GENTRIFUKATION TOURS

“R”

US

 (Aburgesamiento Gira

“Somos”

Nosotros)

“Coming to a Displaced, Dismantled, Redeveloped Neighborhood Near You”

“Viniendo a  un desplazamiento, Desmantelado, Barrio Rediseñado Cerca de Tí”

Mission Statement

We the people, communities of color, workers, migrants, grandfathers and grandmothers, mamas, daddies, elders, babies, young folks, indigenous ancestors and aboriginal peoples who have spent time and love and sweat and tears and prayers caring for, working, dreaming and loving this community, this barrio, this street, this tree, this garden, this flower, for generations, centuries and time beyond Gregorian, missionary calendars, have been displaced by the forces of money, power, real estate speculation, corporate theft, corporate government,  philanthro-PIMPING, redevelopment, criminalization, and gentrification and now only exist as a cultural memory, an “art-I-fact”, a reference, a brush stroke, a photo, an exhibit, a dream to be studied, theorized, painted over, documented and/or forgotten and erased completely as though we were never here.

GENTRIFUKATION TOURS “R” US exists to document the theft, reclaim & take back the stolen spaces,  memories, images, pictures, lives and dreams. To tour and document the default colonizers and 21^st Century Missionaries, the erased and colonized culture and cultural stealers, to re-insert ourselves in the stolen landmark and to reclaim what little of us might still be left 

Declaración de Misión

Nosotros la Gente, comunidades de color, trabajadores, migrantes, abuelos y abuelas, mamas, papas, ancianos, babes, jovenes, ancestros indigenas y los pueblos aborígenes que han pasado tiempo, amor y sudor y lágrimas y oraciones para  cuidar, trabajar, soñar y amar en esta comunidad, este barrio, esta calle, este árbol, este jardín, esta flor, para las generaciones, siglos y el tiempo más allá de los Gregorianos, calendarios misioneros, han sido desplazados por las fuerzas del dinero, el poder, la especulación inmobiliaria, el robo corporativo, gobierno corporativo, los chantaje filantrópico-, la reconstrucsion, la criminalización y el aburguesamiento y ahora sólo existe como una memoria cultural, un "arte-teologico" , una referencia, un trazo de pincel, una foto, una exposición, un sueño para ser estudiado, teorizado, pintado, documentado y / e olvidado y borrado por completo, como si nunca estuvimos aquí.

GENTRIFUKATION TOURS “R” US existe para documentar el robo, retomar y recuperar los espacios robados, recuerdos, imágenes, fotos, vidas y sueños.

Para visitar y documentar los colonizadores por defecto y  misioneros del siglo 21, la cultura borrada y colonizada y ladrones culturales, para volver a insertar a nosotros mismos en el punto de referencia robados y para recuperar lo poco de nosotros  que todavía puede ser recuperado.

TOUR #1 Sites: Gentrifyers on Stolen Land

1.The Redstone building- Sacred Ohlone shell mound site and home of revolutionary labor and community organizations in SF- Facing Con-DO removal

2. Grub 758 Valencia- post-gentrified site: hipsters grazing site on stolen land

3. The Summit SF- post gentrified site: - hipsters grazing and lap-top site

4. Spork 1058 Valencia post-gentrified site; hipster grazing site on stolen land

5.Herbivore 983 Valencia hipster grazing site on stolen land

6. Flour & Water 2401 Harrison hipster grazing site on stolen land

7. Farina 3560 18^th street – Hipster grazing site on stolen land

8. Gracias Madre 2211 Mission street – Hipster Grazing site with cultural theft on stolen land

9. Mamahouse: 1156 Florida st Home of poor mothers gentrified and evicted by real estate speculation.

©A Community Resistance PeopleAtion..

Serving silenced peoples and removed indigenous folks since 1493

Although Krip-Hop Nation is back home, the work, news and music keeps on going.  DJ TBC of London, England tells us about the Deaf Hip-Hop scene in Lodon England.

Deaf Hip-Hop Scene in London

Being Deaf it is hard to experience music properly DJ TBC writes…

Deaf people want to be able to enjoy music but it has to be loud, so loud the vibrations of the bass line can be felt. Hip-hop does well with its bass lines as Deaf people can understand the rhythm and therefore can dance to it.

