2007

by Marvin Crutchfield

In his second book of poetry, Paradise Ventures II , Marvin Crutchfield shares his strong belief in God, knowledge and newfound peace with the reader. In this collection of 28 poems, Crutchfield boldly and directly states his beliefs and views about the role of Jesus in life.

Although direct, his poems don't simply preach about his passionate beliefs, but also tell the story of his own life experiences since finding God in his struggle to come up and out of poverty. Simple and eloquent all at the same time, these poems address the importance of finding peace in the struggle for survival.

by Josph Bolden

G.A. Blues.

The above words to many in my predicament is what we’ve go or have gone through while on General Assistance better known as G.A.

From the jobs or careers that fall,or women,men that kicked up out of shared living spaces,and all sorts of unforeseen errors in judgement many of us end up there.

The rules are more fluid now but there are people who will always view us as lazy, booze, drug, or sex addicted wrecks who are a waste of skin.

These same folks are "Falling Down"
it is only then they notice like everything else it’s a mixed bag of people on the dole more and more of them are sober, non drug users as I struggling to get back into regular work.

Recently, a few weeks past persons who are Workfare/Alternative Workfare participant’s work in non profit organizations, food pantries, places other than automatic street cleaning or D.P.W.[Dept. Of Public Works].

Just remembered, signed a contract not revealing hours of sick leave. Oh, well someone who hasn’t signed said contract can say what I cannot but what I can do is this.
Reveal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). So look below folks.

Just remembered, signed a contract not revealing hours of sick leave. Oh, well someone who hasn’t signed said contract can say what I cannot but what I can do is this.
Reveal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). So look below folks.

I want to thank the folks

www.dol.gov/dol/topic/workhours/sickleave.htm

Work Hours

Sick Leave

Currently, there are no federal legal requirements for paid sick leave. For companies subject to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the Act does require unpaid sick leave.

FMLA provides provides for up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for certain medical situations for either the employee or a member of the employee's immediate family. In many instances paid leave may be substituted for unpaid FMLA leave.

Employees are eligible to take FMLA leave if they have worked for their employer for at least 12 months, and have worked for at least 1,250 hours over the previous 12 months, and work at a location where at least 50 employees are employed by the employer within 75 miles.

Well, that helps. Now, I’ve been thinking of T shirts all colors, sizes, and shapes. I don’t know about it as a business but have done some silk screening.

The one thing I do know there is a lot more to do with this business than has been done. So I’ll keep it under my hat.

That’s for me, everyone take care and as Last Week’s Asian Week
what can I say, the thought came before the deed and its like an X Files show’s

"Apology as Policy" which means do the error, mistake, or misspeak, misspoke, apologize for quick gloss over and make like it never happens until… it happens yet again.

That’s all I’m sayin’ no wasting time on it I want life extension and I want it NOW! This war drains the best of our people in mind, body, and spirit. Instead of spending on death – life should be our highest priority.

Again, it doesn’t matter what I think, don’t ever give me a chance to make a few billion, it would go to an ultimate question:

Can we alive now no matter our age in relatively good health;
Systematically improve our lives by changing microorganisms in our gut to mostly symbiotic and less parasitic from their bacteria, virus’s, to other living organisms theoretically improving ourselves from interior to exterior?

That what I would do if I had billions to work with but its selfish altruism: Help yourself and others along the way.

Example: you find what helps or makes the human body/brain more
efficient and when little or now side effects only then is F.D.A.
Federal Drug Administrationin formed and if they take longer than six months to a year other quasi avenues are explored to get vital medical info into public forum for access along with science and technologists ethic panels.

In the long run it will be up to us individually to decide our own fates.

But that’s just me, I have yet to earn a few hundred thousand let along cool million dollars.

by Youth Envision Project, Literacy for Environmental Justice

There are many different issues affecting urban communities such as pollution, violence, and drugs. An issue that is often overlooked and lessened is tobacco. Youth advocates at Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ), and Youth Leadership Institute (YLI) have been working to address this issue. Both organizations have been researching their communities to identify how the Tobacco Industry targets communities of color, specifically the Bay View Hunters Point and the Mission.

LEJ home to Tobacco Free Project (TFP) is an empowerment and environmental health and justice organization based in the community of Bayview Hunters Point San Francisco. TFP is a youth group whose goal is to create change by finding alternatives to the tobacco industry’s influence in their neighborhood. The Youth Leadership Institute is an organization that works with youth and adult allies to create positive social change. YLI designs and implements community based programs that provide youth leadership skills in alcohol, tobacco and other drug prevention, philanthropy, and civic engagement. YLI is home to Youth Organized Against Tobacco in San Francisco (YOAT SF), a Mission based youth group working to bring economic and social justice to the Mission district through tobacco advocacy.

Both groups worked most of last year collecting neighborhood residents, youth and merchants to understand the Tobacco Industry tactics used to push their products into communities like their own. In the Bayview, TFP found that 84.5 percent of merchants said that they receive incentives from tobacco companies. This included 72.1 percent of merchant who received incentives in the form of buys downs and discounts. And of all merchants surveyed in the Bayview, an overwhelming 92.3 percent said that they have contracts with tobacco companies. These survey results go to show that tobacco companies have their hands very much in the mix in the retail environment in the Bayview Hunters Point.

While in the Mission, YOAT SF found that there are a total of 120 tobacco retailers in the mission district, a geographic area of one square mile! Additionally, YOAT SF found that the average amount of money that Mission families spend on cigarettes is $10 per week or $520 per year, a high figure for a neighborhood where 39% of the Latino population in Mission is at or below 40% of the area median income AMI.

Research has proven that higher concentration of tobacco retailer outlets has been linked with higher rates of smoking. All this in the Mission and Bayview, plus the fact that tobacco companies have increased their advertising promotion in and around the retail environment since billboards were banned, is enough to show the damage being done in low-income communities throughout the state with similar socio-economic profiles.

That’s why YLI and LEJ have decided to fight against Big Tobacco and start the Tobacco Manufacturers Mitigation Fee Campaign.

The Mitigation Fee is a fee that is going to be placed on every pack of cigarettes sold in the city of San Francisco. It will be used to alleviate the consequences that the Tobacco Industry has caused our communities with the sales of their harmful products. With a per pack fee and over 36 million packs sold a year, there will be an average of almost $10 million dollars mitigated from Big Tobacco, if our policy passes. The money from the Mitigation Fee will go to fund youth prevention and cessation programs, non-profit organizations and youth groups like LEJ and YOATSF to continue the ongoing fight against Big Tobacco.

We feel that it is time for our communities to stand up for themselves and have an impact on our neighborhoods’ futures. We will not sit by and tolerate any more attacks from the Tobacco Industry through their forceful advertisements, mass promotions and sales!

Currently, we are gathering as much support as we can from our communities and neighboring communities, but until then, look out for us collecting signatures throughout the city of San Francisco or presenting at your local youth organization!

by Janie Dickens

A new POOR Press author, Janie Dickens is not only a poverty scholar and digital resistor but also a poet and artist. Her first publication, Dream Owls proves her engaging artistic talent and insightful writing skills.

A colorful and playful book, Dream Owls , is a collection of poetry and art about why people are poor. Dream Owls has an enjoyable touch of playfulness while still engaging the reader in challenging subjects such as the environment, homelessness, childhood, and love. Dickens' poetry is full of life and reads to a nice rhythm that flows easily from one poem to the next.

by Published on Yahoo News

Native American Cherokees voted to expel descendants of black slaves from their tribe nation in a special election that has prompted charges of racism, according to returns made public early Sunday.
But a vote of 77 percent to 23 percent, the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma adopted Saturday an amendment to their constitution
that strips membership from so-called "Freedmen," those descended from slaves once owned by Cherokees, blacks who were
married to Cherokees and children of mixed-race families.

"The Cherokee people exercised the most basic democratic right, the right to vote," Chad Smith, Principal Chief of the
Cherokee Nation, said in a statement. "Their voice is clear as to who should be citizens of the Cherokee Nation. No one else
has the right to make that determination."
However, opponents of the amendment say it was a racist project designed to deny the distribution of US government funds
and tribal revenue to those with African-American heritage, US media reported.

"This is a sad chapter in Cherokee history," Taylor Keen, a Cherokee tribal council member who opposes the amendment, told
the New York Times.
"But this is not my Cherokee Nation. My Cherokee Nation is one that honors all parts of her past."
Advocates of changing the 141-year-old treaty rules defining who is a Cherokee say the tribal nation has a sovereign right to
decide citizenship and that other tribes base membership on blood lines.

The Cherokee Nation, which ranks as the second-largest tribe behind the Navajo, has some 250,000 to 270,000 members and
is growing rapidly. Members are entitled to benefits from the US federal government and tribal services, including medical and
housing aid and scholarships.
Cherokees, along with several other tribes, held black slaves and allied themselves with the Confederacy during the US civil
war. After the war, the federal government in an 1866 treaty ordered the slaves freed.

In 1983, the Cherokee Nation expelled many descendants of slaves as members but a Cherokee tribunal ruled last year that
the Freedmen were fully-fledged citizens with voting rights. That court decision prompted Saturday's special vote.
Native American tribes recognized by the United States government have the right to self-determination and authority similar to
US states.

Election results will remain unofficial until certified by the Cherokee Nation Election Commission, but officials said percentages
were not expected to change significantly.

by Gretchen Hildebrand/PNN L.A. Correspondent

"The stories you will hear tonight are not supposed to happen.” Parent and CADRE (Community Asset Development Re-Defining Education) member Naomi Haywood stood on the low stage at the front of the packed meeting room. The parents and students from the South Los Angeles community that filled the room mirrored Haywood's frustration and outrage. They exploded into applause for her and co-facilitator Linda Sanchez as they set the stage for last Wednesday's People's Hearing on the institutionalized "push-out" of children of color from the Los Angeles public school system.

