Oakland - As the massive automatic across-the-board sequestration budget cuts continue to devastate the poor in the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program, greedy nonprofit developers are pushing for Rental Assistance Reform (RAR) legislation that would result in higher rents for the poor, the acceleration of the privatization of our public housing sites all across the nation, and the loss of Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers for the poor.

The wealthy nonprofit developers want more Section 8 vouchers to be taken away from the poor so that they can be converted into project-based vouchers for their projects.

Meanwhile, as the massive sequestration budget cuts continue to harm the poor, the executives in the nonprofit so-called affordable housing industry continue to demand higher rents from the poor, at the same time they receive massive bonuses and increases in their salaries and wage compensation.

At this point, I am demanding a freeze in rent increases on the poor in all so-called affordable housing projects being operated by nonprofit and for profit so-called affordable housing developers.

I am also pushing for a salary cap of $125,000 in salaries and wage compensation for all the executives in the so-called affordable housing industry that have projects subsidized by local and federal tax dollars.

I am demanding that the executives immediately reduce, and freeze their salaries at the level of $125,000 annually.

I am asking for community support in demanding an end in rent increases on the poor in so-called affordable housing projects, and ask for community support in pushing for a salary cap of $125,000 for all executives in nonprofit and for profit housing organizations that have so-called affordable housing projects subsidized by local and federal tax dollars.

Click below for a list that includes some local nonprofit so-called affordable housing developers in the East Bay...

http://www.ebho.org/get-involved/membership/our-members

See the latest in salaries and wage compensation for some of the top executives from some local 501 c3 charity nonprofit housing corporations operating in Oakland, according to some of the latest 990 tax forms filed with the federal government that are available for
public viewing.

EAH Inc.; In 2012, more than 11 executives at EAH Inc., earned well over $100,000 per year, including 2 people raking in well over $200,000 a year. Leading the pack, Mary Murtagh, President, was paid $298,850 in 2012. Laura Hall, Chief Operating Officer, was paid $208,286. Cathy Macy, CFO, was paid $186,709. Stephen Lucas, VP Acquisitions, was paid $182,991. Dianna Ingle, VP Re MGMT, was paid $163,324.

Affordable Housing Associates; In 2010, Susan Friedland, Executive Director of Affordable Housing Associates, was paid $133,731, but was paid $152,966 in 2012, a huge wage compensation increase of $19,235 during a period of massive budget cuts to the nation's housing programs during that same period.

Bridge Housing; In 2011, the top executive at Bridge Housing took in well over $300,000 that year, with 6 other top executives pulling in well over $200,000 annually, including an additional 6 other top executives raking in well over $155,000 that year. Leading the pack, Cynthia Parker took in $330,249 in compensation during 2011. Rebecca Hlebasko was paid $278,224. Kimberly A McKay was paid $255,665. Susan Johnson was paid $235,875. D Valentine was paid $235.840. Lydia Tan's compensation was listed at $224,474 for 2011 (Severance pay on 1/3/2011, of $118,244, and distribution of an additional $106,230). Brad Wiblin was paid $200,887. Ann Silverberg was paid $196,499.

Christian Church Homes: In 2011, Don Stump, President/CEO, was compensated $181,874. Cynthia Lappin, VP Operations & COO, was paid $157,295. Winthrop Marshall, VP Finance & CFO, was paid $151,687. Leilani Siegfried, VP Human Services, was paid $138,810. Geoffrey Morgan, VP Development, was paid $130,948. Sheryl Stella, Controller,
was paid $123,832.

Eden Housing; In 2011, Linda Mandolini, Executive Director, was paid $188,834. Jan Peters, Chief Operating Officer, was paid $187,538. Terese Mcnamee, CFO, was paid $175,804.

Satellite Housing; In 2011, Ryan Chao, Executive Director, Satellite Housing was paid $175,321. Dori Kojima, was paid $105,179. Miriam Benavides was paid $100,093.

East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation; During 2011, Jeremy Liu, Executive Director, was paid $125,217. Peter Sopka, CFO, was paid $125,101. Mary Hennessy, COO, was paid $110,126. Carlos Castallenos, Director of Real Estate Development, was paid $103,329. Records also show that in 2009, former Executive Director of EBALDC, Lynette Jung Lee, earned as much $140,536 that year, including an additional $5,942
in other compensation. Joshua Simon is the current Executive Director, of EBALDC.

Resources for Community Development; In 2011, Dan Sawislak, Executive Director, of received a total compensation of $127,330.

Lynda Carson may be reached at; tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com

Last month’s Community Newsroom at POOR was in honor of Black History Month ( even though we know at POOR Magazine, that every month is Black History) One of our guest speakers, named Kinara Sankofa, blew the crowd away. Being that I graduated from an Africana Studies program his name automatically intrigued me because Sankofa is an important part of black history. Though our guest did not talk about the meaning of ‘Sankofa’ I thought it was important to understand the history context of this historically significant name. According to Black Student Union coordinators at the University of Illinois:

“The concept of ‘Sankofa’ is derived from King Adinkera of the Akan people of West Africa. ‘Sankofa’ is expressed in the Akan language as ’se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenki.’Literally translated, this means ‘it is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot.’ ‘Sankofa’ teaches us that we must go back to our roots in order to move forward. That is, we should reach back and gather the best of what our past has to teach us, so that we can achieve our full potential as we move forward. Whatever we have lost, forgotten, forgone, or been stripped of can be reclaimed, revived, preserved, and perpetuated. Visually and symbolically, ‘Sankofa’ is expressed as a mythic bird that flies forward while looking backward with an egg (symbolizing the future) in its mouth. This ties with our motto: ‘In order to understand our present and ensure our future, we must know our past.’ “

Kinara Sankofa is an inspiring artist, entrepreneur and leader. He has been writing poetry for years. When I asked him what kind of poetry he writes, he said his biggest dream is to write about love and the beauty of the black women. He went on to explain how valuable black women are and that we deserve to have good men in our lives. He moved to Australia for about twenty years where he fell in love with a woman who inspired much of his poetry. He also talked about how men are disconnected from their femininity. He said that for men to cry and show vulnerability is actually a sign of strength, not weakness. In an insightful linguistic flip, he used the term “white inferiority” instead of white supremacy, and he made it clear that we have to stop blaming other people for our problems. He said that we need to educate the next generation of powerful black revolutionary leaders by teaching our history in our communities (such as the often forgotten fact that Oklahoma used to be the black Wall Street) and celebrating people such as Malcolm X, Assata, Muhammad.

Among his many accomplishments, Kinara Sankofa has also written a book, and started a clothing line. Black Power Clothing has a beautiful logo of a black fist with African colors. Visit his website at www.ashaybythebay.com.

He closed out his presentation at the POOR magazine newsroom with a poem entitled “The Coldest Summer Ever.” He captured the moment with his last sentence in the poem saying, ‘niggas’ spelled backwords is ‘saggin.’  This poem was awesome and really got the newsroom thinking. There were no disagreements with anything he was preaching. After his poem, we finished with a drum circle and a prayer. What can you get that is better than that?! Even though February is the shortest month of the year, we celebrated Black History Month with unity and community at POOR magazine.

Painting by Tiffany Aldridge

News room was crowded and popping as usual. Before I started asking questions of this new guest we had named Benito, I saw a man playing a drum. Drumming in my mind automatically reminds me of the root of music with indigenous people. I know this because as a graduate out of the Africana studies department I studied music relating to Africa. I learned people in Africa used the drum as a means of communication and expression without words, and sometimes the women would dance and move to touch the earth mentally and physically. 

The guest known as Benito had already attracted everybody spiritually when I saw him playing on his drum. When it was his turn to talk about his story he talked about being a first generation Filipino-American in 1950. HIs last name was senator, and his family destined him to become a lawyer. He expressed how he learned how to meditate because he was always forced to stare at the wall when he got in trouble in school. Then when he didn't own up to his parents dreams in 1971 he decided to do dance theatre at SFSU with an emphasis in creative arts. 

He came from doing gigs around the bay area to working for the San Francisco Unified School District working with children that have been diagnosed with ADD. He has worked at Philip Burton high school since 1999. He expressed how he is the only one who can get to the kids because of his skills with a drum. The hardest kids that supposedly never listen light up when Benito has a drum circle every week, and invites everybody. Even if you are in a wheelchair or if you are deaf, he wants everybody to come to the drum circle. The other teachers are amazed because all of the children behave (even the one's they usually cannot control). Benito came outside the box. He is bringing children back to the indigenous way of healing and fun. He said the children got heart and everyone has to release in a positive voice. He feels he is the spokesperson for people who cannot speak. He feels that he could leave (die) right now and still be blessed. He loves to use his drum to make a connection. Not rainy whether or anything else will ever make him stop. 

Despite this story the real experience he wanted to talk about was how he got attacked by skin heads. There were a couple of white men in a car, and they stopped for him. Not knowing these people were racist they ran him over as soon as he walked the crosswalk. He flew out into the street, and to this day he doesn't know what happened until he woke up in the hospital. He couldn't move and now after hella physical therapy, he wakes up around four o'clock in the morning straightening out his spine, because he refused to get surgery after the incident. 

Last but not least he was really at news room to advocate for his housing. So, this article became three stories in one. What I admired about Benito was that he did not talk about his tragic experience of getting forced to leave his home, but he talked about his experience with children and the drum. 

Under the Ellis Act, Benito has been given an eviction notice. POOR magazine is filing a law suit against his landlords and he is thankful. He said he does not have a second plan on where to live but he was still smiling no matter what. At the end of this magical story about him he lead a drum circle with a prayer and closed the whole news room down. People were touched by his drum and his beat, along with his ability to talk to Mother Earth.

Co-editors Note: Recent changes in statewide curriculum requirements are attempting to reduce or eliminate Ethnic Studies programs across California. Ethnic Studies departments, such as the Africana Studies Department at San Francisco State University, were implemented as a result of hard-fought battles for racial equality and justice. For many people of color, Ethnic Studies have been an opportunity to become conscious of our own history/herstory and have inspired political engagement and community organizing.  The recent cuts to Ethnic Studies departments reflect the degradation of Civil Rights victories. This article by Leontyne Smith is an example of how Africana Studies can uplift, awaken and activate revolutionary scholars. The move to downsize ethnic studies departments is a part of the war on Black and Brown folks in Amerikkka.

