STATEMENT: For Mario Woods and all crimes of displacement and police terror against our poor, Black, Brown and disabled bodies we, the most impacted, are calling for the resignations of the San Francisco Mayor and Police Chief

As a Black activist with a disability I have seen/read in 2015 alone three high-profile cases of police brutality against Black disabled men on the streets of San Francisco including the recent killing of Mario Woods,Today in 2015 we realize that more promises of training is not the only answer, it’s time for institutional changes in the police department and on the police commission board..” said Leroy Moore, Race and Disability writer for POOR Magazine and founder of Krip Hop Nation.

In response to San Francisco Police murders of Mario Woods, a disabled, African-American resident of the Bayview Hunters Point district of San Francisco, Amilcar Lopez earlier this year and Alex Nieto last year, a group of poor, disabled, Black, Brown, homeless and poor residents, advocates and youth who have personally dealt with eviction, displacement and police terror are demanding the immediate resignation of police chief Greg Suhr and his overseer SF Mayor, Ed Lee.  This latest tragedy involving a young man of color murdered by police is directly connected to Mayor Lee’s prioritization of wealthy development over people. As well, we are putting forth and demanding an urgent solution; to elect a community member to the Police Review Commission and the San Francisco Planning Commission.

…In the beginning of the year we saw Bo Frierson of the Filmore almost tipped over from his wheelchair by an officer, in August we have seen seventeen cops take down Musa Fudge, a  Black homeless man with a prosthetic leg in downtown and now a deadly shooting of Mario Woods, a Black man with a history of mental health disabilities in the Bayview district.  Back in 2001 the community fought for the police crisis training after the shooting of another Black man with mental health disabilities, Idriss Stelley however more than ten years later, less than half of the department has undergone the training,and the watered down version of the training and funding snatched away and the recent shooting, all points to the effectiveness of the training has always been questionable and now have been seen as a band-aide that has never been the purpose to heal it is the purpose to keep the public quiet as the institutional culture of police continues to be hidden from the community .  Leroy Moore.

“As the mother of a mentally disabled young African Sun who was murdered by San Francisco police department after a 911 call for help and who was involved in training police for years, iI don’t believe training can stop the police culture of murder against black, brown and disabled people," said Mesha Irizarry, mother of Po’Lice murder victim Idriss Stelley. She continued, “They should defund the police and give the money to mental health providers, expecting police to respond to a mental health crisis is like expecting a mortician to deliver your baby.”

“Mayor Lee and Chief Suhr have shown a lack of leadership in this crisis.  The Mayor in particular has shown no leadership at all levels and his reaction to the murder indicates how out of touch he is with the community.  Mayor Lee and Chief Suhr need to resign”, said Tony Robles, Board president of the Manilatown Heritage Foundation.

The brutality of San Francisco police and housing policies against San Francisco's low-income, African-American and communities of color are so flagrant that our collaboration of very grassroots, poor and impacted people-led organizations have no choice but to come forward with this demand before we are no longer here, said Lisa "Tiny" Gray-Garcia, Poverty Scholar and co-author of this statement and author of Criminal of Poverty, Growing Up Homeless in America. She continued, "Police policies put in place by Mayor Lee's administration have increased our homelessness, have increased our arrests and incarceration and have led to our eventual removal as poor people, as disabled people, as people of color."

The co-authors of this statement represent the most impacted residents of San Francisco, a city with less than 3% of its African-American population left,down from over 20%, a city with a police chief who enables the extra-judicial killing of its young Black , Brown and poor residents and a City run by a Mayor who because of his investment in luxury development and displacement, makes it impossible for its Black, Brown and Low-income elders and families to remain here.

This media release is co-authored by disabled, homeless, poor, Black and Brown leaders at  POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE, the Idriss Stelley Foundation, Krip Hop Nation and The Manilatown Heritage Foundation, Coalition on Homelessness #######

--
 

Un Dia en El Salvador
Por Tere

Migrante/Poverty Skola

Un dia en el salvador era una noche con luna llena venia yo caminando por la calle de repente senti que ,alguien se me aserco pero era un hombre de repente senti que agararon y fue que ese hombre me agarro de mis manos y me jaloneo me quito mi ropa y me hizo sexualmente ala fuerza yo tenia como 15 anos ese fue muy duro y triste por yo era una persona ignorante yo siento que ese dia me marco para .toda mi vida.