"This is a human rights crisis," continued Haywood, engaging the almost entirely African-American and Latino crowd in rhythmic alternation with Sanchez, who spoke in Spanish. "students and parents - have a human right to dignity, education and participation!" The crowd responded with passion. Each seemed to have their own story of how District 7 schools in South Los Angeles had pushed their children out of public school, through the systematic application of punishments intended to humiliate and suspensions and "opportunity" transfers that often exile students from their own education.

Many in the crowd wore CADRE's bright green t-shirts, and had already come to this community organization with their struggles to obtain a respectful and meaningful education for their children. Haywood herself was one such parent. When her son was in middle school, partial blindness in one of his eyes was slowing down his learning. Despite this, his teacher made him sit far from the board and insisted that he was "just lazy."

Haywood was only notified of the situation when her son had already been suspended, after he had been disciplined several times by the teacher for acting out. When Haywood brought in a doctor's note describing her son's disability, her son's teacher brushed her off, saying she didn't care. Eventually her son missed two weeks of school before the administration agreed to meet her son's needs. "It wasn't til I went to CADRE that I learned that I have a basic human right to participate in my son's education. The school just treated us like WE were the problem.

Luckily Haywood's son is still in school, although she still worries about the threats of suspension and discipline that are leveled at him because of his disability. Beyond her concern, she is also angry that her son could be so easily denied an education by a system that prefers to punish rather than educate low-income students of color.

CADRE was formed in 2001 by low-income parents of color in South Los Angeles who believed that decent education for their children was a basic human right that was being systematically denied to them by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). While working to educate parents in their community about their right to be involved in their children's education, CADRE parents found they all had stories similar to Haywood's and often worse. And the results of the discipline procedures are what CADRE calls a direct path to poverty or prison.

The hard data collected by CADRE supports this theory. Public high schools in South LA have the highest suspension rates in the city. These schools also have the lowest graduation rates. For every 100 ninth-graders, as few as 24 receive diplomas, with the average graduation rate in schools like Fremont, Locke, Jordan ranging from 24% to 42%. This crisis is happening in districts that are primarily African-American and Latino. In nearby Whitney High School, in a district where Black and Latino people made up less than 20% of the census tract, the suspension rate was 0%, and the graduation rate 93%.

Many from the audience were there to share heartbreaking stories of the pain they and their children have experienced at the hands of this system. A shy woman in a long a flowing skirt told in Spanish of how her daughter had been suspended 5 times because the school felt that they couldn't stop the other children from hitting her. Even though she was the victim of other children's behavior, her daughter received no help in making up her work and is now so far behind that she may not graduate. Worse was that her daughter, who once loved learning, has "turned into a person full of resentment."

Another parent told the story of a CADRE member who tried several times to arrange a meeting with administrators and teachers to discuss her son's suspension. After being stood up twice, finally one teacher showed up to a third meeting. Instead of listening to the parent's frustrations at this treatment, the teacher called security to have her removed from the school. "If they don't want to deal with angry parents, they need to give us the proper respect, to let us know when a red flag goes up.

All outrageous, the parents stories have common themes, the sense that their children are being humiliated by their punishments, one parent told of her child being subjected to taunts while picking up trash in a courtyard. Parents also find themselves excluded from decisions made for their children, while schools show little effort to address the problems that may be interfering in their education, whether they are learning disabilities, behavior issues, or a lack of safety and support available in the school. The commonality between all these students was that they lost access to education when punished, and not given a chance to catch up – and many of them are encouraged give up.

In CADRE's recent report, More Education, Less Suspension, data on school drop-out rates is backed up with a survey looking to find out why students leave school before graduation. In a study of 120 such former students, CADRE found a systematic pattern of suspensions being extensively overused in the absence of other disciplinary techniques, which were applied in disregard to the impact on the child's education. Many of the students who left school did so after a series of suspensions and many were advised to leave by teachers and school administrators.

Parents and students who had undergone school suspensions were also interviewed, uncovering the mistreatment that many felt subject to in the public school system. Their children weren't listened to or respected in the discipline process. One of the students at the hearing told a story of a classmate being dragged in handcuffs to the dean's office because he wouldn't pull up his pants. Angry at this treatment, he made the point, "The principles of behavior and respect that they want us to use should apply to staff, too." Tellingly, the report also found that African-American students in particular were subject to a higher proportion of suspensions.

The implications are clear: low-income students of color are subjected to a system that denies them respect, and in many cases, an education at all. The "drop-out" crisis in their community is really a "push-out" crisis supported by these institutionalized disciplinary practices.

The parents of CADRE were present to stand up for their children's right to an education with dignity, as well as their right to be a part of decisions that impact their children. "We do not have to accept this, and nor do our children," insisted Haywood, "as primary stakeholders of our children's futures, we deserve to be a part of the process."

Will the LAUSD listen? Perhaps. One Board Member-elect, Monica Garcia from District 2, sat through several hours of testimony and then addressed the crowd, saying,"I'm listening." While she gave respect to CADRE and the students present, no specific promises were made. And in the absence of more official power in the room, most media outlets passed over the event.

But CADRE isn't waiting for promises, they are urging the LAUSD to pass a resolution implementing a Discipline Foundation Policy, now a draft bulletin at the Board, that would reshape the principles behind the school district's policy and implementation. Their demands are simply that the LAUSD commit to a policy preserving students human right to dignity, a right to education, and a right to parent participation and monitoring in discipline implementation. CADRE is in effect, demanding accountability from the system that prefers to blame students and their parents for its own failure. They will be at the LAUSD's next meeting on Tuesday, June 27th from 4:30- 6:30 (333 South Beaudry Ave.) to present their demands with parent power.

An insightful note did come from Board Member-elect Garcia, who insists, "I got it." She does seem to, as she noted that urban education in America has been underserved for centuries. To make a goal of 100% of kids graduating from high school in LAUSD schools, she added, is nothing short of revolutionary.

As one parent led the room in the chant "Parent - Power!" it was clear that there was revolution in this room, in the righteous and insistent voices of parents who have seen their children suffer and be denied enough and will not back down. And in the face of such staggering educational inequities, their movement will only grow.

by Adriana Diaz/PNN Community Scholar

I could feel the hot piercing sun beaming down, transforming my olive complexion to a golden brown. The ever so powerful words, “SI SE PUEDE,” Yes We Can, rolled off the tongues of demonstrators. The day was May 1st, Un Dia Sin Immigrantes, A Day without Immigrants. I was marching with thousands of peaceful supporters to downtown San Francisco’s city hall to support undocumented immigrant’s rights.

The hot sun and lack of water brought me back to a day I never want to relive.

It was my last year of college and I was sitting in my room starring blankly at the computer screen trying to concentrate. I had to write my final paper for my Theories of Media class on Cultivation Theory. All of a sudden the phone rang and the alarming sound shocked me. I felt as if I was back in high school sitting in 4th period, daydreaming, while the bell rings snapping me back to reality.

My best friend, Josie who I worked with at our neighborhood summer camp, called. Her words were coming out so fast I could barley grasp what she was saying. Josie was hysterical. “The Romero family was deported yesterday to Mexico….,” she said.

At that moment my heart left my chest and I dropped the phone. I remember again starring blankly but this time I was looking at my Janet Jackson poster I got from her 98’ Velvet Rope Tour. I wished that this was a nightmare and I would soon awake.

The Romero’s are beautiful, faith based, and hard working people. Jose was a cook at an Italian Restaurant in North Beach while Marisol worked two jobs 12hour days as a nanny and house keeper. Both shared with me their same frustrations: under paid, overworked, and unappreciated.

Jose and Marisol left their four amazing children (Christina, Miguel, Dominique, and Letty) at San Francisco’s youth summer drop-in program and in the care of my hands while they went off to work. I grew extremely attached to them and their story especially the eldest, Christina. I admired her courage to initiate the responsibility of her siblings during the hours her parents worked. A drive and passion to succeed in life pumped through the veins of this fourteen year old.

All four children are US citizens and both parents crossed over undocumented. Their savings they managed to conjure up was working towards getting their citizenship. I remember helping Marisol with her paper work and translating everything for her and Jose.

“Hello…hello, Adri you still there?” I could hear a muffled voice from a distance. I looked down and saw the phone. Tears strung down my cheeks I could feel the blood rush to my face and I could not grasp a single breathe I began to cry uncontrollably and feeling my stomach turning I had to throw up. It was not a dream and Josie was still on the phone. The news about the Romero family was true. I felt as if I let them down. I had to go back to school and leave them in San Francisco to struggle and now they were gone.

I am relieved when discovering my parched tongue is refreshed with a cool glass of water. . I am reminded why I am here in this nation wide event surrounded by thousands of Immigrant’s Right Supporters.

“The Mexican immigrants are providing a fairly adequate supply of labor…While they are not easily assimilated; this is of no very great importance as long as most of them return to their native land. In the case of the Mexican, he is less desirable as a citizen than as a laborer,” said the U.S Congress Senate in 1911. Although a great deal of time has passed, many would say that people do not think like that anymore. And I would have to question that statement; you see that is why I stand in front of city hall today. It is because “last December 2005, the Republican-controlled U.S House of Representatives passed a bill (H.R. 4437) making it a felony to be an undocumented worker” (www.getactive.com/ United Farm Workers e-activism campaign) as well as aiding or employing undocumented workers.