Adults in this era do not know their true history, because a lot of schools do not teach the truth of African indigenous ancestral heritage. I know this for a fact, because from the first day of school to the last day of high school I did not have a clue about people like Marcus Garvey, Frank Douglas, Malcolm X, and every positive aspect of black history. Western European theories consider black people to be savages.

A reality check came to me my first year of college, when I took a class called West African tribal customs. My mouth dropped when I saw all of these classes named after African traditions and African Americans. Honestly I didn’t know that there was a difference. After taking this class with Doctor Wobogo, I fell in love with these classes, because we learned about the real customs of womanhood, manhood, in the context of our ancestral history. For example women were treated like royalty and men were treated with dignity and respect at a young age. In fact, in the tribe we studied, boys went into training around the age of five and were taught how to take care of a family and own their own land by the age of seven. Men would provide a hut, land, and animals, as well as skinning their own meat, and how to strategically how to hunt.

Learning about West Africa was awesome; I went through college without thinking about my future and what struggles I might have by majoring in Black Studies. I chose classes like Afro-centricity and the Dawn of Science, Black Religion and even a Black Journalism class. I wondered why black people in different majors would say the Black Studies major was a cop out. Still I didn't understand why people considered the Black Studies program a joke. Even some of the teachers would ask me, "Did you choose this major because we do not require statistics as a requirement?” This is absurd in my opinion. I didn't understand the politics with the Black Studies department and how we struggled so hard for this program to come into fruition. The BSU and Greeks were fighting when I attended and I would have to say Brother Maurice, and Brother Black put in blood sweat and tears. They stayed in school postponing graduation just to keep up the BSU, and what SFSU stands for. Brother Maurice always talked about unity, and people would hate on him because he was a fighter for indigenous people, even people outside of our race. He was straight out of Hunters Point and people thought he was ghetto because he grew up in the hood, but he actually stayed on the deans list and got straight 4.0 every semester. I really felt for some of the coordinators of the BSU, because a lot of people gave them a hard time. I came to a conclusion that your own people will turn on you, and a lot of people want to be the leader. Egotistical stuff ruins things, but despite all the challenges, they did keep up the kings and queens meetings.

Nine years passed by and I graduated in May of 2012 with a bachelors degree in Black studies. Every agency I sign up with for help tells me not to mention to a potential employer I have a Bachelor’s in this ethnic background. They tell me to just say “social sciences.” Now I believe people do not go to college to learn; they go to college for a high paying job in the future. It is said if you graduate from college you are guaranteed to have a job because of a piece of paper. I worked so hard in college and honestly I am proud to have a Bachelor’s Degree in Black Studies, because teachers like Nobles, Tsuruta, T Shaka and etc empowered my soul. They made me feel like I am somebody. I got a lot of support from my academic advisor. He was the only person who believed in me when I didn't even believe in myself. He was also African American, and he ran the whole undergraduate advising center. All of our teachers would send us to Marcus Bookstore for our textbooks, and a lot of the teachers wrote multiple books.

Establishing a Black Studies major was a hard-fought battle. There were riots and people died to have the chance of having something of our own. Black people in the past demanded a lot more than just having a Black Studies department, but they negotiated and even established Malcolm X plaza, and the Cesar Chavez student plaza. Even though I cannot get a job (which has been a huge struggle for me), I am going to graduate school for to get a Marriage and Family Therapist License. I will carry all the knowledge I received from my elders at SFSU. I can teach children to love themselves just based on their history, and talk to them with an Afro-centric approach and teach them what I know they will not learn in school. Hopefully I can work at the youth guidance center or a place with troubled people and help them with my knowledge of Black Studies along with the MFT license.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Rise Up and Walk.

That's what Mom said.
But the thing is, I couldn't--
I was already dead.
It isn't like I didn't know how,
I used to love walking...One foot
After the other, just eating
Up the distance between where I was and
Where I wanted to be...

It was good, good to walk,
And as I walked and sometimes stopped to talk to people I met,
Or the animals I'd see along the way, I would
Even have
A word or 2 for the flowers
Along my path,
The ancient trees who leant me shade, or
Clouds that trailed lazily along with me.

Sometimes I even spoke to the Man.
The one who wanted me to get up,
And get walking again. I assume that's the reason
He was talking to me now.
When I thought about it and remembered how
I would sometimes ask him for things, beg Him for help.
Curse Him in my pain, and he would take it
All in stride, as long as I
Kept on walking.

So I guess that explains why He told me to do it.
Thank You.

Editors Note: Jose is one of several power-FUL PNN Plantation prison correspondents who was involved in the Hunger Strike to end all solitary confinement and the in-human treatment of all of our incarcerated brothers and sisters.

December 19, 2013

In recent days we’ve seen the passing of Nelson Mandela.  Many prisoners here in SHU can relate to his struggles against a settler state and his being held as a political prisoner for over 20 years.

There are many similarities between prisoners living as political prisoners under an oppressor nation, no matter if the prisoner is in Amerikka, Palestine, or Apartheid South Africa.  When a settler state is securely embedded in the host nation, it will criminalize large swaths of the population, and particularly its most rebellious sector.  Aztlán, New Afrika, and the First Nations face not only occupation of our land by the settler state, but our peoples face oppressive laws that work to criminalize us, and then, once imprisoned, those captives who continue to resist and develop a consciousness face what I call a “dungeonization.”  This is most acute in Amerikka’s Supermax prisons, whether they are called a SHU, SMU, etc.

The truth is SHU prisoners are overwhelmingly qualified to be called political prisoners.  Like Mandela, any one of us can be released from isolation today if we would be willing to make up stuff and incriminate others, but like Mandela we refuse to aid the settler state and compromise another.  For this, we experience torture from our oppressor.  It is true that not everyone was conscious prior to arriving to the Pelikkan Bay Death Kamp.  Many have broken with bourgeois ideology in these torture chambers despite the odds and nature of this kamp.  Either way, we are held in this torture center not for actions or wrongdoing but for thought crimes—that is, our beliefs oppose the state and this is our crime.

The state propaganda spews their hate messages aimed at poor folks.  They say we are the “worst of the worst” and deserve to be tortured.  I have heard their spokespeople call us everything in the book and scare the public.  I came to prison for a nonviolent petty dope case.  I’m not ashamed of this because it just shows that people held in the Pelikkan Bay SHU have petty dope cases, and yet they talk of the “worst of the worst.” It was only while in prison- while I made the leap in consciousness and began to rise up for prisoner’s rights and attempt to conscientize my fellow prisoners- that I was snatched up out of the general population and placed in solitary confinement in SHU with a bogus gang label.  My past drug history also reflects that the enormous odds stacked against poor folks cannot stop our development, because even when we die our spirit of resistance lives on in those we touch.

Today, the “drug war” is blamed on the poor colonized folks in the barrio, ghetto, or reservation.  These lumpenfolks are blamed for the dope because they may be caught with a small quantity, but drugs have always been controlled by the state.  We’ve seen a glimpse of this come out in the 1980s with the Iran/contra debacle, where it came out that U.S. agencies were bringing in dope.  But today Amerikkka blames Mexico for its dope problem.

The drug exports from Mexico to the U.S. began as far back as the 1870s when Chinese settlers in Western Mexico began to cultivate and then export “Adormidera” (opium gum) into the US and beyond.   When prohibition kicked in, it attempted to halt Adormidera as well as liquor from entering Amerika, but instead this created an underground economy and a tidal wave of corruption in Mexico, from police to military and, of course, bourgeois politicians.  Contrary to media claims, most of the people who were sending dope into the U.S. were bankers, governors, and, of course, businessmen who used their contacts with U.S. counterparts, who they schmoozed at state functions.  For over a hundred years this was business as usual.  It was only when they were cut out of the action that it became an “epidemic.” Like everything else Amerika does, when you are of no more use the honeymoon is over.

The same goes for the treatment of migrants, when they are needed the door is open, and then the time is right, whole families are deported without a blink of an eye.  During World War I many Amerikan industries discouraged Mexicanos from coming to Amerika.  At this time, many Mexicanos were deported as the Amerikan economy declined, even U.S. corporations pushed for deportation, like in 1920 when the Ford motor company sent 3,000 of its Mexicano workers back to Mexico— at company expense!(Meier & Rivers, p. 142).  Today we see a rekindling of this atmosphere and national contradictions are once more sharpening up.  Out in society migrants are being deported and facing “show me your papers” laws, while chicanos in prison are facing “the new greaser laws,” where our culture is once again criminalized.

We live with our barrios and hoods being policed like interment kamps.  I read an article where an ex NYPD officer who became a whistleblower described even his experience being stopped and frisked as a child living in the Bronx.  He said, “it happens often enough that the mere sight of an NYPD car pulling up to the curb triggered an almost Pavlovian response! Before the officers had even exited their vehicle, Serrano and his friends would have their hands on the wall” (Gonnerman, 2013).

Some people may not grasp what this whistleblower explained, but I think anyone who grew up in the barrio or ghetto understands this very well.  Our youth are not just developing this Pavlovian response, but psychologically this is imprinting in our youth that they are colonized and living under a brutal occupation.  Let’s be honest here—we have all come to know what occurs when even youth do not obey the pig.  It results in death, as we seen with Andy Lopez, Oscar Grant, Trayvon, etc, etc.

We know that white supremacy is a prime factor to us living under a settler state, however we need to also see that this is only a manifestation of living in capitalist Amerikkka. In Eugene Puryear’s new book “Shackled and Chained” he gets at this very clearly when he writes,

“white supremacy and racism are not floating in the air as independent and anonymous forces with the power to restructure society.  They operate in tandem with, and ultimately are subservient to, the evolving capitalist economic structure” (Puryear, 2013, p.46).

This is an important thing to understand, because simply focusing on racism is not going to completely eradicate oppression.  For this we need to rip oppression out by its capitalist roots.  It is from this poisonous tree where all forms of oppression spring forth. Settlerism is not a spontaneous phenomenon, so we need to get to the heart of the matter.  Prisoners too must see past our immediate conditions in order to being to gain real traction in these dungeons.

