July 14, 2014

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "The good old days, when renting without a lease was no problem, and business decisions were settled with handshakes, was when the African Outlet set up shop in Hayes Valley. With commercial rents on Octavia Street rising from $5,000 to $7,000 and beyond, those days are long gone."

As I learned in Peopleskool and through my own research, the African Outlet are victims of gentrification and will be forced to close. Their situation coincides with Marcus Bookstore, because both business owners had problems with rent and ridiculous bills for repairs that they do not have control over. I sincerely believe there is a reason behind closing the only original African store in San Francisco. It is being closed regardless of how much money they raise, and Marcus Bookstore was taken from under our feet.

I had to investigate this situation personally because I graduated from SFSU in Africana Studies, and Marcus Bookstore was the cornerstone and foundation of the protests to establish the Ethnic Studies Department. The first BSU in the United States, along with every indigenous culture you can think of, was established under the Ethnic Studies Department, and they have emphases on each culture you’d want to major in.

At SFSU I chose my own heritage to study. People judge me as if it means nothing because of the fact it is an Africana Studies major and not a Psychology major, plus everyone keeps on telling me I’m never going to get a job because of my choice of a Bachelors Degree. It is true that a lot of people won’t hire me, but I learned a lot of important things, not only about African Americans and slavery, but also about African Heritage, especially in Egypt and the West African cultures. I even took a class called Black Journalism which Tiny and Mama Dee attended while establishing POOR Magazine, twenty years ago. Mama Dee laid the foundational principles of POOR around what people like Wade Nobles teach.

All this is to say, I, along with everyone else in the Bay Area, are upset because the only Black-owned businesses in San Francisco are being taken, no matter how hard we fight a lawyer or someone who doesn’t want us to rise and unite with everyone. They attack the establishment of the African outlet.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “There's nothing quite like the African Outlet elsewhere in San Francisco, or possibly anywhere. The corner retail space is crammed from floor to ceiling with masks, statues, clothing and art. The aroma of incense burning outside greets visitors who walk through a narrow path between the exotic treasure." I met the store owner, Big Mike, in person at a drum circle, a week later at Juneteenth, and again performing dance at the El Cerrito County Fair for July Fourth, plus I met him over at my friend’s house that I knew since middle school. That was wacked out crazy: he participates in all the events. One thing about his performances that I thought was weird, was they have a casket with doves in them so on stage all you see is a box open. I was blessed to meet all the dancers and see a lot of people promoting African culture.

Every time I see Big Mike, aka Fuck the Police Big Brother of the Hood, his women and his children, I purchase alphets (outfits) when they distribute them during festivals and other events. For example, they had numerous people modeling clothes as well as painting themselves in the indigenous ways Africans do when they are in rituals. They taught us how certain representations of a scar mark men from particular tribes, and mark turning into a man.

Everyone knows Big Mike in the neighborhood because of his famous tattoo, but also his wonderful heart and compassion, his mission to protect his community in all different ways. I personally met him when I was in sixth grade. If someone in the neighborhood disrespects me, all I have to say is Big Mike is my big brother, which a lot of females do.

I love the culture at the African Outlet, because it is not just the clothes, its the continuous flow of people gathering through the spirit of practicing indigenous practices and a safe haven for people to communicate with each other.
 

35th Annual Xicana Moratorium Day: Displace Gentrification, Not Our Hoods

Sunday, August 31st, San Antonio Park, East Oakland (Ohlone Land)

In 1970, over twenty-thousand Raza people filled the streets of LA to call for an end the War crimes in Vietnam that not only took a toll on Vietnamese lives, but also took the lives of Raza and other folks of color being disproportionately put on the front lines to die for this capitalist for profit country. Chicana Moratorium Day called an end to the violence and crimes the U.S. government was committing abroad, but also called for an end to the violence, crime, and inhumane conditions that Raza and other communities of color were experiencing in barrios and ghettos all over the U.S. at the hands of police, the education system, the prison system and other arms of this capitalist system. More than forty years later we gather to continue calling an end to the terrorist criminal acts of the U.S. Government over sees and here on our streets.

In 2014, U.S. military is no longer in Vietnam, but people of color continue to be heavily recruited into the military to take part in ongoing Western Expansion and its never ending greed for profit, power and land. Today, U.S. military forcers play a lead role in the destruction of land, economy and lives of people in Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Philippines, Guam, Egypt, Syria, and the list can sadly continue for much too long. While millions of people in the U.S. are homeless or have no access to quality affordable housing, food, health care, social services or quality education, all under the guise of lack of funding, an endless sources of wealth continues being poured on the daily into funding terrorist governments such as the Zionist killing machine of Israel, or into funding U.S. military operations to continue for profit wars around the world.

Today, Western powers play a predominant role in carrying out the displacements of Third World people’s not only from their home countries, but also the displacement and separation of families that have taken refuge here within the U.S. We could look at different places throughout the world and directly see the connection between displaced peoples and U.S. Involvement in this process. We could look at the Philippines as one of those places where the U.S. government and military has had its hand in taking over land, resources and has controlled its government in the best interest of U.S. economic profit since 1898. In 2014 the number one export from the Philippines is workers, particularly women, who often end up as low wage hotel workers, domestic workers and airport workers in the U.S. and in other nations across the globe. Filipino people flee their homeland due to the continual violence at the hands of the U.S. trained and supported military, the U.S. funded and trained counterinsurgency to the Filipino resistance movements, and U.S. funded and controlled puppet governments that work to keep Filipinos landless and living in extreme poverty.

When we move further west, we can see Palestine as another perfect example of displacement at the hands of this Government. Mainstream media constantly justifies the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people at the hands of U.S. trained and funded Israeli military, but how could you justify 80% of the casualties at the hands of Israel being civilians, most of which are children and elders? Let’s not forget the backyard of the U.S., Central America, where the U.S. has funded, trained and controlled both puppet governments and its military at many different junctures throughout the history of the United States. The U.S. has caused so much instability and violence that today the violence in Honduras is comparable to the violence in Iraq during the peak time of the War. This violence has caused thousands of children to flee their home countries and brave the dangerous trek up north just to have a chance at survival.

As Third World Survivors of Western capitalist expansion build roots in barrios and ghettos through out the U.S., this government continues to remind our people that our existence is a threat to the system that seeks to keep us as a disposable labor force. When we try to build roots and create beauty in our communities, this system will always attempt to destabilize and uproot our people or dispose of them when they are in the way of economic profit. In the last decade we have seen this destabilization and uprooting come in the for of gentrification that with it brings racist laws and militarization of our communities that work to build fear amongst our people and criminalize our communities as a way to push us out. San Francisco and Oakland are two prime examples of this gentrification.

When you visit the San Francisco Mission today – one of San Francisco’s most highly gentrified neighborhoods – its as if there was no semblance of a once predominantly Raza neighborhood with a rich culture. The Mission today attempts to continue profiting off of the beautiful Raza culture, but the city has brought in gang injunctions that criminalize brown youth that once lived there, no loitering laws that specifically target homeless people, and condos that have made rents skyrocket and make housing no longer affordable for working class families. Now white young professionals can enjoy the culture of the Mission, eat at fancy new restaurants, enjoy the fancy new clubs, and park their beamers at $5 an hour meters without having to fear that the people who once lived there will be roaming the streets. When you cross the bridge to Oakland, a very similar dynamic is taking place. We have seen gang injunctions, no loitering laws, proposed youth curfews, proposed stop and frisk laws and increased budgets for the police department who we know are intended to push out people of color from the streets and neighborhoods of Oakland. We have seen the condos and are seeing area specific plans like the West Oakland Specific Plan and the East Oakland Specific plan that attempt to “revitalize” and further develop areas to attract new residents that will bring with them more money and will attempt to displace working class communities of color from communities we have been long rooted in.