For a long time I hated the system. But as the year progressed I transferred that negative energy of hate to anger, with anger grew a passion for equality. As I look around at the many women, men, and children who come here in front of City Hall to protest I see a fierce fire in their eyes that will not burn out and with that I am hopeful.

by Leroy Moore/Illin n chillin

In May, I got an email that the Berkeley Police Commission might have an opening on their board. I attended Berkeley Cop Watch monthly meeting to get more information and to see if it was worth it for me to put my name in the running. What I found out in that meeting was the serious case of police brutality against local disabled activist and founder of Disabled People Outside. I interviewed Danny McMullan about what happened on Sunday April 30th at People’s Park in Berkeley, CA. Danny McMullan is a wheelchair user and founder of, Disabled People Outside DPO.

DPO is a volunteer organization that supports disabled people on Berkeley’s streets and teaching them how to travel through the beaucracy to get what is respectfully theirs; services, housing, disability income etc. He started this project in 1995 after a motorcycle accident in 1994 that left him disabled. The hospital gave him a pair of crutches and sent him on his way. Before the accident, Danny had very little connections with people who are homeless.

With no money, no insurance, and no medical insurance, Danny was on the streets for eight years. He just wanted the government to respect their side of the contract because when he worked he paid taxes and was on his parents’ insurance but the government didn’t respect their side when he became disabled and homeless. Danny spent eight years on the streets of Berkeley piecing his life together relying on the free box in People’s Park for food and clothes. At the time of the police brutality against him at people’s Park, Danny’s struggles were almost a thing of the past. He slept in front of Social Security and Section Eight Offices and got his section eight and SSI payments.

His experiences on the streets led to the creation of Disabled People’s Outside Program, a volunteer group that receives no money from the city operating on fundraising and donations. He works on two levels in advocacy of services for disabled people on the streets and on another level DPO got Mayor Bates to sleep outside, got the rain shelters started and a transition plan for people coming out of ALTA Bates Hospital.

Today he is married with children and working but on April 30th Danny was entering People’s Park with his two sons and wife to meet about the conflict with the city over the Free Box, free food and clothing organizations and people leave for people in need. UC Police had stationed themselves in People’s Park to cite people who drop off food and clothing for people in need.

On April 30th, road signs were blocking the entrance to the park but Danny’s sons removed these barriers. As Danny rolled through the barriers two UC Cops were on him twisting his arm, asked him to show his ID and spitting on him in front of his wife and children. Witnesses and members of Berkeley Cop watch told me that UC officers were pushing/yanking Danny out of his wheelchair down to the ground where 6 UC police officers got on top of him including one who repeatedly beat Danny in the stomach. Although Danny and many others at the scene told UC officer, O'Connor, that he is disabled with a false leg O'Connor insisted Danny lean over the back of the squad car which hurt him.

This abuse placed Danny in the hospital but UC Police continued to cit him on destruction of a road sign, one account of resisting arrest and two accounts on battering of an officer. According to Danny, the UC police said that he kicked him with his right leg, however Danny is an amputee with no right leg and spit on him but Danny stated that the UC Police spit on him and he was trying to get the officer spit off of him by spiting on the ground.

The charges are still on Danny! He emailed me the latest on his case. On May 31st. David A. appeared for Danny at the Alameda County Courthouse. None of the charges against Danny were filed but the police decided to go ahead with a probation violation thereby denying him a fair trial by jury. The police also put a $10.00 dollar bail against him. In a police report police stated that Danny never spit on anyone or destroyed any property. Danny told me that he is a target by UC Police because he is a long time advocate of Peoples’ Park for the free box and human rights for activists, people who are homeless and disabled.

To get more info about Disabled People Outside Project and to donate to Danny bail fund call him at (510) 688-2342 or danmcmullan@comcast.net

Danny is advising residents of Berkeley to call Mayor Tom Bates (510) 981-6900 and asked him that something needs to be done about police brutality by UC Police and to restore the Free Box.

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]. The other also New York City treat [Orang Julius: made with oranges, protein power with strawberries, an egg or honey mixed in].
Not once did I in during the whole time did I ever get a taste or even a whiff of them.
It made me so homesick and made that I vow to be a better at cooking so I can make my own treats by scratch whenever I wanted not dependant on vendor or store bought items.

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

That is 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. 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 before, during, and after the second world war turns his country into a fearful land of death for decades before he dies 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.
And with that it’s the end of Crisis, G. A.

Gotta go folks and… I don’t know what to do next.

by Leroy Moore/illin n chillin

Although it is the 40th anniversary of the Black Panther Party and our community is celebrating Black History Month, I’m very worried about my Black Panthers who are reaching their golden years.

I recently wrote about Malcolm Samuel, a local Black Panther with a disability who, in 2005, was rounded up by Berkeley police for no reason and died in prison. Now, one of our queens has been dethroned by the state and left homeless. Queen Mama Khandi of Ohio is one of our living treasures.

The state has always tried to weaken our leaders, and although Malcolm and Queen Mama Khandi were thousands of miles apart, they shared many things in common. Both were Panthers, both disabled yet turned away from social service agencies and both were victims of police abuse.

Malcolm is with our ancestors, but we still have time to help Queen Mama Khandi regain her queendom. She is physically disabled, a diabetic and wears a full back brace. I was contacted by her friends, who reached out to me on her behalf, to help tell her story – one of oppression, discrimination and downright prejudice, committed by of the state of Ohio against a disabled Black Panther, activist, artist and entrepreneur.

Mama Khandi is a musician who joined the Black Panther Party early in her youth. This was the same time Mumia Abu Jamal joined. They attended the same broadcasting school. While disabled and homeless, she graduated magna cum laud from Central State as the first Black woman.

A supporter of the MOVE family Afrika, she played a key role in organizing the members after MOVE was bombed. At that time, her house was raided by police on horseback. They trampled three of her daughters and beat her until she lost the child she was carrying.

Queen Mama Khandi has delivered Black babies at her home for Black women for over 32 years. And she co-founded several independent Afriikan schools in Philly and two in Ohio. She is also co-founder of the Afrikan-Amerikan Cultural Center in Millville, New Jersey, the Church of the Afrikan Sons and Daughters of Sampson and COASADOS, which has given monetary, resource and material support to various freedom fighters, POWs and political prisoners.

So why has the state of Ohio completely destroyed her Afrikan queendom? Mama Khandi, who spent her days working with children, was accused of child abuse by two white ladies in her neighborhood.

On Jan. 13, 2002, Mama Khandi was asleep in bed when the police barged into her home with no search warrant and told her to get dressed. They threatened her, saying that they would pull her out of bed and take her to jail naked if she didn’t comply.

The cops would not wait till Mama Khandi got on her brace. She was not told what she being charged with and was taken to jail in her wheelchair. The arresting detective tried to trick her in signing her rights away.

Her bond was $850,000. While imprisoned, she was contacted by the housing authority, who told her that her housing voucher was being taken from her because “the head of household is not in the home� and that “being in jail constitutes (her) having somewhere else to live.�

It was very hard for me to read Khandi’s letters. She wrote about how she was consistently taunted and abused by guards and staff. She also went into details of the physical abuse she’s had to endure while in prison.

She came very close to following in Malcolm Samuels’ shoes – almost dying at the hands of prison guards and a lack of accurate medical care and access to a specialized diet. Being locked in solitary confinement – where she didn’t receive the physical therapy or medicine that would help to ease her pain – her disability worsened.

She was even denied her back brace, wheelchair and even warm clothes. Mama Khandi lost half her weight in the six months she was there.

Her health case manager explained to the judge that if something didn’t change soon, then they will have a dead prisoner on their hands.

In November 2002, Mama Khandi was released from jail on $40,000 bond and placed on house arrest. For almost three years, she has been trying to get her Section 8 and disability income back. She was staying with friends until she was forced to leave. These same “friends� decided to keep her personal belongings on March 10, 2003.

In November of that same year, the house arrest anklet was finally removed and her criminal trail began. The jury found Mama Khandi not guilty of kidnapping, not guilty of abduction, and they split 10-2 in favor of not guilty on the charge of child endangerment. However, she still is not allowed to see her son.

Mama Khandi is in the middle of representing herself in civil court, small claims court, juvenile court and criminal court and struggling with medical disability and financial crises. The pre-trial civil court case that she filed against the “heffas� who had her arrested was scheduled for Feb. 13. She also found out that she has to file another lawsuit, on her own behalf, against Section 8 because many disability law offices in Ohio can’t help litigate.

Mama Khandi called the local Red Cross about housing, but they had nothing. She received the same response from the Salvation Army. Despite her history of advocacy for African Americans, Mama Khandi wrote that no local African American agencies or organizations have come forward to assist her in any way! Not even those organizations of which she is a member.

It was sad, but not surprising, that the only agencies that have come to her aid, including the organizations that advocate for people with disabilities, are all-white or white-run.

As we celebrate Black History Month and the Black Panther Party’s 40th anniversary, let’s practice what we preach. Help restore Queen Mama Khandi to her throne. She needs your assistance, donations and love now.

To read her full story, view prison letters and her art and to listen to Mama Khandi’s music, go to her website at www.geocities.com/khandipages. Send donations to Rev. Khandi I.N. Paasewe, P.O. Box 6965, Columbus, Ohio 43205 or her PayPal.com account at khandipages@yahoo.com.

Leroy F. Moore Jr. is vice president of the National Minorities with Disabilities Coalition. He is a poet and activist and a race and disability consultant. Email him at sfdamo@yahoo.com and visit his website at www.leroymoore.com.

There is no summer in jail

by Queen Mama Khandi

There is no warmth behind cinderblock walls; leaks from the ceiling constantly falls; flooding solitary confinement jail cells; to make a change, deputies are not compelled.

