They are often mocked by other Latinos who consider them backward.

In their culture, girls often marry young and drop out of school to have children.

Anjelica Serrano, a Purepechan, watched her children play in the dirt. "I got married at 15," she said through an interpreter, "and have five children."

She is 24.

At night, the dark streets come alive with thumping rap and mariachi music pouring from cars. Ice cream vendors work the narrow streets. Because there are no sidewalks, pedestrians keep a wary eye on traffic. Men gather in front of trailers, some drinking themselves into oblivion. Others have hard stares and watchful eyes. Residents say drug dealing is rife.

Theresa Argueta, 42, would leave if she could afford to. She lives in a two-bedroom trailer with her husband and eight children. The four boys sleep in the living room, the four girls in a tiny bedroom. Inside, the trailer is festooned with rosaries and statues of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

"The smoke has affected my children's health," she said. "When the smoke comes, they get bloody noses and have difficulty breathing."

On the other side of the park, Cesar Rafael, 17, a Purepechan, lives in his parents' trailer. He and several other students at Desert Mirage High School in Thermal made a short video about their world, "The Contaminated Valley," which was shown at school.

"I wanted people to see another side of life," he said. "Everything is poisonous here, even the water is poisonous. And nobody really cares about it. We are invisible."

david.kelly@latimes.com

by Staff Writer

by Angel Garcia/Reportero para POBRE Prensa

Para espanol mire hacia bajo

On May 1st, 2007, I awoke at five o'clock in the morning to catch the first bus to San Francisco. I arrived at Dolores Park just as the march for immigrant rights was beginning. I was there to report and support with Prensa POBRE (POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork).

May first is historically the "workers day". Last year the immigrant rights movement appropriated that day and we made it our own; we called that day “un dia sin immigrantes", which means, "A day without immigrants".

At the march, many signs read, “Amnesty for all. We are America. We made America!” The names of our cities and barrios tell us parts of our history. La Mission, San Francisco, and Los
Angeles are just a few names that signify California’s history as a part of Mexico.

The park was filled with various people of different nationalities and age groups. I saw families that brought their babies with them. I saw people carrying signs, which read, “We are all illegal.” If anyone should be labeled illegal than we, as
Americans, must all be illegal. We are all immigrants, even our own governor. On my back, I wore a sign reading, “We are here and we ain’t leaving. Reportero para POBRE prensa is against all false borders!”

I am an immigrant myself. I believe the march united us. I realized the power we have when we all come together and unite regardless of our different nationalities. As immigrants in this country, we have the privilege to demand our rights, our equality, and our stability. A lot of people think that we as immigrants are animals and criminals. Immigrants and people of color are being pitted against each other. But we are all the same. We deal with and live in the same system.

As we made our way down Guerrero, towards Civic Center, the sun shifted back and
forth between the clouds. People were carrying flags from different countries that swung back and forth in the gusty wind. We were a group of
non-violent marchers representing what we hope for in the world. We hope for a
world without false borders and a place where we can all walk peacefully.

The police were present on every corner. The marchers chanted, “la migra la policia la misma porqueria!", which means, "The police and the border patrol; they are all the same!”

I saw some people carrying coffins. People are dying in vain in Iraq, and people are also just dying crossing the border. False borders create separation that in turn creates more violence. False borders not only separate but also strip us of our culture.

This was the first march I ever participated in. I was excited to be part of the change. I believe that, as immigrants, we represent America. As immigrant workers, we still have to work and pay taxes, like everyone else, and we are often denied services and rights. I saw many families marching side by side. It is hard to imagine that the police and the immigration laws are breaking families like these apart everyday. My body grew tense as I imagined parents being taken away from their kids.

So many of us were marching; we were marching to keep our families whole. We were marching to stop the unjust detentions, to stop the criminalization of immigrants and to unite.

My hope is that the unity that was created on this May Day is carried along for the rest of our lives and passed on to our children.

Todos Somos Iquales

El primero de mayo, del 2007 yo me levante a las 5 de la mañana para poder alcanzar el primer bus hacia San Francisco. Yo llegue al Parque Dolores cuando la marcha empezaba. Yo estaba allí para reportar y apoyar a Prensa POBRE (POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork). El primero de mayo es un día histórico, por que es el “día de las trabajadores/as.” El ultimo año el movimiento de los derechos de los inmigrantes tomo ese día y lo hizo el suyo; nosotras llamamos ese día “un día sin inmigrantes.” En la marcha, muchas pancartas decían, “Amnistía para todas. Somos América. Construimos América!” Los nombres de nuestras ciudades y barrios nos cuentan parte de nuestra historia. La Misión, San Francisco, y Los Angeles son solo algunos nombres que enseñan la historia de California como parte de México.

El parque estaba lleno de varias personas de diferentes nacionalidades y grupos de edades. Yo vi familias que trajeron a sus bebes con ellas. Yo vi a personas cargando pancartas que leían, “Todos somos ilegales.” Y si alguna persona es clasificada como ilegales, entonces nosotras como Americanos, también somos ilegales. Todas somos inmigrantes incluyendo nuestro gobernador “El Terminador.”

Yo soy inmigrante también. Y pienso que la marcha nos ha unido. Ahora entiendo el poder que tenemos cuando todos nos unimos y no nos preocupamos de nuestras diferentes nacionalidades. Y como inmigrantes en este país, tenemos el priveliego de estar demandando por nuestros derechos, nuestra igualdad, y nuestra estabilidad.

Muchas personas piensan que nosotras como inmigrantes somos animales y criminales. Inmigrantes y gente de color están siendo puestos uno contra e otra. Todos somos iguales. Todos pasamos y vivimos en el mismo sistema.

Cuando pasábamos por la Guerrero, hacia el Civic Center, el sol se metía y salía de las nubes. Y la gente cargaba banderas de diferentes países. Y cuando el viento se levantaba, las banderas piloteaban en el viento. Nosotras éramos un grupo pacifico de marchantes representando nuestra esperanza para el mundo. Nuestra esperanza es de tener un mundo sin fronteras falsas y un lugar donde todas puedamos caminar en paz.

La presencia de la policía estaba en cada esquina. Y las marchantes gritaban, “la migra! la policía! la misma porquería!” Yo también vi algunas personas cargando ataúdes. La gente esta muriendo en vano en Irak y la gente también esta muriendo cruzando la frontera. Estas falsas fronteras crean separaciones que después se convierten en mas violencia. Estas fronteras falsas no solo separan sino también nos quitan nuestra cultura.

Esta fue la primera marcha en la que participe. Y estaba emocionado que tome parte de este cambio. Yo creo que como inmigrantes, nosotras representamos América. Y como trabajadores/as inmigrantes, nosotras también tenemos que trabajar y pagar impuestos, como cualquier otra persona.

Yo vi muchas familias marchando de hombro en hombro. Es muy difícil imaginar que la policía y las leyes de inmigración están separando familias. Mi cuerpo se tensa cuando pienso de los niños siendo separados de sus padres. Muchos de nosotras estamos marchando; estamos marchando para mantener a nuestras familias.

Nosotras marchamos para poner un alto a las injustas detenciones, para parar la criminalizacion de las inmigrantes. En mi espalda yo cargaba una pancarta que leía, “aquí estamos y no nos vamos!”

Este Reportero para Prensa POBRE esta en contra todas las fronteras falsas!” Y la unidad que se creo el primero de mayo tiene que ser cargada por el resto de nuestras vidas y seguirla para nuestros hijas.