DJ TBC, I produce music and have a heavy emphasis on the bass so my Deaf peers can feel it literally! I love to see people dancing to the work I have devoted much time and energy into and knowing I’m doing something positive for the community makes me smile.”

Deaf people for years have been often left out of the music industry and it is only now with the likes of Signmark whom hails from Finland that the industry is starting to realize that there is hidden talent within the Deaf community. Signmark is a sign language based rapper who translates lyrics that are spoken which he has himself created in order to bring important messages/wordplay into the mainstream such as “It ain't no rocket science, don't need a microphone to rock it” which creates empowerment for Deaf people at large.

DJ TBC is involved with a Deaf/hearing group who are organizing a party in London called Sencity aimed at bring Deaf and hearing people together for a night of music but it focuses on all the senses rather than just sound for example there will be Aroma Jockey’s who mix smells to match the mood of the music, Video Jockey’s to mix video’s as If they were music tracks and one of the highlights of the night will be the vibrating dance floor where people can actually feel the beats and bass lines! Signmark will also be headlining the gig along with some other prominent names in the business. Sencity has been running for the last 7 years and started in Holland to make the impossible possible by putting on a music event for Deaf and hearing people to come together and since those days it has grown with events taking place in Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Finland and many other countries. See www.your-sencity.com for more information.

Hip-hop has its place within the mainstream but needs to reach out further to Deaf people who love to watch music videos such as Drake’s “Over”, Public Enemy’s “Fight the power” and Birdy Nam Nam’s “Abbesses. Hopefully one day we can see more artists like Signmark emerging and breaking through the ranks in to the mainstream.

DJ TBC “We all need a form of escape and we need for everyone to enjoy Hip-Hop whether they be Deaf or disabled after all we live in a society that is very much about inclusion. If you put your mind to it anything is possible!”

For a free download of TBC’s track “Facing the barrier” go to http://www.mediafire.com/?hajsxcgkb1dqg2f

As I'm walking down the street it's easy to get distracted in my mind.

The smell of fifty other guys mixed in with some kind of industrial cleaner is something I want to forget. I'm sleeping on the docks. I stopped staying in the missions. I don't like them.  People pass by and think I must be a drunk fisherman. The cops woke me up a few times. Since I don't have any warrants, they told me to just go back to sleep.

I start thinking about my disability claim I have pending. I had to stop doing day labor. I get muscle spasms if I do labor type jobs more than two or three days in a row. I get some money from the state and some food stamps while I'm waiting for my disability claim paper work to go through. It's not much but I've learned not to take anything for granted.

I think about the time before the recession.

I was at the Marriott Hotel working as a dishwasher. There were two other guys who worked with me. They had moved to the United States from China.  I didn’t speak any Chinese.  They were learning English, though and we worked well together. Sometimes I would prep food for special events.

Then the recession hits.

I get a job with a temp agency. Someone is on vacation visiting their family in India. They’ll be gone two or three months.

I’m not making enough money to pay my bills. My wife’s job has a big contract with Washington Mutual Bank that ends. Besides this, no one is hiring.

There’s a lot of talk on the news about the recession and the Washington Mutual meltdown. They say banks made loans that were too risky. They lent money for mortgages that should have never been approved. There wasn’t enough regulation the last five years. It’s also said that Washington Mutual took on the riskiest debt. Besides that, the stock market crashes.

The next two months are okay. I’m getting a lot of hours between my regular job and the temp agency. Everyone at the Marriott is worried. The people they cater to make five and six figure incomes, and they have stopped spending money. The first thing most people cut out of their budget is going out to eat and staying in hotels. My job’s customer base is gone.

The dishwasher I’m taking the place of comes back from India. The restaurant tells me they can’t hire me because business is bad, but they will keep me on until the end of the week. I start looking for work. The story is same all around Seattle and the Puget Sound. People are getting their hours cut and are losing their jobs. No one is hiring.

 I realize I have to back to work in Alaska. It’s time to start calling the fishing companies.

 I break the lease to my apartment. I’ve been there five years and was going to buy a house or condo when the lease was up in a few more months.  There’s a boat that is leaving a week after I have to move out. I'll have to stay at one of the missions while I'm waiting. We’ve got to put everything in storage.

 Me and my wife get a storage unit and rent a U-Haul van.