Iron metal beds, upon which we sleep; concrete floors, inmates pace and creep. Metal ceilings, tables, benches and stools; deputies insult intelligence and condescend as if we are fools.

There is no distinction between innocent or guilt; upon corruption and oppression, this genocidal system is built. Inmates and deputies, to each other they cuss; fights, arguments, unjust treatment and fuss.

A paradigm most imperialistic and strange, this place is enough to make someone deranged. It’s cold in treatment and temperament alike. Lights on at all times, robs melanin battery at night.

Ceretonin/Melanin imbalance is thusly enforced; acid over alkaline, giving inmates no choice. Poor – nutrition, medical, rehab – a joke. All – so sickening, robbing body and spirit – to choke.

Nothing allowed that’s living can be, in anyone’s cell; considered contraband – not even a shrine with me.

I trust the Almighty, in spite of all, will prevail. ‘Cause truth be told, there is no summer in jail!

by Vivian Hain & Ingrid De Leon/PNN Digital Resistors, welfareQUEENs

Editor's Note;As a poverty scholar born in this stolen land referred to as the US, i have been intrigued by the so-called first world - third world paradox, how in fact, poor folks, poor mothers and fathers living in the dog eat dog capitalist US reality actually experience many of the same conflicts, struggles and crises as our third and fourth world sisters and brothers. Coupled with globalization, free trade, false border enforcement, the natural and unnatural disaster of Katrina and their effects on poor folks and finally, the push to have a larger and larger underpaid and undereducated class of workers on the move, it clearly points out that the differences between us as poor folks all over the world are under the gun of survival are getting fewer and fewer. All of these realizations spurred the launch of POOR's global/local poverty dot connection study in POOR Magazine's Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute

Vivien Hain, from East Oakland

My name is Vivien Hain, originally gentrified out of Frisco then homeless for four years, then housed in the projects in East Oakland. I am a very low-income, xicana mother of three and this is my story of a move outta East Oakland to Berkeley.

It was five years after I had put my name on a waiting list for an affordable housing program in Berkeley…. I never thought I would ever see the day come when I’d get the call, telling me that my name had come up next on the waiting list. I thought to myself: “At last”, after being homeless then living in public housing for nearly five years in one of East Oakland’s most volatile neighborhoods where shootings happen almost daily.

For the next few weeks, I would go back n’ forth with the housing manager of the affordable housing program in Berkeley, yet I refused to get my hopes up that I would actually ever get housing there. I didn’t want to believe it. I was in total denial. Life itself had really beaten me down for the past eight years. So many terrible things had happened to me in the last two places we had lived in and every time there was an opportunity to get safe and clean affordable housing, it either wouldn’t work out or the waiting list was closed.

But this time it did… I got the affordable housing in Berkeley! I was so overjoyed! I cried in disbelief, but deep down inside, I still refused to truly believe it. Maybe I had some type of post-traumatic stress disorder from living in those two places where I had many bad experiences, including being a victim of crime and violence.

I was so happy, yet scared… I was scared of rejection after building up so much hope. I didn’t want to be let down again, forced to tell my children that we would have to continue living in timeless adversity inside of a sealed empty box, never to get out. I felt trapped inside a mental limbo, unable to realize that I was leaving 85th Avenue... The next day, I slowly began packing my life into several ‘unsealed empty boxes…’

Moving… Yes, moving can be tremendous for anybody, even those with material means to move, but try moving when you are very low-income… I sure found out quickly what an extreme hardship it was, as the next few weeks were a trying experience of my own sanity. At first, I didn’t realize how difficult moving all the way from East Oakland to Berkeley would actually be on a monthly welfare check of $723.00 with three kids. Most importantly, I didn’t take into account the immense emotional toll it would all have on me.

For the next few weeks, my emotional state went on a wild roller coaster ride, going up slowly and coming down fast. I began to feel extreme anxiety and a rush of adrenalin like a fleeing animal running through a windstorm. For the first few days, I drove throughout North Oakland and Berkeley, pillaging garbage cans for empty cardboard boxes. Then, I began endlessly driving packed boxes and small furniture in my little car to the new apartment in Berkeley. I must have made about 30 car trips moving items, because I don’t own a credit card, which prevented me from renting a moving truck. I also felt very vulnerable and alone, yet I persevered, kept going, kept packing… I wanted more than anything in the world to get my kids out of that sealed empty box forever...

The one thing that I couldn’t overcome so easily was the emotional trauma the move had upon me. For the first few days in the new apartment, I felt very anxious and paranoid. It was too quiet, too still… I couldn’t believe that a place could be without constant noise and disturbance. No more screeching cars… No more yelling and fighting… No more drug transactions outside… No more constant sirens screaming… No more helicopters reverberating overhead… No more loud music booming into my apartment… No more insane buzzing from the gamblers with their remote controlled cars outside… No more gunfire in the night…. three rounds, four rounds, sometimes six… Now, I lay at night in my new room only to hear the sound of trains and boats in the distance… Quiet footsteps passing by… Then, silence… Yet, I still feel nervous, anxious… Sometimes paranoid, as I unpack my life, leaving behind unsealed empty boxes and memories…

Vivien Hain, de East Oakland

Mi Nombre es Vivien Hain, originalmente desalogada de San Pancho, despues de estar sin hogar por cuatro años, despues estado en vivienda publica en el Este de Oakland. Tengo un bajo salario y soy una madre xicana de tres hijos y esta es mi estoria de mi mudanza del Este de Oakland a Berkeley.

Havian pasado cinco años, que avia puesto a mi y a mi tres hijos en la lista de espera para una vivienda accesible en Berkeley…. Nunca pense que el dia llegara cuando recibiriera la llamada, diciedome que mi turno en la lista de espera avia llegado. Y pense “por fin” despues de aver vivido sin casa por tres años y medio enfrente de una tienda vieja sin agua y despues estado en vivienda publica por casi cinco años en el Este de Oakland, uno de los barrios mas volatiles, donde hay disparos casi diario.

Por las proximas semanas, yo seguiria aquí y alla con el manager del programa de vivienda accesible en Berkeley, y no queria alzar mis esperasas que iva a recibir vivienda alli. No lo queria creer. Estaba totalmente negandolo. La vida misma me avia golpeado duro en los ultimos ocho años. Muchas cosas terribles me avian pasado a mi en los ultimos dos lugares que havia vivido y cada ves que avia una oportunidad para agarrar vivienda accesible limpia y segura, no funcionaba o la lista de espera estaba cerrada.

Pero estaves si funciono… y me dieron vivienda accesible en Berkeley! Estaba tan emocionda! Y llore sin todavia creerlo, pero dentro de mi si lo creia. A la mejor tenia un tipo de trastorno por estrés postraumático de vivir en esos dos lugares donde tuve muchas malas experiencias, incluyendo crimenes y violencia.

Estaba tan feliz pero tambien con miedo…. Tenia miedo de ser rechazada despues de tener tanta esperanza. No queria que me negaran otra ves, forzada a contarle a mis hijos que teniamos que continuar a vivir en una caja basia y cerrada por una eternidad. Me sentia atrapada, y sin realizar que iva a dejar la avenida 85…. El proximo dia, empeze a empacar lentamente mi vida en varias cajas vasias.

Mudandonos… si, mudarse puede ser tremondo para cualquier persona, hasta para esos con los materiales para mudarse, pero tratar de mudarse cuando tienes un salario muy bajo…me di cuenta que es una extrema difucultad y las proximas semanas fueron una experiencia tratando de mantener mi propia sanidad. Primero no me di cuenta que dificil era mudarse desde el Este de Oakland hasta Berkeley en un cheke de asistencia mensual de $723.00 con tres hijos. Mas importante, no tome encuenta el costo inmenso emocional que tendria en mi.

Por la proximas semanas, mi estado emocional fue como una loca montaña rusa, yendo despasio para arriba y rapido para abajo. Yo empeze a sentir anxiedad extrema y una infusion de adrenalina como un animal corriendo por una tormenta de viento. Por lo primeros dias, maneje por todo el norte de Oakland y Berkeley buscando cajas de carton basias en los basureros. Despues, empeze a manejar cajas llenas sin parar y muebles en mi carro chiquito al nuevo apartamento en Berkeley. Hice como unos 30 viajes en carro moviendo mis cosas. Por que no tengo una tarjeta de credito, que me prevenio de rentar una camioneta de mudanza. Tambien me senti vulnerable y sola, pero yo preserve y segui empacando…. Queria mas que nada en el mundo que mis hijos salieran de esa caja basia para siempre…

La unica cosa que no podia sobrepasar tan facilmente fue el trauma emocional que la mudansa tuvo sobre de mi. Por los primeros dias en el nuevo apartamento, me senti anxiosa y con paranoia. Era tan callado y muy calmado… no podia creer que el lugar podia estar sin ruido constantemente y disturbios. Sin ruidos de carros,… no mas gritos y peleas… no mas intercambios de drogas afuera… no mas sonidos de sirenas … no mas helicopteros por encima del techo… no mas musica tan fuerte entrando a mi apartamento…no mas ruido por los taures con sus carros de control remoto…no mas disparos en la noche…tres tiros…cuatro tiros…hasta aveces seis… Ahora me duermo en la noche en mi nuevo cuarto a escuchar el sonido distante de los trenes y botes en la distancia….pasos muy despacios…y luego silencio… pero todavia me siento nerviosa, anxiosa… y aveces con paranoia, cuando estaba desempacando mi vida, dejando atrás cajas basias y memorias…

Ingrid Deleon De Guatemala

Mi nombre es Ingrid de Leon. Soy de Guatemala y esta es mi historia. Es la historia de mi viaje a los Estados Unidos. Me vine por que fui abusada sexualmente en mi pais.

