2007

by Staff Writer

October

Saturday, October 6th 2 p.m.
San Francisco LitQuake
Gritty City: From the
Pavement to the Page
Koret Auditorium of the San Francisco Main Public Library

www. litquake.org

October 23 @ 12 p.m.

welfareQUEENS performance

Diego Rivera Theater at City College

open to public

October 24-28
The Oral History Association's Annual Meeting: THE REVOLUTIONARY IDEAL: Transforming Community through Oral History.

http://alpha.dickinson.
edu/oha/org_am_oakland.html

Registration required.

by Olivia Colt/PNN Race, Poverty and Media Justice Intern

It’s about 8:30 in the morning and I am just about to begin my commute. I see the bus tumbling down the street full of people like myself heading downtown for yet another day of work. I numbly show my pass and shuffle along to find a spot in the midsection. I grab onto a pole and look up, the ad catches my eye, and I begin to read. Discover Neighborhood Treasures: BayView. Each letter pops out, calling to me, D-I-S-C-O-V-E-R the BayView. Will it be like uncovering hidden treasure? The smiling face, a man of color, stares at me, begging me to find the contradiction in his gaze. I look out the window as we lumber up a hill, then the city stands before me.

“There is little to no housing for people who aren’t rich… the idea of destroying the little housing [we have left] is crazy,” Mary Ratcliff, the co-owner and publisher of the Bay View newspaper, friends of POOR/PNN and fellow resistance journalists, relayed to me. Currently, the San Francisco neighborhood of BayView Hunter’s Point is experiencing the beast of redevelopment. It is the last threshold in the City that can allow for major construction, allocation of Federal funds, and has the largest amount of homeownership within city limits. BayView doesn’t get credit for this, however; what it does get credit for is the high rates of infant mortality, gang violence, drug use, and being a predominantly Black neighborhood. With the installation of the new T-Line and a possible stadium for the 49ers on the old Navy shipyard, the landscape of BayView Hunter’s Point is rapidly changing. “People in BayView Hunter’s Point are very cool people, we want diversification, not a re-peopling and pushing out of the current community,” says Ratcliff. I am a product of a gentrified neighborhood in the Western Addition, I agree with Mary Ratcliff, when redevelopment happens where do all the people go?

Bayview Hunter’s Point has been receiving a lot of attention since construction of the light rail began in 2000. Gavin Newsom has signed over two major housing projects for re-development: Alice Griffith (also known as Double Rock) and Hunter’s View. The City has this cowboy, caviler attitude towards the re-development. Instead of using the pool of funding that the Federal government has set aside for the reconstruction of public housing, the current administration has decided to go it alone, thereby allowing for what was once public housing for the poor to become private market-rate housing for the middle and upper classes of San Francisco.

John Stewart Company may be San Francisco based, but nothing about it screams S.F. The company itself is still fairly young, but has a reputation that far surpasses its youth. Started in 1978, John Stewart has had exclusive rights to re-build and maintain a number of housing projects in San Francisco and around the Bay Area. What they say they do is re-develop for the poor, but what they actually do is take the land, displace the people, and flip the project into mixed-income market rate housing. They create a process riddled with false promises, intimidation tactics, dehumanization, income thresholds, impossible deadlines, and discrimination. Vivian Hain, WelfareQUEEN and poverty scholar with POOR Magazine summed up her experience with John Stewart and their application process for housing at both Valencia Gardens in the Mission District and Adalaide Street Housing in Berkeley like this: “[John Stewart Company] set these standards when no one meets these standards they have to fill the spaces to do that they privatize the land and make market rate housing.”

Hain’s experience is one of many. She never did get into those housing projects and for that matter neither the Presidio nor Treasure Island. Laure McElroy, POOR Press author of SystemBitch, has a similar experience, “I was put on the waiting list for three years for Treasure Island before my number came up. They told me my credit wasn’t good enough. I have since been put back on the waiting list and nothing…not one piece of communication.” Both Laure and Vivien have interfaced with representatives of the John Stewart Company. They feel that they were denied housing because they were homeless or had very little money. The day Vivian went to apply for Valencia Gardens, her partner was told by the John Stewart Rep. that a family of five had to make at least thirty thousand a year to meet the income threshold (they made $700.00 a month) to be eligible to receive housing that was, ironically, already designated for low-income folk. Laure didn’t even have an opportunity to apply; the John Stewart Rep. said her federal subsidy could not be used to pay for rent at the new Valencia Gardens. She later found out she was lied to when the developer held a lottery for units specifically set aside for cases such as hers. Jewnbug, co-founder of the F.A.M.I.L.Y. Project, a multigenerational school for children zero to one hundred, summed up her application processes with John Stewart with this statement, “…it felt like a corporation who was not there to serve the people on fixed income, not to provide housing for fixed income folk or people in dire need of housing. They partnered with H.U.D. to get the space but not to give it to the people who need access to housing the most.” John Stewart is exploiting their contractual agreements to make low-income housing for the sole purpose of garnering more profits at the expense, displacement, and lives of poor people.

“I tried to get housing for me, mama dee and my son in several properties owned by John Stewart, but we never passed their strident application process and ridiculous income and credit requirements that are all about whitening San Francisco and displacing poor folks of color,” said Tiny ( aka Lisa Gray-Garcia) poverty scholar, welfareQUEEN and editor at POOR Magazine.