This long and ongoing history of displacement can cause anger and resistance towards this government, and for that reason, the U.S. has heavily funded their population control plan which takes the shape of prisons, detention centers, deportations, the heavy militarization of our streets, counter insurgency strategies here at home, and the heavy surveillance of its population. In September, Oakland plans to host and support the funding of the 9th Annual Urban Shield conference, a training for SWAT and Police agencies that brings together local, national and global law enforcement agencies with defense industry contractors to provide training and introduce new weapons and suppression tactics to these agencies that will later be used to further militarize our streets. Today prisons and detention centers have become for profit cages that force men, women and children to live in conditions that are so inhumane, that last year, 30,000 California prisoners engaged in sixty day hunger strike to demand basic human rights within these cages. Today the U.S. Senate mocks the humanity of our people by supporting new legislation that would reverse federal law that protects Central American children from deportation if they face the threat of violence in their home country, and calling that bill the “HUMANE Act.” This so called HUMANE Act would lead to the deportation of thousands of Central American children.

On the 35th annual Bay Area commemoration of the 1970 Chicano Moratorium Day we want to call attention to the displacement and gentrification we see in working class communities through out the country, but we also want to draw the connection of the different forms of displacement and terror that this country is causing through out the world. We still call for a Moratorium on the war against indigenous people, third world people, against our land and against what every community should hold as their treasure – the Children! We ask that you all join us this year as we celebrate la Resistencia and we stand collectively to honor the struggle that we must continue upholding now more than ever!

Join us for the 35th Annual Xicana Moratorium Day

Displace Gentrification, not Our Hoods

Sunday August 31st

5am - Sunrise

10am - 12pm: Aztec Dance hosted by Grupo Cuauhtonal

12pm - 5pm: Festival

San Antonio Park: Foothill Btw 16th and 18th Avenue in Oakland

What to Expect: Poetry, singers, bands, speakers, DJ, Dancing, Kids Activities, Free Food, Vendors, and Community

Pena de Muerte Tejana Injusta

[Scroll below for English version]

En Texas, fue ejecutado el ciudadano Mexicano Edgar Tamayo por asesinar a un agente del orden publico.  Le dieron sentencia de muerte porque en Texas, el homicidio de un policía es considerado igual de grave que el homicidio de unniño menor de seis años.

Edgar fue arrestado por robar un reloj. El policía Gaddis, lo reviso y no se diocuenta que Edgar estaba armado y lo llevo en patrulla y dentro de la patrullaTamayo mato al  policía con varios balazos. Quedo inconciente el oficial, seestrello contra una casa. Lamentablemente el policía murió cuando eratrasladado a un hospital en helicóptero.

Zarco Mendoza, amigo de Tamayo, declaró a la policía como habían ocurridolos hechos y sirvió de testigo de la fiscalía en el juicio contra del ciudadanoMexicano. Luego fue sentenciado a un año de cárcel por su participación en elrobo.

Tamayo no habla Ingles y nunca supo que podría y tenia el derecho de recibir laasistencia legal de las autoridades del consulado de su País.Pues no pudo tenerun juicio justo. Se que para la familia del policía se hizo justicia pero para lafamilia de

Tamayo todo esto fue injusto. Yo no entiendo como en los Estados Unidostrabaja el sistema porque yo se que Edgar actúo mal al quitarle la vida al policíaque no pudo conocer a su primer hijo pues su esposa estaba embarazada peroel proceso legal le debía haber dado un juicio justo.

Yo entiendo esto pero lo que no comprendo es que si un Latino mata a alguiencomo fue el caso de Tamayo, hay justicia pero si un policía mata a un Latino no hay justicia. Dejan libre al asesino como si se tratara de un  animal o una cosa, solo se lavan las manos diciendo que fue un accidente y tranquilos siguenviviendo.  

Pero me da pesar por las familias de ambos como el que muere y el que mataporque las dos familias pierden y sufren por eso. Yo les pido, a las personas queleen esto, que piensen bien en sus actos. Piensen en sus familiares y enustedes mismos no le roben a nadie. No maten a nadie. También no hagansufrir a nadie pues por una tontería de material porque pueden perder suslibertad. Esta historia que sea un ejemplo para nosotros. Bendiciones a las dosfamilias.

Death Penalty in Texas Unfair

In Texas, the Mexican citizen, Edgar Tamayo was given a death sentence for killing a police officer. According to Texas law, anyone who commits homicide against a police officer is considered in the same category as someone who murders a 6-year-old child.

Tamayo was arrested for stealing a watch. Officer Gaddis stopped him and didn’t realize Edgar was armed when he arrested him. When he was in the cop car, Edgar shot Gaddis in the head, left him unconscious and the cop car crashed into a house. The officer died in a helicopter on his way to the hospital.

Meanwhile, Zarco Mendoza a friend of Tamayo declared as a witness on what happened. He was given a one-year sentence for the crime. Tamayo, who does not speak Spanish and didn’t know he, had the right to legal advice from the Mexican consulate. He did not have a fair hearing. The officers’ family thinks the trial was just. Tamayo’s family also thinks his sentence was unjust. I cannot believe this happened in the United States. I know what Edgar did was wrong, but he deserved fair trial. It is also sad that Gaddis’ wife was pregnant so he did not know his son at all.

I understand the fact that he committed murder but I don’t know why when a Latino commits a crime he is prosecuted to the full extent, and when a white person or a Latino they can go free! It’s like we are animals with no value or human rights! They wash their hands, say they are innocent that it was an accident and walk free. The truth is that they deserve to be prosecuted equally.

This is why I ask everyone who read this to please think before they act. Think about themselves and their family. Please don’t steal from anyone! Don’t take anything that’s not yours. Please don’t kill! Please do not make others suffer because no priced object is worth a crime. You can lose your freedom and your very life this way. I hope this story can be an example for all. Blessings to all families who have lost a loved one. 

(image of an eviction notice posted on now houseless single mama Sabrina Carter's door, evicted from privatized public housing in San Francisco)

“We are calling on San Francisco to take swift action to both prevent further displacement of San Franciscans by investing ineviction prevention, while reapidly re-husing up to 700 househilds through fixing up vacant public housing units and subsdizing households in private and non-profit housing.  These intitiaves are exactly what SF needs right now.”  According to Julia D’Antonio of the SRO Families United Collaborative. 

The Coalition on Homelessness, along with the Emergency Services Providers Association is putting forward four proposals, one to fund homeless prevention  which would stave off displacement for 2,700 households.  The other three are to fix up vacant public housing units and move homeless families into them, expand current private market housing subsidy and lastly, subsidize households in turn-over non-profit affordable housing units so that homeless households can afford to move in.

April 14, 2014

At POOR Magazine's indigenous news-making circle we call Community Newsroom this April there was a storming result of women and organizations coming together with holiness to lead the circle. We got visitors from other parts of the country, and what they said confirmed that for some reason, gentrification and mistreatment is going on all over the United States. Our visitors came from Detroit to screen their film, “We Are Not Ghosts.”

I went to their movie screening at the First Congregational Church of Oakland. “We Are Not Ghosts” is about the problems in Detroit and the wonderful outcomes there, which grew from people’s work regardless of class, creed, color, or religion. A lot of people think gentrification is because of race and class privilege but I sincerely believe gentrification and mistreatment work against both the poor and the rich. No class, less class: it doesn’t matter, private corporations tear down family stores and indigenous-led gardens.Evidently Detroit was known to be the worst place in the United States and there are miles and miles of nothing, like the desert. The screening showed live footage of grassroots solutions like what they call the D-town Farm, a literacy school, and even a biking system. I wonder if the Detroit which they refer to as “ghost town” will spread amongst all the people and then everyone will collaborate against displacement and gentrification like Detroit has been doing.

The garden in the movie is led by all races, and it is unique, because white people are always criticized for building nonprofits in the low-income communities, and do not teach people how to establish their own nonprofits. But here white people’s role is different and they collaborate with people of color leadership. They grow beans, rice, wheat, vegetables, and they raise their own animals that are not pumped with hormones but cared for with love. The gardeners have another project that bakes fresh pies and a whole line of fresh desserts. They interviewed the youth at the end of the screening and they said they like the green life and not the deserted place they were. They are not owned by corporate entities, because it is people-led, and I was amazed how they turned this deserted place into a living joy with peaceful practices and healthy environment.

The thing that most stuck out to me was the literacy program that was led by mothers and volunteers who teach the kids leadership skills as well as regular reading curriculum. One of the teachers stated, “We have to love these children like they came from our own womb, and connect them with elders.”

Lastly they made transportation by riding bikes and traveling from neighborhood to neighborhood. Less pollution is a great idea as is teaching exercise as a meaningful thing to practice in life.