For the past 12 days I have had no light in my cell, so not only am I kept in a windowless torture chamber, but now I am in the dark unable to read, or draw.  It is not enough for the settler state to have me in solitary confinement without touching another human being or being able to see outside of a brick tomb, but now I am also kept in the dark without a light.   This is a concrete example of the repression we face for speaking up against injustice, for filing lawsuits against human rights abuses, and participating in hunger strikes.  For this we are retaliated on in this most cruel way.

I have started the appeal process and I will increase my means of resistance as time passes.  These methods of psychological warfare and cruelty will never hamper my determination to continue in struggle.  I know that my actions are always in the right, and no forms of abuse will ever change this.  The Peruvian revolutionary Jose Carlos Mariategui said something that captured the essence of why prisoners are developing under such cruel conditions when he wrote,

“I am no impartial and objective critic.  My judgments are nourished from my ideals, my sentiments, my passions.  I have a strong and declared aim: to contribute to the creation of a Peruvian socialism” (Mariategui, 1928, p. 6).

Prisoners too are nourished from our ideals and fueled by the brutal conditions of the oppressor’s criminal injustice system.  In these dungeons our resistance is forged.

                        Free Aztlán!

Jose H. Villarreal

1)    Matt S. Meier & Feliciano Rivers, “The Chicanos: A History of Mexican Americans” pg 142.

2)    Jennifer Gonnerman, New York Magazine, May 27^th, 2013 “officer Serrano’s Hidden Camera.”

3)    Eugene Puryear, “Shacked and Chained: mass incarceration in capitalist America” pg 46, PSL Publications, 2013

4)    Joe Carlos Mariategui, 7 ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (Lima, 1928), pg. 6.

To read Jose Villarreal's recent poem "The Settler Is The Same Under Any Moon", click here:http://www.poormagazine.org/node/5011

The lion

The panda

The jaguar

Pacific walrus

Siberian tiger

Manatee

Wolverine

Albatross

Blue whale

And snow leopard

Are species

Marked for extinction.

But none

Have been threatened with that end complete

Longer than

They which are

Scattered,

Feared,

Captured,

Shunned,

Caged in record numbers,

Made to move from place to place,

Live in dirty, squalid areas,

Eat poorly,

Self-loathing,

Self-killing,

Called all the worst names

And built from the ground up

Great cities

While in leg-irons & chains.

They are unmistakably African, in look & origin.

This species

Doesn’t get listed with other

Threatened kinds. They get no such recognition.

Perpetual prey

In the hunt that’s always on

With or without guns.

[ The same can be said

  For a similar breed

  With lower numbers

  Whose native habitat

Editors Note: Jose is one of several power-FUL PNN Plantation prison correspondents who was involved in the Hunger Strike to end all solitary confinement and the in-human treatment of all of our incarcerated brothers and sisters.

27 years imprisoned for one’s thoughts,

ideas so threatening to injustice that repression rises.

Captured like a shu prisoner and confined to Robben Island,

One’s crime but defying apartheid settlers and denying their prizes.

Was he a living example of the most acute contradictions?

A man of peace and struggle in the face of intolerance.

The settler is the same under any moon,

Liberating one’s nations is the motivator for endurance.

Long live Azania the people scream,

Ebony faces holding rifles and fistfuls of okra.

You brought the world to the apartheid front,

People in struggle like a beautiful revolutionary opera.

You missed the children’s laughter the most,

As shu prisoners we grasp all that makes us human.

Times have changed these chambers of repression,

We see no seabirds today but we’ll still ride with you man!

You liked to see apartheid demolished in your nation,

Determination and support forged smiles on faces everywhere.

Resistance continues from bantus to cholos we rise,

Your efforts live on and we struggle because we dare.

By Jose H. Villarreal

December 2013

Thursday, January 30 2014. Before I begin this article I apologize to the Asian guy with the cigarette who cursed me and Mr. Lynn out when overhearing me say, “Yeah, they all look the same.” What he didn’t hear me say before that was, “just as we [black folks] all look the same.”

Damage done. Mr. Lynn asked him for a smoke after my overheard comment. Of course, he refused with an “F” bomb.

Let me explain. I’m not very observant (on purpose). This is why I‘m not an investigative reporter and instead write columns.

Saturday, January 25 2014. I didn’t expect to write this column. Oh, well.

Sunday, January 19 2014. James Memorial United Methodist Church. Late September last year I found out about a few churches in the Fillmore district, including this one at 1975 Post Street. Another church is across the street and around the corner two or three blocks.

I’ve got my backpack, bus pass, and two sturdy plastic bags in case extra food or empty glass bottles are around for recycling. Arriving late to the church for groceries around 10am, I see lots of Asians, whether they’re Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Phillipino, I don't know. A few Blacks and Browns, but mostly Asian and you can count the Black and Brown people on one hand.

Tuesday, January 28 2014. POOR Magazine Newsroom. Phillip Standing Bear comments on this point in my story. He says, “As poor folk always in struggle, I respect, not envy, the Hustlers known as Mama Sans.”

Back again to Sunday, January 19 2014. In line there is a color code of red, blue, green, pink, orange, and yellow badges. I guess they stand for those who’ve signed up for groceries, to prevent their getting skipped over in the line. What’s supposed to happen, is after the people in line get their bags of food, the unsigned-up (us) wait to get our chance.

As Mr. Lynn and I wait at the church gate, it's Mr. Lynn who sees what happens. Lynn says, “This line’s getting longer, I can’t tell who’s got food but it looks like they’re doubling back for seconds!” I’m not as observant but he may have a point. The line does seem to be longer, looks like some of ‘em were reloading.

Tuesday, January 28 2014.  Ms. Ingrid de Leon comments: "I’ve entered a community food disbursement space without being conscious of the community that resides in the area. I saw there were flowers in the bins…I took what I wanted without asking and was told, 'JUST ONE!! ONLY ONE!' That’s when I realized that I need to be considerate and think first before entering a space with services for people who may have a bigger need than I do."

Back finally to Sunday, January 19 2014. “They go in, get out, get back in for more food, then they resell the food all over again; I’ve seen 'em before,” Mr. Lynn said to me. After an hour or so the line begins shrinking. We get our bags of groceries. We go to a second church to eat an early 11:30 lunch.

That’s when the “They all look alike" comment is overheard. We go our separate ways.

Tuesday, January 28 2014. POOR Magazine Newsroom.
I bring up what happened last Sunday. POOR Magazine poverty scholars comment on our story, including Ms. Ingrid and Phillip Standing Bear.

Queenandi X adds, "I believe that all people of color living in poverty should unite and help one another out – Black, Brown, Red, Yellow– it’s fine with me. The only problem that I have is when other 'nations' come into our already impoverished neighborhoods and suck up our resources for their benefit. Due to racism, there is no give and take, meaning that you can come into our hoods and suck us dry, but we cannot come into your neighborhood and receive the same services because of the colors of our skin."

Thursday, January 30 2014. This renegade food pantry brigade is predominately Chinese Immigrants and they have language and immigration barriers to deal with. They work well, are very organized and work well together. Unfortunately they make it difficult for people who need the food as much as they do– messing up an opportunity for others to get it! How can we make this work for everyone when everyone has their own hustle?
 

(Photo by Sven Hagolani)

Krip-Hop Nation (KHN) I’m so excited to interview you, Claire, and have been following your work for years. I’m just going to come out in say it you are the only woman on crutches that do what you do.

Clair Cunningham: Cheers Leroy! That’s incredibly flattering.

KHN: Now you started as a classical singer tell us how did that turn into dancing and do you still sing?

Clair Cunningham: I always wanted to be a singer – from a very young age, and trained my voice from the age of 14 then went on to study music at University with the intention of becoming a classical singer. Like any business its really who you know more that what you know, and after I graduated I couldn’t work out how to actually WORK as a classical singer, I had the singing skills but not the freelancing artist skills at that time. I also had a thought at the back of my mind after leaving Uni that I wanted to encourage other disabled people to consider the arts as a career. Really as a career and not as ‘therapy’ or only a leisure activity – as was often the association with disabled people and arts…. although I had had very little experience of other disabled people. I very much grew up thinking myself as not disabled and not wanting to associate with disabled people. Very much a victim of the media brainwashing/ablest perspective…. Anyway, I found an organization in Glasgow, at that time called Sounds of Progress (now renamed Limelight), where I had moved back to after uni and they specialized in training disabled people as musicians and created professional music theatre productions with the individuals good enough to work at professional level and to platform those people to audiences. I was hired by them initially as a singer, and then joined as an admin assistant in the office. I was there for 6 and a half years, working part-time in the administration – learning all the basics of arts administration and project management and also becoming aware – through being invited to disability equality panels – about the situation and rights of disabled people and artists, and beginning to define my own views about this. With Sounds of Progress I still worked occasionally as a singer and through their theatre productions I gained a real grounding in basic stagecraft – which has been vital to me in subsequent years.

KHN: You know about my work tell in your from your point of view why still today there are a lack of women with disabilities dancing especially breakdancing?

Clair Cunningham: I keep thinking there must be other women out there doing what I’m doing but to be honest I’m still not encountering them. I find it interesting that I hear or see more men dancing on crutches – and mostly coming from the breakdance/hop hop culture. There is a young woman up and coming from Brazil – Mickaella Dantes who is a very beautiful dancer using crutches, I’m not certain if she is making work yet but I’m sure it won’t be long….I think I need to watch my back!

KHN: Please explain in your own words what do you call your style of dancing?

Clair Cunningham: I don’t call it anything specific. I haven’t named it in the sense that Bill (Shannon) named his Shannon Technique, as I haven’t defined it and honed it to the degree that Bill has. I would simply say I have developed a vocabulary of movement that is specific to my own physicality and to my understanding and knowledge of using crutches. Sometimes as a joke I do call it Cunningham technique- alluding to the existing and famous (Merce) Cunningham technique. I sometimes have a mischievous desire to run classes labeled as Cunningham technique – to which people would come expecting to do Merce Cunningham vocabulary, but actually give them all crutches – would be a bit unfair but quite funny perhaps to see the confusion on their faces!