Pues mi vida fue muy diferente en todo sentido por que desde pequena tube que trabajar y seguir adelante por que despues de la violacion yore mucho y no pude confiarle ami madre pero se lo confie a una senora pero no me gusta acordarme de eso por que me da mucha coraje y impotencia no poder defenderme de ese perro animal su cara nunca la puedo olvidar noche mustrosa y mucho miedo y no puedo ser feliz con ningun otro hombre por eso que me hiso ese perro cuando me veo que sangraba sin para me sentia morir de tristeza y soledad de mi vida lloraba sin parar por que sola botada en esa calle y noche oscura lo que me iso ese perro yo gritaba y gritaba desesperadamente pidiendo ayuda y nadie pudo ayudarme solo lloraba y caminaba sola en la calle caminaba y ycaminaba y no allaba para donde caminar sentia y sentia muy sola sola llegue donde mama y me fui acostar despcionada de lo que me paso ,

Hola soy una madre soltera de el salvador y tengo 4 hijos son ninos y nesesito contarles una parte de mi.historia sali de mi pais el salvador un 30 de mayo del ano 2000 un dia antes de salir de mi casa me dolio mi corazon un dia antes en la madrugada me dolio mucho mi corazon yore mucho por tristeza en mi corazon y en mi vida ese momento solo pensaba en que iba a dejar amis dos primeros hijos que tube en mi pais el salvador al dia siguiente hera 30 de mayo en manana me levante arregle a mis ninos para . Ir al quinder es la escuela pre escolar aqui usa los lleve a su grado alos dos ninos los deje y luego me regrese otro momento para verlos la ultima vez sali de ai llorando mucho con un gran dolor en mi corazon .

A Day in El Salvador

By Tere/ Migrant/ Poverty Skola

One day in El Salvador, it was night and the moon was full. I was walking on the street and all of a sudden, I felt someone get close; it was a man. He grabbed my arms and began to push me around. He tore my clothes off and raped me. I was 15 years old. It was very hard and sad for me. I was ignorant and that day has marked me for the rest of my life.

My life was very different in all respects because since I was a child, I had to work to get ahead. After I was raped, I cried a lot and I couldn’t speak to my mother about it. I told another woman. I don’t like to remember because it makes me feel rage and impotence because I couldn’t defend myself from that dog, that animal. I could never forget his face, my fear and that monstrous night. Today, I cannot be happy with any man because of what that dog did to me. He saw when I was bleeding non-stop, and I felt that I was dying from sadness and solitude. I cried without stopping, kicked to the side on the street and the night was dark; I screamed and screamed desperately calling for help and no one came to my rescue. I cried and cried and then I walked alone. I walked and walked. I didn’t know where to go; I just walked and felt very alone. I went to where my mother was. I went to bed disappointed.

Today, I am a single mother from El Salvador. I have 4 children; they’re boys and I need to tell them a part of my history. I left my country May 30th, in the year 2000. A day before I left my home, my heart pained me. In the early morning it hurt a lot and I cried a lot from the sadness in my heart. At that moment, the only thought I had was that I was going to leave my first two sons. The following day on the 30^th of May in the morning, I got my children ready for Kinder’ and preschool and dropped them off. I left them in their grade and then I returned once more to see them one last time. I left there crying with a large pain in my heart.

Translated and co-edited by Laura Cedillo

As people mourn the horrific bombings all over Mama earth it is disgusting to note that due to White Supremacy ruling the world even global mourning is racialized. More prayers seem to be sent "Up" for European (Paris) folks just like more people seem to mourn school shootings with white students while black babies, children and elders are profiled, violated and shot by empire armies (Po'Lice) in this already stolen land (United Snakkkes) while hundreds of Syrian, Iraqi, Afghani and Beirut children, mothers and elders have been killed over the last year under the lie of Isis.

Yes i said lie of Isis, it is an empire crafted concept befitting a Star Wars sequel and yet millions of people seem to believe it. The maasive perceived belief isn't a testament to its realness, its a testament to its successful multi-layered, CIA scarmbled, kkkorporate and Hollywood media crafted cocktail of pay-offs, pay-rolls, Halliburton "re-devil-opment"  re-building contracts, security teams and complex, billion dollar propaganda supporting it so completely that it seems so real it must be real. Right?

Hegenomy as History
The lie, action and reality of Isis is now even "believed" and carried out by many of the peoples themselves, and perhaps like all identification with the oppressor acts such as poor  folks and people of color working as security guards to arrest, incarcerate, tase and kill our own people for a $10 dollar an hour salary, Isis now becomes a "real" threat. So deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness of us all that we react to it rather than the roots of it.

This is hard when people are dying, everywhere. But it really isn't that different from amerikkklan po'Lice lies of sekkkurity that even those of us who risk being killed, maimed or perpetrated still call the po"lice to solve our problems, because we have all been so consistently taught to believe it is real.