At the end of the screening we had group discussions on how the Bay Area is being targeted the same way Detroit was. I just recall this one lady saying white people need to teach other white people how to treat blacks. I brought up a suggestion stating all people have to learn from each other and respect each other because of the differences of culture. There does not have to be an isolated training on how to work with low-income based communities, because black people are human, white people are human, Chicanos are human, and the list goes on. We need to hear from everybody. The group I was in had concerns about how corporate government might destroy what they built, but hopefully that doesn’t happen. Another statement was that the people in the movie are not just making a garden, they are creating a green community that doesn’t have to rely fully on the government.

The problems facing Detroit and the Bay Area are deeper because a lot of people with no education mostly tend to be poor people, and they have no jobs. No jobs means more crimes, and that is what the main leader of the “We Are Not Ghosts” group brought up after they announced, “The people in Detroit are not Ghosts and they are showing how to make the planet.” They are flipping around the way things usually go, turning away from violence.

The reason I wrote Homefulness in the title is because all of us poor and indigenous, multi-generational, multi-racial, multi-lingual folks at POOR Magazine launched  a similar almost exact project in East Oakland on sacred Ohlone land we call Homefulness in Deep East Oakland. This is a neighborhood that is intentionally blighted and destroyed by what Tiny at POOR calls poltricksters and real estate snakkkes, causing folks who dont know to be is terrified to enter because of the violence, but  we are humbly building this landless peoples movement with love and our own values as fellow poor people who have been racialized and hated. We create jobs when we have the money to that get distributed to the community already there and actively work to lift up the neighborhood through jobs and prayer and spirit, which then works to keep the violence down. We see this as an example of a poor people-led autonomy and self-determination. We collaborate humbly with other poor people-led groups and learn from the examples of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, the Landless peoples movement in Brazil, the Shackdwellers Union in South Africa and now, hopefully our beautiful comrades from Detroit.
 

April 15, 2014

The bedroom is a refuge, its walls boasting photographs of a young life as it unfolded. Little league, first communion, high school prom. A SWAT team had violated its sanctuary immediately after the shooting, looking for something to validate the police officer’s version of events. Sage and prayer restored purity to the room.

Her mood melancholy, she sinks wearily into the rocking chair. Melancholy is the best she can hope for, its implicit gloom and sadness preferable to the clutches of infinite emptiness which overwhelm one’s defenses and tear at the soul.

Abruptly a desperate emptiness floods her being. Time has not eased the mother’s loss, nor has it softened the weight upon her heart. She whispers his name, sliding off the chair onto her knees as if to pray, arms supporting her weight as she sinks to all fours.

“No no no, oh God noooo, sweet Jesus no, oh God no”.
The mothers arms weaken and she pitches forward, shrieking her son’s name, clawing at the rug as nails break off at the quick. A final scream then dissolution into weeping and moaning.

Becoming aware that minutes or possibly hours have passed, she swipes at the tears and snot and spittle streaking her face and rises to her feet. Leaning against a doorjamb, she crosses herself and asks Him for the strength to get thru another day.

Face washed, makeup lightly applied, hair tied back, the mother gazes at her reflection and is struck by deja vu. Something about her eyes. She rarely looks at herself, idly wondering if her eyes always have that look now.

The sun was alone in a cloudless sky, it’s rays warming a mother who sat in a park, also alone. Near her feet a ladybug with missing legs slowly and painfully dragged itself in a circle. Regarding the creature with both pity and empathy, she speaks down to it softly. “just like me, poor baby. Just like me“. A thin finger rests upon its wing cover, lingers, absorbs its pain, ends its suffering. Squatting, the mother scoops dirt over the tiny creature then with a fingernail scratches a cross alongside.

That night she dreams of a sun alone in a cloudless sky, it’s rays warming her back. In the dream is a damaged ladybug, dragging itself in a circle. She picks it up, crying as she speaks to it of her son. Her tears wash over it’s broken wing covering, cascading slowly off to become new legs. The mother watches it take flight.

The bedroom is a refuge, its closets filled with his clothing and memorabilia, a nightstand contains keepsakes and writings and pictures too sensitive or precious to hang on the walls. Sage and prayer maintain its pristine spirituality.

Her mood desolate, she sinks wearily into the rocking chair. Desolation is preferable to the clutches of infinite emptiness which overwhelm one’s defenses and tear at the soul.

Recalling the previous morning’s encounter with deja vu, she reaches inside the nightstand drawer for an envelope and extracts a photograph – their last picture together. His cheek had been so cold against hers. The look in her eyes was haunted, ghastly. She recalls looking up at the camera, instinctively starting to smile then grasping that she would never have reason to smile again. She had become like he was, she had become what she had clung to in the photograph, she too was an empty vessel.

(The exquisite painting ‘A Response to a Distant Echo of Pain‘ is by Rowan Newton, his website is here: http://rowannewton.co.uk/artworks/ )

April 15, 2014

Three figures repose in the fallow soil, holding hands, gazing skyward, two small figures flanking a larger one. The mother’s arm raises to point at a cloud above, the twins heads moving to follow.

The cloud is majestic as it slowly passes across the horizon. Ubadah tells her children the greatness of Omnipotent Sky God, of His wisdom and infinite mercy. Another cloud’s wispy tendrils brings to mind Spider, the mother sharing tales of the trickster her own mother had told her as a child. The twins giggling devolves into a contest to laugh the loudest, and the mother knows it is time to bring her tired daughters back to the village. Ubadah arranges the slings of the small harvest bags over the twins foreheads, shrugs her own bag full of cassava over her shoulders and follows the girls as they set forth onto the trail.

Sniffing at the breeze, the mother’s senses come alive. She hears a dry branch snap behind her, turns to behold a group of men in the distance who begin to run towards her. Shrieking “Panin! Kumaa! Gwan! GWAN!” she throws off her burden and runs to protect her children.

As her daughters sleep alongside her, each one chained to an ankle, Ubadah quietly endures the thrusts of a Foreigner. What had once been a loving gift to her husband was now something foul. Eyes closed, her lips move silently in prayer, devotion and dreams their only respite from the fear and misery of the slave ship. Eventually she joins her daughters in blessed sleep.

Elder Twin stands alone on a flat white mound, surrounded by Foreigners wearing crowns. People of all ages sit upon the ground nearby, chained ankle to ankle. One Foreigner emerges from the crowd to approach Elder Twin, pulling her mouth open to peer inside then squeezing her arms and legs.
Now it is night, and Elder Twin is in a large hut, candlelight flickering to alternately hide then reveal her face. A Foreigner enters, roughly pulling off her garment. Eyes closed, lips moving silently in prayer, the child endures.
The child’s eyes snap open, staring directly into hers.

The mother awakens, tears fresh upon her cheeks. Looking to one side, she hears Younger Twin’s soft breathing. Moonlight illuminates the sleeping girl. Turning to the other side, she gasps. Elder Twin’s eyes still stare directly into hers. Her daughter whispers urgently, asking where Younger Twin was, asking where Ubadah was, begging not to be left by herself again.

There are names for the Foreigners. Red Face Foreigner, Angry Foreigner, Wood Leg Foreigner. One exhibits a bit of kindness, unchaining the women so they might more easily relieve themselves and bringing extra water to sick children. He was called Young Foreigner. Along with a weapon that would soon be hers, he represented a path to freedom.

Ubadah has begun to smile at Young Foreigner, her smiles rewarded with extra yams at mealtimes for herself and the twins. Once she allows her legs to part slightly, her reward an obvious stiffening of his root. It will be time soon.

She smiles widely at Young Foreigner now, allowing her legs to part again. Drawing near, he sinks to his knees and crawls the last few feet to kneel in front of her. Ubadah holds both hands in front of her eyes briefly, then glances at each daughter. She makes the gesture once more, again glancing at each daughter, then brings her hands together in a supplicating gesture. Young Foreigner nods and unchains the three of them. The mother drops a hand to her side, throbbing shredded fingers closing upon the iron nail she has painfully extricated from the wooden planks.

Thrusting the nail into his scrotum, she rips upward, cleaving his root in two. Scooping up her screaming daughters, she races onto the deck and leaps onto the edge of the ship.

Her eyes deep pools of pain and adoration, Ubadah presses her lips to each terrified child’s forehead and then bends her head back to regard the sky. Whispering “Onyame fofora biara nni ha ka Wo ho“, she hugs the twins tightly and steps forward.