The tentacles of John Stewart reach farther than the application process. Marie Harrison, a former resident of Geneva Towers—a property formerly managed by John Stewart Company—a community activist, environmentalist, and writer for the Bay View had a long conversation with me regarding living at Geneva Towers and her experiences with John Stewart Company. “I lived in the Towers for eight years; on the 17th floor in Tower B… it was during this time that I learned what the word astounding means.” The violations in human rights and decrepit maintenance of these projects are enough to make one’s heart break. The buildings, which were twenty stories high, have since been torn down and the population displaced. The elevators rarely worked and when they did were extremely dangerous: at one point a small child’s finger was chopped off when it got stuck in the door. The water mostly ran a dark brown and muddy color from the faucets; additionally the hot came from the cold and the cold from the hot. The Health Department told John Stewart to supply bottled water; they did so, and locked it up in the basement making it accessible to no one. Residents could not open windows; they experienced extremely low lighting inside and no lighting on the surrounding premises. After a major fire in one of the towers, where a black fireman was killed, authorities discovered the emergency exits were padlocked, which prevented residents from exiting the building safely and out of harms way.

John Stewart announced that they were appalled by the ramifications of their poor maintenance of the facility and vowed to make repairs and clean things up. They never did, and when the Federal government came to do an audit, “all of a sudden all these trucks came from Montgomery Ward with brand new refrigerators and stoves… boxes and boxes… we got so excited until we saw they were going into the empty units,” Marie described to me. The buildings failed the inspection and the company was removed from managing the site. They were, in fact, barred from ever managing a housing project again. “How can you be fired by the Feds, then get to manage low income housing, and then sit on the Board as the Director…” Marie demanded an explanation of the gross negligence that encompassed her stay at Geneva Towers.

Marie makes a great point. How does one get fired and barred from maintaining public housing yet sit as the Director for the Low Income Housing Board both in San Francisco and Washington D.C., then receive exclusive rights to redevelop Hunter’s View? Not to mention all the other housing projects in the Wharf, North Beach, and the Mission that John Stewart Company still manages, especially after committing such careless and flagrant human rights violations. Mary Ratcliff mentioned that at some point during the era of Geneva Towers John Stewart himself said, “ [he] had thirty-five thousand black people under his control in San Francisco.” Thirty-five thousand black people… seems like he was building an empire on the backs of the poor.

This all can not be put solely on John Stewart Company. Everyone has their finger in the pot and is snatching any little piece that they can. Marie Harrison said it best: “stop looking at the people and follow the money.” During the construction of the Third Street Light Rail the City spent upwards to 648 million dollars. Not one penny of that was used in employing people inside of the community, i.e. no local merchants, contractors, or businesses were utilized during the construction in their own community; in other words all the work was outsourced. To add injury to insult, the Federal Government provides subsidies to cities and counties to compensate vendors along major transportation construction, San Francisco did not apply for this money and as a result many businesses along Third had to close or suffered extreme hardship. Many in the community believe that this was part of the City’s plan to push them out because the majority of the businesses and properties are owned by Blacks.

This is not the first time the whole re-development team has gotten together and has tried to pull sneaky moves to reach their objectives. James Tracy, a former Organizer with the Eviction Defense Network, recalls what occurred in the North Beach redevelopment: “the development team (not just John Stewart) tried to negotiate a provision where any extremely low-income unit could be converted to higher income “affordable” units if vacated for any reason. This would have resulted in the supply of available ELI units shrinking over time.” Luckily this didn’t happen. Why? The community organized, got motivated, and beat the developers.

This is not a completely hopeless situation. BayView Hunter’s Point has been built on the foundation of community activism, organizing, and empowerment. This is not the first time the BayView has been threatened. In the 1940s—with racial tensions running high—the community forced the City to not take their housing. “The key to a thriving, but non-gentrified neighborhood is the same no matter where it is: organized communities able to exert power on both public and private entities.” James Tracy is right. Communities united are a much stronger force—stronger than government or big developers because they are the voice and the will of the people. I pick up a cup of coffee from the corner store and watch another MUNI, full of working folk, pass me by; this time the ad is splashed across the side of the transporter. Discover Neighborhood Treasures: BayView!

Come and join us at POOR Magazine’s teach-ins with the residents of the threatened housing projects in Alice Griffith and Hunter’s View in May and be part of the City’s hidden treasure: the thriving, striving, and surviving community that is Hunter’s Point/BayView.

by Joseph Bolden

Spoiled In America

It’s Memorial Day.God, Honor, and Country, and Family.

The latter gets the fuzzy stick.

Warriors who’ve fought, are wounded, return, or die are the ones that can with intelligence reason, emotion, can tell those of us that have had no experience of war how terrible it is.

War is obsolete. Yes, there are times when its needed how-ever we may not need war as much a new kind of para- military option that’s less public.

A United Nations UMF= Ultimate Military Force, a systematic offence/defense system where men women from young to elder with innate or genetic/ nanoteched abilities could work in groups or individually of when enough is enough they will leave because that’s what folks tend to do after awhile.

That’s one of many scenario’s may work as war ends forever.

Now the topic. Spoiled in America.

I mean when the poorest in America can gain weight because of all the soup kitchen, churches, and inexpensive eateries all over America.

We’re so blessed except for widening digital divide most of us aren’t sick, diseased, but were so into movies, tv, plays, or trivia actually forgetting what real suffering is.

