2010

What Homefulness Means to Me

An elder is supposed to be a guide to the children and a mentor to the rest of the community.  I can’t assume eldership where I live.  I am getting tired of living in a place where I’m getting discriminated against for being old.  I live in a ghetto of elders.  In the ghetto of elders we are all the same age.  No younger people.  No children.  No contact with anybody younger unless I go to the bar or to Poor Magazine.  But going to the bar can be dangerous. 

Children need their elders.  They need their elders to know their history and to learn the customs of their culture.  They also need us to learn how to survive.  If children don’t get to talk to their elders, they will only know the mythologies that their history books and tvs and computer’s tell them. 

Hopefulness is a great way for children and adults and elders to form a perfect community where the village can teach each other.  This is where family replaces bureaucracy.  Hopefulness will be good for an elder because I will be able to teach children.  I can help the adults take care of the children and teach them the real history and the real customs of our cultures.  I want to talk to them like adults without using colloquial censorship like they learn without their elders.  I will be able to take my place as an elder and a recorder of history.  And I will be able to live this purpose everyday when hopefulness comes true.  

scroll down for English

        José dándose  cuenta que la sagrada familia corría peligro realiza un
plan de escape, reuniendo sus pocas cosas de valor hacen una lista de
lo necesario, y con su esposa María  preparan el pequeño equipaje.
Cubiertos por el manto de la noche salen de su casa, deben de dejar la
cuna que José fabrico con tanto cuidado y amor para el bello niño.

     Deben conformarse con algunos utensilios de cocina, sabanas para
protegerse del frio, pampers  y una silla y una meza portátil de
Redwood que pueden ser útiles en su trayecto, también un poco de
incienso y mira que son un obsequio qué dieron unos caminantes de
oriente. Antes de partir a un nuevo lugar, a una nueva aventura hacen
una oración miran al cielo, el cielo los mira, la luna se llena de luz
para iluminar su camino y los  ángeles disfrazados de estrellas canta
en coro un himno de bendición y libertad.
       Las lagrimas ruedan por la mejías de la joven madre, el niño duerme
en sus brazos, José la abraza diciéndole “todo saldrá bien no te
preocupes pues la leche puede enfermara al niño, iremos a otra ciudad
segura donde el niño pueda desarrollarse y transformarse en  un
carpintero, un pescador, un gran maestro o un doctor reconocido en
todo el mundo”.

      La noche es fría como el hielo (ICE) José también
siente su corazón como un gran tambor acelerando  su ritmo, su paso se
acelera, no hay tiempo que perder esta comunidad no es segura pues los
soldados del rey pueden aparecer en cualquier momento y llevarlos
presos, la migra puede separarlos o  quitarles al niño acusándolos de
criminales. María mescla sus lágrimas con una pequeña sonrisa y
emprenden el viaje con fe y esperanza. En esta ocasión no usarán el
burro pues el viaje es largo por la inter estatal Highiway 80. Sin ver
atrás suben en su viejo auto que los llevara  desde Arizona a alguna
ciudad santuario lejos del odio y racismo concentrado en SB-1070.

     Atraviesan montes, el inmenso valle de san Joaquín bajo el
incandescente sol que golpea como un martillo silencioso el cuerpo que
parece derretirse,  atravesando  un gran desierto verde que como una
serpiente a la orilla del camino es regado por un gran rio. Nilo puedo
creer aquí trabajan muchos de nuestros hermanos.
       Autos van autos vienen, grandes y relucientes camiones que
transportan mercancías y productos algunas caravanas de jinetes que en
sus brillantes corceles negros, vestidos de negro y con un a dibujo de
una clavera blanca en su espalda cual ráfaga de viento manejan sus
motocicletas, dicen  que se dirigen a  un festival en un lugar llamado
el Golgota (lugar de la calavera).

    Por fin en la madrugada del
séptimo día con los primeros rayos del el sol que pintan el cielo
color rojo  brillante, frente a los ojos de José y María  el Puente
Golden Gate imponente, rojo, sobre el mar rojo y allí imponente se
divisa la ciudad con enormes siluetas, semejando pirámide es la ciudad
de San Francisco.

     Una fiesta de bienvenida preparan familiares y
amigos llevando pan, trajeron vino, pupusas, tamales, gorditas,
burritos, y  algunos peces, La tía  Magdalena, brincando de alegría
ordena todo en la meza, todo es música, alegría el niño enérgicamente
mueve sus brazos y pies como saltando en el cielos de sabanas que lo
rodean .  Todos compaten y suman su comun  felicidad, compartiendo la
idea que  felicidad no es un lugar a donde ir.  Felicidad es una forma
de vivir en este viaje llamado vida.

Ingles sigue

     Jose realizing that his family was in danger came up with an escape
plan. He collects the few belongings of value, creating a list of
necessities and with his wife Maria they prepared the small luggage.

    Covered beneath the cloak of the night they leave their home.  They
must leave crib that Jose finely crafted with care and love for the
beautiful baby.

     They must make do with just a few kitchen utencils, blankets to
protect them from the cold, diapers, and one chair and portable table
made of Redwood that will be used throughout their travels.  They also
brought a little bit of insense that was gifted to them by paserbys
walking from the east.

     Before leaving for a new place, a new adventure they pray, and look up
to heaven, heaven looks down on them, the moon shines full to shade
light on their path, and the angels disguised as stars sing the courus
of a hymn of blessing and liberty.

     Tears roll down the cheeks of the young mother, and in her arms the
son sleeps, Jose hugs her and tells her “everything is going to be
okay, don’t worry, listen the milk will make the baby sick so we are
going to another city secure where the baby can grow and become a
carpenter, a fisherman, or a great professor, or a doctor known around
the world."

     The night is cold as ICE.  Jose feels his heart accelerating and it
beat like a drum to his rythm, bound to beat even harder throughout
his journey.  There is no time to lose, this community is no longer
safe, the kings soldiers can appear at any moment and take them
prisoner, the immigration officers can seperate them or take the baby
accusing them of being criminals.

     Maria wipes her tears with a small smile and they embark on their
journey with faith and hope.  This time they will not use the donkey
to travel because it is very far following the highway interstate 80.
Without looking back they get in their old car that will bring them
from Arizona to a sanctuary city faraway from the hate and racism
concentrated in SB-1070.

      They climb mountains, the imense San Joaquin Valley below the
incandescent sun that hits the body like a silent hammer, giving the
feeling that you are melting.  Crossing a great green desert and like
a snake the road moves along the bank and is watered by a grand river.
 Nilo, I can imagine that many of our brothers work here.

     Automobiles come and go, huge shiny semi's that carry goods and
products,  caravans of riders pass  on their vivid black horses,
dressed in black with white skulls on thier backs that gusts in the
wind, they ride their motorcycles.  They say they are going to a
festival in a place called Golgota (the place of the skull).

     Finally in the twilight of morning on the seventh day with the first
rays of the sun that paint the sky bright red.  In front of Jose and
Maria's eyes, the golden gate bridge is red, and streches above the
red sea.  From there the city with its many silluetes, looking like a
pyramid it the city of San Francisco.    A big fiesta is prepared by
family and friends bring bread, wine, pupusas, tamales, gorditas,
burritos, and fish.  Aunt Magdalena bursting with excitement orders
the table to be set, everything is music, the baby moves his arms and
legs energetically as if jumping in a sky of blankets that surround
him.
     Everyone shares and adds to the common happiness, sharing the idea
that happiness is not a place you can go, but rather happiness is a
way of living during this journey we call life.

A man is denied access to health care from Kaiser after being told he has "six months to live."

'Kaiser killed me,' said William Fortson, a guest speaker at POOR magazines monthly Community Newsroom meeting.'Kaiser killed me.' Say what?? Is this the same Kaiser that has spent millions of dollars in a marketing campaign telling us how well they take care of us; the same Kaiser insurance my job supplies me with?

William Fortson was diagnosed with terminal cancer of the liver in October of 2006 and was told stoically by his doctors that he had 'six months to live and that he [the specialist] thought it was better for me to enjoy the quality of my life' not the quantity. It is now March of 2007 and William is miraculously standing before us relaying his incredible tale, with his wife Mary, about the injustices of the HMO health care system for which he spent 34 years paying for as part of his employee benefit package. William has an eight cm tumor on his liver, a tumor too big to cut out or to transplant organs, too much trouble to do radiation or kemo, too much trouble for his healthcare provider to care for the well fare of him and his family.

This saga does not begin in late 2006, but rather 6 years earlier when William was diagnosed with Hepatitis C. Like any good patient Bill Fortson went to all his appointments, followed doctors' orders and regiments, and monitored his health to the best of his ability. He played the game and followed all the rules, yet as his pain began to increase in his abdomen, his doctor at Kaiser disappeared into thin air; this resulted in his misplaced medical record and improper diagnoses for his pain for a little over a year.

Americans pay on average $5, 267 annually for health care insurance, this is roughly 42% more than any other industrialized western nation pays in medical insurance. Americans spend more per capita in health insurance then any other nation in the world. The United States is one of the most developed countries on earth yet 32 million Americans receive inadequate coverage, doctors are not equipped with the most up to date technologies, and as a result must perform more expensive and invasive surgeries. Americans are paying a third of every dollar they earn for health insurance; but what are we really getting for all these co-pays, like in William Forston's case, an HMO that refuses to pay for treatment that is covered in his employee benefit package.

William Fortson has a family of three; a beautiful wife Mary and a daughter Sakara whom will be graduating from college this May. And yet, despite all of his nest eggs, William and his family are facing the most challenging experiences of their life. Kaiser refused to provide William with the proper treatment or diagnose that would help extend his life. Furthermore, upon changing HMOs to Pacific Care, William is being withheld from receiving treatment from M.D. Andersen cancer treatment facility in Houston, Texas the number two treatment facility in the nation. Pacific Care, the Fortsons current HMO, covers treatment at this facility yet they refuse to shell out the money to help pay for William's treatment.

A Harvard study recently showed that half of all Americans go bankrupt from medical bills. The Fortsons do not care about the cost of treatment as long as it means that William will continue to live and not be resigned to a death sentence. 'They may feel that my father's life is not worth their trouble but we are not asking for any free-hand outs,' said Sakara. The irony is astounding, we pay so much for the 'best' money can buy and still can callously throw someone's life away because they [the insurance companies] need to 'penny-pinch', to put it bluntly, because they are cheap. 'If I have too, I will stand on a BART platform with flyers denouncing Kaiser and telling my husband's story,' Mary told us as she relayed her side of the story in dealing with the harassment and brush off of the Kaiser Permante and Pacific Care personnel and medical staff.

A few days ago a 12 year old homeless boy Deamonte Driver died from an infection from an abscessed tooth in Maryland. In response Congress has decided that they will allocate a reported 40 million more dollars to health care centers and departments throughout the country to prevent this from happening again. Instead of creating policies to affect change Congress is continuing to feed a broken and corrupt system. Coupled with a proposed bill by Vice President Dick Cheney, whom walked in and out of a hospital in one day recently for a blood clot, to place a malpractice cap for class-action lawsuits at $250k; this ensures that the insurance companies remain well protected from having to pay for the majority damages they incur on their patients. This bill will allegedly 'free' the HMOs from the litigation that is preventing them from offering and providing their constituents with the best possible health care they can afford; the same health care that put William Fortson on death row.