De Guatemala a Mexico todo estaba bien. Pero todo cambio cuando llegamos a un pueblo que se llama Reinosa. Ivamos a cruzar la frontera a McAllen, Texas y luego a caminar hasta Houston. Con el coyote y otra gente dormimos en los cerros y cruzamos el Rio Bravo en la mañana. Cuando finalmente llegamos a McAllen, Texas nos tuvimos que quedar en una trailer muy sucio. Durante el camino el proximo dia paramos para comer y tomar agua y un hombre de Veracruz me dijo, “quien viene contigo?” yo le dije que nadie. El se sonrio y dijo “hagamos el amor y yo te voy a cuidar.” Yo le dije que no necesitaba su ayuda.

y seguimos caminado

Habiamos caminado por una hora y los que salieron mas tarde los agaro migracion entonces tubimos que regresar. Salimos el otro dia en la noche y ese hombre de Veracruz me queria besar y un senor llamado Jaime dijo “no le hagas nada a mi sobrina” y ese hombre se enojo y dijo “me la vas a pagar.”

Y seguimos caminamos

Caminamos toda la noche al lado contrario de la luna y caminamos luego todo el dia. En la tarde dividieron la comida y el agua y a mi no me dieron porque el que dividio la comida era el hombre que me abuso. Yo le dije al coyote y el dijo “dale algo a la muchacha.” Entonces el agarro 2 tortillas, las escupio y dijo te dije que me hiba a vengar estupida y melas tiro, yo le dije “el estupido eres tu, tu cometelas” y se las tire en la cara y me puse a llorar y algien me dio agua

y seguimos caminando y caminamos esa noche

Y el dia sigiente ya no podia mas, yo lla no aguantaba caminar tenia mucha sed. Finalmente nos reuniremos con el otro grupo y yo me senti feliz y pence que ya abiamos llegado al final. Nos sentamos todos a descansar pero el coyote dijo “bueno senores lebantense porque todabia falta mucho” y muchos se pucieron a llorar y empezamos a caminar y yo sentia que mi corazon ya no podia palpitar. Y en la media noche vimos una luz el coyote dijo “miran esa luz?” todos dijimos “SI,” y el dijo “pues alli tenemos que llegar” pero esa luz estaba muy lejos.

Y seguimos caminando

Eran las 3 de la mañana y estabamos en una montaña cuando mis pies ya no se lebantaban de la tierra y mi corazon ya no aguantaba. Y yo les pedia a los que iban pasando a lado de mi “alludenme” y nadie me alludaba. Finalmente me cai y todos pasaban pisandome y el coyote decia “apurate pinche guera.”

Y ellos siguieron caminando

Ellos me dejaron, pero yo pense que dios me ayudaria y yo pedi ayuda, “ayudame, y dame fuerza; y no dejes que mis hijos se queden sin madre.” Despues vi la luna y eschuche una voz decir. “parate y corre.” Entonces yo me pare y ya no sentia dolor y corri y corri y hasta que los alcanze. Y el coyote me vio y me dijo “yo pense que los animales te ivan a comer” Y esa es la historia de mi viaje a los Estados Unidos.

Ingrid Deleon from Guatemala

My name is Ingrid de Leon. I’m from Guatemala and this story is my story. It’s the story of my trip to the United States. I came because I was sexually abused in my country.

From Guatemala to Mexico everything was going well. But everything changed when we reached a town called Renoisa. We were going to cross the boarder to McAllen, Texas and then walk to Houston. With the coyote and other people we slept in the hills and crossed the Rio Bravo the next morning. When we finally reached McAllen, Texas we had to stay in a very dirty mobile home. During our walk the next day we stopped for food and water a man from Veracruz asked me, “Who came with you?” “No one,” I said. He smiled and said, “Let’s make love and I will take care of you.” I told him I didn’t need his help.

And we walked on.

We had walked for an hour but the others were caught by the border patrol and so we had to go back. We left the next night and the man from Veracruz wanted to kiss me. But a man named Jaime said, “Don’t do anything to my niece.” But this made the man from Veracruz very angry with me and he said, “You’re gonna pay for this”.

And we walked on.

We walked all night against the direction of the moon and we walked the whole next day. In the afternoon they divided the food and the water, but I didn’t get any because it was the man that harassed me that divided the food. I told the coyote and he said, “Give some to the girl.” So, the man grabbed two tortillas, spit on them, and said, “I told I would get you back idiot”. And I said, “You’re the idiot—you eat them,” and I threw them in his face. I started to cry and someone gave me water.

And we walked on. We kept walking and we walked all night.

And the next day I couldn’t make it anymore, I couldn’t walk and I was very thirsty. Finally we met with the other group and I felt very happy because I believed we had come to the end. We all sat down relived, but the coyote said, “Well senores, get up because we still have a long way to go”. Many of us started to cry and we started walking and I felt that my heart would no longer beat. At midnight we saw a light and the coyote asked, “Do you see that light?” “Yes,” we all said. He said, “Well, that’s where we have to go”. But that light was very far.

And we walked on.

It was 3 in the morning and we were on a mountain when my feet would not move from the earth and my heart could not longer endure. I was asking the people that were passing by me, “Help me” and nobody would. Finally I fell and everyone was stepping on me and the coyote said, “Hurry up you fuckin’ guera.”

And they all walked on.

They all left me, but I thought that god could help me and I asked for help. “Help me,” I said, “and give me strength; don’t allow my kids to live without a mother.” Then I saw the moon and I heard a voice say, “Get up and run.” So I got up and I could feel no pain and I ran and ran and I found them. The coyote looked at me and said, “I really thought that the animals were going to eat you.”

by Leroy Moore/illin n chillin

When economist, sociologist, scientist and politicians predict the future of our society, we are thankful and continue to look for their advice. However when the messenger is outside of these professional sects, we question their motive and some times point our finger to the messenger when social conflicts happens. Many times the messengers for the young, urban residents and people of color are artists\activists. From James Baldwin, to Chuck D artists\activists have been predicting or warning about the social constrains in communities of color that have erupted into in civil upheaval but theses messengers have not been embraced by many professionals who are in a place of power to make the changes.

Matter-of-Fact when a messenger artistically communicate his\her’s message he or she is blame in starting protest or a riot. The LA riots and the riots in Paris France of 2005 have a lot in common. Both had prophets in the hip-hop arena trying to get their message to people in power about the situation that their neighbors are going through from unemployment, run down housing projects to police brutality. Before Rodney King beating and trail, LA Rap stars from Ice Tea to NWA were warning everybody about the tension in South Central and else where in LA. Even Movie director, Mike Singlter gave us a message in the 1998 movie, “Boyz-N-The Hood. Almost the same thing happened in Paris France. Rapper, Monsieur R, put his SOS out their but did the lawyers, economist, sociologist, and scientist and politicians listen?

Now hip-hop artists are the ones to blame for violence in their community. The same thing happen in the Blues when Blind Willie Johnson was arrested outside of Costume House in New Orleans in the 1920’s for singing his song, If I had My Way I’d Tear this Building Down. Police said by singing the song Johnson was trying to start a riot. Now in 2006 French politicians and lawmakers are using the same accuse against Monsieur R for his song, 'FranSSe' for starting the riots of 2005 that he penned almost a year before the riot. Monsieur R wrote the song after researching the living condition of his neighbors.

As a researcher\activist\poet I too have felt frustrated by the injustice of my disabled brothers and sisters of color. And like Monsieur R, Sister Soulter, Paris and many more, I too use my pen as a means of getting my message to my people and mainstream society. So am I going to be in front of a judge when my poems, If I Had A Gun, Hey Mr. White or Tell the Truth come out? No wonder I can’t find a publisher! Our so called political leaders are missing the meaning of our messages. If we can drag our artists\activists in court than why can’t we do the same with legislators whose ink has led many of us in prison, segregated schools, trapped in run down public housing and deported. These are the reasons why riots happen and today’s blunt disregard to some politicians, police and other so called “authority figure!” In this climate, Kanye West to Monsieur is what Audre Lord called “Truth Tellers!”

by Joseph Bolden

I saw a show on Children Of... no,won't complete sentence.

They know the date, time too well though time has passed-


enemy to memory of those suddenly taken.

Today is theday when the 'Prez will dig up memes to rally and garner political capitol.

Wrong as it is he and others will again without meaning to and

especially a willowy, sun haired writer of note has already spread acid venom as widow's greive,heal in ways unique to themselves.

Enough of said poison pennist.

A jealous self rightous harpy of greek legend [I see gray,dirty, sharp and jagged wings,twisted beak,deep black
slits for eyes.] That's my opinon whether real or not is anyone's guess.

For those grieving over this half decade please know to

move on at ones own pace let no one dictate because it is a distinctly
private matter that

happened to those individuals and families publically.

Everyone has changed somewhat either made stronger or weakend some.

Our future and generations unborn depend on this generation of adults and children forced to grow too soon

as were those of the 1860's Civil War,

Spanish American,
World War's 1 & 2,
Korean Conflict of the 1950's,
Viet Nam (1960's thru
mid 1970's and the beginnings of the Middle East confict

(1990's rested only to
continue after start of the 21st century).

Will we always be warring with ourselves until we end our species totally?

The youth, adults, and children of today's conflict know this cannot go on as it has and it saddly falls to them

whom memory will not cease of painful lessons learned on the terrible day of...
this day five years past.

The only way to stop these massive heart break, soul searing harm is to
be better conflict resolution solvers,
prevent national upsets, pride wounding so
peace, prosperity, innovations,

and love of living and lives are upppermost in our thoughs


than the life terminating means we have at our disposal now.