What can we do?
First of all connect the dots to EVERYONE you speak to. Blog about it- Face-crak post about it , tweet about it.  Follow the money of corporate contracts in these "war-torn" places that we tore up and write old school letters to your poltricksters to not keep funding these fascist money-hungry "wars". Believe it or not they have to clock your letters and although the new plan of having people seemingly kill "themselves"  seems to scramble the truth, we can continue to connect the dots. And blood-stained dollar boycotts do matter so do them of the thousands of multi-national companies that are making money off everyone everywhere- big props to the Boycott, DIvest and Sanction (BDS)movement of Israel.

Finally, I hope that  BlackLivesMatter leaders would consider a global messaging perspective- like #BlackLivesMatterAcrossMotherEarth, to help connect these killing and liberating dots for all of the victims of these Empire killing machines

*A comprehensive un-packing of ISIS can be found at this link

Editors Note: Mr. Jose Villarreal is one of several power-FUL PNNPlantation prison correspondents. As currently and formerly incarcerated poor and indigenous peoples in struggle and resistance with all plantation systems in Amerikkka, POOR Magazine stands in solidarity with all folks on the other side of the razor wire plantation.

I was watching the Bay Area news, because we get it up here in Pelican Bay SHU, and I saw a short mention of the mural depicting Queer people that was on the Galeria de la Raza vandalized. Shortly thereafter a friend sent me some newspaper clippings which included two on this vandalism. After reading them and deciding to write something on this incident the one thing that kept coming to my mind was the words that I heard Galeria de la Raza’s executive director Ani Rivera say on the news, that we should “call it what it is…Homophobia”.

This mural that was done by a Chicano artist was vandalized four times, with the fourth time being burned. The person or persons who destroyed the mural also damaged the Galeria itself, not to mention what damage was done in the process to the barrio itself. The KKK hystorically used fire to inflict fear in the oppressed communities, so this really took a page from the oppressor’s playbook.

I was surprised that the Galeria was targeted in this way. I have been reading about the Galeria for decades. It has served the Chican@ nation since 1970 in the San Francisco barrio know as the Mission as a cultural center for all Raza in the area. The Galeria has always promoted social issues via their art and work hard about oppression of all sorts. When the state of Arizona created the law SB1070 the Galeria addressed it through art and racistas vandalized that mural as well. They continue their tradition at the Galeria of using Art in la lucha against oppression.

Homophobia is not just about someone who is uncertain about their own sexuality; it is also a component of gender oppression. Gender oppression along with class and nation are the three forms of oppression which keep the people thoroughly cut off from attaining liberation within U.S. borders today.

Of course it’s important to struggle over gender oppression, but we should understand that gender oppression will not be totally uprooted in a capitalist society. This is because the three forms of oppression noted above work to uphold capitalist society. The colonized mind plays a role in gender oppression as well. White supremacy and gender oppression will not end until capitalism is toppled. National liberation is what will bring socialism to the Chican@ nation and as a result people will no longer be oppressed or terrorized because of their gender.

Patriarchy exists within the Chican@ nation and it expresses itself in many ways. But much of this learned behavior of the dominant male or machismo is a colonized behavior. The settler has left an imprint on the minds of many Raza and it will take time to heal the nation of these affects. But a revolution will take more than simply hetero-sexual bio-males. National liberation will need to include more people than just those over five-foot nine, or just those with a brocha and clack hair. The liberation of Aztlan will need to include more than those over 30 named Pancho. Freedom will have to include the whole nation.

Male supremacy works twofold on the gender oppressed because they face white supremacy within their national oppression and this is mainly deriving from white males, but then they face hetero-male supremacy within their own oppressed nation.

The future of the Chican@ nation will depend on how we decide the gender issue. It will depend on how we understand the inequality in sexual relations in this society and study its impact on our nation. If our perceptual knowledge cannot develop into something more conceptual it will adversely affect our mobilization as a nation. Perhaps we need a cultural revolution to address gender oppression in the ideological realm within Aztlan. To those who vandalize the Galeria, I would say stop doing the oppressor’s jalé.

There are three arenas that I’m focusing my demands to

In The Home

In The Community and

In The Political arena 

You notice I didn’t mention police because since the 80’s when I first began advocacy about police brutality against people with disabilities I and other activists have been making recommending and/or demanding repeatedly to three stakeholders: 1) The police, 2) the media and 3) lawmakers and we have seen some changes but not enough to secure justice and safety for Black disabled people. 

I want to bypass this group and speak directly to you, not with blame about the incident outside of the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. However, after reading/listening to this, I want each one of us to imagine that Mr. Musa Fudge (the Black homeless man with a prosthetic leg that was brutalize thy SFPD in Aug of 2015) was in your family and in your community and imagine that he is a little Black boy with one leg, how would you raise him, how would the community hold him as a child and now as a grown man with a disability?  Would he be an important part of the family and community?  Would his voice be heard?  Would he see himself in the community?  Would he be taught about his history as a Black disabled boy and now as a man? We, in the home and in the community must answer these questions for not only for him but for future generations. Long before the wounds from police brutality, Mr. Fudge and many other disabled Black people have deep pain with open wounds and those wounds might have come from the home and community.