William Fortson to this day is being given the run around by physicians and HMOs while his hour glass of time is quickly running out. The Fortsons have reached out to their community, thinking that support would be overwhelming, but none would listen, no one cares. Finally, after being offered pro-bono services from Felicia Curran, the Fortsons attorney, William has an emergency appoint with the UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco. William is not a guinea pig, he is not some careless object, he is a human being, with a wife and a family. He was living the American dream, or so he thought. William's daughter put it best in a letter she addressed to Anderson Copper 360, 'My father qualifies but no one cares. If a person has health care and can not get help, where else can we turn?'

this is a test.

Culture war collateral damage:

Mexican-American gang member from nowhere

northern California, released from prison

to San Francisco half-way house

sketches her;

long-gone from nowhere northern Texas,

you can take the boy from the country

but some of the country stays in the boy

from divorced smashed-atom

whitebread nuclear family

connects one or two of my dots

Watching that black hair twitch to the rhythm of her

 take me as I am or eff off walking body language

was an education in the school of desire

and long odds;

one day, walking through the Goodwill warehouse

after a break, she said “Stop not talking to me or

I’m gonna throw a candy bar at you!”

I was glad she wasn’t tempted by the

heavier things surrounding us

The warehouse was a video game:

avoid the forklift and the man pushing

thAe palletjack,

what comes in always goes out in a

daily dance of muscle and fossil fuels;

detour, detour, all Goodwill’s children

must detour

We sniffed the edges of heterosexuality,

but it didn’t fit as well as we wanted it to;

age, culture, maybe class differences too—

well, shall we say that enough

hard-core gangsta rap

and bloody violent movies

can make me feel

like Samson with short hair

One day at a time actually meant something to me,

until she got fired and vanished like a fantasy

Mind and love are things of the spirit, unclassifiable

Area 51 UFOs,

or microvoltages of electricity and feel-good

kickapoo joy-juice brewed by the brain whenever 

we connect, hug, kiss, whatever:

my nowhere northern cali girl was gone and

I finally understand what cold turkey really means

More about us:  she was and is three gang-banger brothers,

drug addict, single mother, fragile grandmother, aunt

and mother raising her daughter, loves

Jimmy Santiago Baca; I met the woman she fell for

at the half-way house once, my gang-banger girl’s

eye for female flesh and spirit is pretty good

I’m a child of divorce, the sister I’ve seen once in 20 years

married three times, father remarried once, mother

never remarried, I haven’t hitched yet;

I almost had a Black step-father and brother,

but nowhere northern Texas would have

punished that crime

I borrowed a 6-foot-tall sister named Debra,

too well acquainted with 2004 drive-by death;

one day I said, “Sometimes you look like

a wolf prowling your territory in the warehouse”

after I asked her opinion on the chasing of younger

trying-to-be-ex-gang-banger women,

the word “fag” vanished from her vocabulary

From client of Goodwill to employee was a twisty

roller coaster ride, addiction to Debra and the

Filipino women, younger and older, seemed

going-going-gone; I was mood-swinging in the

tree-tops, thinking cold turkey might just

be my middle name

I said to one of the Filipino women, “If I ever

learn to speak Tagalog it will be your fault,

you make it sound so much fun to talk like that”

Give me I’ve-seen-it-all-and-it-can’t-hurt-me,

strange sense of humor, stainless steel much less

than 6 degrees of connection to large extended family,

I might run for the hills or get a grip

and ride that tiger—

I don’t think he’ll bite

His name was Celso Cabanero, classic 70 year old

tough old Filipino man, smoked too much, went from

hospital to retirement to dead after we worked together

for over a year;

my own maternal grandfather’s death

bothered me far less than Celso’s;

asking the supervisor about him didn’t get results,

retirement means gone means learning the truth

from a random work conversation

Management knows all about love and paychecks,

sexual harassment, the bottom line,

they talk about some of that in new client,

new employee orientation classes;

loving your co-workers,

losing them

and the desire to be part of the Non-Profit

Industrial Complex—the employee handbook

doesn’t cover that

The People of the Bayview gather to resist the lies of corporate and City-sponsored displacement and 21st century Negro removal in Black History Month.

"The plan they have for us is war it's the same thing they are doing in Darfur, and in Palestine. They want our land, push us out, and that's their plan. I don't care how many other lies that they come up with; check their past, and see what they are doing right now," Willie Ratcliff, member of the Bay View/Hunters Point community and publisher of the Bay View Newspaper, called out to the crowd of Bayview Hunters Point residents gathered outside The Whitney Young Child Development Center for a press conference and rally held outside a Town Hall meeting called by Mayor Newsom on last Saturday's cold wet morning.

POOR magazine and the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper hosted the press conference and rally calling for an end to government sanctioned evictions promoted by the Mayor under the banner/guise of "redevelopment." The voices of Bay View/Hunters Point residents and other community members rang out on this, a Saturday in Black History Month, calling for action to stop redevelopment, stop the displacement of poor folks and folks of color and most importantly stop the lies promoted by the Mayor and his corporate developer friends about the destruction of our communities; the Black community, the Latino community, the Asian community, in other words, the real people of San Francisco.

Willie concluded his powerful speech citing the findings released in a recent study on Black California, "The Black Caucus of California reported San Francisco is the most economically racist city in the state of California."

Tiny, from POOR Magazine first words as she approached the crowd and reiterated throughout the conference, "This town hall meeting does not represent the Bay View community. We are here to make sure the community voices get heard."

The most recent attack on the Bay View/Hunters Point is the proposed closing of the Alice Griffiths house. Alice Griffiths is a public housing unit. The Alice Griffith Housing Project, also known as "Double Rock" was built in 1962 as military housing for Hunters Point shipyard workers and was transferred to Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and then the Housing Authority in 1974. The proposed redevelopment plan calls for bulldozing the Alice Griffiths house and replacing it with parking spaces for 49ers fans. This plan is part of Mayor Gavin Newsom's attempt to get the 49ers to stay in San Francisco.

The plan says it would include housing for the current Alice Griffith tenants, although many of the speakers Saturday reminded us that the promise of new homes is rarely followed through. Tiny recalled past broken promises. "Between Lennar Corporation, the John Stewart Corporation, HUD HOPE IV., the City's Housing Authority, Redevelopment, and the Mayor," said Tiny, "there won't be any Black or poor folks left in San Francisco. These companies and their city counter parts have systematically destroyed many of the public housing projects with the promise of one unit housing replacement for one unit demolished. The problem with that lie is it never happens." Tiny cried out to the crowd.

One sign held at the rally read, "Remember Valencia Gardens." Valencia Gardens was redeveloped and almost no one who lived there before the redevelopment was given housing in the new one. Tiny was adamant that people not forget the history and herstories of destruction and forced diasporas of the Fill-no more, the Mission and most recently, Valencia Gardens Housing Project.

More than 700 residents of Alice Griffiths face eviction, many of whom have lived there a long time. A lawsuit was filed against the Bay View/Hunters Point Redevelopment plan, which more than 33,000 San Franciscan residents have signed. The redevelopment plan has a contract with Lennar Corporation. Lennar has promised to provide "affordable" housing, but their current homes in the Bay Area start at above $650,000.

As Byron Gafford, staff writer with POOR Magazine, poet, and life-long Alice Griffith resident said, "If this deal goes through, me and my family will have nowhere to go. They have been trying to get rid of Black folks up here for a while."

The City has given Lennar, a Florida-based company, hundreds of acres from Candlestick Point to Hunters Point Shipyard. Many community based organizers like POOR and The SF Bayview believe that most of these redevelopment efforts are unnecessary in the first place and then if any do happen that San Francisco needs to give these contracts to more neighborhood-based developers who have proven expertise in building affordable housing and community based relationships of truth.

Within the Bay View/Hunters Point Community there are many lies being promoted to the point that some people feel the redevelopment plan will be a good thing for the neighborhood. For some who are homeowners the redevelopment plan is an opportunity for greater land value. But for many who are renters it will mean displacement as property value and rents increase.

Espanola Jackson, homeowner and community activist in the Bay View said, "There is no danger of displacement in the Bay View. The plans are in court, until that happens there is no redevelopment for this area. I am a homeowner, since 1968 and no way will I allow this community to happen to be run over the way the Western Addition was." Some in the Bay View are more trusting of the court system and the redevelopment plans than others.

As we stood in front of the child development center looking out over the Bay, one could not help but recall the past. Bakara Nutungi, from the community organization Uhuru in Oakland reflected and said, "America was founded on people stealing the land we standing on today, so it's the same situation. They brought black people from down south in the 1940's to build the ships. That's how black people got to Hunters Point to begin with. And now that they don't have no ships and no shipyards they kicking black people up out of hunters point, because its nice property, so white people can have a nice view of the bay..It is time for the African community to stand up and fight just like we did in the 60's, with the black power movement."

The words of residents from the community rang out demanding to be heard and demanding an end to the lies of redevelopment and an end to evictions. Laure McElroy from POOR Magazine said, "Redevelopment is a joke, a killer joke, people like me, a mother, disabled woman, being shuffled from place to place, 'cause we can't afford the rents... I don't want to see people who can't move, who are disabled, and the elderly displaced by these corporate takeovers, this is murder. " Laure's words struck a chord and stayed for a while; hanging in the air.

Marie Harrison, a member of the Bay View community said, "Together we can stand, together we can save San Francisco, and stop the mass move on Alice Griffith and Bay View. There will be no San Francisco of tomorrow, San Francisco will be a city of the rich and the richer." Since 1970 San Francisco has lost one-quarter of its Black community: 25,000 people. Marie continued on to say, "never mind that the rich are standing on our shoulders, San Francisco, built by poor folks, that shipyard, managed by poor folks, Alice Griffiths filled up with poor folks who need to have a place to live. Don't get suckered into that dream they are passing around about becoming homeowners, if your income is $18,000 and under, there is no way in this city you will become a homeowner. People in San Francisco need to stand together and draw the line in the sand to protect San Francisco."

Marie made clear the reality and pressure poor folks face in this city. This city where so many people want to live, this city where poor folks are being evicted to make room for people with bigger wallets. As Marie said, unless we take action, this city will be a city of the rich and richer.

Vivian Hain from POOR Magazine recounted her struggle living in poverty in the Bay Area. "I am a native San Franciscan, my family was evicted out of our community in the Mission because of gentrification, we couldn't afford it anymore. So we ended up put out in the pasture, in some place with no jobs or economic security. What's going on is social and economic genocide. So, Mayor Newsom, it ain't about wine tasting across the Bay, it's about housing our low-income families, and ensuring their ability to do right by their children."

Julian Davis from the San Francisco People's Organization spoke. He gave perspective about the lack of dialogue in Newsom's town meetings. Julian said, "Newsom's meeting does not represent the people, it is not a model for substantive dialogue. Newsom prefers pre-scripted public gatherings to genuine community dialogue and civic engagement."

Where was Newsom for the press conference and rally? The SF police department was standing by making sure the entrance to the building was not blocked. Behind the speakers a metal fence stood and beyond that one could see a poster reading, "San Francisco Police Department now hiring." Why were the posters and signs of community members not inside the gate?

Just as the rally was ending the rain started to come down. A chant began, saying together, "We shall not be moved." The police checked everyone for signs and made people leave the signs at the gate.

Inside the hall, Newsom started his speech by saying, "This meeting being held at the Child Development Center is symbolic because the center is not what it should be." Gavin, the police officers prohibited people from bringing signs into the meeting. This is symbolic of the systematic silencing of certain groups of people, and of certain viewpoints. A child's development is intrinsic on self-expression. The silencing of our opinions is symbolic of the lack of democracy and lack of dialogue in your community meetings. You may take signs away, but voices, never.