KHN: We all know that you are from the UK however you travel does other dancers excites you and if so who and why?

Clair Cunningham: I was very pleased to meet and work with 2 dancers from Brazil that I met through making the work for Candoco. Edu O (Edu Oliviera) who is very well known within Brazil, from Salvador, as a very experienced disabled artist who has very much carved his own career and path. Also Mickaella Dantas – a young woman who dances using crutches. She is currently working in Portugal but I was really excited by her energy and drive and her knowledge of working with her crutches that is very specific to her. I was also fascinated for years by Lisa Buffano – I had really hoped one day to meet her and to, perhaps if she had been interested, to work with her. Her interest in working outward from her prosthetics and marrying that to her artistic vision was something I felt I related to, as was the spatial relationship of the fact that when she worked on the extended prosthetics and explored the more ‘spiderlike’ quality it offered I felt quite a strong link to the way I work on the crutches. It is a huge and incredibly sad loss to the arts in general and to disability arts that Lisa is no longer with us.

Obviously Bill (Shannon) will always be an important person to me for the fascination he provoked in me early on and the ideas he opened up to me regarding the possibility of working with the crutches – he could see possibilities of working with them that no other artist could and so really pushed me, which was vital. He also taught me to fall – which was a valuable lesson – in dance and life in general!

I have to mentioned that in terms of dance – the person that made me want to dance as a kid was Michael Jackson! It wasn’t seeing ballet or contemporary dance – not that I saw much of it, but it didn’t inspire me – whereas I locked myself in the living room for an entire day when Thriller came out trying to learn the dance. Likewise Fame (the TV series) had a similar effect. Somehow it didn’t matter that I physically couldn’t do these dances – my body could not recreate the movements by Jackson or the Fame cast – but there was something about the infectiousness of the dance, the love of dancing that I think transmitted and that was more unifying to me….
Lisa LeCavelier….
Annie Hanauer…

KHN: Being a person with a disability and a dancer how do you deal with ageing with a disability in your art?

Hmmm…well that I guess is something about which I tend to bury my head in the sand a lot and ignore….I have to acknowledge that I have a condition (Osteoporosis) that is a deteriorating condition. In my body will deteriorate and become more fragile. However I tend to ignore that at present and work with the body I have. I would like to think that my attitude towards working to the full capacity of the body that I have will be a philosophy that I can continue to embody as I get older and not grow frustrated and bitter if and when my body can no longer do what it once did. I mean, this is a natural state, but it is very sad when dancers think that because their body no longer does what it once did, then it is no longer valid, it no longer fits the aesthetic. This is the main problem. The aesthetic needs to move and evolve to acknowledge that dance needs to be about all bodies and not simply young seemingly ‘perfect’ bodies. From a practical perspective it I suspect that I may move more into teaching, lecturing, advocacy work, actually I would like to and hope to do that more, as I get older and my body perhaps –regardless of disability – becomes less strong and my energy/stamina perhaps becomes less. Which is also I think just a natural desire to want to slow down a bit as we get older…

KHN: Have you done shows that your disability i.e. your crutches are not the main focus?

Clair Cunningham: I’d like to think that they are never the MAIN focus! Hopefully I am a little more interesting….! But they have definitely been predominant in shaping the work, ideas and the choreography. For me they are the tools through which I engage artistically with the world quite often. Not exclusively, but they sometimes give me a different slant of looking at something (e.g. build a mobile out of crutches, turn them into a puppet) or adapting something (e.g. adapt ballet repertory onto 4 crutches). I am gradually moving further away from being so engrossed in them but they will also be a necessary element as I literally need them in my life. I’m not going to apologize for them and for the role within my work that they have – they are my tools, my specialism. It would be like saying – hmm Anthony Gormley, when he going to stop doing stuff around the human figure. He works from a similar basis in many projects but the context makes the (seemingly) same image profoundly different each time. I think the piece I am working on right now is one in which they are taking a lesser role though they are still paramount to crafting what the vocabulary is, and my status/reality as a disabled person is also integral to the work and therefore so are they. I will probably at some point look at working, in some way without them – I can walk a bit without them, and I am constantly – like Bill Shannon – dealing with people thinking I don’t need them. Its so fascinating how angry people (by this I mostly mean non-disabled people) get, that they feel they are being fooled, but they don’t get as angry about non-disabled actors pretending to be disabled….! Anyway, I will probably look at working in some way in a piece without them, purely because its becoming a question artistically and physically – who am I and how do I move without them? What is this grey area?

KHN: What do you think when you hear other artists that are women, disabled, of color, queer who say “that I want to be an artist first?"

Clair Cunningham: I think that’s fine. Each to their own I say. I understand totally wanting to be an artist first and foremost – I think the drive that it requires is something you have to keep believing in. Also, being an artist is a choice, the other states –color, sexuality and disability – these are not choices. It IS a choice if and to what degree you embrace it as part of your identity, but choosing to be an artist is a hard thing and you need an enormous amount of passion for it. I think its right that it should be the biggest thing. It is a choice and our choices should be the things that really define us. I think we each have to choose to what degree we embrace the other aspects of our identity – and to what degree we deal with when others are choosing it for us, and we shouldn’t guilt trip people who don’t want to put that aspect first. That also must be a choice and we should respect it in each other. I also think that we need not define ourselves in only one way, and in that one way in every context. Context is vital. It depends what the context is and how you want to be viewed. I can on some occasions introduce myself as an artist. Or a performing artist. Or a theatre maker. Or a dancer. Or a singer. Or a choreographer. Or a woman. Or a disabled artist. Or a self-identifying disabled artist. Or a white middle class small single straight Scottish person. Or any combination of the above. Or none. There are many hats we can wear in different places and we can choose what to wear and not always have it dictated to us.

KHN: Back to breakdancing. Do you still do it and I know you know of Bill Shannon, Crutch Master but who else have you seen that breakdance or just dance on crutches?

Clair Cunningham: I’m sorry to disappoint Leroy but I’ve never breakdanced! I wouldn’t know the first thing about it. Bill certainly taught me elements of Shannon technique but he didn’t teach me breakdancing. He taught me moves that were useful to translate from his crutches (shoulder crutches) to mine – there are many that aren’t. Other break-dancers I’ve seen are Dergin Tokmak of Germany, and then a few others on YouTube. But it’s not a scene I know or am into so I’m clueless. I’m really working more in the ‘contemporary dance’ –for want of a better term – scene than anywhere else.

KHN: Mixability dancing has been popping up lately. What do you think of this and whom do you like?

Clair Cunningham: Do you mean integrated or inclusive dance in general? Or is ‘mixability’ a specific thing? Maybe this is a US/UK different terminology thing?
In terms of dance that combines disabled and non-disabled performers, I have liked work that Candoco have been doing in recent years with choreographers that really are more aware of the different physicality’s in the company and work with it. For many years the inclusive companies I saw – in any country – were still very much couched in a non-disabled contemporary dance aesthetic. So they were coming from a place where the non-disabled body was still the model, and the movement and dance techniques the disabled dancers were doing or learning was still informed by this aesthetic/ideal. This really really bothers me. I think work that brings different performers and different bodies together is always more interesting to me than work that is full of only one ‘type’ of body. I find work in which all the bodies is very similar increasingly boring.

KHN: What are the good and not so good in your field of dance lately?

Clair Cunningham: Personally I think the work by the independent artists in the UK is the strongest work at the moment, rather than by companies. I am enjoying seeing the flourish of these individual voices coming through – voices informed by lived experience of disability. There is a growing understanding – gradual – in the UK arts sector, massively helped by things such as the Unlimited Commissions (which were the largest disability arts grants every awarded in the world as part of the Olympic Cultural programming) of the richness if the arts from this sector now, rather than it being construed as something additional, irrelevant except to other disabled people. Of course its not everywhere but it has grown dramatically. I don’t want to go into the bad. I am a very cynical person and I shouldn’t ever put the bad stuff down in print!

KHN: Tell us the difference now of being a choreographer compares of “only” a dancer

Clair Cunningham: That’s one I have wrestled with a lot in recent years. I have been labeled a choreographer many times in the last few years and it never really sat very comfortably with me. I felt like a fraud. Again, it can be dependent of context – in some environments it feels ok and appropriate, and in others not so much. I think this has a lot to do with my baggage and stereotypical ideas of what a choreographer should be and do, that I feel I don’t have the skills for, however I am starting to embrace that in some respects now I do have these skills – or they are growing. It’s also about defining what my practice is, and that is growing and changing as I push myself more and learn more. The most important thing to me is to be always trying to learn more. There is a desire in me at the moment to relinquish some of the responsibility and pressure of the choreographer role. I have been making work now for the last 5 years, and rarely performed in work made by another. This is largely due to the fact that as I started to develop my own ideas –firstly I was eager to get on and make them so didn’t have time to work for others, secondly that I became too difficult to work with others as I found I struggled to suppress my own thoughts/ideas, and thirdly that inevitable thing for artists – we don’t say no. I was/have been offered support to make new work and so I jump at the offers. Fourth – and probably the most important – is that I am very very choosy about who I work with. Which I don’t consider a bad thing, but I really would only work with people I really want to work with and that really interest me. I won’t work with just anyone, or anyone that I think I wont gets on with.

However, I would really like to do some work in which I TRY to be only a performer. I think I need this in order to be pushed further as a performer. It is very hard to truly push yourself when you are inside your own work, to always see how and where it could go. I think I would like this a bit soon. Partly to give me a break from having to think about making – it’s a lot of responsibility and I would like to maybe let that go for a while and let someone else throw some ideas at me.

KHN: Now that the Olympics and Paralympics are over what have you seen the good and bad of these two international sporting events affects on the country, arts and the disability community?

Clair Cunningham: see answer earlier on about the Unlimited commissions. Not sure I can add more right now. Sorry.

KHN: What is coming up for you and will you be in the states soon?