Some guy has a private war, his buds are oil biz folk doing every –thing they can to keep their dying monopoly.

We’ve stumbled, lost our way but all is about to change.

I won’t waste time on it we’ve lost much of our luster but I do khow this country will come out stronger maybe with all the pent up frustrations over the years we’ll remerge wiser too and maybe just may be a little less spoiled Americans in America.

by Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia/PoorNewsNetwork

"Without you, Mom, your work, your struggle, your help--I wouldnt have made it through high school." Jamil Gant, a young African Descendent man was speaking softly, barely looking up, reading from a letter he wrote to his mom. The letter and the moment, a moment between a mother and son, a child and his family, a youth and an elder, was private and beautiful, touching and quiet. And then the room exploded in applause. The occasion was a pre-graduation fundraiser, and this letter was read in front of over 75 people at June Jordan School For Equity (JJSE).

I had the privilege of being introduced to the innovative, community-based teaching practices of the June Jordan School for Equity in San Francisco through a study conducted by Stanford University's School Redesign Network and Justice Matters, a non-profit research and policy institute where I work as the communications director. My position includes communications support for several campaigns focused on changing the educational inequities present for low-income students of color in California. One of these campaigns has exposed me extreme inequities happening in West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD)

While I was inspired by the educational innovation at June Jordan, I was simultaneously increasingly angered by the experiences of low-income parents and students of color who I am working with as part of Justice Matters Real Schools Now campaign located in WCCUSD. The current situation of endless tests and scripted curricula does not work for our children,” said Lee Lemons, a parent of two children who attend schools in Richmond and San Pablo.

The two parallel worlds of June Jordan and WCCUSD came together last week in a field trip organized by parent leaders in West Contra Costa who decided it was urgent to bring a model of teaching and learning back to district leaders in WCCUSD. A model that focused on real teaching, not endless testing, a school that really provided its students with meaningful curricula,a school that included parents in its core activities and a school that understood social and racial justice and youth leadership.

Lunch Session with students, teachers and founders of June Jordan School for Equity

"I had homeroom in middle school. I barely went and my teachers didnt even know me," said Monica G., a senior at June Jordan who spoke to the group of us on the on the May 4th field trip from Richmond to June Jordan which included WCCUSD parents, youth, a high school principal, and Superintendent Bruce Harter. Monica continued, "My advisor at June Jordan was in my business from the beginning. He called me at home, he checked on me all along and then he even came to my kitchen. He didnt give up on me." Monica was describing the extensive work and commitment of all the teachers, advisors and parents at June Jordan and how that kept her not only in school but interested in achieving at school.

"I was so focused on seeing this vision become a reality because of my work in other school settings where I witnessed so many low-income kids of color fall through the cracks." June Jordan co-founder, Shane Safir described her commitment to the idea of June Jordan.

In 2000, struck with the flagrant educational inequities she was seeing Shane collaborated with three other young teachers (Kate Goka, Matt Alexander, and Emmanuel Medina) and started Small Schools for Equity (SSE) to advocate for new educational models for San Francisco youth. Teachers, parents, students and community organizations worked together for two years to study successful small urban schools across the country. These model schools have created high academic results for urban youth.Yet there were no schools like them in San Francisco.

In 2003, SSE won a competitive proposal process in the San Francisco Unified School District. As a result, in August 2003, SSE opened June Jordan School for Equity, a new model small high school. The school's mission is to prepare a diverse group of San Francisco youth to achieve the highest academic standards so that they give voice to their dreams and grow into healthy, productive adults. It nurtures this mission by helping the students "to discover and explore their passions, to grow into independent, reflective thinkers, and to build connected, socially just communities."

The Portfolio Presentation at June Jordan School For Equity

"My first question to you all is, how far would you go to protect your families?" Seata, a 15 year old sophomore at June Jordan stood at the front of a class of advisors, teachers, family members and our group from WCCUSD posing a question to us all as she launched into her "portfolio presentation."

June Jordan's portfolio presentations are one of the compelling ways that the educational experience at the school is markedly different from the testing-only nightmare of children trying to learn in most public schools suffering under the No Child Left Behind Act climate of high stakes testing and scripted curricula. Rather than only barrage children with tests to supposedly prove their understanding of a subject or subjects through bubbling in answers to multiple choice questions, the portfolio presentations require that the students create a whole demonstration that includes a multi-page report, research and analysis on the subject they are presenting.

Seata was presenting a complex report on a book she had read that included an analysis of family connectedness, global and local trade implications for poor migrant workers and her own critique of this society's' anti-immigration policies. Not to mention a complicated math and science presentation as well.

As the afternoon sun began to glow , the WCCUSD families gathered in the JJSE parking lot to de-brief the powerful day "I would like to go to school here," said Rachel Chinn, 15, a Richmond resident who was on the field trip from WCCUSD with her mother. "I wish they would allow us to do things like that in our school." "This was very inspiring, now we just need to make the district (WCCUSD) understand how important real teaching is," added her mother.

As all of the parent and student leaders from WCCUSD stepped onto the van to return home, visibly changed by the innovation they had witnessed at JJSE my mind wandered to the letter i had heard Jamil read to his mama. I began to construct another letter and this time it was co-written by all the low-income students of color in WCCUSD and it was addressed to School Districts and District leaders in WCCUSD and all across the country, this time it stated, "without art, science, less testing, real teaching, and all of our parent's leadership, students like us won't make it through school."