We use up just about every square inch of the storage unit. Everything gets packed in and stacked up to the ceiling. The storage unit looks like a big jigsaw puzzle. What we can't put into storage gets donated. We give a neighbor lady a bunch of food in our fridge so we don't have to throw it out. I think her name is Lisa. She says she'll take in our cat. I'm glad I won't have to take Chico to an animal shelter.

My wife will be going to live with her family in San Jose, CA While I'm in Alaska. I take her to the airport a couple days later.

There's a lot of new security at SeaTac. She has to get there early to make sure she can pass through security and have time to board the plane. We stop at a coffee shop down stairs and walk to the boarding area. I can only go so far with her without a ticket.

We kiss and say goodbye.

I take a bus back home. It's home for two more days any ways. I do some last minute cleaning. I don't want to leave the place a mess. There's some stuff nobody wanted and the Salvation Army wouldn't take in their truck. I guess they can't re-sell it. So I start throwing it in the dumpster. I start to think why did we need all this stuff'?

I get most of my old stuff thrown out and decide that's it for the day. The rest can wait for tomorrow. I do have one more day there. I go to Safeway and get some beer. I stop off at Papa Murphy's and get a pizza. I decide it’s time to eat and drink even if things aren't so merry.

I stay at a local homeless mission while the boat gears off for Salmon Season.

Then it's a ten day trip to Bristol Bay. The season starts off slow at first, then things get busy. We're all working sixteen hours a day and making our quota for a bonus most days. It looks like I'm going to be able to pay all my bills.

Then my back gets hurt. I try to work through the pain a few days. I have to leave early, can't afford to slip a disc. That would mess me up for life.

I see the Starbucks at Westlake Mall. I just walked there from the Urban Rest Stop, a place to take a shower and do laundry. I order my coffee and think, was that really a year ago? I look out the window and see teenage kids with dogs pan handling. People call them gutter punks and plaza rats. It’s said most of them are runaways. I’ve bought some food for some of them. I didn’t ask if they ran away from home because of abuse, didn’t want them to say I was getting too personal with them. It’s hard to see kids out here.

I've also filed for a divorce, but that’s a different story.

The state sent me a letter that said I have to go to counseling. I’ve got to make an appointment. That's where I'm headed to. I’m going to drink another cup of coffee first. 

Check out these articles and more on our sister sites at Real Change and the International Network of Street Newspapers: INSP Vendor Blog: http://www.insp-blog.org/ INSP Main Website: http://www.street-papers.org/ Real Change Blog: http://www.insp-blog.org/realchange/ Real Change Main Website: http://www.realchangenews.org/ 

            In the wake of endless corporate media reports on whether or not climate change is real and how many polar ice caps are melting, a 48-page classified report created by Homeland Security was released last year at a special house subcommittee hearing chaired by Representative Anna Eschu on the "security impact of global climate change."

This briefing confirmed what many of us poor people already suspected: climate change is likely to result in the ratcheting up of a police state to “control” us, the crowded masses, as we riot for food, water, and land.

It’s no mystery, what will happen to our poor in a future crisis. Look at what’s already happened to low-income communities in the past. From Haiti to New Orleans—in extreme cold, we have frozen to death; in extreme heat and drought, we’ve died of thirst, hunger, and exposure—with no more crops, livestock, or land.

A forecast of the what’s to come can be seen in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s infamous jail for immigrants. “Poor people have been dying of thirst with no access to water or air conditioning in the heat,” reports Michael Woodard, poverty scholar and Poor News Network correspondent.

In essence, that’s the risk that climate change poses. Poor people can’t just move to higher ground, purchase imported foods, or upgrade their roofing, windows, and foundation to keep from being displaced by the next hurricane.

“We are forced to live in poor neighborhoods near poisonous industries that already are killing us. If you add increased heat and decrease of land to the sick soup—we wont last long in a global warming reality,” says Ingrid De Leon, with Voces de Immigrantes en Resistencia.

The surprising thing is, we already know a lot about how to reorganize our economies for moving from “surviving” to “thriving.” Indigenous and poor people have long known that sharing resources with each other, practicing interdependence, and building real community are the best route to independence.

POOR is an indigenous and poor people-led organization of revolutionary poets, artmakers, multimedia producers, educators, and poverty scholars (as we call ourselves) who see the urgent need to be producing and educating so we can stop being talked about, researched, reported on, criminalized, and legislated against.