Clair Cunningham: I am making a new short solo piece called ‘Give me a reason to live’, inspired by the work of the medieval painter Hieronymus Bosch, which also has for me taken on influences of shifts in society – recurrent shifts – as to when disabled people are particularly framed as being a negative ‘drain’ on society. So allusions to the Nazi Aktion T4 euthanasia program, and also the current shift by the UK’s current government to paint disabled people as ‘scroungers’, ‘undeserving poor’….and this shift particularly seeming to happen more vividly in times of austerity. So the work looks particularly at the concept of empathy, and trying to provoke it, and understand how we create empathy – as opposed to sympathy or apathy. It will premier in March 2014 in Den Bosch, the hometown of Hieronymus Bosch in Holland. I am also making a full evening work, also a solo which will combine movement, text and song, and is called ‘Guide Gods’. This work aims to look at the various perspectives of the major faiths towards disability – something I felt I had not really encountered much information or work on. It is obviously a rather immense topic to take on, but we will see. I am going to base the work on interviews with disabled and non-disabled people who follow a faith, or indeed those who may have been alienated from faith, like myself, due to experiences that feel quite related to being disabled. This piece is supported by the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, and will premier in Glasgow in June 2014….so for someone who does no sport I am doing quite well out of it! Sadly no plans to be in the states in the near future – which is a real shame…

KHN: What is your advice for young women who walk with crutches and wants to dance/sing…. Like you?

Clair Cunningham: Go find people that interest and inspire you and try to work with them and learn from them. Go study things in structured courses too if that works for you, but seek out people that fascinate you or make work that you admire. Try it. Whatever it is your curious about, even though its frightening, just give it a shot. My single biggest fear in life is regret. I am truly terrified of looking back when I’m older and wondering ‘what if…’ I’d done something. Sometimes I find it useful to go somewhere that people maybe don’t know me if I am trying something new, I can leave some of my baggage, the chips on my shoulders, the doubts and paranoia’s about failure at home – as no one knows me here that I cant do the thing I am here to learn (of course that’s why everyone is there to learn it!) so I can reinvent myself each time. I think that’s quite healthy.

KHN: Any last words and how can people follow your work?

Clair Cunningham: thanks for being interested Leroy. Maybe I will interview you for my faith project…??!
Following my work – I have a website: www.clairecunningham.co.uk
I am very very bad at keeping it updated! But I will try!

Tuesday, February 7 2014

Papa Bear leaned forward in his seat, with elbows on knees. Folks at the Community Newsroom directed their attention, faces, and cameras toward him, POOR Magazine's "Panhandler Reporter." He then began reporting the news, his monthly state of San Francisco summary distilled from his daily studies and experiences of Geary Blvd.

"Well, they're almost done tearing down the Cathedral Hill Hotel," he began with a big sigh. He worried that the removal of debris and the demolition might cause traffic and additional pollution on Geary Street. "They are gonna put a tunnel underground. They have machines like a corkscrew that they're making a racket with." Papa Bear added, "The black and white come around the block every three minutes—six, seven latinos are gonna be deported."

After its closing in 2009 Cathedral Hill Hotel had been shelter to many houseless people, until California Pacific Medical Center bought the site and began removing/arresting occupants in 2012. Occupy (sic) San Francisco protested the removals in 2012, and police responded with more arrests of squatters, including undocumented folks at risk of deportation. The heightened police presence has continued since then.

With a crack in his voice, Papa Bear spoke on another piece of tragic news. "Someone choked Mary to death this week. She was an examiner in the Tenderloin. The wake was today. She was already in a wheelchair, an alcoholic who drank a lot. She was really a sweet lady, fun to listen to. I liked her a lot." The air felt leaden with sorrow. Someone asked how old she was. He thought for a moment with a questioning expression and replied, "I think she was… in her late 30s?" The Community Newsroom circle hummed with distress. It seemed that someone had killed her while trying to rob her of just some small change. He shook his head in dismay, asking aloud who would do such a thing. "They don't mess around with small change like that in New York," raising his voice. "This is something that only happens in San Francisco."

Papa Bear continued on: "They got my stuff again, took my stuff," he said of the Department of Public Works (DPW). He's planning to go to court next week and fight back for his possessions.

Someone raised their hand and suggested Papa Bear appeal to the Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) for housing and other services. "The DVA isn't helping me at all," Papa Bear responded. "They're forgetting the Vietnam vets nowadays, focusing on younger vets from Iraq and Afghanistan." He added that he's not interested in the DVA controlling his life, his home. "I don't want to follow someone's rules in my own home," he said. "And they want to take 30% of your income? That's ridiculous!" Someone piped up, saying that the DVA comes to inspect peoples homes every day, and you can get booted out even if you're super careful to follow all the rules.

It was time to go. Papa Bear got up from his chair with an exhausted sigh. He left the room to many heartfelt farewells and thank-yous.

From the New Deal to the New Steal-The Food Stamp (Cuts) to Prison Pipeline

A welfareQUEEN deconstructs the proposed billion dollar food stamp cuts

By tiny, daughter of Dee, mama of Tiburcio

Corporate welfare already stole our taxes on the real

From Politricksters to lying lawyers,

social workers to akademik researchers-

EVERYONE is eating

from this poor peoples meal

On this, the anniversary month of the War on Poverty – can we finally start to speak truth about the increasingly violent war ON us poor youth, adults and elders in Amerikkka.

To be clear, as much as people lavish praise on the original War on Poverty, it was rooted in wite-supremacist, scarcity model, US liberal values, and even at that was considered “revolutionary” in the hater Wite-Nation launched by settler colonizers on this stolen indigenous land. And who then made their filthy dollaz by stealing and killing all of our fierce, beautiful, brilliant indigenous Turtle Islanders and Afrikan peoples to do their free labor. 

*Welfare QUEEN’s Herstorical WeSearch

Originally the New Deal was created to provide limited support to white widows of war veterans, anyone outside of that narrow, racist, sexist, classist stereotype was considered abberant, crazy, or incorrigible.

These positions of “outsider” fit nicely into the agendas of the original purveyors of the poverty industry, the settlement house social workers who on one hand “helped us” poor folks with their charity kkkrums and on the other set up laws to criminalize us like the Ugly Laws* of the 19^th & 20^th century, enabling them to create more and more industry on the backs of us poor folks which we live with today called benignly a Non-profit organization. 

So the next big revolutionary (neo-liberal, racist, classist) move was by a neo-liberal senator in the 1960’s Daniel Moynihan who came into the projects in Harlem and with one swoop of his politrickster pen assessed the powerful single-mother headed households led by strong African women and their kin as crazy, broken and pathological. This is what African Descendent Scholars refer to as a **trans-substantive error.

And now in the 21^st century we have the second billion dollar cut being proposed to our last krum aka Food stamps that so many of us poor, disabled and low-wage working families, elders and folks actually rely on just to eat will in fact bring us full circle back to bread lines, feudalistic poverty.

The first cut which was approved in 2013 has already meant $34.00 less from this mamaz EBT card (food stamp). Now this might not sound like alot to most people but if you are poor, that means several gallons less milk, lettuce, tomatoes, bread or the choice of GMO-infused poison food just to make the tiny food stamp kkrums go further

For those of us poor folks who aren’t too broken down by this endless war on our poor bodies of color to still think and act with revolution, we need to start naming the herstory of these acts of budget genocide, these school to prison pipelines, this destruction but more importantly, we need to take back our own strength, our own spirits as indigenous peoples in diaspora, our own streets to grow food, our children’s minds and our hope. And perhaps most important of all to remember to not let success be defined by the ones who oppress us.

Guess where I met the author of Diary of a Disability Scholar Roosevelt Mitchell? Yes, on Facebook, but this was after I ran across Mitchell’s Kickstarter page for his book. I was excited about his book, being Black & disabled & putting out a book, got me stoke to get it. As I read & listened to the video on Mitchell’s Kickstarter page, I had questions from the start like the write up about Mitchell of him being the first person to write a sociological introspective viewpoint. When I post his book on my Facebook page many of my friends who are activists, educators, scholars & writers in the disability community had the same questions and wrote on the post, “He is not the first!” I tried to put everybody at ease by writing that I’ll interview him & write a review of his book. So here it is.

Before I received the book in the mail, I interviewed Mitchell that you can listen to at the below link on Poor Magazine at my column, Krip-Hop Nation. The second question in the interview was about the quote on his book, being the first sociological book on people with disability from a scholarly introspective viewpoint.

Reading that interview question at that time the late Paul Longmore & other disabled scholars who laid down the foundation in disability scholarly writings years even decades ago were going through my brain. Then Mitchell told me that it was his publisher who wrote his kickstater page & the book’s statement on the back. We both agreed that many publishers & people in power who have the authority on what gets out there have many times misrepresent people with disabilities like saying “He/She/it’s the first…” just to sell the product or brand. It sounded like Mitchell was stuck between a rock & a hard place. He could stay quiet thus don’t put his publishing contract at risk or say something if he knew that he wasn’t the first.

Anyway the book arrived in my mailbox & it was my Xmas reading of 2013. The book cover is a picture of Mitchell with a clean shaved head with a white dress, a light greenish tie & a dark vest on. He is sitting at a large desk with two stacks of books on each side of him and his nameplate in front. The book has nine chapters with the usual acknowledgement, preface, introduction and epilogue. Every chapter starts with one of Mitchell’s own poems that were a treat for me being a poet too.

For me the introduction laid out what the book was about and where the author is coming from. It was clear why Mitchell, a special education major in graduate school who became what the publisher wrote, “ an intellectual activist, writer & speaker in the battle against social injustice” he wrote his book.

He was tired of reading textbooks about people with disabilities by non-disabled authors. And yes I feel him on that big time however on the other side when I read his book I wonder did he know about disabled scholars and their books/writings that I brought into my undergrad classes in the late 80’s? I knew for me as a Black disabled student in high school that I needed to educate my teachers about my history and I also know now that it takes a strong family at home to build up that confidence what Mitchell pointed out in the book that was missing in his home growing up especially when it comes to disability.

Mitchell’s childhood was beyond rough & disability pride & education were not promoted but some how school was very important even when his disabled father took the kids but was abusive and spent every cent on beer. The father taught his boys to be tough but that was it. Poor Magazine could relate to Mitchell’s young adulthood from being put out by his own parents, poverty, living in a homeless shelter and being teased about not only disability (born with only one full hand) but being poor.