Three figures repose on the ocean floor, holding hands, gazing towards the surface, two small figures flanking a larger one. Undersea currents buffet the larger figure, lifting a skeletal arm to point upward. Two small skulls move to follow.

April 15, 2014

“Toto I’m beginning to get the feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”- Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz

While strolling through Pacific Heights one afternoon I began to wonder if the manuscript for the “Wizard of Oz” was conceived during a ride through this the wealthiest neighborhood in America. I found out differently but then realized that the quickly changing pace of the city especially during the new technology boom has transformed the city into a bizzaro Wizard of Oz, a Wizard of Oz in the Twilight Zone if you will.

What makes it bizzaro is we are the ones who are lost like a slew of Dorothies while the political leadership takes on the roles of the other characters.

Let us begin by matching names to characters and the reasoning behind it, though some things aren't exact or even consistent.

We’ll start with the Scarecrow. That distinction would of course go to the mayor of our city, Ed Lee. It’s not that Mr. Lee is a complete moron but rather because, although he tries to be secretive with many of his schemes, it's not long before light is shed on them and the brains of them are figuratively knocked out.

Next in the role of the Tin Woodsman would be none other than Police Chief Greg Suhr. His cold piercing stare and desire to give his troops whatever they ask for or overlook any of their liabilities would suggest he doesn’t have a heart.

The Cowardly Lion would have to be Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. Reason being his claiming to be down with the people but afraid to speak up for them, even requesting a new jail to lock even more black and brown people in.

The Wicked Witch of the West is most definitely Kamala Harris who as local DA built her career on locking up 35 black people to every 1 white person and used her blackness as a reason to be elected State Attorney General!

Former SF Mayor and current Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom of course would be the Wizard! Why? you might ask? He is the “wizard” behind the scenes who put on the big production by placing Lee in his former spot, George Gascon in as police chief, and sitting while watching and waiting hoping to be ignored but all the while trying to get everyone to pay attention to the illusion.

But of course the lines aren’t always clearly defined and the roles and characters are often interchanged with State and Federal leaders.

In fact the original story “the Wonderful Wizard of Oz" written by L. Frank Baum and published in 1900 had its own political implications, some direct and some implied.

Baum apparently was a political activist in the 1890s .
There were in fact 3 different versions of the story: a novel in 1900, a Broadway play in 1901, and the famous Hollywood film in 1939.

Much of the political implications regarding the 3 versions of the story connect to visual images in the story line. Much of Baum's activism was in regard to silver and gold, and in the Broadway production he actually made reference to figures like then-President Theodore Roosevelt ( and yes at times Obama is the wiard!). The yellow brick road is a direct reference to the gold standard and the silver slippers (later became ruby slippers) reference the silvirite sixteen-to-one silver ratio.The cyclone that got Dorothy in Oz in the first place would suggest political upheaval much the same as the current tech boom that is causing a diaspora of sorts.

There's no place like home.... when are the ruby slippers gonna kick in?

May 20, 2014

The people concentrated in US prisons are largely Lumpen. In the classical sense the lumpen-proletariat are a subgroup of the proletariat. In the US this can better be defined as simply the Lumpen class. A “class” simply means people who have a common social or economic relation to society. I.e. in our case, as prisoners we share common relations to the capitalist mode of production--we don’t have a pot to piss in--that currently exists in US society. Our interaction to the means of production results in us existing as Lumpen.

Prisoners have existed as Lumpen even if we have not realized it. Just as Brown, Black, or Red peoples would exist as internal semi-colonies within the US even if we did not realize it. Our interaction with US Imperialism would still validate our existence as internal nations whether it was acknowledged by us or not, for these are scientific laws that exist in the material world.

Class contradictions, like all contradictions in the material world, take on different manifestations. They contract and expand and interact with other phenomena in the natural world and these interactions allow new contradictions to arise and new reactions to develop in response. The Lumpen in not exempt from this process, and so understanding this process allows us to apply dialectical materialism where we can harness these dialectical laws in order to advance the Lumpen and further our class interests which have been out of our reach for decades.

Class struggle is very real and our class enemies understand this far deeper than many of us prisoners.Their understanding is reflected in the prison boom that has plagued the peoples deriving from the barrios, ghettos and reservations throughout the US. We must understand what class struggle really comes down to. Mao explained class struggle as such:

“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained, and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” (Mao Zedong, 1927)

Mao said this to highlight that one class will not be swayed from power via the pen alone or by other reform, that oppression will not disappear easily but will have to be pried from the hands of the oppressor and this is the essence of a class struggle.

CLASS STRUGGLE IN US PRISONS

What we are currently facing in California prisons in general, and the SHUs in particular, is a concrete example of class struggle that is being waged by the Lumpen and our allies on the outside. Our common oppressor is refusing to budge in its oppressive grip that results in thousands being tortured and thousands more ensnared in the injustice system that imprisons us in these concentration kamps. Our examples of class struggle behind prison walls is seem in the prison strikes. These are class contradictions erupting even if most participants do not identify what the essence of these struggles area about. The State understands them quite clearly. The strikes are a beautiful example of struggle but strikes alone will never bring us totally to victory because political education is also needed in order for a struggle to stay on the right path and avoid sinking to the swamp of reformism.

WHY ARE THERE SHU’s?

In order to navigate the challenges we as Lumpen are faced with, let us first understand what exactly we are experiencing. We should understand that the SHU is not simply where they send the homies, it is much more than that. Solitary confinement is designed to render one mentally ill, that is to inflict psychosis. One of the architects who designed Pelikkkan Bay SHU stated it was “designed to hold Hannibal Lecter” (Tietz 2012). Now, for an architect to be honest and candid enough to admit what kind of environment the SHU was designed for speaks volumes to how the state views those of us housed here in the SHU!

People, there is one purpose for sending us to the SHU, and it’s NOT for “rehabilitation.” So if we take the statement of an architect who built this house of horrors, then the criminality of the state has been affirmed from the time the first shovel broke ground.

The hunger/work strikes of 2013 were a continuation of the 2011 strikes. These recent strikes peaked at over 30,000 prisoner participants, a historical record. It was powerful to see that the most brutal dungeon in the US can also produce the highest form of humanity: activism. Only by understanding dialectics do we understand how this is possible.

The strike-related death in Corcoran SHU harkened back to Margaret Thatcher’s handling of the 1981 prison hunger strikes in Ireland, in which she essentially allowed prisoners to starve to death. But prisoners are circling the wagons and remaining determined to stop the torture by any means necessary. Our strikes have unmasked our common oppressor in a way that has not been done for some time by US prisoners. But our resistance has only matched our oppression which has also peaked in a unity of opposites. This opportunity should not be lost, but built on and steered to take on a more revolutionary impulse.

When we really understand the nature of SHUs, we will find more ways to resist. Isolation attempts to destroy our sense of reality. Our interaction as social beings to other people helps ground us in reality, and for this reason the state works hard to keep its SHUs open for business. But profit is not the true motivator to this prison boom--not just in California but throughout the US prison system more broadly. Some have erroneously taken on the notion of the prison boom and mass imprisonment in the US being profit-driven in the form of private prisons and prison labor, but this is not true. The true motive that I have found, having spent most of my life in these dungeons, is in population control. The manner in which surplus labor is extracted from prisons as a whole does not conform to the thesis of prisons being profit-driven. This erroneous view actually negates national oppression which remains at the helm of the criminalization of millions in the US injustice system. Imprisoning huge chunks of the more rebellious sectors of the internal semi-colonies, coupled with neutralizing our leadership at key junctures, insulates the super parasite.

Our oppression as Lumpen is a microcosm of the world-scale and the periphery (oppressed nations) specifically. If we look at it economically, Che got at this when he said:

“Ever since monopoly capital took over the world, is has kept the greater part of humanity in poverty, dividing all the profits amongst the group of the most powerful countries...there should be no more talk about developing mutually beneficial trade based on prices forced on the backward countries by the law of value and the international relations of unequal exchange that result from the law of value.” (Guevara, 1965)

In the US, our poverty results in prison and for those still rebellious we get SHU. While the wealth extracted from third world countries is divided up by the monied class in the US (the bourgeousie) and its internal and external allies, oppressed internal nations on these shores are excluded from even developing economically so long as we are living under the heel of Amerikkka, as Che pointed out. So long as capitalist Amerikkka is breathing, our only options are to help develop it economically, or to resist.