We have launched an equity campaign for a project we call “homefulness,” a sweat-equity cohousing model for landless families, which includes a community garden for localizing and producing our own healthy food, and several micro-business projects to build sustainable economic support for all of us. So far we have established a social justice and arts café, a family-friendly project-based school, and a community media teaching and production center.

My mother, Mama Dee as she was called, died from complications of her smog-related asthma and heart condition. As I was growing up she and I talked constantly about how to get away from the poisonous environments where we were forced to live—near power plants, freeways, and factories. In the end, Mama Dee succumbed to the illnesses our poverty caused. But her spirit of resistance lives on in our community and in the mobilizations to work for climate justice across the planet.

A home is where you’re respected. Nickelsville is a home!

We enter the camp through the back alley. Immediately a sense of organization and protection is felt from all whom we come in contact with. We check in and are guided back to the community space where there will be others to talk to. As we walk to the other end of the campsite I pass several tents, faces peep out. Young face with innocent eyes peeping out at me. I know there are families in these tents. I am keenly aware of myself; everything I do, where my eyes fall, where my feet hit the concrete. I know this land is special and priceless for those who live here and look at me with curious glances, yet with a distinct air of distrust residing over the camp. I am an outsider, a status with a history of potentially bringing great harm onto the Nickelsville community. There is this undeniable sense, as though at any moment it could all end and anyone could be the cause.

As we approach the community living room area of the camp a fresh faced and bright eyed young woman is sitting in a chair along with a couple of others. We explain why we are there and that we are looking for anyone that wants to be interviewed about their experiences at Nickelsville. Erin Miller is her name and her words describe a place very unlike the images and ideas I have heard in the mainstream media. She challenges everything I have learned about Nickelsville in her first sentence. I know by the genuine look on her face and the very deliberate tone in her voice that she is the truth.

She explains to us how this is a family, a home, unlike any she has lived in before. Not only does everyone look out for each other, but the neighborhood around Nickelsville greatly benefits from their watchful eyes and concerned actions. It struck me how incredibly organized the camp was. Everything from food distribution to security duty to tent functionality is given a process and structure for implementation. There is a point person within the camp for anything that might come up or any camper who might need help or assistance with a camp related or life issue. Beyond the remarkable way the camp is planned and prepared and the inspiring ways the campers take accountability for their neighborhood’s safety and well being what hit me hardest was the strong sense of community and belonging they had cultivated at Nickelsville.

When Erin Miller describes the folks living at Nickelsville she explains to us with great pride how many skilled minds live there and have come from feeling like outsiders most of their lives, trying to find somewhere they belong. I immediately knew why Nichelsville existed. Memories of me sitting in my room alone, being yelled at for not being part of the family flooded my mind. “Why don’t I want to be with the family, why was I always locked in my room,” my father would demand to know. I couldn’t tell him that I hated his family; I hated his wife and all her children whom I consistently felt alienated and hurt by. It wasn’t their actions it was their thoughts, the way they saw the world and themselves in it. I would treasure the moments I got to escape and go back to my mom’s house for the week. A well needed rest from the harsh realities of my father’s family, one that mirrors the society we live in and not the community feel that Nickelsville offers its residents. Alone and isolated is what living in America has to offer the majority of its citizens. Seeing yourself as separate from others and in direct competition for resources and love. Not in Nickelsville though, a place that represented a location of safety and protection from the daily pressures of a Capitalistic society. A society where every man is for themselves; where any native culture and community is stripped in favor of hoarding and attaining as many resources as possible.

I knew that distinction well and when Erin said, “Cause this is our house, it’s our house and it’s different from any situation I’ve ever been in except when I was a kid at home,” it became even more clear. A home is where you are looked after and respected, not necessarily the place where wealth is accumulated. Although, my father’s house was warm and had four walls and a roof it never really felt like home. I knew I had to find my own home and what home meant to me, luckily I had my mother’s house to help figure that out, but everyone isn’t so lucky. Some people have never had a home until they find Nickelsville. Being an outsider is a lonely and segregated place that cuts people off from one of the most essential parts of being human, showing others your humanity and receiving theirs. I hadn’t seen so much humanity, so much caring and so much concern for fellow people in a very long time. Knowing Nickelsville and the amazing community they had created was in constant threat of losing its’ land was a rude awakening from the amazing words that fell from Erin Millers lips. How could anyone not see this was a place this large family needed and any others looking for a little support in a time when true community and a sense of belonging is a rarity.