As Tiny said, " We must demand to be heard. We must ask our questions about displacement, and corporate development. We shall not be moved." Tiny and many others stood up in Newsom's meeting, and asked, "Why are you stealing our homes, our land?" Newsom did not respond. Some people present at the meeting booed the questions, and booed the interruption.

Within the Bay View/Hunters Point community a consensus has not been reached on the issue of redevelopment. Other voices in opposition to the rampant redevelopment facing the entire Bayview Hunter's Point were members of ACORN, standing in solidarity with flyers that read; WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED! As well as members of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), some of whom attempted to be heard about the wrongs of this gentrification effort and others who stood with their mouths taped shut representing the silencing of the community members while their homes are taken away.

Standing outside in the cold, in front of the building where Newsom held his "Town hall meeting," we heard many powerful voices and testaments to the lies being told around redevelopment. We heard voices recounting the history of the Bay View/Hunters Point. As we left, I looked out over the Bay thinking so this is what developers want, this land, this view of the bay. This ground where black folks worked on the ships. The same place where in 1966 there was an uprising resisting police brutality.

As Tiny said, "Eviction is the ultimate capitalist crime, insidious, and when it happens, and the way it happens, we disappear, the poor folks and folks of color."

One of POOR Magazine's responses to the ongoing displacement and evictions is to hold teach-ins in the community around de-gentrification and resistance to the lies of redevelopment. For more information please contact (415) 863-6306

Marlon Crump/PoorNewsNetwork
Wednesday, February 17, 2010;

"Its going to adversely affect a lot of folks who depend on St. Luke's right now for their health care." This was a statement of concern from Emily Lee, staff of Chinese Progressive Association, a respected community grass-roots organization during a recent POOR interview regarding the hospital's future.

Race, class, and segregation, privatization and displacement of health care services were the major subjects, in my recent interview. The future of St. Luke's Hospital, a health facility unprejudiced to people in poverty is subject for changes.

The fight for its survival continues, consequently so are plans for a new hospital by C P M C (California Pacific Medical Center) and Sutter Health Corporation. In 2008-09, a Blue Ribbon Panel took place by the S.F. Board of Supervisors to decide the fate of St. Luke's Hospital. Testimonies took place by community members of how much this hospital meant to them.

The area for this planned project is Geary/Van Ness. Last year, my POOR family learned that a favorite cafe of late poverty hero Mama Dee Gray would be one of the latest victims for displacement by developers through demolition: The Van Ness Bakery & Cafe.

Misinformation was distributed to the employees. This would lead to discouragement for their options in opposing these actions to the S.F. Planning Commission. Angered by this, a series of re-porting and su-pporting from my family of POOR took place.

"If they came in and tore it down, where are we going to go?" Ruthy, an employee of the Van Ness Cafe stated in last year's POOR Magazine/PNN radio interview titled, "Mama Dee is Mad!"

Many small business people, including the Vietnamese and other South-east Asian women who run the 24/7 doughnut shop that Tiny and Mama Dee loved and still loves, will see their dreams shattered and lose the source of their income. Bruce Allison, Elder Scholar of POOR explained in the follow up article, Mama Dee is mad part 2.

"How can you build hospitals on homes?" I said during public comment before the S.F. Planning Commission last year. Me, and my POOR comrades attended this meeting to oppose the draft plans for this project.

C P M C (California Pacific Medical Center) parents Sutter Health and manages St. Luke's Hospital. This proposed new "hospital" is a 1.7 billion$ project by Sutter Health architecture-d in areas of the poor, to be built on their backs.

She (Mama Dee) is mad....really mad.

We shared in her fury on February 2nd during community newsroom. Youth members of the Chinese Progressive Association shared their knowledge of the current status of Saint Luke's Hospital, and the effortless battle by communities to save it. It was exciting to meet with the Chinese Progressive Association, and for me to learn their history of tackling environmental racism, and justice in Southeast San Francisco.

They've recently gotten involved with this issue. I met with Emily Lee ten days later to learn more.

St. Luke's Hospital is one hospital, but its one of two hospitals that's located in Southeast San Francisco that serves the primary low income immigrant and people of color community in that area. Emily said. C P M C got what it wanted, they're going to contain all of their patients who don't have insurance. St. Luke's provides a huge amount of free health care service for the poor.

Emily's explanations for these transitions appeared to be prejudiced processes of elimination by C P M C against patients who lack insurance, and depend on St. Luke's Hospital services. She pointed out that the intentions from C P M C were to reduce acute services at St. Luke's Hospital, and attract those who're insured to the newly proposed hospital in the Cathedral Hill area.

The motivations for this move, it seems according to Emily is "separation of health care" and "profit motives." Although Sutter and C P M C are non-profit, curiosity comes to mind on whether or not this would benefit salaries, equipment, etc, etc.

The communities expected to be affected from this project are in the Mission, Excelsior, Portola, and the Bay view District. S.F. General Hospital a hospital already overburdened with staff and service shortages (courtesy of Governor Schwarzenegger) will be overwhelmed. With this new project development, I wondered if other hospitals in that area, such as S.t. Francis Hospital (who once helped me) would be affected.

Transportation will be a turbulent transition for seniors with mobility issues, and people with disabilities. It just means that it will be another barrier to get health care. Emily said. Distances from doctors, inadequate access to the nearest health facility is not only inconvenient, but life threatening.

"I think about all of the lives that had been saved at St. Luke's, because it is located in a strategic location, which is truly a lifeline for many in the Mission." Vivian Hain, Welfare Queen, Super baby mama explained in her April 2008 POOR article, "St. Luke's saved my life". She expressed her gratitude for St. Luke's and displeasure of Sutter Health.

An issue of the history of "environmental racism" was brought up concerning the southeast of S.F. from toxic, industrialized sites and heavy traffics. This development poses a serious problem for people with health problems, such as diabetes, asthma, and other respiratory-related problems.

"Right now the city is doing a draft, an environmental impact review for the Cathedral Hill Project." According to Emily.

Existence of employments, are also major concerns. C N A (California Nurses Association) represents St. Luke's Hospital. They've been at odds over numerous issues with C P M C for a while, concerning labor, strikes, and other grievances. Nato Green, Labor Rep for the California Nurses Association presented a very detailed overview regarding the motives of C P M C in a brief interview.

C P M C makes record profits in San Francisco ($157 million in 2008) but spends a lower proportion of its budget on caring for Medi-Cal, Medicare, and uninsured patients than other local private hospitals.Green explained. The master plan involves reducing by 82% the skilled nursing beds that treat Medicare and disabled patients, (despite a City projection of a 30% shortage of those very beds) over the next ten years.

Green's additional insight is equally congruent with Emily's statement earlier on regarding a separation of health care.

Also, C P M C's plan is for St. Luke's to be the smaller hospital for Medi-Cal patients while insured patients will go to Cathedral Hill for the very same services. Green says."But with more specialists and other fancy services and gimmicks. When C P M C says that St. Luke's must be small to "serve the community,"community" means poor people and people of color. This is explicit segregation of healthcare based on ability to pay.

The NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) is seeking a federal indictment against Sutter and C P M C, accusing them of creating an illegal health plan towards its nurses and other workers.

We as poor people, families, and communities of color have human rights and freedom to health care services, unsubsidized from interests. Mama Dee's fury will never subside, unless this ceases and desists. She will continue to be mad......and so will we at POOR.

To read more about the past and present situations regarding St. Luke's Hospital, Sutter Health, and C P M C, please refer to the following links:

http://www.fogcityjournal.com/news_in_brief/jh_cna_071004.shtml

http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2009/03/nurses_union_sues_sutters_cpc...

http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-07-04/bay-area/17171495_1_full-service-h...

www.savestlukes.org

www.poormagazine.org under the hellthcare section.

"Western concepts of ownership and privatization came in and clashed with that. So land began to be exchanged." Neil Abercrombie, democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

• Escuela De La Gente  En Racismo. Pobreza, Instituto de Justicia en los Medios

   

  2011  Invierno Horario De Clases**

  Orientacion/Registracion Martes, Jenero 25th @ 5pm

  Todas las clases se inician  Martes, Febero 1

  Rejistracion Tarde: 1^er dia de clase

• Matrícula en una escala móvil –Becas disponibles en Skolaz el Pobre 'Fondo.

   

  ***El Horario y dia de clases pueden cambiar

• Martes

• 1pm Medios Revolusionarios para Eskolares #103 (Transmitir Medios: Radio y production de Video Noticias) Seccion #1: Reditacion de Radio – blogg de radio , radio produccion y pod–cast – Seccion #2: Editacion de Video , grabar y anuncio de noticias–**1:00- Medios Revolusionarios es mas temprano el ultimo Martes de cada mes para para el Grupo de sanacion ( HEAL – Sanando Adicciones por medio de la arte y Liberacion)

   

• 3pm Hip Hop Teatro de el Pobre: Reinas de el welfare/Poetas Pobres: trabajo en grupo, acciones, lecturas- par ajovenes , adultos, y ancianos en pobreza

• 5pm Periodismo de Pobreza Revolusionario-- Seccion #2: Investigacion de periodismo Periodismo/Photographico Periodismo/Desarroyo de columnas – Incluye proyectos de historias y eventos.

  ***6pm – Primer martes de el Mes Prensa Communitaria: Circulo de Noticias Indigena (Mandatorio para todos los Estudiantes y Alumnos – Todas las noticias y organisacion de Prensa POBRE sale de esta reunion)

• 7pm Ismos De Adentro – Racismo, clasismo, capetalismo, facismo fronteral, abilidadismo, maderismo(oppression de la madre), Indigenismo,NPIC-ismo y otros ismosque tienen un impacto directo hacia jovenes, adultos, y ancianos en pobrezaglobal y local! Esta clase es ofrecida por La Raza, Pobreza, Instituto de Justicia en los Medios(RPMJ) La Raza, Pobreza, Instituto de Justicia en los Medios tiene una manera revolusionaria de hablar sobre el impacto de pobreza que conviene a los modelos tradicionales de servicio y provision, tratamiento medico mental, media produccion, educacion, creacion de politicas y philantrophia. Cada entrenamiento o seminario esta dirigido por alumnus de Pobreza que an sobrevivido pobreza, desalojo, violencia, profiling, immigracion, desabilidad, encarcelacion, abuso polisiaca, violencia domestica, etc.

JUEVES

Possibilidad de clases en Jueves (Para ser anunciado)

Prensa POBRE es una orgnizacion dirigido por los pueblos indigenas, organizacion de base sin fines de lucro, organizacion de artes que se dedica a proporcionar acceso a los medios extremos, la educacion y el arte a las comunidades de color que luchan con la pobreza, el racismo, la discapacidad, la inmigracion, la criminilizacion en el area de la bahia y mas alla…

EsKuela de la G-ente, la Raza, Pobreza y Medios de Comunicion del Instituto de Justicia se centra en la ensenanza NO colonizadora, los medios de comunicacion basados en la comunidad y dirigidas por la comunidad, el arte y la organizacion con los objetivos de crear vias de acceso para las voces silenciadas, conservando sus raices y las comunidades aburguesidas de color y replentar el debate sobre la pobreza, la falta de vivienda, la discapacidad, la migracion, el encarcelamiento y la raza a nivel local y mundial.

Low income and working poor parents protest the closure of Infant and Toddler Child Care Centers in the Bay Are and beyond

I am standing at the entrance of Laney College in Oakland where the excitement, anxiety, and thrill of first day jitters permeate the air. Right and left students swarm to class, holding their schedules tightly, backpacks swinging. It is almost a typical first day of school, bustling, hectic, and noisy. The only irregularity is a group of 30 student parents and their children holding an emergency press conference to demand the reopening of Laney’s Infant and Toddler Center.