Not seeing or being encouraged to strive as a person with a disability I can see why through his book he did not once mentioned the importance of the activism of the disability rights movement that lead to laws because like many poor people especially poor people of color the disability rights movement didn’t touch him at an early age.

However as an adult with two masters, I don’t understand why he didn’t include it in his book. The reason could be that it, disability rights movement, was not taught in his school years all the way up to graduate school if that was the his only avenue of learning. On the other side it seems that Mitchell has a firm grasped on Black historical moments, people and music when e talks about WEB Dubois’s classic Soul of Black Folks & Amiri Baraka’s Blues People. To Mitchell’s credit he does recognize that he is apart of the legacy of disabled Black slaves and at the same time questions, why he doesn’t see himself when Black History Month comes around.

There were many common experiences that Mitchell has talked about in his book that many of us, people with disabilities goes through like not finding employment in your field even though he has two degrees, not knowing if the discrimination toward his disability or race. His experiences of rejections from publishers & agents is common among writers with disabilities to be face with the same sentence that a lot of us get, “There is no market for your writing.”

When Mitchell is talking about his field he is right on like chapters 7-9 but there are places that I must disagree. Although Mitchell’s reason of why he wrote his book & clearly states of feeling like non-disabled people need to learn from us, people with disabilities in the epilogue, he uses an organization’s philosophy as a scare tactic to prove a point. The organization was Autism Speaks (an organization that is not control by autistic people & promotes treatment not acceptance). Mitchell goes on to use Autism Speaks’ popular stands & that is looking for a cure aka treatment returning to the medical model of disability.

He goes on to say, “if we don’t do anything about the rise of autism we’ll become The United States of Autism!” For one thing as I’ve learned from autistic advocates that Autism Speaks don’t speak for people living, striving & advocating with autism plus Autism Speaks don’t have any autistic people on their board. By using Autism Speaks it goes against his book main goal of not having non-disabled people in control of people with disabilities thus learning about autism from an organization who don’t have autistic people in control.

Like I mentioned before Mitchell never talked about disability advocacy but when he uses events like when Hip-Hop artist used autism in a negative way in their songs he only points to people who are in powerful places that create change like changing ablest lyric but don’t see the advocacy of the community who also has pushed for change & most of the times before organizations get involved. To say the above I think the major flaw of the book beyond what I already mentioned is a lack of research or knowledge to present a fuller picture on subjects Mitchell writes about outside his own experiences.

Mitchell hits on topics like media, global discrimination, the church & charity all relating to people with disabilities but for me he doesn’t go further to display many sides that sometimes exclude the history, writings, advocacy and improvements that people with disabilities shared & experience.

I respect Mitchell’s Christian beliefs & using biblical verses throughout the book however if Mitchell is going to use faith base to explain disability in & outside the church with their charity philosophy then there has to be a disability historical activist voice that shows the full picture.

As a journalist & media critic, I’ve always questioned the notion that everything would change for a certain group of people if they were only included in mainstream media. Mitchell puts out this claim in chapter six where he gives praise to a television series “Scandal” and its diverse characters especially people of color and a gay character.

He writes “this is when issues like those make it to mainstream television where it is viewed by millions. This is what is needed to bring disability to mainstream to give kids & adults with disabilities hope & role models. I must say that mainstream media is powerful tool to change perceptions but like I mentioned over & over and that is the beauty and power of advocacy of the culture that have cultural movements like the Black Arts movement to today’s disability arts/cultural movement that have helped push mainstream media to put on sitcoms like Malcolm in The Middle to Brothers both with Black disabled main characters.

I’ll end this review by thanking Mitchell for mentioning the alarming rate of abuse against people with disabilities in-group homes, in schools & from society in general! His views & experiences in the mental health & special education fields as a Black disabled man are needed! As an upcoming publish writer and an intellectual activist, I treasure his first book, Diary Of A Disability Scholar I hope he and other intellectual writers/activist mix street activism, art, journalism and past & present scholarly writers will show up more and more in his future writings/books.

By Leroy Moore Jr.
For more information about his book, Contact Roosevelt Mitchell III, Email rooseveltmitchell@yahoo.com
Phone 314-708-9180

Ellis Act Eviction Alert

Another San Francisco elder falling prey to the Ellis Act by Eviction by Landlord and Speculators using State law to undermine rent Control.

Another San Francisco senior is being evicted from his long-term rent controlled flat courtesy the state’s predatory Ellis Act.  Benito Santigo is a disabled elder and teacher with the San Francisco Unified School District.  Mr. Santiago has lived in his Duboce Street flat since 1977.  He became disabled due to injuries sustained in an automobile accident in 1980.  Despite his physical limitations, he has devoted his time to teaching music to young people with developmental disabilities.  In a rental market that has seen a 170% increase in Ellis Act evictions and 38% increase in all evictions in the last 3 years, seniors are particularly vulnerable.  Many seniors are long term tenants in rent controlled housing, and, in the case of a high publicized eviction involving the Lee family in the city’s North Beach neighborhood, are evicted by real estate speculators looking to turn a profit by purchasing buildings and flipping them into tenancy in commons’ (TIC’s) in which each unit is sold as a separate mortgage.  The other motivation is to convert the units into condominiums.   

San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar hosted a recent town hall meeting on the issue of evictions in the District he represents—the Richmond District—District 1.  Mr. Santiago spoke at the meeting, along with other long term residents who told of being served eviction notices after their buildings were sold.  Many of the speculators that purchase rent controlled buildings are outside of San Francisco, some are located in other states.  One senior told of losing his housing and is now homeless, “couch surfing” while trying to navigate a housing situation that sees market rate housing reaching an average of over $3,200 a month for a one bedroom apartment.

Mr. Santiago is a valuable part of the community, as he is a teacher and has volunteered as a music instructor at the I-Hotel Manilatown Center, which is the heart of the tenant rights movement in San Francisco.  “Benito Santiago’s eviction shows the need to protect not only elders and those with disabilities in San Francisco from greedy landlords, but teachers too” said Tony Robles, Manilatown Heritage Foundation board member.  A San Francisco Bay Guardian article reports that 35% of teachers hired since July live outside the city.

Elders are being preyed upon by speculators and have been hard hit by evictions—especially in working communities and communities of color.  We call upon both local and state leaders to pay attention to the eviction epidemic that is hitting seniors extremely hard.  Ellis Act evictions have had catastrophic effects on the lives of thousands and those effects are being felt in places outside of the Bay Area.

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The People Charge Landlords With Elder Abuse for Ellis Act Evictions

(image: Remigio Fraga -Elder Activist with Idriss Stelley Foundation)- a co-sponsor of this action)

Reprinted from 48hills.org

On Wednesday, Feb 5th citing California Penal code 368...we, the evicted, gentrified, po'liced, elder and disabled, walked into the Hall of Justice in San Francisco to bring criminal charges of Elder Abuse against landlords for the perpetration of the crime of Ellis Act evictions against frail, elder, disabled and traumatized residents of San Francisco

"Becoming homeless as an already disabled senior almost killed me, said Kathy Galvez, African Descendent elder evicted in 2012 from her San Francisco home of 40 years so a realtor and bank gangster could make profit on her now stolen home.

Due to the predatory speculation of landlords like Urban Green and lawyers like Andrew Sacks trying to scramble to make profit from the huge influx of new tech employees flooding the Bay Area, thousands of families with young children and disabled elders have been served with Ellis act eviction notices, or have already been evicted, ending up in the streets, in shelters or most terrifying of all, dead from the trauma of eviction and homelessness.

The "Ellis Act" is a state law which says that landlords have the unconditional right to evict tenants to "go out of business". This landlord written law has been used to enable speculators to buy apartment buildings filled with long-term tenants and "legally evict" all the tenants living there so that after a short wait, can re-rent all the vacant units for any insane price they want.

“ I have nowhere to go…”

Pictures of Black Herstory filled every inch of Miss Nan’s walls. Mamas, daughters, suns, uncles, aunties, grand-mommas and great-greats, looked down at me as Miss Nan spoke, "This whole eviction process has made me extremely ill, i was already sick, but I'm not sure if I'm going to make it now, " the voice of 75 year old Miss Nan was shaking as she spoke about the Ellis Act eviction notice she and her neighbors had just received, which would mean she, an African-American disabled elder and life-long resident of San Francisco will be evicted from her home of 43 years, "I have nowhere to go, and i can hardly walk and now they are sending people out here to harass me," she concluded.

Me and POOR Magazine’s Co-editor and Manilatown sun Tony Robles were there, sitting in her humble living room with Judge Judy quietly adjudicating on the old school Panasonic in the background, trying desperately to “save” Miss Nan, from the vicious crime of eviction for profit.

As she spoke, telling her story and the stories of her two disabled neighbors, one of whom had just been rushed to the hospital because he was so traumatized by receiving an Ellis Act eviction notice, her voice remained deep and strong, holding back over 50 years of rent and bills paid, jobs tirelessly labored, unions joined, children born, families raised, elders cared for, mamas transitioned. “I have nowhere to go, she repeated.

After holding the disgusting crime of Miss Nan’s eviction on my heart, I was thrown back to the trauma of 9 years ago, when me and my mama were given an Ellis Act eviction notice, the last straw, she said, after an already too long-life of poverty and suffering, and the reason she became very sick and soon-after transitioned. I remembered the family of Gerry Ambrose, a four generation working-class family dismantled by Ellis Act eviction and eventual displacement to a trailer park in West Sacramento from the predatory impact of the first dot-com boom, my own eviction in 2010 under Ellis Act of Mamahouse- a home for poor single parents like myself that I started in 2007 and now Miss Nan, Benito Santiago, the entire block just Ellis Acted last month in North Beach, dozens more we at POOR Magazine have gotten calls from every week for the last 8 months and literally thousands more across the state of California, being evicted for profit of the few and the suffering of so many.

As a care-giver for elders, an advocate for all poor peoples who like myself and my family have struggled to survive in the inhuman system they call capitalism, and a good indigenous daughter that has always practiced eldership, I realized then that these evictions under the Ellis Act, used for the profit of a few and causing the suffering of so many, were an actual crime, a crime of elder abuse.