HOW ECONOMICS HAVE A ROLE IN OUR OPPRESSION

One’s economic relations defines one’s class, as surely as one’s land defines one’s nation. Even as prisoners, we can trace our class compositions from our economic origins. The analysis should be done so that we understand our origin and reason on existence. This also ensures that in our struggles we never fall to economism or other reformism which seeks mere cosmetic changes rather than real advances with teeth. Marx taught us that our social reality stems from the exploitative economic relations, that this is the essence of Marxism and is true even to the Lumpen. In The Poverty of Philosophy Marx illuminates class struggles when he says:

“An oppressed class is the vital condition for every society founded on antagonism of classes. the emancipation of the oppressed class thus implies necessarily the creation of a new society. For the oppressed class to be able to emancipate itself it is necessary that the productive powers already acquired and the existing social relations should no longer be capable of existing side by side. Of all the instruments of production, the greatest productive power is the revolutionary class itself. The organization of revolutionary elements as a class supposes the existence of all the productive forces which could be engendered in the bosom of the old society.” (Marx, 1847)

Here, Marx explains how an oppressed class can only truly free itself from oppression through the creation of a new society because the laws of Capitalism demand that class contradctions remain in place, that is that Capitalism cannot go on breathing so long as classes cease to exist. What’s more, prison oppression will continue to exist so long as Capitalism exists. So in prison we may gain small tokens such as colored pencils or the ability to purchase socks, etc., but our oppression as Lumpen will continue in a Capitalist society. We will continue to supper from national oppression and concentration kamp conditions because the ruling class understands this is indeed a class struggle and their class currently weilds power. As a result they are attempting to crush anyone who threatens their existence (us).

It is the vast majority of the public and prisoners who do not understand what is occurring. But at some point the Lumpen must grasp this truth and only then will we make true revolutionary advances in US prisons as well as out in the barrios and ghettos. The heart of the matter lies in the simple words Marx spoke of above, that in order for true freedom from oppression to come about, the ruling class cannot exist “side by side” with the oppressed class. And this is ultimately what class struggle entails.

Economic oppression is one manifestation we suffer from in the US and which is a factor in all the prisons and our dugeonization. So we need to broaden our understanding and in order to begin to harness the power of the Lumpen, it’s important that prisoners continue to be nurtured politically. This nurturing will derive from the physical realm as well as the ideological realm. In the physical realm, we need to identify and expand our modes of cooperation within the prisons which will serve to fertilize further struggle for prisoners’ rights. Finding ways to collaborate in struggle also serves to strengthen cooperation. Such behavior improves our social relations as prisoners and solidifies commitment to the prison movement.

The physical aspect is only one piece to the puzzle, it is one direction and the ideological realm is another. In order to ensure we have the tools to dig ourselves out of our oppression we need to expand our ideas and learn from history and struggle when people liberated themselves. How they transformed society so that their people no longer suffered under capitalism. Only when we obtain the most correct ideology can we ensure the people are lead down the quickest road to liberation.

WE ARE A MOVEMENT

The biggest hurdle has been overcome, which is to get prisoners to recognize our concrete reality as a prison movement. All prisoners should be proud of this accomplishment and for making history with our class struggle, but we are not done. Marx said in The German Ideology: “The separate individuals form a class only insofar as they have to carry on a common battle against another class; otherwise they are on hostile terms with each other as competitors.”

Many prisoners will read what Marx said and think how uncanny has words describe prisoners. Marx understood the dialectical laws and the class contradictions that apply to all classes, even the Lumpen. What we think is on;y a prison phenomenon goes on everywhere, even out in society. Marx’s truth is that even with the advances the Lumpen has made with a 30,000 person army standing up in dungeons throughout the US, so long as we continue this class struggle for our class interests we will continue our momentum. Our class character will solidify and become stronger which will translate into us making longer strides and acquiring greater gains and taking back our humanity. If we stop struggling against our common oppressors we will once more be not a prison movement, but simply competitors. As competitors we will be fighting for crumbs swept from the master’s table and in the process we strengthen our real class enemy: Capitalism. This competition will in turn strengthen US Imperialism around the world.

In the barrios and ghettos the people are competing for street corners rather than fighting for our land, our respective national territories and our class interests as well. It’s ok to be fighters and it’s great to struggle, but our efforts should be harnessed to our class interests and aimed at our class oppressors because for awhile now the ruling class has been doing all the fighting and taking the offensive in the US, while we act as competitors against ourselves. But today this is changing because the Lumpen as stood up!

What prisoners should understand is that this was a huge development for the prison movement. when all nationalities delivered a blow to the state. This was a huge development because it confirmed what the prison movement (activists, prisoners and ex-prisoners who work for prisoners’ rights): that prisoners by our very nature are a potential revolutionary force. While the majority of the US Left believes prisoners and Lumpen more specifically are of no use to real struggle and only exist as a burden to a future Socialist revolution. The prison movement discards the Trotskyist views and instead sees more potential for future revolution in prisoners and LUmpen specifically, than in American labor. Our 30,000 persyn army was only a glimpse of the potential that prisoners have, and it allowed us to see the possibilities that the small minority of the left which comprise the prison movement had seen long before us all. So our struggle was not only something special for us prisoners, but was also something for the long years of struggle from our outside supporters in the prison movement. Many times it is a small minority who identifies the truth. Numbers do not equate correctness, this is why we have cadres.

CONTRADICTIONS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE PRISON WALLS

When it comes to analyzing the prison movement, whether one is in prison or out in society, we must do so in a way that helps us see the strengths and challenges. Only in this way can we respond to advance the prison movement the farthest. The Lumpen exercises its class consciousness in the prison movement, so it naturally is something all progressive people should take notice of. The state utilizes prisons in order to drive a wedge between the people and the Lumpen in a divide-and-conquer tactic. The US Left has tended to put their money on US “workers” which are a bourgeosified sector and thus not revolutionary at this time. US prisoners have more to gain from revolution than does Amerikkkan labor, which often wants more crumbs, which ultimately derive from exploitation of third-world countries. Of course, the future may hold other possibilities, but for now prisoners taste oppression more than Amerikkkan labor, or as one article defined it:

“In Third World countries, individual masses in the unions can be won over and, so, are worth targeting since they have come to political activity in some form. In the imperialist country, the labor aristocracy is part of the petty-bourgeousie and has an interest in maintaining imperialism. These individuals can commit class suicide and join the revolution. As a group they will not do this now.” (MIM Theory ⅔)

Here it was defined where the labor aristocracy stands in class struggle in the US. It’s important to note that within our United Front efforts, out in society as well as in prisons, we always apply the concept of “one divides into two.” This means we have a united front but one divides into two will determine whether this front becomes stuck in reformism or takes a revolutionary impulse. This is what I am attempting to apply here to the prison movement, where we have this united front but we must define our political ideology in order to guide the struggle as a revolutionary course. There exist within the prison movement many different levels of consciousness and views, and without apply the concept of “one divides into two,” one would be unable to identify the most revolutionary aspect of the prison movement from the most reactionary. So, it is up to all conscious prisoners to allow the casual observer to see this difference in ideology while keeping the prison movement fully intact.

In an attempt to push the prison movement forward we must first find the principal contradiction. We do this by applying dialectical materialism, which divides all phenomena into its opposite. By identifying the opposing forces in any phenomenon, we can focus our attention and energies on a clear target area. In all phenomena we will find the principal contradiction and everything else will be considered secondary contradictions. In today’s world, the principal contradiction is between the oppressed nations and the oppressor nations. One cannot exist without the other, and they are interconnected like all phenomena in a unity of opposites.