Nickelsville has been made to move every two to six months for over two years, each time the mini-society they have created is devastatingly torn apart with no respect for the time and effort it took to create. Seattle has a long history of atrocities against the homeless communities of the city. Starting as far back as the mid 1930’s Seattle twice burnt down the wood and tin shacks of what was referred to in those years as “shanty towns” or “Hoovervilles”. It is estimated that those arsons burned down over 639 people’s homes living in the pop up town near where the sports stadiums are now located. Modern day arsons now consist of “sweeps” as the city calls them. Accompanied by arrests or detainment of Nickelsville residents and confiscation of the little possessions Nickelsville residents have managed to accrue. The despair of losing your belongings is no secret to anyone who has been robbed or had something lost or stolen, but to Nickelsville it is time, energy, and goods that they may never, ever be able to get back. Moving families is also a destructive force. Children are pulled away from their schools and friends over and over, being traumatized repeatedly. Stability for anyone is a necessity, but for young ones it is even more of a priority.

Nickelsville has been able to bounce back and recreate their community, which goes to show how incredibly important and necessary it is for the people who are part of it. I can’t help, but wonder where these families, these young eyes with entire lives ahead of them will end up if Nickelsville does not find a permanent location. What Nickelsville provides for its residents reaches well beyond the normal functioning of an average shelter or mission and many folks would lose an amazing community without it. Feeling alone and lost in the world is a horrible place to be, finding a family is not an easy task. It took me many years to find a community that allowed me to believe and see that it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t fit in or see things the way my father and his family did. I am lucky to have that support and confidence now. Without it I don’t know if I could face the world everyday with a brave face and an open heart.

I’ve got walls comin down
I've got noise all around
I'm hearin so much, so much sound
And I'm drownin, drownin now
And I can't see it clear
But I still have stear
And it feels like it's too much
And evils comin up the rear

And I'm drownin, drownin
Too much to fear
And I'm drownin, drownin
My make-up's smeared
Down hollow cheeks and snotty nose
All around, the noise, it grows
And help only feels like show
Cause no one really, really knows
or gets
or hears
unaware

Still I try
Nice to have someone on your side
Even if the noise they ride
I write,
They ride
I write,
They ride

Stormy seas of acidy insides
Billowing breeze
Blocking my mind's eye

Pressure headache
Pressure can't take
Falling all around me
So fake
I am to them
Hope I can swim to them
Cause I'm drownin, drownin                                                                                                                                                                                                                   In all of them

I don't even want to win
Giving up begins a trend
Filling up on others sins
Starting the descent begins
Harsh Winds
Dig In
Your heals
Try and stop the spinnin
Spin-in, Spin-in
Inside I spend when
The outside's too cold
Behind the door I fold

Cheery demeanor melts away
Tired and weary ends my day.

Check out these articles and more on our sister sites at Real Change and the International Network of Street Newspapers: INSP Vendor Blog: http://www.insp-blog.org/ INSP Main Website: http://www.street-papers.org/ Real Change Blog: http://www.insp-blog.org/realchange/ Real Change Main Website: http://www.realchangenews.org/

Bring it on baby stimulate me

Not only physically

4play with the mind leads to the body

Intellectual masturbation

Can keep up with a conversation

Twisting concepts & politics

With one lick

From the brain to the tongue

Whip me up

Having sex with our clothes on

Got me in your palm

Jerking me off with word play in your songs

Intellectual masturbation

Can keep up with a conversation

Twisting concepts & politics

Like a chess game

It’s all about concentration

Next move could be pleasure or pain

Got me mentally wet

Intellectual orgasm

Now that is the real sex

Gives us spasms

Shaking off racism & ablism

So the world can get off from our intellect

Salt-N-Pepa

Want more than to talk about sex

Intellectual masturbation got all the spices

Salty & peppery sweet & sour

 Intellectual masturbation ejaculates brain power

Make u do strange things without lifting a finger

Intellectual masturbation

Can keep up with a conversation

Twisting concepts & politics

Intellectual masturbation

Like this mind f-ck

She’s no tease baby got me unstuck

Use to want only eye candy

Hypnotized by MTV hoochie mamas

Baby got back but no brains

Now music videos just bore me to tears

I got no fear

So bring it on baby

My mind is waiting

For your intellectual masturbation

Head to toe full body satisfaction

By Leroy Moore

12/14/10

I remember living in a place called Geneva Towers, located in the low income residence of San Francisco.  We moved there from Fillmore, (now called the Fillmore center) when I was about two years old.