"We need to put an end to the Ellis Act and other laws like it which cause more poverty and homelessness," Luis Rodriguez, Candidate for Gov of California.who spoke at the press conference that proceeded the filing.

The Filing

“I’m sorry, we can’t take this complaint, you will need to go downstairs to the police window,” When we first presented the detailed complaints of 12 disabled elders ranging in age from 62 to 95 years old, whose lives have been dismantled by the abuse of an Eliis Act eviction, the DA tried to give us what us Po’ folks call the “welfareShuffle” i.e, sorry we can’t help you, you need to go somewhere else.

But this time, for one of the few times in our un-protected and system abused lives, someone stood up for our fight for the most unprotected in our society.

“Actually, no, this is the right place for us to be due to the enormity and seriousness of these charges, they have the right to go directly to the District Attorney, ‘ said Tony Prince, revolutionary lawyer who showed up for us and is also acting as Luis Rodriguez’ campaign manager in his run for Gov of California.
And then suddenly, almost as quickly as the “no” came out of her mouth, the DA’s representative agreed to go to the back and consult with other attornies. When she came back she agreed to take our first seven complaints and make an appointment to sit down with us to discuss investigating them further.

Her no was not unexpected for us. Us poor and profiled folks of color have been told “no” more than we would care to count. Our lives and the lives of our young black and brown people are constantly arrested, cited, incarcerated and harassed for less than what these landlords and speculators have gotten away with. We are constantly called criminals and thugs and perpetrators and dangerous, and yet, who among us is abusing the most vulnerable of us, who among us are creating sit-lie, stop and frisk and gang injunction laws daily to keep our poor bodies constantly under threat and attack.

"We will be investigating any clear acts of elder abuse," said George Gascon to reporters who questioned him on our complaints.

The ultimate irony of capitalist defined crimes is who is considered the good, honest, working people and who are considered the dangerous criminals It is not our houseless peoples, or black and brown young people that are throwing 95 year old elders on the street in the cold with nowhere to go. It is the people who have stolen this indigenous land and charged us rent for it and use papers and lawyers to destroy us, who are the real criminals, the dangerous ones. The ones we need to watch out for. The ones who need to be cleaned off our streets and out of our neighborhoods before they abuse anymore of us.

California Pen Code 368 (Elder Abuse Law)
Any person who knows or reasonably should know that a person is an elder or dependent adult and who, under circumstances or conditions likely to produce great bodily harm or death, willfully causes or permits any elder or dependent adult to suffer, or inflicts thereon unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering, or having the care or custody of any elder or dependent adult, willfully causes or permits the person or health of the elder or dependent adult to be injured, or willfully causes or permits the elder or dependent adult to be placed in a situation in which his or her person or health is endangered, is punishable by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by a fine not to exceed six thousand dollars ($6,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment, or by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four years.

This Friday, Feb 14th @ 12:00 noon- Elders, families and advocates come back to 850 Bryant st in SF to hold a press conference on the front steps of the Hall of Justice and then meet with the District Atty to pursue these criminal charges of Elder Abuse. Come Join us.

It was New Year's Eve, 2008. My friends had invited me to go out with them to a huge hotel party, but instead I decided to go out alone and have a drink to celebrate obtaining my real estate license.

As I was driving down Mission between 16th and 17th street I heard an E-40 song playing nearby at Blondie's bar and grill, so I went inside to check it out. The bar was filled to capacity as I made my way to the front to order myself a drink. Everyone was dancing and having a good time, so I joined in on the festivities. I began dancing with a few people, including a Caucasian lady who sealed my fate when she accused me of touching her behind. Even though I did not touch this female in any disrespectful manner, she told her partner that I had done so. When he learned of this, he and his friends attacked me. I was punched and knocked to the ground. I tried to defend myself, but I was overwhelmed by the kicks and punches I received by them until I lost consciousness.

When I came to, the men still proceeded on with their assault against me. I had thrown a bottle in self defense, but it just bounced off the wall. The fight continued on outside until the bouncer broke it up. When the police arrived, reports were made for both sides and I was given a ticket. I went home, barely able to walk. I laid in bed for a couple of days, immobilized by unbearable pain. Eventually, with a struggle, I went to the hospital to get checked out.

When I had recovered from my injuries, I went to 850 Bryant Street to take care of the citation. The clerk at the district attorney's office told me that the ticket had been dismissed. Then a few months later I was pulled over by the police. I was arrested because my citation pertaining to the fight at the bar had escalated to a warrant. All this, after I had been told it was dismissed.

            I couldn't comprehend the injustice of this incident. I was one man that was brutally beaten by three white males who I later found out were skinheads, and yet I was the one being charged with sexual assault, battery and mayhem. After being bailed out of jail by a relative, I began fighting my case from the streets. I was appointed a former district attorney to represent my case. He had no hope that I would receive any kind of justice. One of the men in the attack had a father who was an attorney and several times I would see him, the DA, my attorney and the judge leaving the chambers confident that I would lose the case. I didn't understand why I was the only one involved in the incident who had to face charges in court. Why didn't the girl who accused me of this crime, and the men who assaulted me ever had to show up in court? These questions fell upon deaf ears.

After getting a new attorney and contacting two of the witnesses that would help my case, I was denied a chance to have my case go to trial. When I had contacted the bouncer that was there and witnessed my attack, he had agreed to testify on my behalf. The court then slapped me with a stay-away order for harassment, and in the quest for justice, I had lost my freedom.

My eight month incarceration had an immense impact on not only my life, but my family's lives. I was forced to be separated from my children, the youngest child being only 6 months old. Everything I had worked hard for was taken away from me because of an age-old tale of being accused of assaulting a white woman. It’s a crime that, guilty or not, was sure to cost a black man his life in Amerikkka. This accusation cost me my real estate license, time away from my children and my freedom.

Going out to celebrate that New Years' night really messed up my life. The corrupt criminal “justice” system did nothing to promote real justice or healing. I may have been physically beaten by skinheads, but I was mentally lynched by the kangaroo courts. Like my favorite MC of all time, KRS-ONE said- "THE SYSTEM GOTCHA!"

February 11, 2014

Governor Jerry Brown [D] California has recently asked for an extension on the federal deadline to release state inmates from California’s overcrowded prison system. Why not just release all of the people in state prisons on marijuana charges and kill two birds with one stone? The answer of course is that leaders like Jerry Brown hold more allegiance to law enforcement than they do to the constituents who elected them!

Nationwide, more people want marijuana to be legal rather than illegal. I can give two very good examples of how federal, state, and local authorities abuse their power to unjustly arrest, prosecute, and convict mostly poor black and Latino populations.

The first example, from my January 12, 2014 Facebook post:

This past Friday my friend Jose Guittierez was railroaded in Federal Court.
I wasn’t present for the event that led to his arrest so I cannot honestly say that the fact that he is Latino was a factor (I didn’t hear people call him bad names but did review part of the video footage). I am absolutely convinced that his exercising his right to free speech, bearing a sign with the words “Department of Injustice” while wearing a bull nose mask, is the reason for arrest. The arrest took place during the federal raid on Oaksterdam, Oakland’s version of Amsterdam, Netherlands.

He was arrested for allegedly assaulting a federal agent. He accidentally tapped a federal marshal with his protest sign.

The Judge seemed to be as angry with him for bringing a protest sign phrased
“Dept of Injustice” and wearing a bull nose mask, as for the actual “assault” that lasted less than a second. The Judge was brought in from another state, allegedly so Jose could get a fair trial. He accused Jose of “coming from another city to start trouble” (I can’t possibly be the only one who sees the irony in this).

The probation department recommended 6 months probation and 6 months in a halfway house. The Judge ignored their recommendation and instead sentenced him to a much harsher sentence of 5 years probation and abstinence from alcohol and illegal drugs. He grossly contradicted himself by saying halfway houses were for people with substance abuse issues. The Judge further contradicted himself by stating that the case was not about medical marijuana.

My questions are: If it’s not about medical marijuana, why so strong a message? Why were these raids conducted after President Obama promised federal raids would not occur on properties that followed state drug laws?

The second example, from my January 13, 2014 Facebook post:

Once again I was arrested for selling alleged marijuana brownies. This would be the fifth time I have been arrested for this alleged offense. Four police officers who I never even met before told me that it was SFPD policy not to arrest people for pot brownies.

If all charges aren’t dropped at my next court date, I want to be represented by Ann Irwin
(if she is still practicing criminal law in San Francisco). I feel that she’s the only attorney in the Public Defender’s Office who has been completely forthcoming with me and represented my interests.

I further feel that the retainer should be paid by wealthier people than me in the cannabis conscious community, or otherwise through fund-raising efforts.
Now is the chance to put your money where your mouth is!

My next court date is during the last week of Black History Month: February 24, 2014. And I am posting this on Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Yes indeed I have a dream!

It is important to note: later that evening I attended a Town Hall Meeting with gubernatorial candidate Luis Rodriguez, in my opinion a true revolutionary. He’s someone who would not just pay the people lip service and pretend to listen to them. It’s time for corporate sponsored leadership to com to an end!
 

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La Reforma Migratoria es solo un Cuento

Desde hace mucho tiempo suena en mis oidos la reforma migratoria el cual es un sonido que me tortura. El año pasado dijeron en las noticias que iba suceder una reforma migratoria para mas de 11 millones de idocumentados. Haci fueron pasando los dias los meses hasta que termino el año. Yo se que Barack Obama no es quien decida, pero si el presionara al congreso, estoy segura que se logrria una reforma migratoria.

Pero el tampoco hace algo para lograr que el congreso se ponga de acuerdo

yo sinceramente estaba emocionada desde que inicio el año  pues crei en lo que decian en la televicion y los noticieros.

Hoy permanesco decepcionada de todo y de todos. Ya entendi que  a los gobernantes de este pais no les importa nada y menos la vida de nosotros los indocumentados. Pues como ellos duermen calientitos y tienen a su familia a su lado, no les importa la vida de los demas.