We know the principal contradiction within the prison system is between prisoners and the state, because it is the state which keeps us existing as prisoners and if the state was to be dismantled we would be liberated. But the prison system is not the prison movement, and each has its different contradictions. Within the prison movement the principal contradiction is bourgeois ideology versus revolutionary ideology. This means, on one hand are those who make up the prison movement, including prisoners, in the camp of revolutionaries, who see this struggle to be ultimately aimed at the state and US imperialism, and so we realistically see this as a protracted struggle that will not be resolved anytime soon. Our approach is to chip away at state repression, gaining reforms while raising the consciousness of the Lumpen by educating prisoners and our external allies through practice. This is all done with the main thrust of guiding more prisoners, our external allies, friends and family out in society to the prison movement and ultimately to anti-Imperialism. This is all helping to develop the social conditions on these shores for future revolution. On the other side of the coin are those who cling to bourgeois ideology which expresses itself in parasitism, that is, individualism. Bourgeois ideology includes some who’re just fine with the way prisons are, or the way society is, so long as they are still allowed to oppress and exploit others. Those with Bourgeois ideology are more likely to want to settle for colored pencils or the ability to purchase sodas on canteen. These are two main camps that make up the principal contradiction within the internal prison movement.

As of this writing, the State refuses to grant us our five core demands. It’s interesting how the State attempts to blame strike-related deaths on “suicides,” because California has the most prisoner suicides in the US, almost half of which occur in SHU’s (Ramseth, 2012). This shows that conditions are so barbaric that many are driven to suicide in these torture chambers, but those of us held in SHUs for years understand that this has always been the State’s intent.

Those of us who participated in the strikes have seen retaliation from the State, in the form of write-ups, confiscation of our property (including legal property), and some re-housing. All this was coupled with cranking up the air conditioning so that our cells turned to refrigerators, opening the mechanical door every half hour for “counts,” and loud screaming into the speaker at all hours of the night to inflict sleep deprivation. Most of the world equates this treatment with torture. Even for those of us out on the mainlines, prisons use arbitrary detention in SHU to disrupt peaceful protests of prisoners. Not only are prisoners stripped of basic humyn rights and tortured, but are then disallowed from expressing distaste with being tortured.

OUR WAY FORWARD

Like most people who have spent most of their lives incarcerated, I understand suffering and repression to be entwined in the very fabric of our lives, moreso than any other sector of the US population. But as prisoners, we must develop ways to regain our humyn rights even in these dungeons. In order to advance the prisoners’ rights movement, we need to focus on six steps of development in all US prisons:
1) Achieving a United Front in all prisons
2) maintaining the call to end hostilities
3) Politicizing prisoners for humyn rights activism
4) Regaining national liberation struggles
5) Ending oppressive prison conditions
6) Regaining lost privileges in prisons

Such points of development are ways to strengthen the prison movement for humyn rights: in regaining our humynity, insulating what has been accomplished thus far, while pushing this development to the next stage of evolution.

Although our efforts are prison-centric, it’s important that we understand that resistance is a global phenomenon, because the world center is an individualistic construct (Capitalism-Imperialism) and the periphery (oppressed nations of the world) exist hand to mouth, living and surviving day to day. There will continue to be resistance.

As prisoners, our resistance is limited but not totally restricted. Voice, symbol, and gesture are methods of communication that are low-hanging fruit which prisoners can and must engage in. We may be held captive in the physical realm but we are free in the realm of ideas, and we must recognize this truth. Our communication should arrive wrapped in the social reality that we experience and that we aspire to. In order to achieve this we must educate ourselves. Just as the task of physical science is to know the laws of motion in the physical world, when it comes to social science we should understand the laws of social development, and in this way we can translate the concrete conditions from the masses to the masses.

The US corporate media gives CDCR a platform for propaganda. We have seen this recently when the local news outlets painted our peaceful protests as gang activity. Not only was this ridiculous, but it showed corporate media’s biased allegiance to the State, even when people are being tortured en masse. This proves that we do need our independent institutions such as revolutionary press and we should always work toward supporting and nurturing publications that work for our class interests as prisoners of the State.

A beautiful development came out of the prison strikes: the participation of imprisoned youth and women prisoners, particularly the revolutionary women prisoners in Chowchilla, who stood up with their fellow Lumpen. It is powerful that the prison movement is not confined to just men, and that we are only seeing the beginning. Eventually we have seen women prisoners across the US finding their humynity and participating in struggles, as they too realize they are part of the prison movement. People develop at different rates, some faster than others depending on their oppression, so we should not be too hard on those who are not yet conscious. Rather, we need to find ways to reach them and bring them to our side, the side of jsutice. Another powerful development was at the youth prison at Green Hill in the State of Washington, where youth supported the prison strikes and took their rightful place amongst the prison movement. This too will develop more fully as time goes on, when youth prisons across the US will discover that they too are a part of the prison movement and will follow the amazign example of the revolutionary youth at Green Hill.

CONCLUSION

Out peaceful protest is far from over, is has just begun. Although our strikes are temporarily on hold, they will continue at some point because our oppression and torture continue. Our five demands have yet to be granted, and this new step down program is a joke, and continues to hold us in SHU for ridiculous things like a drawing or some confidential lies. The State has only made it easier to validate more of the prison population and attempt to cover it up by allowing us to purchase color pens and more candy bars. We are engaged in a protracted struggle, and we mean to wear down our opponent while building up the people politically between battles. Our biggest hurdle has been overcome: mobilizing the people, mobilizing the Lumpen by tens of thousands.

People’s power siempre!
 

(Image of a young sista-mama from the Black Riders Liberation Party at the 1st Anti-gentriFUKation DGZ bbq in Oakland)

Cuz if we don’t De-Gentrify, if we don’t Decolonize – Our hoods will die-If we don’t De-Gentrify, if we don’t Decolonize –Our Hoods will die..

 DGZ is fo U & Me- its for us Po’ Black, Brown, Red, its fo  mamaz, daddys, abuelas, y tias, its fo da babies & its for dese streetz….excerpt from the DGZ plan-poem

Gentrification has a short-term memory loss. Few people or organizations look further back behind the high –speed evictions, re-devil-opment plans or endless influx of newer, richer, witer people that we see in front of our faces, ripping communities apart, evicting families and elders, to see what came before it.  For us Po peoples from Oakland to the Bronx caught in the struggle of survival economies we rarely if ever have the time, energy or resources to stop and examine the system that is criminalizing, incarcerating and gentrifying us out of our own neighborhoods, barrios and communities.

But we must, cause if we don’t de-gentrify, if we don’t decolonize, our hoods will die. And we can’t de-colonize without understanding the beast we have been forced to be a part of.

After years of wite-supremacist capitalist gentrification at full throttle in San Francisco we have extreme evictions now, and like extreme sports and other wite-people activities, the numbers of evictions are insane, scores of people a week being given eviction notices, most of them are disabledelders and families of color with young children, while most activists, operating defensively, endlessly fighting to keep the few people still housed, and the horrible laws up-turned, have no time or space to connect the dots.

And yet as flagrantly evil as all of this is, I must ask why does it rate as shocking at all? GentriFUKation is built into capitalism, it is an integral part of the roots, values and laws of this Amerikkkan capitalist system which is rooted in old colonizer laws from England. The place where the word “gentry” was birthed. It is how this stolen indigenous land was stolen, it is embedded in colonization.

And sadly some of the downest organizers and so-called activists of color don’t speak upon the inherent in-human-ness of capitalism because long ago our families were taught to become part of it to survive. Making money from capitalist philanthro-pimps and off the industry of poverty. Getting degrees from institutions that by their very existence, perpetuate the industry and its harm. It’s true that we all exist in this highly urbanized lie of civilization and we have been stolen, lied to and separated from our lands of origins so that we only have the option of taking  corporate crafted jobs, institutional educations and pay rent or a mortgage if we are lucky enough to get a home and therefore have to make more and more blood-stained dollars just to survive.

But gentriFUkation is built into every City charter.

For capitalism to exist, thrive and continue it must always feed off, find a “new” market. Which means that capitalism operates in a change for change sake model. In this model there is no space for history, archive, preservation, honor and even more frightening, there is no room for people who are not producing or consuming, children, elders, ancestors, sacred places, sacred sites are all “burdens’ on a capitalist system unless they can somehow be profited off of. Elder ghettos or old peoples homes functions in two ways – it separates our elders wisdom, love and resources away from our young people, which keeps people in a vacuum of hyper immediacy and in no way connected to the roots of our spirits and love and knowledge that came before us. And as well, and probably more importantly it allows corporations and government entities to make money off the care and housing of our elders. Similiarily with age-grade, institutional schools it allows for separation of our young peoples from us, there growing un-knowing and eventual disrespect of us and older people as well as the easy criminalization, productization  and ghettoizaiton of our young people without our clear supervision or intervention.