So today my demands go further than a quick band-aid, a toothless policy or another four year grant cycle or begging corporations like Twitter to do some sensitivity training or more money to train police, it goes to the heart of the places we all treasure, the home and community.  As we grow older, a place that becomes our second home, institutions from schools to non-profits to political arenas aka our jobs.  In all of these areas from home to community to institutions all need a heavy dose of how to not only live but strive together. I know it sounds lofty but we are not going anywhere so we must learn, we must not leave it up to institutions to teach us about everything.  We must teach in our homes, opening our doors to the knowledge of community scholars. We must hold institutions accountable by using the political and legal arenas to ensure that they follow through on what we, the community, propose. Lawmakers must write and implement laws that reflect the needs and issues as described by affected communities and the courts must uphold the laws.  When this does not happen we must use our family/community power in the courts and in the vote on the people we put in the positions of power and decision making.

Many times activists think that there is only one way for sweeping change and that is new policy.  We have become a country of laws, even laws for common sense.  What we see is that initially many laws leave people out and there is need for amendments.  If we are going to commit to this notion of unity for change, then communities and families should have success by demanding the law is followed. In bringing justice for Musa and other people with disabilities who are abused by police, especially homeless folks, The Homeless Bill of Rights, and the new AB 953 which is written to halt racial profiling by law enforcement, and was amended to include people with disabilities, are the tools for justice. 

Knowing that many of our services and advocacy now comes from non-profits.  We must fight to make certain that services and empowering space for Musa and me be inclusive to all Black/Brown people with disabilities.  That includes the good work that has been happening for Black/Brown men and women from the NAACP, to local incentives for Black/Brown youth to adults. These organizations and initiative must open their doors to their disabled brothers and sisters. And we must ask why Black national organizations and political leaders haven’t reached out to the National Black Disability Coalition (the only national Black disability organization) and recognized Black disabled activists?  This question is even more staggering knowing that Black disabled youth and adults are highly at risk to experience violence.  However, at the same time we must not only work in the non-profit sector but we need to be critical and call non-profits out when they are not doing anything but collecting a paycheck on our backs of poor Black/Brown people with disabilities.  We can start locally here in the Bay by asking these programs how we can help them be more inclusive or from economic justice, start our own group.  

We must break the usual cycle when it comes to the one size fits all solution toward the issue of police brutality against people with disabilities. That is more funding to the police for training and we must switch our conversations form police to our community groups like Idriss Stelley Foundation and more.  We can demand more non-grant money, media and awareness to go to cultural projects like Krip-Hop Nation who have a record doing cultural work around police brutality against people with disabilities and many others.  We can support the National Black Disability Coalition’s work around implementing Black Disability Studies at colleges and universities and their work in the community creating advocacy and cultural outlets to Black families and Black disabled people.  Can you imagine if Musa and other Black disabled victims of police brutality grew up with Black disability courses, books, movies, art and music on a local and national level in popular media?  As street activists in this fight against police brutality can start and continue to ask, are our rallies accessible, is the disabled community represented not only in your rallies but on the stage, on your media, in your talking points and are the politics of disability justice practice implemented in social justice left and their work before and during a movement?

Yes these demands can’t be answered in a day, week, month or year and I know I might be long gone before seeing these demands becoming a part of our everyday lives.  We can not only begin, but for many of us we are continuing the work.   All I’m saying is to make sure that we don’t feel alone in this work and think and come up with solutions that are outside of the box...

By Leroy F. Moore Jr.

Poor Magazine Columnist and Founding Member of The National Black Disability Coalition

Friday, August 28, 15

"One of the main issues in life I think we should be paying attention to is the mental destruction of Black (so-called African American) culture. Life itself is a whole different experience in the eyes of the inner city Black youth. The problem is not money, nor is the problem "education". The problem is the lack of culture. Now in these times the majority of Black people adapt to life, making their own culture. These cultures deprive from the mental progression of Black youth, leaving them in a state of immaturity. This immature state leaves a mental blockage in Black men and females alike. These youth grow up in hostile areas with no fathers. These actions produce a product of the environment. Some ask how these events unfolded. Many people have different theories for how such a detrimental act could happen. The answer is that the "founding fathers" of this country put such a harsh footprint into the African American race as a whole. For hundreds of years these acts have continued."