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.
-

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.
-

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).
-

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:
-

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
-

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.
-

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.
-

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.
-

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):
-
Family Reunion and BBQ for the former inmates, their families and the families of those currently incarcerated.
-
Unity Soccer Tournament
-
Poor People’s Economic and Human Rights Campaign Tent City/Marches, etc
-
Youth Led Space
-
Queer Tent Space
-
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:
-
White board/butcher paper
-
Notebooks
-
Pens
-
Markers
-
Tape
-
TV monitor (with DVD/VCR attached if possible)
-
Video Projector (pie in the sky – but then we could have nightly screenings of work)

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

4) Equipment needs: Computer lab:
-
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.
-
500 GB hard drive space for media storage
-
2 black and white printers.
-
Cables, power strips as needed

Equipment resources (to be checked out by journalists/storytellers):
-
up to 10 still digital cameras
-
up to 20 minidisc recorders
-
(40) minidiscs
-
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 Anna Kirsch/POOR Magazine Community Journalist

The streetlights cast a luminescent glow over the marchers'
determined bodies. Large and small feet shuffled over the glistening black pavement. Voices in unison shouted into the brisk December air, "What do we want?" "Peace." "When do we want it?" "Now."

The streets running around John McLaren Park in San
Francisco weren't filled with cars on this chilly Friday evening, but with mothers, families and community members. All demanding an end to violence locally and globally. All saying enough is truly enough.

As I marched among community members, leaders, activists and mothers from all over San Francisco, I felt the power behind these people. I felt the strength of marching with survivors of violence. I felt the pain and anger of loss.

I gazed at the signs, reading Peace is the Way and Peace
Zone, and the pictures of loved ones lost and I remembered my own childhood friend, who was shot to death just one month ago in my hometown. I thought about the mothers in Iraq, who are losing their sons and daughters everyday. I remembered those killed on the streets of San Francisco, Oakland and Richmond only to become forgotten statistics by our government.

One woman also marching in remembrance, pain and strength
was Kraima Baptiste. "I'm here in honor of my brother, Julian Austin, who was killed three years ago," Baptiste said above the echo of the loudspeakers behind her. She spoke confidently. "I'm here to stand as a survivor," she stated.

Like so many, her brother Julian was only 18 years old when
his life was taken. He was shot outside of a Metro PCS store. It was November 1st, Kraima's birthday.

"It was unreal, it felt like someone had sucked the air our
out of my body," she said recalling the day he died as tears gathered in the corners of her soft, dark eyes. "But I know he wouldn't want me to be unhappy, he is my angel," she said.

Baptiste smiled as she remembered the simple things her
brother loved, "a clean white shirt, pizza and a ride were all he needed."

Her pain made me shudder, as I remembered the tightening in
my chest and shaking of my body when my sister's voice came through the telephone with news of Kelly's death. Across the coast and the world, so many others were feeling the same pain.

"It feels good to come together with others like me. There is
power in numbers, instead of being divided we need to build, talk and heal," Baptiste said. Her words, strength and memories gave me hope.

Organized by Community Leadership Academy Emergency Response (C.L.A.E.R.), the march brought together mothers, activists and survivors of violence like Kraima to demand a stop the violence at home and abroad. C.L.A.E.R. is an organization committed to creating a nonviolent community, so residents can reach their maximum potential and flourish. Tonight's march was to help create that safe environment.

The protestors and speakers stood along-side folks from many organizations like the staff at POOR Magazine, many of whom have been personally touched by violence in our low and
no-income communities. We all called for a commitment from the government to address the long-term causes of violence, such as rampant poverty and lack of basic human services and to end the war in Iraq.

"We really need to address the root problem, not just the
surface issues," community leader Reverend Toni Dunbar said. She preached to the crowd as they gathered around the stage and blaring lights on the corner of Sunnydale and Schwerin. She brought forth a message of hope and peace.

"We do have the capacity to change," she said softly and
thoughtfully to me after exiting the stage. "Our children have grown up with murder, poverty and desperation as the norm and this is so far from what we desire for them," she said under the glow of a streetlight. She stressed the importance of the community really coming together to defeat violence.

On this evening Reverend Dunbar's hope for the joining of
communities became true. Supporters of many different organizations, members of many different communities and people of many different backgrounds united under the common cause of the march: to stop violence everywhere.

Renee Saucedo, member of La Raza Centro Legal, said she was
there to represent the Latino community. "We are here in unity to send a message to elected officials that they need to make sure communities have enough here to not resort to violence," Saucedo confidently stated.

"We're not gonna stop until the violence stops and we're not
gonna blame the survivors, but we're gonna blame the powerful. we don't accept as the solution the criminalization of our communities," she added.

As I listened to the scholarship of these community leaders,
survivors, mothers and families and saw the determination in their faces and heard the strength in their voices, I felt the beginning of light. For Kraima's brother, Julian Austin, for my friend Kelly, for the families in Iraq, in Sudan and in Darfar, for those all over the world living in violence, we stood in unity to bring forth light from the darkness.