Geneva Towers were two buildings, one called the “A” building and the other the “B” building. They were facing opposite from each other,  located practically side by side.  These buildings stood, God knows how high, with 20 floors in each building, but started at the 2nd floor and didn’t have a 13th, there were 20 separate apartments on each floor.

As a youth, I wasn’t one you would call a bad, mischievous or inquisitive child.  I was always afraid if I didn’t obey my mother, she would die.  That fear stuck with me for years and even when I got in trouble, I would never say “I wish you would die” like I hear my oldest son say to me.

This brings me to a point that I want to make about what it was like to get a spanking.  I don’t remember getting a lot of spankings, probably 7 in my life, let me share with two with you.  I have a cousin, well I have many cousins, but the cousin I want to talk about today is named Frankie.  Frankie lived in the “B” building, with her mom and sisters on the 7th floor and my mom with two boys and I occupied the “A” building on the 20th floor.

My mom worked at Levitz, a furniture store in South City (that is still there to this day), and she brought me a canopy bed, you know, those beds that only Barbie and Ken have.  This bed was the most ravishing bed I had ever seen, let alone had.  Anyway, Frankie and I destroyed the light salmon-colored bed.  I can’t remember if we were fighting or playing, never the less, that beautiful umbrella covered bed that had everything on it, like ruffles, thick comforters, sheets, and covers that just went well with it- even the pillows were what we would call “off the hook”- the whole idea of it all was dismembered.  My mom, well lets just say she didn’t play.

Forget the belts, the wooden kitchen utensils and her hands, try a switch wrapped around an extension cord or whatever else she could find handy.  Frankie and I got the spanking of our lives, facing down (on what was left of my bed).  Our hands had to be pointing upward, and if we moved, huh, its safe to say we didn’t.  Worst of all, my momwould have us waiting for spankings, through dinner, her soaps,  I mean hours, just waiting.  The anticipation of the whole thing was a killer.

Sometimes, she would wait till we were asleep.  Think about it, cozy, warm and having the best dreams God could ever give you, when all of the sudden whack, right in the kisser, unexpectingly- that’s when she got us good.  If that wasn’t enough, when Frankie’s mom came to get her, we would both get “it” from her too.

Probably, the least harmful infliction our mothers would put us through was to stand in time out.  But noooo, just facing the wall, admiring the cracks of the ivy colored Geneva Towers confines and the roaches visiting the spiders or getting caught up in their web, but standing there with both arms up in the air.  You would think they would stop there, right? Wrong!  They went on to say, “put your right foot in the air.  Oh, and if you moved, there went a flying object across the room warning us- it will be one of those spankings that we loved so much (smile) if we lost our balance.  These were the icing on the cake…Just two ways our mothers disciplined their offspring.  So let’s just say “Our mothers didn’t play back in the day.”

1965. It’s easy, innocent what happened.  “Grandmother has her ways.  It’s best to do as she says.  In her home, do what she says.”  My mother told me.
 

That morning I was up want to go out and check out the library, play with friends- anything as long as I was out of grandma’s place.  That day felt different.  I wasn’t 11 yet but still there was an awkward feel that day.  I decided I wanted to eat toast, jam, grits, scrambled eggs and tea with honey, which tasted better than sugar.  When grandmother asked what I wanted I told her, and she said,
“You’re having oatmeal or cereal with milk.”
“But Mother I don’t want that.  I want…”
“Phyllis, is this how you raise your children?”
Grandma said to my mother.
“He doesn’t like it, he won’t eat it.”
“He’ll eat what’s set before him.”

    I know I should’ve just eaten it like I always did, but for reasons I still don’t fully understand I refused again.  “Mother (Grandmother) I don’t like…”

    The hand was swift. SWOOOOH, TWAP.  It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last, but before I felt tears well up I damned them up literally and forced them back under my eye lids breathing as my mother (Phyllis) looked away.