May this day/years be always remembered and celebrated as a time of renewal

and

re-embracing the end of war forever as young adults and children most hurt by these horrors become and are

ultimately the saviors in their own unique ways

ushering us into that unknown country...

PEACE.

For all time.
Only then can all of us breathe a collective sigh and be the people's we were always destined to be.

by Leroy Moore/Illin'n chillin

It is again Summer and Californians are holding their breath, hoping that it will be a cool Summer to avoid fires. Although it’s been cool here in California, a different type of fire has been spreading from the East to the West this Summer.

I’ve been writing about violence against people with disabilities for more than ten years. However, the recent cases are just shocking and sick! In June there were two cases from Florida to Oregon involving people with disabilities who were set on fire or had bleach poured on them that caught the media’s attention. These cases took place in Jacksonville, FL, Schenectady, NY, and Spokane, WA. However, before June there have been other cases of people with disabilities being set on fire. Last year during the Paris riots a disabled woman was doused with petrol and set on fire. And on March 6th of this year a disabled homeless man in Boston was kicked and set ablaze, according WHDH TV of Boston, MA.

Newspaper reports identified the victims in the above Summer cases of 2006 as three men and one woman so far. All had physical disabilities and at the time three were reported to have survived and one died from being burned. The March case in Boston and the recent case in Oregon both involved victims who were homeless. The New York case happened in a home and was perpetrated by a stranger; the case in Florida was also in a home of a disabled woman who was forced to drink bleach and was then set on fire by her caregiver. As you can see there are similarities and differences in the above cases. I point this out because the public has to realize that these crimes against people with disabilities are not isolated incidents, but the frame of a distributing picture of violence against people with disabilities from Coast to Coast.

Even though Congress passed the Crime Victims With Disabilities Act on Jan. 7th 1998, and the good work of the National Organization for Victim Assistance, which has a department on victims of crimes with disabilities has helped, the above cases continue to happen largely in silence. It is only July, the beginning of the 2006 Summer, and we must not only stop these fires, but bring them to the forefront in all of our work, advocacy, and organizations. We must voice our concerns and come up with programs and policies to deter the growing violence against people with disabilities!

Sources

1) The Guardian

Disabled woman set on fire as Paris riots spread,
11/5/2005

2) WHDH TV Boston

Suspects set fire to homeless man,
3/6/2006

3) Channel 3 News New York

Man accused of attacking disabled woman, trying to set her on fire,
6\30\2006

4) News 4 Florida

Caregiver charged with throwing bleach on disabled woman,
6\16\2006

by Joseph Bolden

The Good Old Quickly Dead Days Pt.

September 11th another infamous day adds to our expanding lists of really bad days to live through.
That day will dwell burned into adults as its already affects children will affect generations taught these horrific lessons
as generations before learned about World Wars I and II,Korea War-Conflict,Viet Nam and our latest Middle East - Desert Storm/Shield battles..


It kind of makes me feel a longing for the good old quickly dead days. You know those days when we American’s thought of
ourselves as the greatest experiment of mixed blood minus a few African Americans, Pacific Asiatic, South Border, or

Brazilian folks.
Food eaten were = eggs, bacon, sausages, red meat butter, and gravy with no worries on our future health.

Remember when history was simple without her-story and other people’s stories messing up the pure story of Manifest Destiny of America?


But reality shakes her ass pointing glistening perfectly polished fingers at telling us truth will out, unjust laws must-will
change, and everyone’s living reality is equally valid without destroying the frayed original work which is now a
weave many discordant colors, threads, and patches.


Now our stories are many not only one dominant theme but of many in miniature ones buried under
the dominant culture for decades unseen, forced joined but not celebrated by said culture.
The dams have broken, tears shed from its holding back too long.

End Of Part 1.

by Antonio William/PoorNewsNetwork Youth in Media

"The funded tree resembles me.." The powerful poetry of Tracy, a Castlemount High School student and member of Youth Together, cut through my down mood. Tracy was one of several students from across the Bay Area who was speaking out against the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) preceding a court action about to be heard in San Francisco last week.

I am a high school senior from Oakland and I did not pass the Exit Exam. Had it not been for my editor at POOR Magazine, I wouldn't even been here today, because in a lot of ways I have lost hope. And yet the challenge of this racist, classist law put into place by State Superintendent of schools Jack O' Connell, continues.

Attorneys for students attending the worst schools in the state asked the Court of Appeals on Tuesday in San Francisco to reinstate an injunction against the Exit Exam and retroactively award diplomas to as many as 42,000 seniors. This followed an Alameda County Superior Court judge who granted the injunction in May, which halted the diploma penalty for the Class of 2006 because he found many students had not had an equal opportunity to learn the material being tested. The California Supreme Court suspended that injunction on May 24th and the issue was transferred to the Court of Appeals.

The Lawyers from Morrison & Foerster who are representing the students suing the state over the Exit Exam argued that some schools failed to adequately teach students the material on the exam. “Denying them diplomas for flunking the test is an unfair punishment”, said Arturo Gonzalez, one of the lead attorneys for the students.

"You can't blame the kids”, Gonzalez said.

The funny thing is, if you listen to the words of Jack O'Connell's office you would think that in fact you can “blame the kids” because they continue to say that graduating seniors who lack basic math and English skills demean the value of the state's high school degree. I am not sure what they mean by that. I worked hard in school. I attended all my classes and I actually got good grades. How is that demeaning? I would argue that the people this test demeans are hard-working students who are trying to get an education.

I am also one of those kids who came from an "underserved school". Our school didn't have a lot of resources and we had teachers who were just out of school and didn't have a lot of experience in the classroom. However, we actually had a lot of art in our school and a lot of parent volunteers who really cared. The point is that everyone who does well in school isn’t always able to pass the tests. So the real problem here is the tests and the fact that that is how they decide whether a student should get a diploma, which is just wrong.

My mind came back to the powerful group of student activists from Youth Together who had gathered on the grass outside of the Superior Court in San Francisco last week. “If we meet all of the students requirements, don't we deserve to walk across the stage?", Jennifer, another high school student from Oakland and member of Youth Together, called out to the crowd.

Yes, I thought. Unfortunately, the people in control of our educational system in the State of California don't put any weight on what we, as students in the system, deserve.

by Jasmine Sydullah/PNN Race and Poverty Reporter

"When a people is oppressed, stepped on, necked stepped on, butt kicked and they decide to rebel and fight the powers that be, that's not a riot..that is an Uprising!" Cati's voice boomed out of the phone into POOR Magazine's Community Newsroom and there was no room for doubt. Cati would have been about as old as I am now when she and her girlfriends watched from her porch as a conflict that raged for three days in late September 1966 unraveled before her -- an inevitable culmination of years of racial segregation and violence known as; "The Hunter's Point Uprising"

Born and bred in the southeast sector of San Francisco, better known as Bay View Hunter’s Point, Cati Hawkins Okorie is more than a product of her environment“ she is a masterpiece. With six decades of first hand wisdom and lots of love she holds the story of this dynamic neighborhood's ongoing struggles with violence, oppression, negligence and resistance with a grit and grace found only among those strong enough to have faced it all with hope. When I was asked to take part in the very important archival project of permanently documenting the events that occurred in the 66 Uprising led by the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper in collaboration with POOR Magazine's Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute I was very excited to be returning for a second interview with this extra-ordinary woman to record her personal account of the 1966 so-called riot in Hunter's Point.

“For years the black people and people of color in this city were getting whooped, beaten, shot and killed by the SFPD and on that day on September the brothers decided they were not going to take it anymore.” Mathew Johnson, a 16 years old reminiscent of the Steve Urkel character from the sitcom Family Matters, was riding around on what Cati recalled as a nice hot sunny day with his cousin in a car his cousin had not told him was stolen. Police violence being no less pervasive then as it is now, when the police pulled up to the car, the young men inside had what could have been the good sense to take off running. Unfortunately, as Mathew climbed a fence that ironically separated the shipyard from the projects down at the end of Palou, a “warning” shot reportedly aimed above his head struck him in the back and proved fatal.

The irony of this portentous murder lies in location. In the years leading up to Mathew Johnson’s death at the hands of the police, Hunters Point had suffered a devastating economic blow with the closure of the shipyards. Employment for blacks was not easily come by so when the shipyard agreed to hire blacks, Bayview Hunter’s Point residents quickly became their core work force. People once dependent upon public housing, so-called “temporary” sorely decrepit old naval housing, began to dream of landownership, some even bought property. At its height 10,000 of the shipyard’s 17,000 employees were from the neighborhood. When it closed, all 10,000 jobs were dissolved.

Cati recalled that September 28th was one of those dog day afternoons and since the unemployment was so high a lot of people bore witness to the police chase. Shortly thereafter, from where Cati sat on her porch with her friends a few blocks away, she heard the voices of angry men coming close. They looked and saw a whole bunch of men walking up Palou, shouting, “We’re not going to take it any more! That’s it we’re going to take care of these jokers once and for all!” They explained the events that had just transpired and continued, marching and chanting until they arrived at 3rd Street. Even without the effortless convenience of cell phone technology, word quickly spread to neighboring housing projects in Double Rock, West point, Middle Point, Potrero Hill, and Alemany and more and more people began to pour onto Hunter’s Point’s main intersection, 3rd and Palou. Cati was quick to point out that these were the self same ‘hoods that currently battle for turf, reputation and trafficking which at one point stood together as a unified front.