The beautiful statement was from Yalani Chinyamurindi, 19, who was murdered on January 9th of this year along with Manuel O'Neal 22, David Saucier 20, and Harith Atchan 21. The case has not been solved although one clue was that a rental car was allegedly used in the shooting, but even with that piece of information, the case grew cold. The media and those with stolen privilege in the community made it a definite point to focus on the 2 guns that were allegedly found on the scene thus automatically branding the young men with the stigma of "criminal" and with that stamp, their black lives did not matter. There were fliers placed on nearby cars saying that the 4 men were "dead criminals" and one caucasian woman coldly stated that "There is always something with you people" during the vigil honoring their lives.

Consuela, the strong Mama of victim Manuel O'Neal described how the po'lice at the crime scene treated her with disrespect, treated her like it was wrong to have heart-wrenching reaction ANY mother would have when her child is murdered. The cold-blooded contempt against our people, regardless of a "criminal" or "skolar" stamp is what makes it easier for this racist "Sssystem" to quickly sweep the murders of people of color under the rug. Let's just judge based upon "criminal" background!

At the same exact time, we are told to honor criminals like Christopher Columbus and to celebrate a holiday in his name. We are manipulated and brainwashed into honoring our enslavers, culture-vultures and colonizers, and to turn an blind eye in this kkkiller kkkountry to why our children, under mental and spiritual slavery need guns in the first place.

From Chicago, New York and the Bay Area, the pain of the surviving heartbroken Mama plagues our poor communities and communities of color all across the country and abroad. Our young men's lives are especially overlooked because it is more convenient to criminalize them for political gain, prison profit and gentrifukation (Let's be honest here!) 

My brother Marcus Nellon's death was first ruled "suspicious", then ruled a suicide because young men in "Da hood" often take 357 magnums and shoot themselves right between the eyes! (except, NO!) but by growing up a kid in deep struggle and railroaded into the juvenile injustice Sssystem, Marcus, unfortunately was a perfect candidate for the "one less nigger" project. My family was intimidated by the woman who last saw my brother alive, she and her mother tried to sue me for Marcus's urn and for the final blow to the soul is that this woman boasted of her ability to "snake" people and of her acquaintance to then District Attorney Kamala Harris. That's the reason why she did not have to follow protocol in my brother's investigation and she was able to go to the victim witness program and fill out an application, posing as if she was the next of kin to my brother and almost gotten away with it had I not shown up to the VW office. Marcus' death was swept under the rug, like so many before him because anytime we live in a world that we have to convince other so-called human beings that BLACK hueman beings lives matter is the same world that knew us, but did not include us from the gate.

"I would rather go to the war overseas than to continue to fight the "ghetto" war with the police getting away with doing whatever, and saying whatever they want against you." -Marcus Nellon

"If your child was beaten then raped then hung, you as a person would be mentally "fucked" for being the parent of a child that was put into a position in such a manner. This is just one major act of several major acts that left black people as a culture in the state of mind that they are at today. This act is one of the most (if not the most) devastating act of mankind."-Yalani Chinyamurindi

You say "one less nigger", I say "Two more young Kings with potential that were stolen from us"

Yes, I did "brand" them Young Kings!

The cry for tolerance in speech has become echoing for sometime now, especially when that speech is aimed at those already marginalized in society. What some refer to as “minority” people or social issues have continued to take on an onslaught of attacks from right wing conservatives - as well as some pseudo-leftists who now plead for “diversity” in the guise of “speech”. Often this “speech” is nothing more than oppressor speech which is a continuous attack by other means on THOSE HISTORICALLY OPPRESSED IN U.S. BORDERS. Jonathan Rauch’s article “in Defense of Prejudice: Why incendiary speech must be protected” (Harpers 1995) attempts to show why we should allow or “protect” oppressive speech, I of course strongly disagree.

In his article Rauch gives a few examples of how opposing “hate speech” has come to be used by the other side and lists Ralph Reed, executive director of a conservative Christian coalition having cried about “religious bigotry” having been used against him or a christian student at a California State University who filed a sexual harassment suit in the millions on his Lesbian Teacher. And he lists this as if to say “gosh people look what happens when we don’t protect any hate speech”. So we should back off of “oppressor” speech because someone on the right holds a press conference or files a lawsuit?

Rauch calls those peace loving people who want an end to racism “crusaders for sweetness and light” and he says this in the second paragraph of his article, he wastes no time in revealing where he stands in the battle of the oppressors and oppressed. In this very same paragraph he states “the very last thing society should do is seek to utterly eradicate racism and other forms of prejudice”. And in the very next paragraph he states “I am not a racist and that is not an article favoring racism”. Okay which one is it, he wants racism to continue in the ideological realm but then he’s not favoring racism in the next sentence.

Flip flopping is a common trait of those not being truthful of their beliefs. You cannot fill the stray cat’s milk bowl every morning and then say that you really don’t want the stray cat to stay hanging out around the house. What does Rauch think will happen to “racism” or to be specific to national oppression if he “protects” it? The word “protect” implies to safeguard something, his arguments are really bizarre.