Being a student myself, I understand the pressures of school. Often, I feel overwhelmed by the combination of classes, homework, work, and everyday life. I find myself with very little time, and unlike many students in this country, I do not have children. Surrounded by children and student parents I imagine how much harder my student career would be if I had children and no child-care. I can barely cope as is, how would I cope then?

“Good luck, Mommy,” chimes the voice of one of Mahasin Moon’s three children before she moved in front of the microphones to address a crowd of television cameras, new reporters, and photographers. Mahasin, a parent, student of Laney College, and organizer with the advisory council of the Laney College Children's Center takes the mic and introduces her three children. The two oldest are graduates of Laney’s toddler and infant center, her youngest who just turned 2, will not be able to attend the center due to it’s closure.

Last May 16 days before the end of the spring semester, the staff at Laney’s Toddler and Infant Center was notified that at the end of the semester the center would be closed, indefinitely. Although the staff was notified, many students were not and found out about the closure only 2 weeks before the start of the semester, leaving many student with little options beside dropping out.

Laney’s solution to the closure is to have parents use Merritt College’s child-care center. This solution is unrealistic to most parents. There is only one bus that runs to Merritt College and the time it would take parents in transit would leave many stretched. Also, Merritt’s child care center runs out a single room, leaving little space for new children and unlike Laney’s Infant and Toddler Center, Merritt’s is not sliding scale

The closure and under funding of child care centers and family resource centers is a crisis happening all over the state. In San Francisco, the City College’s innovative PEP program recently lost its only licensed child-care provider. The PEP program, operating out of the Betty Shabazz Family Resource Center, is a license exempt child-care program that provides parents 9 hours of class time in exchange for 2 hours of volunteer time. It also provides a computer cluster space where parents can bring their children and food for parents and their children. Until recently PEP had a licensed childcare provider on staff, who eventually the left the position. Afterwards, City College refused to replace her due to lack of funding.

"The Funding that the state provides to Community Colleges is no way enough to fund the cost of providing care to infants and young children. Most Campus Child Care programs have had to generate funds from other sources. A common source for these funds has been the General Funds of the sponsoring institutions. However, as the colleges' General Funds have had to cover more and more costs over the years, many college administrations have become reluctant to use those funds for child care that is why the Peralta College system has been gradually reducing the programs to only include older children," says Judy Kriege, technical facilities assistant with Bananas, a Child Care and Referral Service in Oakland.

Tracy Faulkner, welfare QUEEN, single mother, and director of City College of San Francisco Betty Shabazz Family Resource Center says about funding, “We shouldn’t be fighting for scraps. We should be growing, not going backwards.”

The event at Laney was organized by POOR magazine a non-profit, arts, education, and media justice organization, in a cross bay effort in collaboration with LIFETIME, California Tomorrow, Parent Voice, and poor parents and students. We gather at Laney asking that certain steps be taken so thousands of poor parents do not lose their chance at an education and a better life for themselves and their families. The most urgent demand is that the Laney Infant and Toddler Center be re-opened by the start of the Fall 2006 semester.

We also demand the funding streams for all the Community College Child Care centers be prioritized, stream-lined and strengthened and that there be transparency and inclusion of the parent leaders and directors of the programs in the funding of the centers. Finally, we want a full-time licensed exempt child care position be reinstated at The Betty Shabazz Family Resource Center at City College and formalized at ALL Family Resource Centers as they are a crucial aspect of their successful operation and stabilization.

Having the privilege of being a financially stable student who has little need for family resource centers, I often forget how crucial their role is in aiding student parents who are struggling to get out of poverty. It is when I meet students who rely of family resource centers to complete their education do I remember why it isn’t just parents who need to support these center, but also people like me.

As the press conference comes to a close, cameras and reporters disperse and children run to a nearby grassy patch to play. Students who had stopped to listen now begin their migration back to class and supporters congratulate parents on their speeches. With the close of the press conference the jitters of the first day come back, but for some students at Laney these jitters won’t be felt again until the toddler and infant center is reopened.

As of September 4th Laney has still not reopened it’s Infant and Toddler Center. If you are interested in working on this urgent issue please call POOR @ 415-863-6306.

I miss you.  They spat at you, called you ugly, said you were dark and dreary and needed to be torn down.  They called for your removal, your death.  Just the other day a guy was quoted in the Chronicle saying you were dirty and needed to be replaced by something new, something that would shuttle us into the current millennium.  The guy who said those words was an accountant—a commuter, as we all are—passing through this life that is so short and precious.  He spoke with an accountant’s mouth, saw with an accountant’s eyes, smelled with an accountant’s nose.  Someone once said, “it isn’t what you look at, it’s what you see”.  Dark and dreary—is that what the accountant saw when he looked at your face?

When I look at you I see beauty.  I see a kid running on your platform pulling away from his Grandma on the way to the circus.  We would board the AC transit bus, which was like a magic bus.  It would rattle and slam like a box of candy colored lights.  I remember the smoke rising from the tail pipe and the steam that seemed to come from under the ground, waiting to escape like laughter and tears kept inside too long.  I remember your eyes that were windows that could never be broken.  I remember your voice when you said, “Mind your Grandmother, boy”.  I remember your dark hands--hard hands.  Hands that said more than poets could, hands that reached into a pocket and pulled out a nickel or candy that kissed the palm of my hand. I squeezed my hands and eyes shut and never stopped dreaming of your face, your face of tears, of poems, of laughter, of jazz, of rhythm, of heartbreak, of community.

You are beautiful.  Your benches creak with stories carved with the marrow of our bones--strong enough to hold us, and sometimes cradle us when our fellow citizens, fellow human beings couldn’t.  Your benches gave our backs a rest; gave us a bit of warmth, a bit of time for us to dream, to connect with who we really were, and to see our mother’s face, our grandmother’s face again before being jolted awake and told to move on.  We steadied ourselves going up and down your staircases and when we fell, your banisters were within reach, pulling us back up.  On your walls were the poems that rise and fall like waves—travelling back and forth, ringing and echoing night and day, deep inside your belly of a million sounds. You are beautiful, a place when there was no place.

They are going to tear you down and replace you with a monstrosity that will resemble the federal building on 7^th street.  The accountants of the world are banking on it.  But I hear a rumbling; it’s coming from beneath. The lights are coming through the unbroken windows that are your eyes.  The trees that provided your benches have sprouted into a new forest.  The wind is stirring.  Your eyes are open and they are still beautiful and I am that kid again, following my Grandmother’s spirit as I walk across your platform for the first time.  I see you; your face is covered with the beautiful dirt of your life, the dirt of a poet’s hands.  They can’t wash it away—no matter how hard they try.

Indigenous peoples from San Jose to New Orleans who have survived and resisted eviction, gentrification and displacement joined POOR Magazine's First Annual TAKING BACK THE LAND CEREMONY

Be bop bebop..bop..bop

A slow mist rose from the ground co-mingling with candlewax, sage, and car exhaust. Bop..bop..be-bop..bop.. Warm breath weaving through the rhythm of a congo drum entwining with words of resistance from African Peoples, Raza Peoples, Celtic peoples, Pilipino peoples, Native peoples, indigenous peoples all.."One.... we are the people..Two....indigenous people...Three .. and we are taking back the land and ONE....We are the Scholars...Two... indigenous scholars and Three... we are taking back OUR land!..."

Citing the articles from the United Nations(UN)Declaration on Indigenous Peoples adopted one year ago by the UN General Assembly, displaced, evicted and removed children, mamaz, daddys, tias and tios, aunties and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, elders, ancestors, and spirits from all across Turtle Island; Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, New Orleans and DQ University gathered to pray, testify and resist on Market street at sunrise in a spiritual, political and revolutionary ceremony of resistance to out of control development, eviction, displacement and criminalization locally and globally.

"My whole family was displaced out of San Francisco," Xicana mama of three girls, welfareQUEEN and POOR Magazine teacher and staff writer Vivien Hain called into the crowd, her powerful voice joining the layers of sounds as she re-told her family's deep poverty scholarship of houselessness, welfare de-form, struggle and displacement. Vivien cited article 10 of the declaration as she described how her uncle, a life-long Mission district resident, was gentrified out of his home with his disabled wife and now is houseless on the streets of San Francisco. Vivien concluded her powerful speech: "Gentricide, that's our new classification for the murderous act of gentrification."

Since 1996, while on welfare and still dealing with the effects of over 15 years of homelessness as a child and mother, eviction and deep poverty in LA, Oakland and San Francisco, my mama, African- Irish- Puerta Rican, and indigenous Taino very poor single mother, and me launched POOR Magazine as an indigenous organizing project that actively practices eldership, ancestor worship and interdependence. We launched it as a direct resistance to the non-profit industrial complex, criminal UNjustice system, welfare systems, and the school to prison pipeline; that all work to separate, divide and destroy our indigenous systems of caring and community. As a poor people/indigenous people led organization the personal and organizational lives, dramas, concerns and struggles of the hundreds of co-leaders; poverty, youth, disability and migrant scholars at POOR Magazine are intertwined with the running, survival and thrival of ourselves, our families, our communities and our organization. Like many other poor people/indigenous people led organizations, there is no intention to untwine that real and honest core of truth, that is the indigenous organizational model.

In July of this year POOR Magazine (as well as many of the non-profits and small businesses in our building who we stand in solidarity with) received a notice that our lease would not be renewed by the new owners of the building. POOR Magazine's tenuous hold on stability was severed. As an organization we weren't planning to move until we had raised enough money to purchase a building so we could launch the revolutionary housing, arts and education project that acts as a long-term solution to homelessness: HOMEFULNESS; a sweat-equity co-housing and sustainable community that would house and give equity, support, arts education and economic development opportunities to homeless and formerly homeless families as well as house the offices and classrooms of the Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute and Uncle Al's Justice Cafe.

In San Francisco's Bay-view District there have been over 150 evictions reported in this month alone. In Oakland, 72 elder and disabled tenants face homelessness at the California Hotel due to mismanagement by a housing corporation given millions of dollars to "manage" their resident hotel. In New Orleans over 4, 500 people were evicted from public housing targeted for redevelopment. It was time, we thought, to employ another model for systemic change. It was time, we realized, to implement the very powerful UN Declaration on indigenous peoples.

Bop.. be-bop..bop..bop.. the drum beat wove through the voices, la tierra, our land- speaking for all the people who aren't here - who were already displaced, removed and destroyed, people like Jose Morales, a migrant elder removed from his land, his home of 40 years, by unjust laws put in place to protect property not people....

"Indigenous people shall not be forceably removed from their lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous people concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation and where possible with the option of return," POOR Magazine co-editor, indigenous Pilipino, African, Irish and Native descendent poverty and worker scholar, Tony Robles, read from Article 10-28 of the UN declaration on indigenous peoples throughout the ceremony

"Our land is under attack, we are working under a deadline, the General Services Administration (GSA) is threatening to take back 1/3 of our land but we will not go," Steve Jerome Wyatt, Native Scholar and president of the DQ University coalition testified at the ceremony. The ceremony was opened with a prayer led by indigenous scholars from DQ University and United Native Americans who are currently fighting for their rights to keep the only off-reservation tribal college, DQ University, alive and strong. Steve concluded, "our spirit is with all of you, with the people always! DQ will never die!