With a collective a call for retribution, jobs and an end to policy brutality, men began to “tear up” the store fronts that lined 3rd and Palou. They were “breaking the windows, setting the stores on fire, and raising all kinds of hell”. The police arrived around the same time as the network media so Cati was able to watch the hand-to-hand combat between the men of HP, their allies and the police from her TV on the evening news. “They were whoopin’ those police’s butts, ok? With their bare fists, ok? That’s anger. And I say they did it not to be thugs, not to be rough necks, but they did it out of the love for that child, Matthew Johnson. His killing was the catalyst for them going down to 3rd street and starting Uprising at that time.”

Cati was at home, pregnant and proudly cheering them on. She likened the mood of that warm September night to the small victories she experienced in her years of anti-apartied work – before liberation was in sight but where everyone felt galvanized by the miracle of progress and rallied around building on one another’s energy. “We were all gathered around the TVs watching on the news, and happy for what was happening because we had been mistreated for so long. It was good to see the guys finally striking back and getting noticed”.

Eventually others sought to join the the rebellion. Sympathizers from the Fillmore, the historically black central San Francisco neighborhood, and from Folsom Street, who were predominantly Latino and largely Mexican immigrants made their way towards 3rd Street where they encountered a Police barricade at Cesar Chavez, then Army Street and Market Street.

After a couple days of fighting after night all, the tanks, jeeps and troops of the National Guard came up over 3rd Street and imposed a curfew of sundown. But by then most of the damage had been done. For the next couple days “nothing on the scale of what they had done that first day”. However, every night, before sundown, formations like townhall meetings took place just outside the Opera House on the corner. Speakers stood up and from within the community began the process of crafting demands and visions for the future. Mayor Shelley caught wind of these meeting and seeing a way to influence the situation, appointed black cronies speak at the meetings but within no time they ran them both out.

The Newsroom was silent, our bodies perched on the little chairs. Tiny, co-teacher of the journalism class that sponsored the interview opened up the floor to the students in the room who asked Cati if the Black Panthers who were organizing across the Bay got involved “The Black Panthers who were organizing at the same time in Oakland came across the Bay and educated the HP community.

Another student inquired as to the changes that were made in the community after the uprising, “There were many innovative programs that the uprising inspired such as the re-opening and renovation of the Bayview Opera House to act as the site for community based service providers like the Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) and the Bayview Hunter’s Point Foundation (BVHP).

Then Cati’s powerful voice rose and filled the room with collective anger, “But their has been a lot of harm too…A pool hall was opened which brought violence and drugs to the community, Crack came and tore up our mothers and fathers courtesy of the US government and police brutality increased…”

I concluded by asking her what her dream/reality for change is now, “The Black community, the Brown community, the Asian Pacific islander community, the Red community… we are all going to get married, we are all going to bring our own ethnic food, we are goin to come together and we are going to uplift our young. All things are possible if your faith is big enough!

This is the first in a series on the Hunter’s Point Uprising chronicled by POOR Magazine’s Race, Poverty, and Media Justice Institute in collaboration with The SF Bayview Newspaper. If you or someone you know witnessed that time please contact POOR at (415) 863-6306.

by Jewnbug

One Night

Bus Stop

Hot Block

Gun Shot

dru on cue...wit laughter

changin up rhythm matters

down wit beat flippin...wut they gave him

maintained peace

despite... Prop 21& ED cuts

Youth Makin A Change

spins hood anthems from the ground up

One Night

Bus Stop

Hot Block

Gun Shot

injustice he scratches away

changin tha cursin 2 an up rite version

this beautiful joyous being

departed from flesh

rejoices in a whole new season

nevathaless

transitions tragedy

I grievin

anotha WAR hero takin

souls shakin

in a world that needs tru (in depth) healin

realness no fakin!

One Night

Bus Stop

Hot Block

Gun Shot

he came from a supportive family

workin daily

showed folks mad love

then came tha light of the dove

after tha grim reaper

tha gatekeeper

said its time 2 cum

One Night

Bus Stop

Hot Block

Gun Shot

really need 2 think

change violence prevention & intervention programs

its apparent tha contradictions don't teach

I'm parent who weeps

worries for my son

who could have all tha love

all tha support

make healthy decisions

n still git crossed

@ tha intersection

where death meets life

where people meet gun

no fun

put up fists

still live 2 see

one mo day

one mo thing

one love

one life

One Night

Bus Stop

Hot Block

Gun Shot

We need protocol

2 address dominate culture

WAR

R.I.P Dru/ Dj Domino

I appreciate all the work you've done.

I pray your spirit is manifested in a space & time.

tha Truth!

by Rania Ahmed/Race, Poverty and Media Justice Intern -POOR Magazine

"The Panther Party was formed after the 1966 Uprising--the energy of the people formed the party!" Dr. James Garrett proudly exclaimed as he sat straight up in his seat in the Community Newsroom classroom at POOR Magazine. An aura of grandeur filled the room as Dr. Garrett spoke schooled the Newsroom about the Hunters Point uprising and how it in fact it was one of the events that led to the establishment of the Black Panther Party in the Bay Area.

Dr. James Garrett, or Jimmy as he says he used to be called by his buddies, was the second African American elder to be invited into POOR's Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute to take part in the collaborative "Live Archive" of the Hunter's Point Uprising of 1966 sponsored by POOR Magazine and the San Francisco Bayview. Dr. Garrett's personal and political history was key to the archive as he bore witness and in several instances led the road to the empowerment of the Black community in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dr. Garrett grew up in Texas and moved to California in the 1950s. He immediately became involved in social services in Los Angeles however he was more interested in and greatly influenced by the Civil Rights movement.

"The Civil Rights organization drew me in." Dr. Garrett became an activist. In the 1960s Garrett was arrested seven times for his participation in protests and sit-ins. He was even involved in the Watts Riot. In 1966 Garrett moved to San Francisco and began attending San Francisco State University partially to avoid the Vietnam draft. Adamant about organizing a coalition of Black students to be pro-active politically and in the community, Garrett, with the help of other students, founded the Black Student Union. Garrett realized that student organizations were an essential tool in aiding the community. The Black Student Union formed alliances with other multi-ethnic organizations such as the Latino and Asian organizations.

The Black Student Union was inspired by Mao Zedong and China. They extracted ideas of studies and research methods and took to the streets of San Francisco to study the Black communities. Garrett and the rest of the students were engrossed by South of Market. There was a strong union movement going on in the area that interested the group. Hunters Point and Fillmore were both Black communities that were targeted and deemed "dangerous".

Garrett and the rest of the Black Student Union members were asked to give tutorials in the Hunters Point area. They were successful in building relationships between children and their parents. The renewed bonds between the youth of the neighborhood and the elders strengthened the community as a whole and created what seemed to be an acknowledged sense of unity that would become more fervent as time passed.

"People were very linked together." The people in the Hunters Point community were very tight. Everyone knew who everyone else was; the important folks and the leaders in the neighborhood were well-known. Hunters Point residents were drawn to the area because it offered job vacancies created by World War II in the part of the city where the Japanese had been rounded up from and put into concentration camps. The Hunters Point area was home to the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard where the vast majority of the employees were local residents. The war economy was booming and the people of Hunters Point were able to do something they were not able to do before--own property. Because of the maritime jobs, they were financially capable enough to actually begin purchasing property. These somewhat revering times would be followed by the closure of the shipyard which led thousands of people in the community to lose their jobs. Hunters Point became another marginalized neighborhood that was consistently persecuted by the police.

Listening to Dr. Garrett describe the injustice that the people of Hunters Point faced by the police I remember how my close friend told me about what he saw in Palestine when he was visiting family in Gaza. In the occupied Palestinian territories my Arab people, the Palestinians, are subject to maltreatment by the occupying forces. Villages are raided constantly, men are taken from their homes in the middle of the night for no legitimate reason, homes are uprooted and if one are caught without an ID he is hauled off to a jail cell.

"People were talking about the LA riots!" Dr. Garrett projected. The police in San Francisco were brutal. Residents of the community were fed-up with the way the police demonized the neighborhood, and took unwarranted action against its residents whom were people who lived in the neighborhood for generations as a result of housing discrimination. The police would stampede the Hunters Point (as well as Fillmore) community to instigate conflicts between the residents and the police.

"The police had been storming Hunters Point to stir-up trouble," Dr. Garrett vividly recollected. It was this sort of conduct that prompted Hunters Point residents to realize that they were being targeted on absolutely no relevant basis. It was not necessary to dissect the situation. It was as clear as day and it was as lethal as the toxins that linger in the air of the Bayview; these white cops were deliberately targeting this Black community.

It was on the 27th of September 1966 that things were going to take a turn. A turn not particularly for the worse but a turn in the direction of change. Things changed on that day that no one will forget--ever. The San Francisco police turned the streets of Hunters Point into a battle zone complete with National Guard tanks and artillery. The San Francisco neighborhood became a modern day occupied Palestine where the victims are armed with nothing more than a stone yet are aimed at with tank fire. Mayor Shelley was infamous in the Black community for his evident discriminatory policies against Blacks; hiring and housing policies of the city's government were inequitable. On the day of the uprising the mayor declared a state of emergency, called in 1200 National Guard troops, and set a curfew.

Was the murder of 16-year-old Matthew Johnson by that policeman the straw that broke the camel's back? Was the reaction of the Hunters Point community inevitable given the events that predeceased the murder? Either way, a boiling point was reached and residents of the ill-treated community were going to take action. The people took action for six days straight as policemen aimed their weapons at the unarmed community. The reaction spread beyond the Hunters Point community and poured out into other neighborhoods. People in the Fillmore District, Mission District and Haight were reacting. Yes, the people were reacting to the murder but they were also reacting to everything else that had been happening. The people were reacting to the racism, they were reacting to the inequality, they were reacting to the victimization, they were reacting to the isolation. There was nothing to lose since nothing was gained by not responding; this made the reaction loud--powerful, even. The police rounded-up random people and took them away. They shot at buildings with defenseless youth and considered anyone who was not a white police officer suspect.