What Rauch refers to as “intellectual pluralism” is a poor attempt to gloss over sympathy for oppressors. Perhaps we should not expect more from a racist apologist, after all he IS speaking from a place of privilege in U.S. society.

Rauch again attempts to distort history - as racists or Amerikkkan chauvinists often do - in order to pigeon hole or make his “logic” fit. At one point in his article he describes how he feels racism will always exist because according to him “Homo sapiens is a tribal species for whom ‘us versus them’ comes naturally”. He says this as if this is the explanation of why racism exists. He is wrong and here’s why…

First Rauch’s distorted view of “Tribal” does not match up to material reality. If one were to cast even a casual eye to history one would learn that tribes never believed in racism, on the contrary they regularly adopted and accepted peoples of other nationalities into their tribes i.e. the white squaw, or the escaped slaves - which Mardi Gras in New Orleans still commemorates.

Tribal societies have often allowed non-native peoples to enter their lands i.e. the Aztecs, the Mohawk etc, and this openness has often led to devastation to the tribal peoples. Rauch like so many others before him attempts to blame a long legacy of oppression on Tribal cultures, blaming anyone but the people who physically commit this racism - but oh, wait a minute we can’t blame them according to Rauch because we have to “protect” them.

In case Rauch did not know the tribal society of the Taino welcomed Columbus in 1492 to their Island and they were repaid - as in Veracruz, Mexico or the Andes - with genocide and colonization.

Rauch writes his article in the 1990’s Amerikkka where whether Jewish or homosexual he is still seen and treated in many ways as Euro-Amerikkkan thus he was born into a privileged caste compared to most Brown, Black or Native folks. His experience with oppressor speech is thus likewise tainted and watered down, it thus is no surprise that he would be nonchalant with oppressor speech.

I think to allow or “protect” as Rauch described it - oppressor speech allows it to concentrate and anytime we facilitate racists and protect their distorted views only strengthens them and allows casual thoughts to become organized distilleries of hate. The freedom to speak and think in certain ways is something we all strive for but when it comes to such foulness as preying on children or rape, these beliefs or erroneous thoughts should not be “protected” and neither should racism in any form. National oppression is in the same category to me as a rapist speech or a child molestation ideas, it should be challenged and combated by all means wherever we find it.

When You Gang Bang You Will Learn How Not To Show Your Emotions, So Will You Suffer Inside, Mentally.

Editor's Note: Min. King William E. Brown is one of several power-FUL PNN Plantation correspondents who contribute to Poor Magazine notes from the inside, a column of planation resistors who needs your help to get justice.

When you gang bang you will learn to keep your emotions in check. You will learn to keep your emotions in check because the weak will always be preyed on.

When you gang bang you can't cry in front of other people because you will be looked at as a punk, or coward. You will be looked at as a sissy, or and a little girl.

People are made to be emotional about all sorts of things in life, but when you gang bang you have to keep your emotions in check because if you don't it is a fact that you will be treated with less respect and honor by those who gang bang.

When you gang bang you are suppose to be strong and hard. If you were to cry every time something or someone your feelings, you would be treated like a weak person.

When you learn to keep your emotions in check you are teaching yourself to suffer eternally.

When you learn to keep your emotions and tears in check, you will still possess your emotions, but you will suffer and deal with them in a different way. You may take it out on others who are closest to you. You may take it out on yourself in private. Either of these ways are the wrong way to deal with your emotions.

When you gang bang you go through so much trauma, drama, and grief, but because of your lack of emotions outward, you will go through more inward, emotional mental pain.

Pain is pain, no matter who you are, we all suffer and experience pain.

Most gang bangers have so much pain and mental grief inside that they grow up angrier, and more dangerous than the average person.

If you don't wish to grow up and go through more mental anguish, and emotional pain than normal people experience, you shouldn't gang bang because when you gang bang you will have to keep your emotions deep inside at all times and when you do this to yourself, you will put yourself through more suffering than you could ever imagine possible.

If you don't wish to suffer mentally anymore than a average person suffers in a life time than you shouldn't gang bang.