    Oh, I ate huge globs of ‘Cream of Wheat’ a box with the black man on it.  For a moment I hated him, my mother, my grandma even my little brother because he’s wasn’t old enough to eat the white, sugar-buttered stuff.  I didn’t hate all cereal; not Yellow Cornmeal or Quaker Oats but cream of wheat and shredded wheat.

    I excuse myself and went to the bathroom, locked the door, spit out the vile stuff, washed my mouth.  Then returned to eat the tiny last bit of it.  Then I thanked my grandmother and kissed her.

“Wasn’t that a good breakfast?” Grandmother asked.
“Yes, motherrr, (meaning my Grandmother) it was good.”
I was fuming but kept control to escape from the place so I could spend all day and some of the night away from grandma’s.

    From then on I woke up early to leave grandma’s house. I was hungry sometimes.  There were free box lunches for me and other kids and when there wasn’t, better to go hungry than eat what I couldn’t stand.

That afternoon at the living floor we squatted like three Muslims at Ramadan.  My mother faced the wide open door.  My sister sat right next to her, while I had a mounted ‘akoo’ bowl on my lap.  The evening sun was blazing against my spinal column.  I gave the blessing prayer; my mother had suggested the guidelines as to what I should ask the good lord:  something to do with forgiving the sins of those who disobey their parents.

I had stayed out late, roaming with my friends on the far side of town the night before.  But the silence that shadowed our dinner hour was hardly a sign that God was about to punish me for my sneaky ways. I swallowed my bites of couscous with the harried air of a kid who couldn’t wait to go back to playing catch.  Across from me, my mom was giving me the silent treatment.  “Close your legs, Barou,” she urged my sister who sat adjacent to me.

“Godwin…get up and pull down the sun screen.”  Her voice sounded so stern and brisk at once.  Godwin is my Christian name. Only when I was in some kind of trouble did my mother call my middle name.  I had considered my night out a well-kept secret because it was dark and quiet throughout the neighborhoods where my friends and I had been roaming.

Dinner had an eerie, sermon-like serenity.  The crashing rush of the Manyu River echoed against the carpet green hills overshadowing our boisterous college town from the intense tropical heat.  The drumming rumbles of the lake-sized tributary in her mysterious churning of three streams combined to derive the name Mafe, after my district and tribe, meaning “let’s put it here.”  The evening was still young; red orange rays slashed through the rainbow colored blinds, its effects were melancholic to my heart, as if some tall stranger was walking back and forth about the doorway.

The clanging noise of empty dishes announced that dinner was over.  We rose from our prayerful postures.  A shadow covered my movement toward the kitchen window.  The peaceful evening was shattered by two strong hands landing heavily on my shoulders.

“HI, Sister Susan.”  The uniformed man in his middle age spun me round so I had to face him squarely between amber dark eyes.

“You are Godwin Tabeson, is that correct?  Let’s go! C’mon…move!”

“Can I ask my mom if…if…she’ll let me…go with you?”

“Yes, Godwin, you must follow orders,” came my mother’s shocking words.

Out the door, we stumbled onto the dusty streets and headed toward the police station.  The cop kept a two-foot walking pace between he and I.  All the while a steady stream of tears kept my swollen eyelids and checks moist, but I still had no clue as to the real cause for my arrest and detention.  Was it so bad that even my dear mother who sat beside her precious son would watch some stranger drag me away?

When I dared to demand why and where we were headed- “Sir, I did not do anything wrong; you must have the wrong guy” – he ignored my innocent protest and told me I should find out while at the station.  I kept sobbing and screaming and demanding to know the cause of my detention.  As we marched through the station double ebony doors, one junior policeman, whose demeanor has stayed with me, quickly told me to shut up; he added that I wasn’t leaving the station any time too soon.

That was on a Sunday late evening; Monday morning it would be school for every young person in town.  I was always popular among my peers; more like a ringleader, say.  Thoughts of my friends finding out that I was ‘doing time’ at the station brought more tear, sweat, and shivers down my chest; it was taboo.  Only violent adults and petty thieves were often at the station, doing their time and paying their dues.

Until that evening, I had always imagined what it was like to be one of those fantastic looking policemen.  My fear and respect for law officers; their neatly striped uniforms, flashy badges, swinging batons dangling from side to side during their wild rushes through town if an intertribal feud was at hand.