Anna Kirsch is a Community Journalist and graduate of POOR Magazine's Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute. To read more work on issues of poverty and racism you can go on-line to www.poormagazine.org To get involved in C.L.A.E.R.'s powerful advocacy and change work you can call them at 415-333-3017

by Marlon Crump

Few can compare, few can bear, many can stare or glare. Only some can farewell, with welfare, a stairwell ringing a cathedral bell, a jail cell depicted as hell, monumental moms that foretell a wishing well of wonders, where dreams fell, bodies pale, or spirits that bail by those that fell:

A colony and collage, not a mirage of females with no tall tales, that can march a street with no signs of defeat to accomplish a feat of system resistance and pounding persistance. These are the outcries of irritable sighs, with only the relief of shrunken dollars in the mail:

"From the Blue that slew..."

That great woman, Elvira Pollard who's son so unjustifiably cut down from his life, before he fully grew after graduating school, by the blue who knew he could've never slew, was executed like a wild in the zoo. She cried as they tied and lied, and a spirit from her son's soul encompassed, then comforted and told her "I may be felled by the pistol but my spirit will be your missile:

A mighty mom, hands down, with a powerful sound should she frown upon trespass on her ground, the magnetic pound from her heart is the symphony of solidarity and not just sympathy for dignity but peace and prosperity, make and shake the guilty sizzle. The pupils of her eyes conclude her soul more pure that crystal:

"From the Blue that slew..."

That great woman, Marylon Boyd a woman of professionable powers of profound motion to laundromat the legions of lawless conducts, until the blue once again knew, her son never slew, taking him away without a clue of what to do. An everlasting candle was lit. The soul of her son inducted for her to be conducted and reluctant, with of the law being the vast vengeance:

A technical error of underhanded tactics, shall not lead this great woman to madness, despite her sadness. The eyes, ears, and energetic entity of humilty to proceed, is a strive indeed. You blues are equipped with artillery, but she fires and will call the shots. You blues's lawyers of lies and leisures, fuels her fury around your blemishes, only she's the astringent and instrument of your sentence:

"From the Blue that slew..."

That great woman, Wendi Lefti hardworking of strenous strive from the system, a mother of raising her young, an even more strenous task. Then one day she furiously had to ask, why a demonic dimension sent a pair from the steps of utter despair to tear away from her stairway of the heaven that was her husband; one deep, dark, and dreary day?:

A man, a father, a husband, and a local legend barricaded then erradicated by forces from overzealousness of jealousness. The falsehoods of pestilence was the typical reply, making many of us cry. "Why must you all lie? Is this everyday, inducting us into the fray, into this "American Way?"

"From the Blue that slew..."

That great woman, Kathleen Espinosa an angelic mom, who's offspring peacefully sat in his own inhabitable peace of mind, rebuilding his very life in kind, astonishly and monstrously taken out of the blue, by the blue. Nothing faced the blue that was dramatic, yet fired upon him ultimately tragic, but the magic from her fallen son's soul will be the static, that will fuel her energy to make the Satanic squad panic:

A dimensional line was breached from her life, a cognizable deficit sliced into her head, as she mourns daily of her son pronounced dead. However, his spirit announces to her and his loved ones, everyday as she goes to bed, by taking her into his arms, then so soundly said "I may have bled when I fled because I dread their hot lead, but on the Day of Judgement, they will be held accountable in God's Attic":

"From the Blue that slew..."

That great woman,Mirna Ayall a prominent, dominant female figure, immediately inducted by the Blue that so savegely slew her precious seed, as he inhabitated himself in the musical instruments through his ears, tragically ended with her tears. Unlawful restraint upon her son, that coldly ended as he merely tried to have fun was fried into the sun, by the rays of light of the Blue that had no right to unlawfully flex their meaningless might, who never instigated a fight:

Can anyone hear her plight, as she's no longer able to hold him tight now that he's taken a heavenly flight? An unstable constabulary results in his obituary, but to be proposed in an average dictionary, the definitions, with no distinction of strength, commitment, motivation, humility towards stability. The focus in the justice of her savegely taken son is a fight that will never leave her sight:

"From the Blue that slew..."

That great woman, Mesha Monge-Irrizary an eternal champion, heroine of heroines, robbed of her seed who desperatedly sought need and refuge from the deficits of his mind, ultimately was slewn by the Blue that knew, his life has always been true. While many would spend eternity towards crying out in agony for their baby,or seeking drapery of a maybe, but this isn't no ordinary lady:

Her son is now dead and deceased, she was re-born to increase a lifelong lease towards peace, even to the wielders of her son's decease. A foundation built from her fails in comparison of the height of her sight, beamed down onto her from the spirit of her son's light, that forever enchances her might as she tirelessly fight the civil right, plagued by those who only view the world as white as Lady Liberty:

Not an average Internet Service is networked, unlike this incomperable woman of a rare voice messaging system, towards any victim of a kingdom that abhors freedom and equality. The quanitiy spoken from her ultra-sound vocals speaks vast volumes, channeling indestructible positive and electrical energy, opposed to a country allegedly of "Tis of Thee:"

"Of a Land that Knew..."

That great woman, Ingrid De Leon began a prolific struggle from slaverable elements and components, in spite of her deepest darkest moments, from desert plains, crying in vain, from predators viewing her as prey to claim. From sunrise to sunset, she refused to be a stage set by a slavemaster's select towards humilty defect. Only food for her dine, was an impenetrable will and the Promised Land, focused by her mind:

The iron-like limbs of her legs never failed her joints, even as she fell spiritually depleted and defeated, thus born was her powerfully persisted points. A voice slowly, then loudly instructed the continuance of her journey, a voice from the Heavenly Father above, extending his Hand of Love. "Get up, Get up, and go!" True inspiration of a woman, a mom, a fighter and a survivor that defeated roadblocks physically, then mentally by crossing a borderline:

"Of a Land that Knew..."