And by us collectively not always talking about gentriFUKation’s relationship to capitalism, it is a tacit and dangerous form of approval of the framework of the system that supports it, relies on it and demands it.

In San Francisco, this looks like many of the same people who vehemently fought the circa  1999 Dot com evictions in the Mission signing off on the 2010-12 devil-opment plans to gentriFUK the mission district of San Francisco, because their paycheck comes from the Poltrickster- Government bodies who are invested in the gentriFUKing.

Now we have exactly the same thing going on in Oakland. Never-really progressive Mayor Quan and many non-profiteers shuttling in devil-opers, real estate snakkkes and land-stealers to slice and dice the entire town of majority working-class communities of color. This is already resulting in the evictions of poor elders, poor Black, Brown and migrant/immigrant families with Cracker codewords used like “beautify” and “clean-up” when describing our peoples hoods, our barrios, our gardens and our bodies.

In addition to the building of plantation prisons and the leeching of our public school systems, another logical progression of the brutality of wite-spuremacist capitalism is the privatization of public housing, which is being sanctioned, supported and underwritten not just by the corporate devil-opers but by the non-profiteers and non-profit housing devil-opers.

So where do we as poor and gentriFUKed people really need to take this fight. We first need to take it out of the fog of daily life. The blur of “I’ve got mines” cult of independence. Where only my survival and “happiness” matters. My ability to attain more and more things, newer and newer things means I have “made it”  because as long as conscious peoples continue to take part, if even partially in the very system that is profiting off of so many peoples destruction it will continue.

The next place we have to take it is what I call the De-Gentrification Zone (DGZ) a pro-active movement, led by us Po’ peoples, landless peoples that uses the man’s plans and codes and laws and lines to seize back what used to be ours, Cause if we don’t de-gentrify our hoods will die….

The DGZ is a 10 point plan for liberation-barrio to barrio- hood to hood, calle to street—An offensive move to take back stolen, colonized streets, devil-oped & privatized indigenous lands, scam-lorded buildings. We intentionally use the colonizers words and ridiculously confusing acronyms all throughout the “plan” cause its the same words and terms and papers and laws the colonizers has used for centuries to kill, jail and most importantly confuse us, not to mention colonize our indigenous spirits and steal and profit off the theft of Mama Earth and our indigenous bodies communities.

The DGZ is a four prong strategy that includes collective, poor people-led media framing, street-based outreach and community organizing, pre-IMF-ed savings circles and middle-class allies in humble solidarity working to become conscious revolutionary donors. Us poor folks, working in solidarity with humble non-profit allies who aren’t trying to own and claim and profit off anti-gentrification work to jam politrickster moves – like creating a moratorium on devil-opment, gentrification and removal and finally man-plan-jamming, from Research to WeSearch, from preservation to landmarks, from real estate snakkkes to land trusts, from codes to maps. We Can preserve what’s still left and do our best to take some of this colonizer theft back.

Sadly, a DGZ is almost impossible in San Francisco and many other already deeply gentriFUKed neighborhoods across this stolen land the colonizers call Amerikkka. But many cities and towns like Oakland still have a chance.

Cause if we don’t de-GentriFY, if we don’t organize, Our hoods Will Die…

DGZ is fo U & Me- its for us Po’ Black, Brown, Red, its fo  mamaz, daddys, abuelas, y tias, its fo da babies & its for dese streetz

This is how Homefulness was and is being built- a landless peoples land liberation movement in Deep East Oakland. Us humble poor mamaz, daddyz, brothers and sistaz from POOR Magazine, Healthy Hoods, Black Riders Liberation Party, Peoples Community Medics and more aren’t trying to lead this fight, we are merely trying to make sure more of us folx aren’t erased from our hoods, like we were never there.

Please contact us by email at deeandtiny@ poormagazine.org if you want us to visit you and do a DGZ assessment and help you launch a DGZ in your barrio, hood or street , become a wite or middle-class solidarity donor or supporter or visit our DGZ weekly talk-circle at Street Newsroom on Thursdays from 2-3p at the sacred land we call Homefulness on the streets in front of 8032 Macarthur bl in Deep East Oakland. You can also join our DGZ page on Facebook

Trapped in a capsule unable to breathe,
My mind grapples with thoughts beyond years in solitary,
My pen is my friend and this I know,
My imagination explodes as my environment proves weary.

Buildings constructed to strip one’s humynity,
Ravaging the mind in ways that leave no physical marks,
The public unaware of this dugeonization,
If this were a physical act my limbs would be fed to sharks.

The situation reacts from such despair,
Our hunger strikes signal a tipping scale,
US history made from a solitary cell,
Heroic act invite censorship of mail.

With this madness of which I speak,
Of the downtrodden, destitute and deceit,
I find my comfort inside my pen,
It’s the realm of ideas where I’m most complete.

Ink flows from my mind and onto these pages,
Creating goodness in prison like igloos in the desert heat,
Bending steel bars so my thoughts may soar,
It becomes a place where paper cuts through concrete.

Antiheroes and archetypes live within my cell,
Blank verse clogs my dreams and sparks new narratives,
Canon works I devour with the appetite of a SHU prisoner,
Would society’s chorus reach a catharsis when reading our comparative?

Comic relief is my true meaning of course,
Diction arrives draped in shackles and razor wire,
The Dramatic monologue echoes off my concrete walls,
Poetry erupts and epiphany in my subconscious like a volcanic fire.
 

April 21, 2014

Those who walked this earth long before capitalism, and long before whyte non-supremacy waged war on Mother Earth and her indigenous nations, we had an obligation to tend to MaMa’s sacred soil and to produce plenty of food with her blessings. The deliberate destruction of her soil; the poisoning of our food (by Monsanto) with the intent to “muscle” the masses into buying frankenfood; and the blatant, racist system that discriminated against Black Farmers and other farmers of color for decades, all go hand-in-hand.

In the 1920’s 1 in every 7 farmers was black. In the 1980’s 1 in every 67 was black. In the early 1900’s, black farmers owned about 15 million acres of land altogether. In the 1980’s black farmers owned a little over 3 million acres of farmland. In the 1980's African-Descendant farmers received only 1% of all farmer ownership and soil and water conservation loans given; they received only 2.5% of all farm operation loans. All complaints of racial discrimination about financial support fell upon deaf ears when the Regan administration closed the doors to the USDA’s civil rights office in 1982. The 1.3 billion dollar USDA loan fund for farmers to buy land was a joke also, with only 209 Black farmers receiving the funding.

Regardless of the re-opening of the USDA’s civil rights office under former-president Clinton and the new regulations by the Farmer’s Home Administration (FMHA) to regulate unfair and unjust lending practices, all farmers of color saw little change and relief.

A lawsuit was filed by The Black Farmers for discrimination, winning a share of the $1.25 billion dollar settlement fund that was finally approved by Federal Judge Friedman in 2011. Although it seems as if the racial discrimination barrier was broken when The Black Farmers finally won a slice of the pie, a lot of discrimination claims are still being denied unjustly.

Despite the devastating decline of black farmers, there has been a rise in community gardens. We at POOR Magazine believe in interdependence, in spite of racist laws that create barriers to self-determinated care of MaMa Earth's soil and reaping the bounties of her produce. Gardens such as the Trayvon Martin Garden and the Ujamaa Village in Oakland get people fresh, non-GMO food without spending their whole paychecks. They are beautiful examples of both taking care of and providing for our own communities, and also of keeping our profits circulating in our own hoods. What I love and appreciate is the fact that the community is together: the young and the elder are contributing “sweat equity” into planting and growing food as a unified tribe should.

We shall no more allow for our oppressors to dictate to us our basic human right to be fruitful and multiply here on Mother Earth. The days of the wealth hoarders and land thieves are coming to an end, with the rise of the community black farmers once again.

** UPDATE : STOP THE SWEISES FROM RANSACKING MARCUS BOOKS !!! ** A picture of Marcus Books TODAY. The bookstore has been emptied and we're unsure where the contents of the bookstore are.
We are asking everyone to call the Sweis and DEMAND they do the following:

Ask for Chris, Nishuan, or Suihala Sweis
City Wide Cab: (415) 920-0700
Royal Cab: (415) 643-9500

Please share, post http://bit.ly/savemarcusbooks and tweet this !!
!!! Bay Area STAND UP !!!