After the slaughter of the beloved Cecil the lion, many people took to social media outraged over the illegal killing of the protected, rare black-maned lion. Walter Palmer, along with two others had allegedly lured Cecil out of the national park with a dead animal carcass that was tied to a tree. Earlier reports say that Cecil was wounded and hunted for another 40 hours before the amerikkkan dentist finished sacred Cecil off, beheading and skinning him. If reports are accurate, Cecil suffered and that is indeed one of the worst cases of animal cruelty. Cruel as it may be, we still have people out there like Sabrina Corgatelli, aka "The italian huntress" who claims she respects nature but then arrogantly posts up quotes like "To all the haters, stay tuned, you're gonna have so much more to be pissed about." Looks as if she is the hater, seeing her blatant disrespect towards the beautiful, living beings that God and Mother Nature created and these acts of mankind displays the foolishness of man/woman and how this barbaric stupidity is the downfall of Mama Earth as a whole. The argument of how hunting down to the extinction of these gorgeous creatures brings in millions in revenue falls upon deaf ears because nothing rightfully belonging to Mother Earth should have a price tag on it. If the people take care not to destroy her, she would take care of us and we would not be worried about any natural resources "running out". Theft, exploitation and devilish greed has got the world in the sling its in now.



Anyone who takes pride and gleeful pleasure in hunting and deliberately killing off different, living beings have a twisted sickness of a false sense of domination and control. The hunt and kill is not even for the sake of needing food, clothing or shelter and even so there is a way you pray and thank the animal for its sacrifice and be careful not to let any part of it go to waste because like Mama Carolyn Brantley X (ashe) used to say, "It was a a sin". Folks who see absolutely nothing wrong with slaughtering for fun and head collecting, folks that accept the annihilation of animals AND people as a way of life and treats it as something to just shrug off further shows how complacent, mentally and spiritually ill this universe has become.   

Other so-called hunters who take pride in defying the laws of nature have also been under fire in the recent past, like Texas cheerleader Kendall Jones who became infamous for posting some of the most beautiful beings on the planet, dead and desecrated as she poses next to her kill,  proud with the "lynching smile" on her face,  the same eerie, soul chilling smile that I saw on the faces of those ameriklans who slaughtered the stolen Africans here and proudly took pictures with their bodies.The smiles and smirks and the pride behind taking away life and mutilating the body parts and keeping them as souvenirs has horrible similarities to the "animal hunters" and regardless of it being a lion or a person, it takes a crazed mind to believe that playing a part in the destruction of Pancha Mama is a normal "humankindness" thing to do and to try and justify that the sickly-odd trophy collectors who carries this fake license of entitlement to kill and erase whatever living being they choose. To try and justify the sickly-odd trophy collectors who carries the fake licenses of entitlement to kill and erase whatever living beings they choose because of their stolen wealth and arrogance would be like trying to fry fish in boiling water- unsuccessful. To even say that death happens all of the time is a complacent statement also in my opinion because although it is true, there would not be so much of death and despair if Man(kind) was more open-minded and respectful to our universal obligations and did not glorify ignorance and greed. As a descendant of a stolen and hunted people it was, and always will be disturbing to see photos of the deliberate and beastly murders of human beings and sacred animals for no reason other than they dared to exist. And unfortunately for myself and Sacred Cecil, our killers looked alike in this case.

Editors Note: Dr.Voodoo is one of several  power-FUL PNN Plantation correspondents who contribute to Poor Magazine Notes From the Inside, a column of planation resistors who needs your help to get justice.

Young folks I'm speaking from the belly of the beast. I've done 14 years in solitary confinement hell and isolation, not only ostracize from the general population (G.P.) of prisoners behind enemy lines but

I'm ostracize from society itself and all my grassroots writings is under the watch eyes of the boogey man agents. The boogey man system of capitalistic greed and imperialism is real, and we the people's on the bottom of this well organize criminal pyramid structure system must know and understand we are dealing with a monster I call “ Boogey man.

People's power and power to the people is a reality we must create or we out, because no matter what color u are almost everybody selling their souls for a jelly roll to survive. For example, you have so called slave negroes enforcing the racist laws of the racist system to warehouse and black men and the poor population, check out that fool slave negro Clarence uncle Tom Tomas who now sit on the United Snakes Supreme Court, that negro slave ain't my brother and no good to the struggling poor masses.

I'm an Afrikan soul brother and I don't care what color you are. It's what you stand for that makes us kinfolks to give power to the people's draconian bias racist laws is pass every year to warehouse the poor population, and the one's who's enforcing these bias laws have a green light to kill us or incarcerate us with impunity because its the poor on the bottom that's being gun down and terrorized by these agent criminal thugs of all colors.

The pigs and the court system are hired guns to enforce the boogey man rule to keep us in check to start a revolution.

The boogey man system doesn't care if your black, white, Asian, Latin, radical, green peace activists, etc. because these agents will kill you or put you behind bars if one continues to go against the grain, and they believe me they do not care if your young or old.

Read the book Agents of Oppression, that terrorist J Edgar Hoover spied and used co-intelpro “counter intelligence program as a tool to crush the grass roots liberation struggles of the 60's and what that boogey man created under co-intelpro is still being used today to spy on you young folks because you are all grassroots conscious.