That great woman, Vivian Hain and her daughter, Jasmine Hain a generation of indomitable struggle, multiplying their very lives by four as they soar against time from the crime by society that proposed economical anxiety, imposing deprivatory of perilous political territory. The vast power of a mom and daughter's struggle thoroughly unmatched, as they are admirably attached inspite of systematic attacks:

Near light years later, they re-emerged into breaking down the walls of poverty perceptions that often invites political deceptions to discourage human affections, as this mother and daughter team crossed countlessly callous intersections.

While the arrogance of ugly aroma stenched from the "high class" hiding behind city governmental facilities, so blinded by the lustful leisures of their deceptivably humble abode; none of them ever came within striking distance of experiencing the blocks of this mom and daughter, as they traveled a ruthless road, that few could lo and behold nearly crawling on their backs:

"Of a Land that Knew..."

That great woman, JewnBug an atomical voice to date that combats an oppressionable era of terror that intends to eradicate those that create. Born of a kinetical energy of spiritual light to inspire the height of a kite that knows no hand, but her own that only blows in her direction that seeks affections, in producing every single mom's protections. A voice in every categorical aspect of a struggling mom's predicament, overcoming all odds is her sentiment as evil constantly claims of no limit:

Two jewels from her eyes can equal a stream of a two, as she wearily wanders daily battling darkened souls deemed unsavory, that dare to glare and sneer, not cheer this courageous lady. A sparkling and rising star that forever stays in orbit, a cosmic energy with a field of asteroids that sustains all her voids of love, in the gleaming radiant rays of her own son, who shall someday beams down on all mothers globally that strive in their drive to be loved, not just intimate:

"Of a Land that Knew..."

That great woman, Mama Dee a wanderer of limitless dimensions of poverty, a mother of a jewel that gleams in the eyes of her very seed,(Tiny "A.K.A" Lisa Gray Garcia), thus cometh a rarest team of an uncommon breed. A lifetime of oppression too great, where few could relate. A savage society that imposed it's guides with lines to re-create and characteristically cremate:

It's attempts proved useless and pathetic, as this great women proceeded to take the initiative and re-create a universe that still longlasts a decade of dynamic arts and crafts. An empire to one day global the poverty immobile, to transform the lost into a noticeable noble. Gone this year, leaving many with a tear, but the symbolic structure of her adventures of poverty cultures the right from system vultures that eternally, artificially inseminate then eliminate:

As heiress to the throne, that great woman Tiny ( Lisa Gray-Garcia) is daily re-born to be that triumphant horn to be sounded in a direction, for many of her ever-growing pupils of poverty that exemplifies soulful solidairity for all eternity. Though deceptions and misconceptions prowl around her true voice of journalism, her phenomenal and astronomical wisdom, acts of heroism gives sight to the blind:

The word "Poor" may shut many doors, for being labled as rotten to the core, but this great woman gave capitalization of "POOR" into the realization surrounding the criminalization and incarceration of it society's major transubstantive errors, amidst this so-called "War on Terror" era. Inspite of uncoming poverty plagues, the dawning of a new age that "POOR" has set a stage with no actors or actresses, emerging from no houses, with just mattresses.

No color lines drawn, no system resistance gone, no interest of a manicuric lawn, because grassroots still continue to grow whether from dusk or dawn. Just a pen, an eye, a voice, a knowledge, being of sound and body, from this great woman's open mind:

"Where the women that still grew"

In the coming of age, the great women still empower their might of their constant fight to battle wolves in suits that continue to bite. A Princess L. that conqured violent hands in her past. A Dharma that relentlessly struggles to succeed a difficult task. A Janie Mae Dickens whose eyes are always widened to the dream owls of poverty struggle, never revealing a wicked mask. A Laurie that refuses submission as a single mom amidst poverty as being viewed upon as a systematic, statistical rash. A Rania , an Amanda , an Anna, Joanna , or a Jackie that work tirelessly around POOR, taking on any turbulent task:

A great woman, Bessie Burger, a beauty of ancient historical resistance of astonishing longevity with the never-ending will to defy "Care Not Cash."

That great woman, my very own mother, Victoria Crump has wrestled demons and shadows, before I her oldest seed (your's truly, Marlon Crump) knew the agony and trauma of hitting the mat. In a lifelong struggle from humble habitats, plagued with poverty and rats, she strived to drive the dimensions of near-extinctions of our very lives, from a monstrous burglar, a system plagued poverty emerger, or trauma encourager, in the form of dressed-up smiles:

The flow of her energy into my very own well-being to be a lifeforce battling a callous society of no remorse, increase my stubborn will to yield to their obstacle course. I lost another great woman, her mother, my grandmother (Elizabeth Crump) due to medical neglect where I still feel the effect. Gone, is my ownself physically to be upon them, but my spirit, my voice, my heart, my very own life speak mass volumes of characteristic quantities of life. Our love, vice versa, can overflow even the River of the Nile.

"Man can flaunt and boast their masculinity, as woman struggle with their stability and self-sufficiency. Man can be aggressive, as woman are daily progressive. Man can shame, defame, and maim, while woman hold their head high from failure to blame, regardless who knows their name, or chases them like hunting game."