"We cannot allow POOR Magazine to leave this land, POOR Magazine represents our collective resistance to exploitation, deportation, incarceration, eviction," Renee Saucedo, Xicana scholar and resistance fighter in the war on migrant peoples, representing one of the events co-sponsors, La Raza Centro Legal, testified, "Who is POOR Magazine?, it is poor people of color, particularly young people, who are fighting criminalizing legislations like the gang injunction, people fighting everyday for justice, for our communities" Renee concluded.

We poor will wear our courage, sorrow and innocence vividly as our burning rage, until Private Property bombs on the stage where for much too long it's been pissing on the people, and then at last human space truly will belong to all. Excerpt from the poem, EVICTION, by San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman.

The Taking Back the Land Ceremony was about resistance to displacement, it was also about cross-organizational, cross generational, and cross-cultural movement building. Over 20 organizations, from San Jose to New Orleans represented, including Delores Street Community Services, SOMCAN, Just Cause Oakland, DQ University, United Native Americans, Coalition on Homelessness, HOMEY, POWER, Justice Matters, League of Revolutionaries for a New America, Faithful Fools Street Ministry, The SF Bayview, P.O.C.C. BLOCK REPORT, First Voice Apprenticeship Program, Lumpia Project, San Francisco Living Wage, CHP, Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition, CHAM, Axis of Love, All African Peoples Unification Party, Homeless Action Center and many more. Our lives, our communities, our organizations, our futures, are connected, shared and lived.

Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired.(Article 26 of the UN declaration on Indigenous Peoples)

Two SF Board of Supervisors candidates, Eric Quesada and David Campos, were on hand to testify. Each one is vying for district 9 (the Mission) which is ground zero of out of control displacement and gentrification of communities of color. "We have been fighting this fight for 500 years," Eric Quesada galvanized the crowd by calling out the roots of the land theft, the original theft of indigenous peoples land on Turtle Island that happened over 500 years ago when the colonizers "discovered" our land and launched an onslaught of terrorism on indigenous peoples in the name of "ownership" that has continued through today making the connections between historical and current displacement in the Mission, the tenderloin, the Bayview, DQ University, New Orleans and beyond.

Eviction Victim
Eviction Resistance
23 times and counting
"cause without equity we all at-risk"
Born from three generations of poor women of color and countless generations
of
colonized others
Mama Dee..an act of resistance- by tiny

"My mothers mothers mother was a slave - she worked in tobacco and cotton plantations, my mothers mother cleaned the houses and mansions in San Francisco, our blood is spilled in the name of others peoples profit, we will not be moved - we should own these buildings " all of this is ours," Citing Article 28 of the UN declaration which states, "indigenous people have the right to re-dress", Laure McElroy, POOR Magazine board member, welfareQUEEN and poverty, race and disability scholar in residence at POOR's Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute waved her hands to the land beneath and above our heads as she stated our collective right to reparations.

Bop.. be-bop..bop..bop..

"Any magazine named POOR, that's a magazine where Jesus would be".. proclaimed Sandy Perry street minister from event co-sponsor, CHAM in San Jose. Sandy began his solidarity message to the circle with prayer and a welcome from poor folks in San Jose who are struggling with displacement, eviction and poverty: "When Jesus said all of us can be rich, he didn't mean rich like these developers do, he meant rich with community, with love and with caring for one another", Sandy concluded.

Indigenous peoples have the right to establish their own media in their own languages and to have access to all forms of non-indigenous media without discrimination. (Article 16 of the UN declaration on Indigenous Peoples)

"Hoy es un dia historico"(today is a historical day) because as of today we will no longer accept displacement, Gloria Esteva, migrant and poverty scholar and staff writer with Voce De Inmigrantes en Resistencia at POOR Magazine (the revolutionary bi-lingual media access and education project for migrant raza workers in the Bay Area) who along with POOR Magazine reporteras y reporteros Teresa Molina and Guillermo Gonzalez, connected displacement with the exploitation of migrant peoples locally and globally, Gloria concluded, "This is our land, we built it from scratch, we will be exploited no longer!"

Prensa POBRE reportera Teresa Molina added, "The reason we don't own land is because they don't let us own land so they can exploit us for cheap labor! That is why we will continue to fight until our voices are heard!"

Be bop..bop..bop..bebop

"Please stand up and fight..I am from New Orleans, I know about removal and displacement from the government, thousands of people were removed and displaced and much of that displacement came from the government," August Foreman, Katrina survivor here to speak on Katrina for events in the Bay honoring Katrina's tragedy on August 29, spoke to our circle, with his words creating a national lens to the Take Back the Land Ceremony.

Be bop..bop..bop..bop..the spirits of our displaced ancestors rose up with the drum beat.

Midway through the ceremony, I asked for a silence to be called for all the people who aren't here - who have already been displaced and following that powerful moment, on the wings of the very spirits we called out to for strength our allies and fellow poverty scholars from The California Hotel in Oakland whose 72 elder, disabled tenants have faced eviction due to gross mismanagement by private housing developers OCHI, and allies, Just Cause Oakland arrived at the ceremony.

"We didn't want to become homeless, we didn't want to be put on the street," Mickey Martin, poverty scholar, tenant and now co-manager of the California Hotel described their fight to stay housed even in the face of police raids, city and private funding cuts and mis-management of their housing, "So now our attorney is suing the City for 53 million dollars to keep our hotel open for the rest of our lives - we are going to run our hotel til we become old and gray!"

He was followed by the powerful voice of Robbie from Just Cause Oakland,"We are working now to prevent the eviction of over 215 families from public housing and along with the California Hotel evictions are hitting hundreds of tenants of other residential hotels as well as over 600 public housing units"

One"WE ARE THE PEOPLE and Two..INDIGENOUS PEOPLE!Three! And we are taking back OUR LAND!

Chris Durazo, from displacement fighters and allies at SOMCAN, spoke to the crowd " This "Take Back the Land Ceremony" is very meaningful for us at SOMCAN because they are re-zoning the eastern neighborhoods (in San Francisco) where our families and elders live and we are responding by demanding that they ( the SF Board supervisors) stop building unaffordable condominiums and give it back to our families, our diverse families."

Article 14 Indigenous People have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages and in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning

"I work with the children every Tuesday and Thursday in FAMILY project", Youth Scholar and POOR press author Jasmine Hain spoke to our circle about FAMILY, an on-site classroom which is a joint education project of POOR Magazine and ART and faces eviction from their classroom at POOR. FAMILY is cooridinated by co-madre, poverty scholar and welfareQUEEN Jewnbug, who is also a skilled early childhood arts educator. FAMILY provides intergenerational programming, arts, music , dance and social justice to children ages 2-14 and parents in the Tenderloin struggling with poverty. "I work in FAMILY so that the poor families and elders, mamaz and daddys, can learn to write their stories and become media producers and make change for their families and communities" Jasmine concluded.

If people really wanted to "solve" homelessness they would start giving poor people access to equity! Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia

"I stand here, the descendent of a stolen people in San Francisco, Mexico", The next testifier was welfareQUEEN and poverty scholar in residence at POOR Magazine, Queennandi, who wrote a poem in honor of the ceremony, "My house is not my home, technically I'm houseless and don't own nothing .serial land robberies.the landlord whipped me with an eviction notice cuz I resisted being whipped"

"Under article 22 of the UN declaration, I accuse the federal government of benign neglect of disabled people, women and children locally and globally", founding member of POOR Magazine and poverty scholar in residence Joseph Bolden cited the declaration.

"I want to take you on a journey, in the U.S. we have the fair housing act, it came down under the Reagan administration" locally we have proposition K and L put into affect by Willie Brown, ostensibly to create more offices for non-profits- under these laws we have right to the right to be housed, not temporarily but permanently. Illin and chillin columnist for POOR and founder of KRIP HOP also cited UN declaration 22 and the recent laws that were passed to protect housing but seem to mean nothing to our communities.

Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired. (Article 26 of the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples)

Byron Gafford,Bayview resident of Alice Griffith who's family is facing pending eviction along with 150 others recently served with eviction notices in the Bayview thanks to government and corporate developers Lennar displacement efforts, testified with a poetic tribute to long-time girlfriend and recent victim of negligence at the hands of PG&E in the Bayview. "to rob, steal, and kill the good like shirley weston in order to claim the neighborhood of death for his own With the help from PG&Evil.."

.

Aldo Arturro Della Maggiorra called on our spirits and ancestors with the conga drum, Joe Smooke from Bernal Heights Community Center spoke on media mis-representations of poverty, RAM from POOR Magazine led the power-giving chants, San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman spit his beautiful tribute poem, Eviction, allies from Homeless Action Center in Oakland testified on their collaborative work with POOR, Bruce Allison at POOR spoke a tribute poem to elder eviction resistor Jose Morales, Mrs Booy from the Bayview, Quanah Brightman from DQ university, Leroy Moore/Illin n chillin, Jewnbug repping FAMILY project and many others spoke, represented and testified. So many powerful voices rose up and honored the silenced voices of indigenous peoples who struggled before us, who struggle with us today and will struggle and resist this in the future.

"To all of the Newsoms, Guiliani's and Schwarzeneggers, we will never give up." Revolutionary legal advocate, poverty and race scholar in residence at POOR and staff writer Marlon Crump authored a poem for the event which began, "This is OUR land you seize from OUR hand,

be..bop..bop..bopbebop..bop..

Postscript: After the ceremony the new owners of 1095 Market street met with POOR Magazine staff and committed to helping POOR Magazine and the other tenants who face eviction make a smooth and safe and transition to another space that will stabilize your urgently needed youth and adult programming for the long-term.

Navajo Nation Council Tables Water Rights Settlement
Grassroots Dine’ (Navajo) Vow to Stand Against Oppression
 
WINDOW ROCK, AZ – Due to pressure from the community, the Navajo Nation Council decided to put off voting on the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Agreement (NAIWRSA) and gave one week for public review but did not specify what the review would look like. The Council is set to consider the legislation again on Friday, October 8th but the date is subject to change.
 
Legislation No. 0422-10, also known as NAIWRSA, sponsored by Council Delegate George Arthur has faced increasing community criticism in the last few weeks.
 
More than 160 concerned Dine’ (Navajo) marched, rallied and then packed the council chambers to send the message for the council to “VOTE NO!” on the water rights settlement. Children, elders, parents, students and others from throughout the Navajo Nation joined together in chanting, “Water is life! Save our Future!”
 
NAIWRSA was created by lawyers including a non-native, Stanley Pollack, with the Navajo Nation as an attempt to resolve water rights claims of the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe for water from the Little Colorado River and from the lower Colorado River.
 
Dine’ community members have raised concerns that NAIWRSA gives the Navajo Nation only 31,000 acre-feet per year of 4th Priority Colorado River water, which would not be available in times of drought, and would require more than $500 million of new federal funding to pay for pipeline infrastructure to deliver water to communities in need. The federal funding would have to be appropriated by U.S. Congress.
 
One pipeline would be built to send Colorado River water from Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border to the reservation.
 
During the special session Hope Macdonald Lonetree, Council Delegate from Tuba City, raised concerns on the council floor regarding the document as being flawed & different than what was presented to the Navajo Nation committees. Specifically, exhibit A was not located in the agreement and the issue of the agreement being distributed to delegates moments before the meeting. She motioned for the agenda item to be stricken from the agenda but failed to gain votes.
 
Delegate Amos Johnson motioned to table the legislation and to give one week for council delegates to take the agreement back to their communities for review. 49 voted in support, 32 against with 7 not voting.
 