Stop the destruction of the Marcus Bookstore Property NOW!
*Let the Johnsons, the proprietors of the bookstore, to access the contents of Marcus Books and pack
*Compensate the bookstore for what was stolen in the time the Sweis refused access to the bookstore and for anything that has been destroyed or dumped since the eviction
*Sell the property BACK to the community through San Francisco Community Land Trust

April 21, 2014

On March 22, 2014 Alex Nieto was shot and killed by SFPD, citing claims that he appeared to have a firearm that he allegedly drew on officers. It was later disclosed to be a taser he used in his work as a security guard.

Three days later police held a town hall meeting at Leonard Flynn Elementary School regarding the incident. It was disclosed there that he aspired to one day be a probation officer and respected the police.

Let this be an example to young people: be careful who you look up to... they might kill you one day!

But this story is not about Alex. It is instead about the growing problem of the police killing unarmed suspects with zero accountability for their actions. This is not a Latino problem or black problem or even an exclusively people of color problem. Instead it is a growing human rights issue where the police claim of “we/I feared for my life” is not just GETTING old: it’s BEEN old!

These types of situations not only cry for community policing, but also for a federal mandate to equip all peace officers with cameras as part of their uniform with the stipulation that none of the footage gathered can used as evidence against suspects, instead being used exclusively for accountability purposes.

Ironically, last year around the same time of year I wrote a story and did a podcast for PNN that later aired on KPFA entitled “Shoot down the Taser.”

It appears that the SF Board of Supervisors is set to have a hearing to get community feedback on arming police with cameras as part of their uniform. This is one step in the right direction, however, as the saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousands words.” Without community policing and the use of these cameras being limited to police accountability, they may as well just give each officer a sketch book so they can draw their own version of the story!

To this I might add that there needs to be a human rights bill, because in the case of non-documented workers and people with serious health issues, mental or otherwise, the cameras could simply give police a license to kill!

As you know I’ve been writing about Black disabled people from activism to music to film etc.  In 2006 & 2007 I covered & interviewed the director of the Hollywood movie, My Brother that starred Christopher Scott and Donovan Jennings, two Black young men with Down syndrome.  And in 2012 I interviewed Playwright, advocate & mother, Yvonne Pierre, about her play, Then We Stand, about a Black couple dealing with the news that their baby will have Down Syndrome.   Now today the Tatum family, Brandon, Kinaya, & their daughter that have Down Syndrome & is a budding actress, Kei’Arie along with her brothers, Jay’C & Ocean. all had their hands in making the short film, I AM MORE that came out this year.  I asked the whole family some questions about the film & other topics.

Leroy Moore:  Ok my first question is how did the whole family become interested in this film & how did you all work together as a family on this project?

Tatum’s Family: We came together on this film to spread awareness about Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome), on how bullying could be in the home. Also this film was made to show Kei’Aries’ and our whole family’s passion and ability as one unite, to create films for families. Working together was fun as we represent our company Better than Great (B.t.G) Entertainment Inc

Leroy Moore:  I was excited to see this movie as a Black disabled man.  What was it that pushed you all to make this movie?  Who is/are your target audiences?

Tatum’s Family: We felt that the special needs community would take a likening to this film because it was starring an actress Kei’Arie who has Down syndrome. Also we felt that this movie will bring attention to other film makers to write movies for our special needs community in giving our children/adults the full chance that strive for what they desire as authentic talent. Kei’Arie has been acting and modeling but never had the opportunity to get speaking roles until now.

Leroy Moore:  Kei’Arie, you really want to be an actress so is this film a true story about your future goals?

Tatum’s Family/ Kei’Arie: YEAH!!!!

Leroy Moore:  As parents & Black parents what do you see that needs to change in our community about youth & young adults with developmental disabilities?

Tatum’s Family/Parents: Well, there needs to be more! There is a need for education for our youth and young adults. Not just in math, reading and writing, but in areas that interest them and their talents. We need to help cater to their needs because were in this world together.

Leroy Moore:  I know when I was growing up sometimes my sisters would get frustrated with me because of my disability.  Was some of your acting true feelings/treatment sometimes towards your sister?

Tatum’s Family/The Kids: OCEAN: Our sister acts just like a regular little sister, spoiled and bossy.

                                               JAY’C: The movie was just acting, we don’t treat her that way. We love and appreciate the gift God gave our family

Leroy Moore:  Throughout my years of looking for movies/books on and by Black disabled people only recently I’m finally seeing more and more that look like me.  Do you think that the Black community has been supportive or pushing to open more doors for Black disabled or families who like you all trying to produce movies etc.?

Tatum’s Family: We feel that our black community is open to supporting however, we as a whole seem like we need to hear or see about it first, and that I feel, needs to change. We as a whole should be more sensitive in helping push our special needs community in reaching their goals/dreams. Our job as parents, advocates and friends is to help individuals like Kei’Arie receive Grammy’s, Oscars, Billboard Awards, Best Actor, Number One Album, Doctor, Nurse, Lawyer or Judge degrees.

Leroy Moore:  What was the hardest point in making & acting in this short film?

Tatum’s Family: The hardest part was actually having to see the actors act. Being mean and saying mean things to Kei’Arie wasn’t easy to act out or watch. However, we believe our daughter is heaven sent, for the most part she knew it was acting as well as the affirmations of the rest of the cast loving all over Ker’Arie.

Leroy Moore:  How did your classmates & friends react when they saw the movie?

Tatum’s Family/The Kids: Our classmates and friends reacted out of shock. They all respected the movie for its cause, creativeness and that we made it as a family.

Leroy Moore:  As parents what would you like to see improve in the near future for your daughter?

Tatum’s Family /Parents: BRANDON: I would like to see her light shine on the world in all areas.

                                             KINAYA: I would like to continue to watch her father Brandon Tatum create phenomenal roles for her, to continue out her journey/passion craft as a courageous talented, well known actress. Inspiring the world to never give-up and to make the non-believer a believer.

Leroy Moore:  In the disability field when I was growing up I saw a lot of mothers being everything i.e. advocate, networkers, caregiver.  So it is really good to see a Black father like yourself, Brandon.  What is your advice for other Black fathers who have sons or daughters with developmental disabilities?

Tatum’s Family/Brandon: Thank you Leroy, my advice to our black fathers is, be grateful.  I know it gets tuff but you were made to be the father of the baby God gave you (precious gift). Love, protect and be what you were meant to be when you found out you were having a baby; a father! You’re robbing yourself if you don’t push harder or apply a better effort, you have a “special” baby so you must be a special dad.

Leroy Moore: Do you see Bullying toward your sister at school or in the neighborhood where you live? 

Tatum’s Family/Kids: OCEAN: No, she was bullied at school under her teachers watch. No one bullies Kei’Arie around us or in our neighborhood.

                                        JAY’C: everybody loves Kei’Arie, she makes people laugh and smile.

Leroy Moore:  color:#1A1A1A">What are your plans with this film & will you continue to make more & if so what is next?

Tatum’s Family/Brandon: Our plan with this film is, to keep it going viral and getting viewed/liked. As a family we just finished another short film called THE BLACK BAG that is in postproduction right now. Were looking for investors to help the budget for our feature films that we have, one of which is a feature film starring Kei’Arie.

Leroy Moore: Please tell us what else is on your mind that people should know.

Tatum’s Family/Brandon: I want people to know that the Tatum family is headed to the top as a family with our company B.t.G ENTERTAINMENT Inc. Stay tuned for our movies, music, clothing, games and inventions. We are looking forward to working with great and loyal people.

Leroy Moore:  How can people order the film & contact you?  Also where will the film be shown?

 

Tatum’s Family/Brandon: Every body can go on YouTube, type in this link http://youtu.be/yf5cSfPqvms  and purchase it with a “like”/”thumbs-up”. This film was shown at the DOWN SYNDROME ASSOCIATION OF CENTRAL FLORIDA convention at UFC March 7^th, 2014.

(407) 202-0001

https://www.facebook.com/BetterThanGreatEntertainmentInc

http://www.youtube.com/user/BtGENTERTAINMENTinc

Btgentertainment10@gmail.com