Despite the immediate outcome of the Hunters Point uprising one thing was for sure, waiting around for change was not the road traveled anymore. There was a group of Black intellectuals in the Bay Area that were paving a new path. These individuals were not going to sacrifice their bodies anymore, they were going to retaliate against authority--stand up for themselves! They were no longer going to be that kid on the playground who got picked on and beat up everyday and quietly walked away with a swollen lip. This group of intellectuals formed the first chapter of the Black Panther Party (formally known as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense).

The Black Panther Party became iconic to the Black communities. Black people were being taught how to take action and defend themselves in the racist society they were born into. The Black Panther Party provided Black youth with a sense of leadership that was void in their communities. This was a new generation that succeeded the Martin Luther King Jr. Civil Rights era and they were looking for something new; something new that echoed what they were living through and how they were feeling about this unabashed racism and inequality. The Black Panthers took action and demanded their right to equality. They called for equal housing opportunities and education about the history of African Americans in schools. They believed that education was the key to uplifting the Black community. The Black Panthers linked the low status of the Black communities to the poor degree of education that people in the community received. This made the Black Panther Party resolute about making education a principal objective in bettering the community.

Dr. Garrett was one of the first members of the newly formed Black Panthers Party in the Bay Area. There were two factions in Northern California: the Oakland section and the San Francisco section. Garrett recalls the Oakland section as being more militant. The new ideology that the Panthers initially banded on was the notion of no longer sacrificing oneself but to defend oneself. This was groundbreaking considering the abuses previous Civil Rights activists withstood to protest the racism and inequality they were living under.

Dr. Garrett concluded the session by answering questions posed to him by POOR Magazine's multi-cultural and multi-generational poverty and race scholars, many of whom are fighting several forms of police abuse today as low and no-income residents of the Bayview, Mission, East Oakland and beyond in 2006. The questions covered the uprising, the Black Panther Party, and the state of the community at the time, and the contributions Latino immigrants, Xicanos, Asians and other groups made at the time. Dr. Garrett said that during the uprising, Latinos played a big role in supporting the Black community. All walks of life in the area got involved to a certain degree during the uprising. Dr Garrett said with a hint of surprise that, "even the hippies" were out on the streets.

By the end of Dr. Garrett's presentation POOR's Community Newsroom was in rapt attention. Doctor Garrett's message was clear, powerful resistance organizations like The Black Panther Party in the Bay Area were formed because of events like the Hunters Point uprising. The uprising made a difference. The people made it clear that they were no longer going to lay down on the ground and be trampled; it was time to get up and stand their ground.

As Doctor Garrett spoke on the Uprising which is now facing its 40th year anniversary I was reminded of my people's struggle; the Palestinian Intifada (or uprising) that stemmed from the ongoing Israeli occupation. Palestinians were (and still are) enduring the most humiliating and dehumanizing circumstances by the occupying forces as well as watching their homes be bulldozed to make room for settlers. It was with the first Intifada that Palestinians broke a forty-year silence and put forth efforts to end this military occupation. It took forty years for the Palestinians to realize that not taking action was detrimental and was losing whatever land they had left. It was time for action. This first Intifada lasted six years. For six years Palestinians fought for their right to live on their land. This was not the last Intifada, the Palestinians continue to struggle to get back what was taken from them: their land, their dignity, their rights to live as human beings. In the end, it is a question of how much a human being can tolerate before reaching that boiling point. It is that moment that brings about reformation in the most profound way.

Doctor James Garrett's story is the second in the Live Archive series of The Hunter's Point Uprising of 1966 sponsored by POOR's Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute at POOR Magazine and The San Francisco Bayview Newspaper. Raniaa Ahmed is a Race, Media and Poverty Studies intern at POOR Magazine. If you were in the Bayview at the time of the uprising please call POOR Magazine at ( 415) 863-6306. To hear the Live archive by Doctor Garrett and CAti-Okorie Hawkins on the Uprising listen to PoorNewsNetwork's radio show, Monday, October 2nd @7:30 am on Kpfa's Morning Show 94.1 fm or listen on-line at www.kpfa.org and click on the Morning Show

by Valerie Schwartz/PNN Community Journalist

There are many metaphors and similes one could use when speaking of the Fang family, owners of the San Francisco Examiner Newspaper (known as the "Fang-xaminer" to many in the Bay Area) when trying to write about not only their biased editorial policies, but their accruement of wealth and power, the trail of law suits, and the exploitation of the people locally and globally. In the end I think I will have to go with the idea of the crumbs left behind the fairytale characters, Hansel and Gretel, except with a Machiavellian twist.

The Fangs seemed to have obtained the power, to have people of power "in their pockets" or indebted to them through political and corporate interests i.e. money and greed.

Frank Gallagher wrote in the Examiner on 8-26-02 describing the poor people and the advocacy groups that advocate for the homeless such as POWER, PNN and the Coalition on Homelessness, i.e., the people who opposed Gavin Newsom's Prop N.war on the poor and homeless of San Francisco as "thugs" and "brownshirts." Talk about twisting and distorting the truth!

Mr. Gallagher makes a perfect example of the Fang's editorial policies in this article and some of these are: slander, use of gutter tactics, bash and cast the poor/homeless and those who support them in a more than negative light. He would try to have them appear to his readers as a group of lepers demanding to invade the homes and jobs of John Q. Public raping, pillaging, and spreading disease and chaos. In attempting to make an acute showing of his intellectual vanity, he shows nothing more than his derriere and calculated indifference.

A little history lesson is very applicable here. If you look up the word "brownshirts" in the Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001 it says, "Brownshirts": the colloquial name for the Nazi Strumabteilung (SA; stormtroopers). Their name refers to their brown uniforms . They were founded in 1921 and reorganized by Ernst Rohm in 1930. Squads of thugs, who molested and murdered the Nazi's opponents. They numbered 2-million by 1933. In 1934 Hitler eliminated Rohm and greatly reduced the power of the brownshirts. Rohm's ambition to increase the power of the brownshirts led to his execution without trial. Kristallnacht (German: night of glass) 9-10 November 1938, when mobs led by Nazi brownshirts (Strum Abteilung) roamed the German and Austrian towns setting fire to the synagogues and smashing the windows of shops and homes owned by the Jews. This first intimation of the coming holocaust led many Jews, including the academics who helped develop the A-bomb in the USA to leave Germany.

Mr. Gallagher made a statement in the article-- which also is so typical of neo-tabloid refuse-- that said, " Sure a homeless junkie dying in a doorway--one of the hundred or so on the streets of San Francisco each year-- is great for small business." For me, especially as a person who has been homeless, poor, and a former addict articles like this are disturbing and echo hate and misinformation: they just facilitate individuation, xenophobia, and exploitation of people of color and the poor.

This is yet another stereotypic and sarcastic way to try to make the public and owners of businesses, not think of the poor/homeless as people at all but rather as addicts and filth. He would like the readers of the Examiner to believe the that the homeless, would drop dead in their doorways. He tries to emphasize that homelessness is costing big and small business alike "big money" and that tourists will go to New York instead of spending their money in San Francisco.

The fact is that we are in a "recession" and perhaps if there were adequate and affordable housing, and employment for San Franciscans, we wouldn't need to depend on the money of "tourists" so much. How different are the homeless in New York or any city other than San Francisco that tourists want only to spend their money in other cities? The answer is, no different; poverty throughout the world had always been very visible, especially to the poor themselves and to those who feel offended by poverty and other people's suffering.

It is more than obvious to me that the corporate media is becoming more and more corrupt at an incredible pace: it is not transparent if one bothers to look. What has happened to being able to present the truth, constitutional rights, and freedom of the press? Not when the media, such as the Examiner is courting the political interests of the Police Department by letting them use their building for surveillance of people on Market St. and wooing politicians such as Willie Brown.

Sources say that Mayor Brown was involved in discussions with the Examiner's Publisher Timothy White not only about the City's legal advertising contract and the litigation between Hearst Corporation and the Fang's, but had also made many calls to Janet Reno in the interest of the Fang's.

"According to Walker, White testified twice under oath that he offered favorable coverage in the Examiner's editorial pages in return for Brown's assistance completing the Chronicle deal." Richmond Review

Perhaps soon we will have virtual-media thanks to folks like the Fang's, their cronies, and vested interests. The Land of the Who? And the Home of the What???

The fact is that the Fang family has had enough bad press in regard to themselves: International fraud, money laundering, illegal campaign contributions, maximizing their incomes from subsidies and mixing it with Examiner monies and family owned businesses, an ex-employee talking of filing Civil RICO suit against them, and union busting tactics.

This bad press also includes: firing family member Ted Fang (son of matriarch Florence) for being openly Gay and HIV positive, then making a settlement with him to become a senior-advisor with Fang Family Enterprises. This included with the settlement, an "implicit gag order" that did not let him talk, or discuss, with anyone who is critical of the Examiner or Independent in regard to the "competency or honesty" of the Fang Family or its enterprises. And how about the way they treat their employees? Can you imagine? Look how they treat their own family, geez.

The facts are that I could go on and on about the sordid and insidious behavior of the Fang's who have amassed $24,000,000 in real-estate alone and that the combined incomes of the four family members on the Examiner payroll (Ted, Douglas, Angela and of course James Fang of BART) comes to a whopping $1,039,957.00 a year. This doesn't include monies from the other family businesses. It would take pages and pages to relay the information that is already factual, and the information that is allegedly stacking against them at this time, but I am sure they will suffice. As Bob Dylan said, "Money doesn't talk it swears."