“It is appropriate for the Navajo Nation to consider Hogan level family’s water rights and they have an obligation to do that, to take it to the communities for their input which has not been the case,” stated Milton Bluehouse Sr. former Navajo Nation President. “The more informed the people are the better the decision will be made, with respect to their rights.”
 
Hope Macdonald Lonetree asked, "Why would we waive our rights to the water for just a promise of federal funding, when we know historically the appropriations have not come to Navajo?"
 
“Why was there no deliberate and detailed consultation with the affected Dine' communities?” said R Begay a concerned Dine'. “Why has this process been so secret? What does Stanley Pollack have to hide? This is an extension of colonialism and genocide against our people. We will stand against this oppression.”
 
“The most important thing to show our leaders is that we are watching them, we are making sure that they are accountable to their communities and what we hold sacred as Dine’ people,” stated Kim Smith, resident of St. Michaels. “Water is an essential part of our way of life, our ceremonies, our livestock and most importantly, it’s our future. We are calling on all Dine’ people who value their future, their sacred water to join us when the council goes back into session and let them know we want them to VOTE NO!”
 
Concerned citizens for Dine’ Water Rights along with organizations such as Dine’ Care, To’ Nizhoni Ani’, Black Mesa Water Coalition, Council Advocating an Indigenous Manifesto, ECHOES, and others are calling for another rally and march at the next council session.
 
The date and time have not yet been set. Visit www.dinewaterrights.org for further details.
 
“This movement to oppose the Arizona Water Settlement is about our children, and we will not waive their water rights, not now not ever,” Stated Ron Milford, a concerned citizen with Dine’ Water Rights.
 
“Only one percent of the water in this world is water we can consume,” stated Daniel Tulley a Dine’ student from Phoenix who made the trip with a caravan of ASU students to Window Rock to voice his concerns. “Worldwide water shortages are facing us, we need to protect what we have here, because it is sacred and we need to protect it for future generations.” 

A letter from Mama Dee to the Poverty, Race and Media Justice mentees at POOR Magazine

We have read all of your applications. Many of you have had access and privilege beyond anything we, a poor, mixed race, single mama and daughter and many of our fellow poverty skolaz we work, advocate for and struggle with, have every known.

Many of you have had exciting extracurricular and postgraduate volunteer work. Exciting is the operative word here. Some of you have had well-paying and interesting jobs as well.

When I see that kind of race and class privilege experienced by people, some still in their 20s and contrast it with all of us poverty skolaz, in their 30s, 40s, 50s and more, who have never had the opportunities most of you have had, I am almost at a loss for words and thoughts.

You owe so much and yet I do not want to see people helping others out of guilt because it often becomes nothing more than positivism, something you can forget when you go back to the next interesting job or advanced education program.

We, the originators of POOR , have come from poverty and only because of our intelligence and an ability to organize our thoughts, itself a form of privilege, have we been able to take these experiences from poverty, racism and suffering and be at one with them, to create this grassroots organization that hopefully gives opportunity to others who have experienced similar backgrounds.

Do you have the ability, I wonder, to understand the nuances of your access and privilege? Your health, your optimism, your dental care and on and on and on

We need people who have the ability to understand the subtle and not so subtle differences between yourselves and the people with whom we work.

I wasn't impressed by your insights on your applications. I didn't get the feeling that you were in touch with what I'm talking about.

It is possible for you to learn. However, places like Global Exchange that provide exciting volunteer work for people with privilege to keep them stimulated and excited is not what we are here at POOR.

There is a lot, a lot, a lot of drudgery in poverty- very little intellectual or creative stimulation. Much sadness and much, much frustration and isolation.

What can you do about this?

Beyond all else you need to see those tiny differences that occur between yourself and those that exist in poverty. That is the beginning.

We at POOR need people like yourselves that can do the frustrating tedious chores like grant writing and other types of fundraising as well as other administrative work. You need to pay your dues with work that is not very exciting. Working with the political events and assisting impoverished and disenfranchised people in writing from their voice and their experience is the exciting part. Even copyediting for these folks is more interesting than some of the day-to-day frustrations of maintaining our vision.

If you are interested in being here at POOR, you will be required to help with both, whether or not, you are bored, annoyed or frustrated. It is part of running a grassroots organization and it is what we do.

You can benefit by using your strength and optimism and abilities that have come to you from privilege and access to help us and I hope that, at least in part, you experience some of the boredom, frustration that we have experienced. That, in fact, you do not feel intellectually stimulated. That you are annoyed and have a pervasive sense of hopelessness from feeling overwhelmed like us and the people with whom we work.

From these feelings you will learn about poverty. Be thankful if this happens to you. Include them in your resume. They are more meaningful than any travels in India, Africa or other faraway places with strange sounding names, Ivy League college degrees or honor's from the dean's list, Phi Beta Kappa or Magna Cum Laude, stimulating and informative college classes, books with new and edgy thinking or any of the cumulative warm and happy holidays that you've experienced with family and friends.

I did not see any mention of this kind of experience on your resumes. I did see a lot of near cliches about wanting to "help" people.

I suppose you have gotten in the habit of writing this kind of resume because it is what graduate schools and good jobs require, but if you work here at POOR I would want you to rewrite your resume including these feelings based on your experience here and then convince future employers that this is in fact the way a resume should be written.

If you want to work at POOR you can let us know in writing how you understand what we expect of you. Do tell us what you think you can learn here as well.

Debajo en Espanol

Our family of POOR Magazine poverty, race, migrant, disability, youth and indigenous scholars hold in our collective hearts the pain of Oscar Grant’s mama and all the mamaz and daddys and tio’s y tias, y abuelas y abuelos who have lost children to the culture of deadly force, abuse and murder called the Police in Amerikkka.

Brother Oscar Grant, along with Ayana Jones, Idriss Stelley, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, their families and so many more victims of Po’Lice terror are honored on our altar of ancestor heroes in resistance at POOR Magazine. We send our prayers of healing and deep love. And with the utmost respect for the mama and families, we also stand in solidarity with many thousands of families and community members who are collectively screaming Enough!. No more killing of our babies, racial profiling and harassment of our communities No more lies about protection, and service. No MORE po’lice terror EVER!.

So is a world without para-military occupying soldiers, rooted in white supremacy, trained to kill, armed with weapons of mass destruction and sworn to loyalty to each other's protection above all else, possible?

For the masses of corporate media propagandized, born and bred into the cult of independence, institutional and structural racism and the bootstraps mentality it might not be.

US dominant culture works hard to separate and alienate our elder’s scholarship and traditions from our youth’s minds, our cultures out of and away from our communities and our ancestors teachings crushed and replaced by lies of wealth and privilege for all. We are taught  that our own personal happiness is of the utmost importance, that everything needs to happen immediately, and simply and our happiness is tied to how much we have and own not how much we know and how many people we are caring for.  We do nothing as a society to truly care, protect and hold our women and mothers and children so there is NEVER abuse of a woman or a child by someone so lost in their own struggle and or addiction that they perpetuate violence on the people they love.

Can we envision ourselves collectively, interdependently, dreaming and holding our ancestors teachings?

How does this happen. It begins with us breaking through the hypocrisy of our own lives on the daily. Recognizing our own impulse to resort to po’lice calls in situations of struggle cause it’s easier and faster to solve a “difficult problem” But of course it’s much deeper than that

As an indigenous people-led, poor people led, family created, arts organization, launched by a landless, indigenous mother and daughter in poverty POOR Magazine practices ancestor worship, eldership, care-giving and interdependence with a mandate of no Po’Lice calls ever. We have implemented a Community Council process based on our indigenous teachings which includes a meeting of all peoples involved in a conflict meeting for as long as it takes to hear everyone’s perspective with ground rules of respect and love and care-giving and inter-dependence.

And this process is always lengthy and messy and sad and strange and revelatory and beautiful. It’s not perfect, and always extremely difficult. But why shouldn’t it be. Why would or should solving human personal and organizational struggles ever be easy.

As a mother of a young child, and a survivor of both domestic violence and child sexual abuse, I am most concerned about how women and children aren’t protected in this society and I realize that we have much to learn about caring and protecting all of Creator’s peoples.

POOR Magazine’s Community Council is only one humble, in-organization example of people-led accountability, there is much to learn from other people-led accountability projects such as the Audrey Lorde Project , Alwaysasafespace and CUAV, as well as revolutionary concepts and ideas from groups like Critical Resistance and Incite.

But it really begins with re-thinking all of these things and the ways in which so many of us have been informed, taught, racialized and lied to about the notion of  safety and security itself. And how security has been equated with guns and walls and batons and tasers and then this concept of so-called security is used by multi-national corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater to make money on the backs of our fear and our desire for a simple answer to that fear.

Finally it is most important to remember that we are people, with culture, spirit, love and care and protection hard-wired in us. We must work harder, think deeper, dream bigger, love stronger to care for each other inter-dependently. Always.

En Espanol

POOR columnist and police brutality survivor, Marlon Crump tells about his legal battle against the SFPD.

Marlon Crump

PNN Tuesday, November 20, 2007;

"There is nothing more frightening, more scary, more terrifying than someone opening and coming through your door..........unannounced."

Last year the San Francisco Chronicle ran a month long series entitled "Use of Force" in which they chronicled past events of misconduct by the San Francisco Police Department. At the time, my case was still being investigated by the police oversight agency, the Office of Citizens Complaints (O.C.C) so nothing was written regarding my own brutal encounter with S.F.P.D members.

Just last month, the two-year anniversary of my worst police encounter occurred. On October 7th 2005 a dozen members of the S.F.P.D. stormed the AllStar Hotel, single room occupancy on 16th/Folsom Streets, where I still live. It was almost midnight. I was in my room, preparing to leave to pick up some food from the store with my food stamp card when suddenly my door lock clicked opened.

The next thing I knew, I was staring down the barrels of numerous guns carried by a squad of officers yelling obscenities at me. This is an image that will be forever seared into my memory and one that still haunts me to this day. One of the officers was a young short Filipino man, with a receding hairline named Officer Angel G. Lozano, I would later learn he had falsely prompted his assisting fellow officers and their commanding personnel of his "possible location of a black male armed robbery suspect, wearing a long black leather coat" at the AllStar.

Prior to his "capture" of me, he was with another fellow officer, a short Chinese man with a dark crew-cut named Raymond Lee.

Both officers swore to the AllStar Hotel Resident Manager, Robert Williams that I was a suspect in a robbery and that they needed a spare room key for my unit. By this time, nearly a dozen officers had arrived onto the premises. Despite the protests by Mr. Williams, he finally relented and relinquished my spare room key to the officers.

All of this was occurring as I sat inside my room preparing to go to the supermarket, unaware of the near-death experience that awaited me and forever changed my life. After a negative identification by the witnesses and victims of the armed robbery incident that took place in the area, Officer Angel Lozano was ordered on his walkie-talkie to let me go, and he gave me back my spare room key.

The very moment the police stormed my SRO, I knew that every single police procedural protocol was shattered--civil and privacy rights. Everything in my life was torn apart in that instant, just like the rip inside of my long leather black trench coat. I needed to seek retribution from a legal perspective, as I wasn't the type to always march with a picket sign, or violently fight back.

Justice doesn't ultimately mean having to resort to illegal or violent means. I would speak out against the injustices I endured by speaking truth, even if it meant a long hard struggle. After making a complaint with the Office of Citizen's Complaints, I filed a California Government Tort Claim against the City and County of San Francisco, on October 14th, 2005.