Marlon Crump, 12/19/2006.

by Joseph Bolden

Crisis,G.A. And Truth Pt.2

My one regret is that not once did I ever get to eat a Knish or drink an Orange Julius [light breaded baked potato of Jewish creation].

Another also New York City treat [Orange Julius:

made with oranges, strawberries protein power,honey with egg and shell or minus shell mixed in].

The mixer had to really pulverize shells to powder or it scratched your throat going down, you could also choke or gag on it which happened to me a few times.

Not once did I during the whole time ever get a taste or even a whiff of 'em.

It made me so homesick and made that I vow to be a better cook so I can make my own treats from scratch

whenever I wanted not dependent on vendor(s) or store bought items.
Yep',good luck with that.

Ok, a few days have passed, skipped out of town before labor day travel crunch.

Signed up for G.A. again before taking a bart train for a family get together.

Blood bled news, sweet 16 parties, a famous, wacky, Conservationist Australian guy killed by a stingray, and the ‘Prez on television giving his low down on our eminent

destruction of our way of life if certain factions in the Middle East have their way.

It sounds like scare tactics to me.

Linking Lenin With Hitler shows the guy is mixing worker rights and communism with Hitler’s Mein Kampf [A blue print of Xenophobic Jewish Extermination].

When his revolution topples Russia’s ruling class but went into another tangent ending with Joseph, Stalin, a deadly, suspicious, smart, and cunning, leader who during, and post world war 11 turned Russia into a fearful land of death for decades before his death in 1953.

It was creepy the way he says World War III as if that’s his job to "Bring It On."

Anyway I enjoyed a safe space with one of my relatives sleeping most of the two days away until I had to take my butt back to the city.

Jotted other things down,but probably lost forever in the net.

I'll just say I rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.

A guy called Milton said that way back when.

He makes sense to me if one ready and willing to defy the powers of Won't,Cannot,Don't,and Never.

I have...

altinate plans for this lifetime I hope that'll work in the next if our world survives our constant rape and pounding of it.

And with that it’s the end of Crisis, G.A.

Gotta go folks and… I don’t know what to do next but I'll have lots of fun figuring it out. Bye.

by Joanna Letz POOR Magazine Race Poverty and Media Justice Intern

Yvonne Smith longtime resident of West Oakland said, "In the 1940's and 50's West Oakland rivaled Harlem. Right here there was a drug store, afurniture store, a Bank of America, and The Lincoln Theater with the best buttered popcorn…West Oakland was bustling with African-American families…"

Last Saturday’s chilly morning POOR Magazine’s co-editor tiny, her son Tiburcio and I rep-ported and sup-ported on Just Cause Oakland’s tour of development and gentrification in West Oakland. Just Cause is committed to building a powerful voice for and from Oakland's low-income tenants and workers. We started at their newly commissioned billboard across the street from the Bart station on 7th and Chester. The billboard reads, "West Oakland for the People, Stop Gentrification."

The purpose of the gentrification tour of West Oakland as Andre Wright of Just Cause said, "to show city officials what’s happening and what West Oakland used to be. Wright continued on to say, "Change does need to happen. The neighborhood does need to improve. But the same people need to be here with new jobs and new houses." The tour was led through the voices and eyes of West Oakland residents themselves.

Carrie Owens also a long time resident of West Oakland spoke. She said, "My family came on a train sixty years ago to West Oakland. West Oakland used to be a hub of black business. It used to feel like home. But now people are being displaced."

The bus we boarded was modeled after buses in Mexico, with its bright colored paint, old posters adorning the sides, and plastic figures stuck to the dash-board. The bus is a symbol of self-definition and expression.

Just Cause members are demanding that in West Oakland the people of West Oakland decide what the community is to look like.

As the bus rolled away from 7th street the words of Yvonne Smith echoed and bounced off the shiny blue walls as she recalled what West Oakland was once like. I tried to picture what West Oakland must have been like fifty or sixty years ago. Smith continued and said, "The developers get richer while the poor get poorer. The developers build condos that the people of West Oakland can't afford…and people are pushed out. This is gentrification."

Oakland's black population decreased 13% between 1990 and 2000 and has accelerated to close to 25% since 2000. In West Oakland less than 10% of residents can afford the average-priced home.

Smith explained, "Long time home owners are an essential part of our neighborhood."

From 1997 to 2004 the average sale price of homes in West Oakland rose from $53,317 to $315,000. Nearly 80% of West Oaklanders are renters. More than 2/3 of renters are very low or low income.

Vanessa Moses from Just Cause said, "The earliest gentrification in West Oakland happened during the 1990's dot com boom. From 1998-2000 eviction rates increased 250%."

The bus took a turn and Smith pointed out where her Mother's house used to be. Now there sits a parking lot. Smith said the city took her Mother's house by eminent domain. Across the street a monotonous row of condos has been built. The street used to be occupied by old Victorian homes, but they were demolished and replaced with the condos.

The bus slowed and pulled over across the street from De Fremery Park. Smith's voice jumped once again back in time, she said, "The Black Panthers used to hold rallies here in the park. They called for self-determination. For us to decide what our communities look like."

We climbed down into the street, music playing from the speakers. As we stood on the corner of De Fremery Park Andre Wright said, "Decay is Caused by disinvestment in West Oakland. Which has driven down land and house prices. And now the developers are back to cash in."