Pat did-night.  By weather standards the night was mild and cool.  Part of why I dreaded being stripped naked and kept behind bars, inside an open space without doors or window shutters, was that I worried I might catch a fever.

An unfamiliar police officer took the reigns on duty.  “Young Tabeson,” the expression on his face showed mild surprise at having an unusual suspect – a good kid.  I then responded with a drawling, “Siiiiiir” and turned to avoid facing some the recognizable passerby on their way to work.  I even caught sight of one or two classmates hurrying off to school.

“Were you caught stealing?”  With those sharps words the kind officer demanded to know the nature of the crime.  I just couldn’t help pouring out a fresh round of tears.  “Here,” he threw my pants and shirt between the cross bars, “put on your clothes then come out; we must have a little talk.”  I felt a wave of relief. I just might be able to catch up with school!  “You were seen loitering around Bansu quarters two nights ago.”  His voice came across more calming than that of the cop who picked me up the previous evening.  But why had my mother failed to show up to rescue me?  As the friendly policeman ushered me on to take the seat across the table, he continued with, “Your mother asked the station to teach you a lesson for staying out very late…”

Challa Tabeson created this piece in POOR’s New Journalism/Media Studies Program.  He is currently enrolled in “The Raising Our Voices” program at Media Alliance.
 

Part One:  Who, What, Where, Why?

After several years of traveling between the U.S. and El Salvador, and much experience with American poetry festivals, Salvadorian poet and children’s author Jorge Tetl Argueta decided it was time for El Salvador to have a poetry festival.  Not just any poetry festival—a children’s poetry festival. 

Argueta, who teamed up with poets Francisco X. Alarcon, Margarita Robleda, Rene Colato Lainez, Ana Ferrufino, Jackie Mendez, and Jeannette “Lil Milagro” Martinez-Cornejo (plus Manlio Argueta, Director of the National Library of El Salvador, and other people in and outside El Salvador) wanted to do this because “…there is a lot of violence in El Salvador – our hopes are that this festival will give children and young adults the opportunity to express themselves creatively on the issue of living in peace and their dreams for a positive future.”
Two years of workshops and other efforts with adults and children led to organizing efforts in Amerikkka as well, at least one event happening recently in San Francisco.  The First Annual Children’s Poetry Festival in El Salvador kicks off November, 2010.

Part Two:  Set It Off!

My first reaction to stumbling across this news, other than wondering how POORmagazine could help shout from the rooftops about this event:  I wanted to encourage people around the world to do the same thing. 

Mothers and children are in the crosshairs of governments, shadow governments, and wanna-be governments everywhere—fighting for power, drug turf, or whatever else the people with something want that the poor, who have nothing but each other, don’t have.  I have heard stories of POORmagazine’s superbabymamaz—Tiny, Vivian, Jewnbug, Queennandi and others. 

Ingrid DeLeon regularly rips my heart and lungs out when she talks about her children south of the border, and her life here.  Vivian Hain’s daughter Jasmine teenage is a POOR Press poet/author, and other POOR youth skolahs have been creative too.  Vivian is too good at eulogizing the father of her other two daughters.  I never want to see her do it for a child.

Poor children know a lot--lack of food and clean water, crappy or no education, bullets, bombs, the other endless details of their lives.  I don’t want to know.  I need to know.  We all do.  Stay tuned.  We’ll be doing something.  I hope you will too.

JULY FOURTH EVERYDAY FOR P.G. & E!
 (JULY 2009)

Power company transformers explode underground,
the city, the land, trapped beneath, is howling like
a werewolf that hasn’t had its dinner yet,
and those man-hole covers flying sky-high are just
the first chapter of a fat novel

Downtown San Francisco, zigging and zagging to
Polk and O’Farrell, the explosions sometimes
hurt somebody, turn off lights, turn traffic into
a video game programmed by the biggest fan
of Murphy’s Law

I ask the question—where are the next
explosions and enthusiastic fire?
Not where expected—back downtown!
I thought, perhaps hoped, Japantown might be
next, or the Western Addition The Haight
Pacific Heights Twin Peaks The Richmond,
everywhere that is anywhere,
the stations of an urban cross a-go-go

It’s only fair, we work hard, play hard,
are poor hardest of all,
and the city, the land,
it wants to play too