Yo se que nadie nos pidio venir a este pais, pero nos venimos por la pobreza que  existe en nuestro pais nativo el cual es por causa de los estados unidos. Otros venemos por sufrir violencia domestica, por ejemplo yo, por esa razon me vine: para salvar mi vida. Hoy veo que no valio la pena porque despues de 10 años  e perdido la mitad de mi vida al ver que perdi el cariño de mis hijos y eso si que no tiene precio. Todo sucedio por el miedo de regresar a mi pais. Por ser atenida, creia que las iguanas volarian.

Pues hoy yo pienso mejor me voy de aqui, pero hay posibilidad que mi ex esposo me mate cuando regrese a Guatemala. Y por ese miedo sigo esperanzada en que llegue la Reforma Migratoria.

Ya basta de mentiras! Digan la verdad! Ya estamos cansados de que nos tengan como bebes con el chupon en la boca, y no nos dan nada!

Esta semana escuche rumores de que este año si van a hacer la reforma, pero yo ya no quiero creer. Me da coraje y ganas de llorar porque los del govierno no se dan cuenta que nosotros los latinos trabajamos como burros. Lo que quiero decir con esto es que no nos quejamos de los trabajos pesados que la poblacion Estado Unidense no quiere hacer. En los restaurantes, quienes trabajan? En los hotels lavando los cochinos baños? Quienes cuidan a los viejitos y a los niños por un precio justo? Nosotros somos los que pagamos el precio de mantener a nuestras familias sea en este pais ajeno o en el propio. Comoquiera somos nosotros los que trabajamos tiempo y doble para poder pagar los biles de cada mes. Por esa misma razon estamos cansados de que no nos tomen en cuenta. Ya basta de esta injusticia! Nosotros tambien merecemos vivir sin miedo de ser deportados. Es tiempo de que reconoscan que nosotros tambien tenemos el derecho de vivir comodamente al lado de nuestros seres queridos y que contribuimos grandiosamente en este pais.

Ya ponganse de acuaerdo! Veran que este pais se va a enriqueser si nos dan papeles porque podemos contribuir sin miedo.

The Immigration Reform is only a Story

For a while now, the words immigration reform sound in my ears. This is a sound that tortures me. Last year it was broadcasted over the television that there would take a place an immigration reform for over 11 million undocumented individuals. Likely, the days passed, so did the weeks and months up until the year was over. I know that Barrack Obama has no say in what the decision is, but if he does use his ability to pressure congress, I am sure that migratory reform would take place.

Either way, he has not done anything so that congress makes the right decision. I sincerely felt excited from the beginning of the year being that I believed that was being said on air in both the radio news and the television.

Today I remain disappointed in everything and everyone. I now understand that the people governing this country don’t mind the situation or lives those of us undocumented people are living. While they remain safe and sound alongside their families, the blinds on the rest of us are shut.

I know that we were not asked to migrate to this country, but we came because of the poverty that exists in our native countries-poverty due to the United states. Others come because they suffer domestic violence as I did. I came because of that reason, I saved my own life. Today I see that it was not worth it because after ten years now I have lost half of my life: I lost the priceless love of my children. All of this was caused because of the fear I have in returning to my natal country. For over thinking and considering every possibility, I actually did believe that pigs would fly.

Today, I constantly think that I will leave here. Still there remains the possibility that my ex-husband will kill me upon my return to Guatemala. Because of that fear, I remain where I am waiting for the immigration reform.

This week I heard rumors that this year the reform would happen, but I no longer want to believe that. I gain anger and tears because the people of the government cannot even imagine the conditions or how my people are working. What I want to say with this is that we do not complain of our strenuous jobs or the manual labor we do that the rest of the U.S. citizens do not want to pick up. Who are the ones that work in restaurants? Who washes the dirty restrooms in hotels? Who are those that take care of the elderly and kids for a just price? We are the ones that pay the price of maintaining our families in this country or thousands of miles away in another. Regardless of the location, we are the ones that work time and a half to be able to pay the bills that we are charged every month. Because of that same reason, we are tired of not being considered. It is time to stop this injustice! We too want to live without the fear of being deported. It is time for them to recognize that we also have the right to live comfortably alongside our loved ones and those of us greatly contribute to this country.

It is time to make the decision! You will see that this country will be enriched if we are given our papers because we can contribute without fear.

I graduated from college at San Francisco State University in May 2012 with a Bachelor’s degree. After I graduated, I went to almost seventy job interviews for different counseling positions and I was never hired. I decided to apply to Macy’s corporate store in the United States. I got an interview and was hired on the spot as a sales associate. I was only in the system on the internet because I had applied a year before and was not hired, but they had kept my information. I was nervous before the interview, but I went above and beyond by studying the history of Macy’s. Macy’s claims to support the community by donating to various organizations. However, this doesn’t make sense because the people they supposedly help are discriminated against when they are hired. This seems like hypocrisy to me, because some employees are not treated with simple respect no matter how hard we try. Furthermore Macy’s is apparently known to be racist and judgmental with horrible customer service.

My first day of work I was thrown out on the floor with no training with the handbag department, and I had to guess and follow what other people were doing. I was picked on by my manager. She told me to sign up five customers for a Macy’s credit card each day even though I wouldn’t receive commission because I wasn’t considered a permanent worker. The manager made me do things that weren’t under my job title as a sales associate. A sales associate just stays at the register and makes sales. Apparently she wanted me to handle merchandise, recover the floors, work in different departments during the day, and stay for the seventy two hour period they had over the weekend at Macy’s during the holidays. She would say things like, “I am going to give you the dirtiest job in Nine West section,” but I never complained. I was stationed at accessories doing my overnight shift when she called the phone at four o’clock in the morning to see how many sales I had made. Not, “are you okay? it is really late and you are doing the seventy two hour clock for handbags.” Nonetheless I talked to my supervisor.

One day, I was purchasing a purse for myself, and manually discounted it because I could not make the coupons go through. After that, I was called into the security office, and interrogated. That same night there was six thousand dollars worth of counterfeit money in the registers, but to my knowledge that crime was not even investigated. They were more worried about me discounting the Betsy Johnson holiday purse! Reflecting on this experience with my POOR magazine family, I realize they did not want me because I was perceived as a threat to the manager and the other ladies at Macy's. I am a threat simply because I have a degree and other experience. I followed what the POOR family told me to do and wrote a grievance.

I asked the manager if he could lay me off as opposed to being discharged so I could file for unemployment. But because I had filed a grievance he felt it was a form of disrespect and he felt I was being pushy. I only wanted justice for something I deserved. When they called me in for questioning they said there are secret service agents in Macy’s. I believe they were assuming I was a criminal especially because I am young and black. I reported my mistake myself and offered to pay the half price to sum the total of my purse. Instead of giving me another chance they put me on suspension without pay and I had to talk to the manager who I filed the grievance against. Eventually, I was formally fired. The grievance is not really going to make a difference, but at least I tried to fight back. I feel unprivileged because I have not been hired for a job in a year, and I was only hired as a seasonal employee. POOR magazine recognizes these problems. I am fortunate to have the chance to express myself. Hopefully someone can learn from what I just went through dealing with the corporate world. It’s hard, because I’m conscious and aware of the problems with the corporate world, but I need money so therefore they keep us slaves.

The POOR magazine' Indigenous News-making Circle/ Community Newsroom was really fierce last week when a man came and talked about the injustice committed against his relative, Leonard Peltier. As a young African-American woman I have been born and bred on corporate media and until i came to POOR's People Skool I hadn't even heard of Leonard Peltier, which, sadly is similar to many of my peers,

Peltier was wrongly imprisoned for over thirty seven years. It was painful to hear about yet another political prisoner, most of whom never get out of prison, and are treated terribly because they speak consciousness and go against injustice done by the government. I was holding back my tears while listening to this DJ/musician talk about his relative who has been locked up for so long and is still fighting for his freedom.

The Feds accused Leonard Peltier of killing two cops on a reservation during a shoot-out. The main thing that struck me was how the press published articles in the paper saying that people on the reservation were not the victims but the swat team was. People have had misinterpretations of what happened because the FBI even paid the press to not include facts of how the feds set him up. Before the shoot out (on Pine Ridge reservation) the cops were dressed down and didn’t want to reveal their identity. During the shoot-out, many children from the Jumping Bull Ranch had to run through fire bullets. Angry agents shot up the Jumping Bull home, leaving bullet riddled family portraits in their wake. The police allegedly said they went onto the reservation because one of the Native Americans stole a pair of cowboy boots! The feds make up the stupidest things as an excuse to kill and harass people. Mass destruction and trauma on indigenous land for shoes?! Members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) were camping on the property at the time. They had been invited there by the Jumping Bull elders, seeking protection from the extreme violence on the reservation.

In the days following the shoot-out, FBI agents in SWAT gear and carrying assault rifles also terrorized other Pine Ridge residents through a series of warrantless no-knock assaults on their homes. After the Feds started investigating they had a selective prosecution. They charged Leonard Peltier for the killings of the two cops. There were two other members from the native land present during the shoot-out, but charges against them were dropped. Certain members of AIM bragged about killing the cops in the shootout but again they were never imprisoned. Charges against a fourth man, Jimmy Eagle (a non-AIM member), were later dropped. (Prosecutors admitted during Peltier's trial that Jimmy Eagle had not even been on the reservation on the day of the shoot-out.).

Media manipulation is a tactic used against Leonard Peltier even today. During Peltier's 1993-2001 bid for an award of clemency the FBI again put out false information about him. The FBI media had a plan to tear this man down. At POOR magazine we go straight to the root of the story and talk to the victims and not the monsters from other corporations.

After hearing this story, many of us Po' migrante, houseless and in-struggle folks in the news room at POOR magazine were quiet. We didn’t have anything to say but encouraging words reminding him to keep his head up no matter what. We agreed to tell his side of the story which is the REAL TRUTH. “DJ FreeLeonard” is a website so people can donate whatever they can to help this innocent man be free. Although the corruptness of the system has been discouraging and frustrating, Peltier’s family wants to involve president Obama because no one else will listen to them and believe them. After more than thirty-seven years, Peltier and his relatives are still fighting for justice.

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^{Below is a press release from the Intl Indian Treaty Council}