An investigator named Sandra Garcia was assigned to my claim and about two months after the initial filing and the incident, it was denied. "I spoke to a sergeant of the Mission District Station and they stated there was probable cause to detain you and no officer did any damage to your coat. He recommended that your claim be denied, Mr. Crump." I really wasn't surprised by this initial denial.

Throughout my ordeal, I've learned that just about any city government agency and police department will go through any lengths, even if it's a violation of state or even federal law to conceal any of its member's wrong doings, and ultimately, to discourage a complainant from demanding accountability.

I began attending a weekly meeting at San Francisco City Hall held every Wednesday by seven members of the Board of San Francisco Police Commissioners, which governs the SFPD and the Office of Citizen's Complaints. I also learned that unwarranted intrusions into an S.R.O tenant's room happened frequently and I decided to raise this issue to the police commissioners.

During the next two years I frequently attended, my case of unwarranted action by S.F.P.D members was sustained last year, and I pursued a civil action against San Francisco as a pro se litigant this year. I was also anticipating some sort of disciplinary action to be brought towards Lozano, Lee, and the rest of the officers of the Mission District Station that took part in that course of action.

Unfortunately, because of last year's right-wing/patriotic U.S. Supreme Court ruling of Copley Press in San Diego, a ruling that prevents a citizen from accessing a police officer's complaint history, or being present at a police review hearing during an intended disciplinary action upon an officer accused of misconduct; I may never know what discipline, if any was ever imposed upon Officer Lozano and his assisting personnel officers. This very ruling still causes a great controversy. I did, however, discover that Officer Angel G. Lozano has a past history of misconduct.

After viewing an old archive last year on S.F.GOV website, I found out that there was possibly disciplinary action against him in May and December of 2001, but of course, with Copley Press and certain provisions in State Law and the Peace Officer's Bill of Rights, I was able to access very little.

It took me nearly seven months to even obtain a police report regarding the officer's conduct upon me. I received the practiced responses over and over again. "Oh it's a slow process", or it might be "privileged information" or "your case is still being investigated". It was only after constant complaining at the police commission hearings that I finally received a copy of the original from Hall of Justice.

After examining the document, I was even more certain of Officers Lozano and Lee's lying. A huge paragraph in the "Narrative" section of the report, regarding the dialog between Lee, Lozano, and resident manager Robert Williams was blackened out. Why? Because there was something of an improper procedural protocol and of an incriminatory nature they tried to desperately conceal, and this was confirmed after I received another copy of the same police incident report before the year 2006 ended.

This particular report showed the paragraph in which the "sworn" statements by Lozano and Lee were that the suspect was wearing a brown jacket, tan pants, he stood about 5'7-5'8 tall with a baseball cap, which was completely different of my description as I stand 6'3 wore a long black leather coat, white dress shirt and black slacks.

The report also failed to mention that the key was demanded repeatedly from Mr. Robert Williams. The common denominator between myself, and this robbery suspect was only the color of our skin. Officer Angel G. Lozano apparently has a history of brutality and misconduct according to insider sources. Lozano's lack of proper procedural protocols is a potentially dangerous threat towards every citizen, but particularly for those living in an S.R.O Hotel, or in a community that is considered "poor" or of "color."

The brutality I endured at the hands of a poorly trained, highly unprofessional, and possibly violent police officer could have happened to anybody and with fatal results. That is why I continue to fight against this injustice by representing myself. I cannot risk turning over my case and my humiliation to the City, state or some unconcerned lawyer. I urge all of those who have suffered a similar fate in our criminal injustice system to speak out and fight their own battle. We cannot continue to allow our safety, humanity and well-being to be threatened at the hands of law enforcement officials.

A single mother relates the horror story of displacement out of San Francisco Public Housing into Homelessness

The deep sounds of never ending, mind-numbing,headache generating traffic bombarded the weather-beaten glass of the 6 motel (not to be confused with the pricier Motel 6), as I sat with displacement survivor and former Valencia Gardens tenant Linda William.

Driving up highway 80 East I kept referring to my friend and fellow PNN writer's careful directions, " Its sort of near Vallejo" she had said quietly on the phone, the weight of her horrendous dilemma flooding her voice, " I couldn't actually afford a motel in Vallejo, they were too expensive and all the cheap ones were filled" , she concluded wearily

It had been almost two years since Linda took the "sweet deal" offerred by Housing Authority to move out of her long-time residence at Valencia Gardens in San Francisco, Valencia being one of many hundreds of public housing projects in the Bay Area and across the nation labeled "bad" and targeted for "redevelopment" which resulted in the massive displacement of low-income tenants from public housing to essentially "a piece of paper" i.e., these tenants were handed a section 8 voucher and alot of promises of available market rate or privately owned low-income housing projects but ended up, like Linda, homeless, or as those of us in the know say; public housing was better than no housing, "they gave me a section 8 certificate and said I could go anywhere with it, of course I had always had a dream of moving out of the city with my 2 kids and I thought this was my big chance"

As Linda spoke the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, I, too, was relying on a pending section 8 certificate to stabilize the ever unstable housing of myself, my mother and my 9 month old son, but from all the recent reports out of the Bush administration, this "stable housing" might remain a dream.

"So with that certificate I started the search for housing in Vallejo, Fairfield and Marin, "Linda continued her story unphased by my uh huhs and head nodding, "well whaddya know, I found closed wait lists on almost all the low-income housing units in all of those places and all the rest of the landlords wouldn't even return my calls when I told them I had section 8" As Linda continued to explain how she transferred her certificate to Alameda County hoping for better luck in Oakland, I remembered the hideously classist and racist experience of trying to find an apartment when I told landlords that I was on section 8, "Ohhhhh noooo, I don't think so" they would say, dreams of welfare moms dancing in their collective land-holding heads.

"Eventually, I found a place in the middle of so much gang-mess, that one of my babies almost got shot last month, so I gave up and moved to this motel and now my section 8 worker is telling me that it doesn't matter anyway, cause due to the Bush-inspired cuts they probably won't have any money left in the section 8 program to fund another apartment for me anyway…and I'll end up homeless….." her voice trailed off into sadness and the whoosh of the highway filled the rooms silence

Linda was referring to the very serious cuts that the Section 8 program is facing due to the Bush Adminstrations' cuts to the program of 1.6 billion causing places like New York city to lose millions of dollars for existing section 8 vouchers and Alameda County not having enough money in May to even cover the rents of vouchers already in use.

"and now I hear that people are being offerred more sweet deals by housing authority to move out of the Bayview so rich people like Newsom and his buddies can make big bucks redeveloping the Bayview…."Linda paused to hold back an onslaught of tears, " all I can say to those folks is; Don't be fooled.. Hold onto what you have… Valencia Gardens had its problems, but it was still my home…it was still housing…"

To tell your story of eviction or displacement call PNN at (415) 863-6306 , to get involved in fighting the redevelopment effort of the Bayview call Bianca Henry at Family rights and Dignity (415) 346-3740,

Marlon Crump reports for PNN on Victims of Covert and Electronic Terror Rally at City Hall for the first time.

Marlon Crump
Thursday, October 22, 2009;

“Stop Group Stalking!”

“Stop Electromagnetic Weapons!”

“Stop Defamation of Character!”

“Stop Electronic Torture!”

“Restore Human Liberties!”

The voices of victims resisting the above covert acts of terror took to the front entrance of San Francisco City Hall on a humid October 14th, 2009 afternoon. Their voices finally began to penetrate the voluntary deaf ears, from the above said protest signs, handmade.

One of the signs given to me by a fellow protestor spoke its own voice, in big black bold letters: “STOP ORGANIZED TERROR!” I was also given a button that said, “Freedom from Covert Harassment & Surveillance.”

There was a visibility from fear, anxiety, and isolation of resistance in the air towards the acts of terror; covertly occurring upon them by the steps of the very city officials, who have the authority to aid them.

“This event means to expose crime committed against humans, by U.S. Government Agencies.” A protestor stated to me. He later told me that he produced a documentary film regarding “brain implants.”

My presence at this rally was my duty, without question. Being a reporter for my family of POOR Magazine/POOR News Network, I’m committed like my comrades to re-port and sup-port for the unheard voices intentionally silenced by corporate mainstream media, locally and globally.

I’ve been on numerous marches and protests since living in the Bay Area of San Francisco, for the past five years. Many of them pertained to the issues of poverty, racism, oppression, police brutality, budget cuts, etc, etc. These issues are always at the root core for the resistance within our work at POOR.

Today’s protest rally, “International Alliance Against Covert Electronic Abuse Global Human Rights Protest” was the first of its kind that I’ve ever re-ported on, and sup-ported for, to date.

This was not just a local crisis call to end an injustice for T.I (Targeted Individual) victims in cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and here in San Francisco. This was also global crisis call to action from victims to end the terrorism that appeared to be “too far-fetched” for “media coverage.”

T.I victims currently have a movement to end this crisis in the United Kingdom, India, and three cities in Canada.

“We protested in front of the Legislative Assembly Building and near Medical Science Building of University of Toronto on the 14th of October. We started at 10.30 A.M. There were 5 people in front of the Legislative Assembly, and I, Galina Kurdina.” Galina, a T.I. said to me via email, in detailing “People approached us and we distributed about 10 fliers.”

Unfortunately, Galina also stated that a women attempted tactics to implement a scanda upon them. Eventually she was scared off when one of the protestors offered to take her picture, and she fled the scene. The rally continued on.

“One student of University of Toronto, sweet boy, said to us that, in his opinion, these experiments were disgusting, another person wished us to continue our struggle.”

In front of S.F City Hall, a C.B.S 5 News crew of two bypassed us, as we were numbered neared twenty. An undisclosed source later told me that they were told to ignore us. No corporate mainstream media coverage of covert terrorism intended to capture this event. “That doesn’t surprise me, everybody.” I yelled to them.

“That’s why we do what we do at POOR Magzaine because of them!”

In “Electronic Harassment” and “Targeted Individuals” (featured on www.poormagazine.org) many of the voices heard in both stories have often been covertly covered, ridiculed, discredited, harassed, with the end result leading them into fearful, faithless isolation.

An “Enough is Enough” stance from everyone at today’s rally was an awareness to the public regarding the categorical use of advanced deadly technology, organized stalking, microwave, directed energy, electromagnetic and mind control weapons often used against them.

This action was to be the first of many in the future. This one was the beginning to the demise of a bizarre seemingly invisible means of covert terror meant to control, harass, intimidate, and even experiment from persons or persons unknown. It didn’t matter to all of us who, what or where they were on this October 14th, 2009 Day.

It wouldn’t matter to everyone on whether or not any of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and Mayor Gavin Newsom would listen from the inside. I didn’t even matter if the organized perpetrators, themselves would appear to intimidate everyone in covert fashion, and “support” the cause.

The unheard voices of the International Alliance Against Covert Electronic Abuse needed to finally be heard on the outside.

After I was picked up by Anti-Organized Stalking Activist, T.I Organizer, Christine Lynn Harris a T.I, (Targeted Individual) and director of ISARC (Idriss Stelley Action Resource Center) mesha Monge-Irizarry, my comrade we soon found ourselves across the street from S.F City Hall before we knew it.

The three of us stood alongside of each other, as we awaited the arrival of the other unheard voices, victims of covert terror. For Christine, this event was nearly a year dragged into the making.

Hit with strange severe sophisticated technology. Stalked by suspicious individuals (some possibly S.F.P.D Officers) during her daily activities. Emergency hospital admission on numerous occasions for severe radiation damages to her organs. Individuals appearing at her home costumed as phone technicians.