Andre continued on to say, "We need more vital resources to make West Oakland a place we want to call home."

We were met at the park by DeAngelo Lemmons, also known as Dee Knock, and A'Dunyae. DeAngelo said, "We can uplift the community with music. We need to support local things, like Bump Records, rather than spend your money in Berkeley at places like Rasputin Records." He continued to say, "Developers shut us down out of our own community."

Both DeAngelo and A'Dunyae gave us a glimpse of what they create by spitting some inspiring words of wisdom. DeAngelo and A'Dunyae are both part of Covenant House in West Oakland. Covenant House works to create a different vision of West Oakland and to get homeless youth off the streets.

The sun was shining bright now, but the air was still cold and crisp. As I stepped on the bus I looked back over my shoulder thinking about the Black Panther rallies that took place in De Fremery Park.

We stopped at the Pacific Pipe Factory where a 1500 unit luxury housing development has been proposed. The luxury units would not be affordable for West Oakland residents.

We met with Oakland council member Nancy Nadel. We stood in front of the large structure that was once the Pacific Pipe Factory. Nancy Nadel asked, "What exactly do we want here?" She went on to say, "We need to develop our city in a sustainable way."

The land parcel where Pacific Pipe sits is owned by housing developer Peter Sullivan. Sullivan owns a number of land parcels in Oakland. Sullivan has been telling the Oakland city council that there are no industries interested in the land. But Nancy Nadel explained that she has personally sent interested industry to Sullivan. One such group was Semifreddi's Bakery, but Sullivan would only agree to a five-year contract. The housing proposal at Pacific Pipe does not include a single affordable housing unit. Nadel also explained that the housing proposal does nothing to address the need for jobs in West Oakland.

Nadel said all the large parcels of land in Oakland are being sat on by housing developers.

Nadel showed the correlation between unemployment rates and homicide rates in Oakland. With increases in unemployment, homicide rates increase as well. Nadel said when there are not enough jobs people resort to the black market and this continues violence. Nadel said, "West Oakland needs manufacturing jobs that match the income and education levels of the people that live here."

Ian Kim, the policy director at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights spoke in front of Pacific Pipe. He said, "There are two forces at work when people meet and the group with the plan wins. The City of Oakland has been going without a comprehensive economic development plan. Some factors include job creation, zoning, and education. The city needs to be able to pull the reigns on real estate development."

He went on to say West Oakland needs to build green industry. He gave some examples such as solar and wind energy businesses, and expanding recycling in Oakland. Kim said the Port of Oakland sees massive amounts of scrap metal and wood pulp paper. Kim said, "We need creative ways to create jobs." Recycling programs create many more jobs. We also stopped at Bobby Jones' house. We stood in front of his home and he greeted us all with a hug and began to speak about his experiences in West Oakland.

Bobby Jones said, "The city must put sanctions on development. We must keep rents low and have a concrete rent control plan."

Jones also said, "We must open our eyes and see what we miss. We only have sight and no vision. If you don't know your rights than you will not have a single one."

Bobby Jones and others are trying to start streetcars running in West Oakland again. Back in the day streetcars were a usual occurrence. For more information about the street cars go to soulinthecity.org.

We took the bus a short distance to the historic West Oakland TrainStation. The train station opened in 1912 and was a primary transit center before it closed in 1989. Many African-American families and immigrant families came through the station. The International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first African-American labor union, began at the Station. CL Dellums, mayor-elect Ron Dellum's uncle was part of this union.

We met at the station with Greg Hodge. He said, "Here was the West Coast center for the labor movement. We need to keep this history alive, young people need to know." Hodge also described how the station sits at the geographical center of Oakland as well as the greater Bay Area.

There we were standing outside the train station, in the heart of West Oakland and the heart of the Bay Area, the very place where many West Oakland residents first came. The train station is surrounded by barbed wire. Sea gulls dipped back and forth between where we stood and the station casting their shadows as they went.

Hodge is a part of the 16th and Wood Street Train Station Partnership. They released a development plan report in October. Hodge summarized some of the development plans for the train station, which include, "education, business, self-sustaining restaurants, history, green jobs, and an incubator and home for non-profit organizations." For more information about the Train Station Partnership contact, Margaretta Lin, margarettalin@ebclc.org.

As the bus descended back on 7th and Chester I had a sense that I had traveled in between time. The tour spoke of the struggles and of the resistance and history of resistance in West Oakland. The bus ride was a tribute to resistance as both young and old residents spoke about their experiences living in West Oakland and their visions for their own community.

Bobby Jones said, "We need affordable housing, better jobs, and more opportunity for Oakland residents. The voters have spoken-- It's time to put an end to Jerry Brown- style predatory development."

Before we all dispersed many of us signed Just Cause's Policy Framework to Fight Gentrification and Predatory Corporate Development, which states the following:

- To Advance the rights of working-class West Oaklanders to stay and thrive in their neighborhood.

- To Encourage growth and development in West Oakland that serves the people living here, not that just makes profit for wealthy developers.

- To help secure the resources that will make West Oakland affordable for its renters and homeowners, and that will prevent displacement.

- To be bold and innovative in defending the interests of working-class West Oaklanders of Color against Predatory Development.

For more information about Just Cause visit their website at
justcauseoakland.org