Ignorant and disbelief from people questioning the level of her sanity, despite documented proof supporting her claims. Consumed with constant physical and mental torture, while being forced to be attentive to her surroundings anywhere she goes. (Tactical component covert acts used by what some are calling, “The Crazy Makers.”)

Not to say the least, her very life threatened with a marked C.D, and even her car illegally towed in retaliation for speaking out.

“All of this over a f!@## piece of paper!” Christine often exclaimed to me. She previously sent the attorney general's office a letter concerning misdeeds of the president of the homeowners association. A short time later, Christine received an ongoing onslaught of electronic attacks, and covert stalking after voicing her concerns.

The sun scorched us. It pushed away rainy clouds, but it failed to prevent T.I (Targeted Individuals) voices from joining the rally.

They arrived a short time later, eager to get their unheard voices underway. Some of them were from California cities, such as Modesto, Fresno, Marin County, Oakland, and Berkeley.

“This makes me feel that I am not the only one going through this.” A T.I protestor said to me. She began to explain to me, (while fighting back tears and showing expressions of hopelessness) the horrors of harassments by S.F.P.D Officers, false accusations made towards her, and the removal of her driver’s license and car. “My father died when I was eighteen from electromagnetic weapons.”

After some pleasant verbal exchanges with onlookers, passer bys, an S.F.P.D Officer, a media crew from S.F. VID (who interviewed Christine) and a couple of S.F Sheriff Deputies, during the first few hours, we all went to the side of the street curb, and waved our signs to oncoming motorists.

To our surprise, many of them cheerfully honked their horns in support. For four straight hours in the heat, some of us (including myself) wearing black, we received horn honking praises from the oncoming drivers.

“Today feels very exciting because this is groundbreaking from victimization of T.I.s, towards a proactive grassroots effort all over the world.” mesha explained to me.

“I think it was a mission accomplished because we had about twenty people show up for the protest, a reporter from S.F Vid, and the rain cleared up for us today.” Christine said to me. “I think that we got the acknowledgment we received.

"God sees everything!"
Revelations 18:21

A family in poverty, Larry, Bessie and Charlie, vs. the System and Poli-tricks

Marlon Crump/Poverty Scholar/POOR Magazine
Tuesday, October 24, 2006;

The walls are covered by a collage of pictures of people who have fallen as a result of San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) violence; mostly black youth and youth of color whose lives were stolen and cut short. Set within the walls is a feeling of revolution and liberation and also a deep sadness.

The Idriss Stelley Foundation (ISF) is a safe haven as well as an underground railroad for people who have been brutalized by the SFPD.

Idriss Stelley was shot and killed by SFPD at the Sony Metreon on June 13 2001, "48 shots, 9 officers, as he stood alone in an empty theater." A shrine to Idriss is set in one part of the room. Mesha Monge-Irizarry, mother of Idriss Stelley started the Foundation. Mesha is a phenomenal woman. She is truly a privilege to be around.

For the past month Mesha, myself, and many others have been meeting to plan the march on October 22nd against police brutality. It was at these meetings that I first met Bessie Berger and her two sons, Larry and Charlie Wilkerson. Bessie is 94 years old, Charlie is 59, and Larry is 57. They are living homeless in San Francisco. Bessie and her sons had come to the meetings to voice their concerns and tell their stories of harassment by the SFPD.

Like Bessie and her family, I have dealt directly with police brutality. This past Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of a traumatizing assault committed against me by the SFPD in my own home. On October 7th 2005 twelve armed police officers broke into my room at the All Star Hotel. The All Star Hotel failed to protect my rights as their tenant, which is a part of the long legal battle that I am currently caught up in. The SFPD wrongly accused me of a crime I did not commit and entered my room in the early hours of the morning. This is only one example of the kinds of police brutality that I, and many others, living in Single Room Occupancies (SRO's) have had to endure. The stories Bessie and her sons tell are all too familiar.

Mesha and Myself met with Bessie, Larry, and Charlie at the Idriss Stelley Foundation to hear their story.

Bessie is in a wheelchair and is in dire need of a new one. She has trouble seeing and hearing. Both of Bessie's legs are severely swollen. Bessie is a small, gentle woman of incredible spirit and she does not let her age slow her down. Bessie was well respected by the motorcycle gang, The Hell’s Angels, who referred to her as "mama." Bessie's family tree extends from a nineteenth century U.S. Navy Admiral named Allen Schley to Edgar Allen Poe.

Larry and Charlie are both silver haired men. Larry speaks from the heart and he has a stern voice. Charles has a more joking character and ads a comic sense here and there. Their voices contain anger and frustration. They are both tired.

Larry and Charlie are true examples of one of The Ten Commandments "Honor thy mother and thy father." Larry and Charlie's great concern is the well being of their mom. Bessie is bathed daily by her sons either from The City's resource facilities for the homeless or from a one night hotel room that they obtain from the little money they have. They continue to care for her even while under the pressure of the harshest of times economically, socially, and politically.

Larry and Charlie are both strong, capable men. They are able to care for their mom but they too are having health problems of their own. They are unable to care for themselves because most of their money goes towards the care of their mom. Bessie only receives a combined total of $800 a month, half of which goes towards her Medicare, she is left with only $400 a month.

Larry, Charlie, and Bessie have only been back in San Francisco four months. They briefly lived here in 2001 during the administration of Mayor Willie Brown.

Four months ago they lived in Palm Springs, California. Both Larry and Charlie worked industrial jobs to support their mom, each making $6.25 an hour. They worked opposite schedules so that while one was working the other one was taking care of their mom.

They lived in Palm Springs and faithfully paid their rent on time. They paid the standard cost of first and last months rent, and the security deposit that totaled over $1200. The building attendant took their move-in deposit and rent, never submitted a receipt, and never turned the money into the management. As a result of the building attendant's criminal conduct they were evicted by the property management. Bessie and her sons immediately brought a legal action upon the management, but they were unsuccessful and the case was mysteriously ruled out.

The All Star Hotel's handling of my situation on that fateful night last year was similar in its complete disregard for my wellbeing. Being evicted from your own home or having twelve unannounced police officers with guns burst into your room are experiences no one should ever have to endure.

Losing practically everything they had Bessie and her sons sought food and lodging from relatives. Bessie in the past had always welcomed family into her home and cared for them in their times of need. Now in need herself, Bessie asked her relatives for help. The same relatives she had always housed and fed would not take her and her sons in. Larry recalled their situation with anger.

"They did not care for one of their very own who had cared for them when they all had nothing! It really breaks our hearts but we've managed to survive this long. Someone will help us, I hope," Larry concluded sadly.

The family also endured a heart shattering loss of a loved one. In 2001 while staying in Lake County, Bessie's great grandchild, eight year old Tyler James was killed by a drunk driver, named Mark Shifflet. Shifflet struck down Tyler while driving at 70 mph. A California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer arrived at the scene and astonishingly allowed Shifflet to leave the scene of the accident. The accident occurred on Highway 175 in Middletown. It was later discovered that Mark Shifflet had previous D.U.I arrests. But on this tragic night Shifflet was never given a sobriety test. The release of Shifflet was criminal negligence on the part of the CHP officer. The family lost the case in court and Mark Shifflet and the CHP officer walked away unscathed and unpunished.

I am also waiting for the day in court where I will see legal action taken on my behalf for the criminal conduct that was committed against me by the SFPD at the All Star Hotel.

Bessie, Larry, and Charlie have had to endure much harassment and abuse. In 2001, Bessie and her two sons approached Mayor Willie Brown, to seek his help in obtaining services. According to Larry and Charlie "We did nothing wrong, we didn't provoke him, we weren't aggressive. We just wanted him to direct us to the right facility to care for our mom because we were all homeless. He says he didn't like the way we looked and he immediately called security to escort us out. That really hurt us a lot, because we felt he could really help us."

Shortly thereafter, the family caught sight of Mayor Brown at an event in front of City Hall. They again asked for his help and Mayor Brown showed the same discourtesy towards them as he had done before. They have not received any different treatment from the current administration.

They recently tried to seek refuge at the Salvation Army but the director refused them entry because of Bessie and her age. Larry and Charlie told the director, "Look, she's 94 years old, ma'am. We'll be damned if we have to separate and put her in some nursing home. We know all about the evils of neglect in those kinds of places. She is our mother and we are not leaving her to be mistreated!" The director looked at all of them, with a cold and scornful glare, then replied, "I don't care, ok? She's not our damn problem or fault. She should be in a nursing home and not with her sons."

The response by the director of the Salvation Army towards Larry and Charlie is a prime example of the "Western" notion and belief in individuation. Dr. Wade Nobles, a tenured professor in the Black Studies Department at San Francisco State explains individuation in POOR's fourth issue, "MOTHERS" in the article "The Nature of Mama."

Dr. Wade Nobles says,

"I believe that capitalism and much of the construct in Western psychology emerge out of the same philosophical grounding, and that philosophical grounding is based on the idea of separateness, distinctness, domination, fear, and exploitation. So, capitalism is just the economic system that parallels individuation as a psychological system. It's not that it promotes it, it certainly does reinforce it and allows for it to exist, because individuation would never challenge some of the precepts of capitalism. Capitalism says I've maximized my profits, minimized my loss; in order to do that, I have to exploit others. I won't exploit others if I believe that others and I are the same. So if I believe in individuation, then I certainly have a free license to exploit others."

Larry and Charlie are committed to staying with their mom and caring for her themselves despite what the dominant response is,a committment which like my editor Tiny says, is supported and practiced in POOR Magazine's indigenous family organizing model for poor, and/or homeless families trying to survive and thrive in the US.

Bessie and her sons have been living out of their car. Their car has countless miles on it and they dread the day that it will no longer work. If their car breaks they would be forced to find storage for all of their personal belongings or lose everything.

Since our meeting an unfortunate event occurred. On Sunday October 15 their car was broken into, the registration, all their ID papers, and social security information is gone. This is an unusual theft and they are devastated.

They have continually been harassed in Golden Gate Park by the SFPD. The SFPD have intimidated, verbally assaulted, and insulted them. On one occasion an officer yelled, "No you are not suppose to know or do anything, but be like you people already are, poor and uneducated!"

Bessie, Charlie, and Larry have had to struggle to be triumphant against the criminalization of poverty. As Tiny Gray-Garcia at POOR magazine said, they are Poverty Heroes.

In closing the interview Mesha and I asked what they wanted San Francisco to do to aid them in their needs. Bessie replied, "I only want the city to please help me and my sons out. I also want the city and the mayor to order the police to leave us alone, because we are not hurting anyone. We just want to be helped and not disrespected."

Since the time of our meeting with Bessie, Larry, and Charlie on September 30th at the Idriss Stelley Foundation a short video was created of their situation, and can be viewed at

http://www.current. tv/studio/media/13670557?

You can view Mesha's article about Bessie and her sons at the Idriss Stelley Foundation's website:

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo9ewi/idrissstelleyfoundation/

The Idriss Stelley Foundation (ISF) will be hosting a benefit, after the November elections, for Bessie and her sons, which will help to purchase Bessie a new wheel chair.

You can make donations to Bessie and her sons by sending a check to:

ISF, 4921 3rd Street, SF,CA, 94124, attn:Justice4Bessie

ISF also donated a cell phone to the family. You can call Larry Wilkerson at (415) 368-2261 (415-DOT-CAMI). You can also log on to Justice 4 Bessie Berger, set up by ISF, to show your support, by emailing

Justice4Bessie-subscribe@yahoogroups.com,

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Justice4Bessie.