Yes this boogey man is spying on you all now as we write and speak to each other, and please don't get it twisted, this beast boogey man is watching you all and got you under the gun now.

Truth be told we the masses on the bottom have nothing to lose anyway but our chains, and you wouldn't believe how evil these draconian courts is prosecuting the poor population and California is the worst in the nation. Capitalism and greed is like Dracula. It's designed to suck the blood and drain the resources out of everything, this boogey man monster systems use and buy other countries and peoples like slaves, so its hard to fight this beast, but we have no choice but to organize, unify, struggle, and fight a good fight.

I'll rather stand and fight with the peoples and die before I side up with this boogey man: young folks don't sell your soul for a jellyroll because it's a good feeling when you know your on the side of the righteous and your heart will be at peace. I've been down for 22 years and my heart at peace because I'm writing to inspire your spirit to struggle and bring into existence people's power to determinate our own destiny, peace, harmony, unity, love, balance, and mathematics.

I am a human being.  I come from the union and abrupt disunion of a man and woman who went on to form other unions and dissolution of said unions--in due course of time. I am a man yet I feel like a pathogen. I walk in the city, the city that gave birth to me—and my mother and father—the city whose shadows cast over me—head to toe—hiding my face, attempting to swallow me. I have a strange relationship with my city--the city upon whose streets I took my first steps. It slowly became disdainful, as if the fact that I was born in it were a source of shame—something to be extricated. It sees me as a pathogen, something to be exorcised from its streets, its public spaces—something that should be hosed and put down the drain. But I still walk the streets, a 5 foot 9 inch, 185 pound pathogen. Why the hell should I leave--I'm from here.

So here I am, a full grown pathogen working as a housing rights advocate carrying a bullhorn into the courthouse downtown. A friend of mine--a housing advocate--is being evicted from her home of more than 30 years. Poor lady, not quite a pathogen but they are treating her like one. A near pathogen who never missed paying rent in 30 years suddenly evicted because the new landlord wants to jack up the rent—a landlord that considers rent control the biggest pathogen of all.

Why am I carrying a bullhorn? Well, we had a rally for my friend, the one being evicted, and I brought the bullhorn to break through the defeaning silence of my town. The politicians must have jumbo marshmallows stuffed in their ears. The more the people cry out for housing justice, the less they are heard. Those supervisors, those committee members entrusted with the public interest—it seems that anything that benefits the people is discounted, maligned or plain ignored. But back to the bullhorn. I carry it like a cop carries a gun. I think it gives me power—power of my voice. But it wasn't always that way. For much of my life my voice has been stuck in my throat in a knot trying to articulate thoughts and feelings in fits and starts. But with this bullhorn I have found my voice. You should hear me: What do we want...Justice! When do we want it...NOW!

On this day, the bullhorn decided to go AWOL.  The thing didn't work.  Some kind of malfunction.  I bought new batteries, jamming them into the place where batteries get jammed and still the thing refused to work--refused to join my voice to create a bigger voice and ensuing waves of revolution, undulating in the way a roll of toilet paper would do an a violent windstorm. I spoke into the mouthpiece and nobody heard anything. So I had to speak with my own voice—no amplification—just solo. After stuttering and lisping my way through the injustice of evictions, chanting and more chanting, I entered the courthouse.

As a pathogen, I am acutely aware of law enforcement, who are pathogen-free—or so it seems. I enter a line where I wait to pass through a checkpoint—replete with a metal detector—to make sure no weapons are on my person. The checkpoint is manned (and, on occasion, womaned) and maintained by San Francisco sheriffs deputies of various ranks ranging from cadet to other higher ups.

The deputies have a variety of implements on their belts—mace, guns and other cumbersome accoutrements that appear to weigh them down. It almost appears as if their pants could slide down exposing God knows what. But many of the deputies hook their thumbs on their belts and thrust their hips foward—as if urinating--insuring that none of their parts, should they dangle or come loose, fall to the floor.

I get to the front. I take off my belt, remove my coins, keys and cell phone and deposit it all in a plastic basket. I walk towards the metal detector. The deputy looks at me.

“What's that?” he asks, looking at the bullhorn.

The deputy is a muscular guy who looks like he's beaten more than eggs in his life. And just when I'm about to answer his question, a voice comes out of nowhere.

“What the fuck you think it is, a coffee pot?”

The deputy glares at me. He seems to grow by the second. His badge even seems to grow.

“Oh, a smart ass, huh?”

“Hey, I didn't say anything”

He snatched the bullhorn from my hand and put it on conveyor belt to be scanned. The other deputies gather around a video monitor like chimps watching a commercial for Chiquita bananas.

“What is it? Said one deputy.

“It looks like a coffee pot” said another deputy

“Kinda looks like a giant snow cone” said another deputy

“It actually looks like a vibrator” said yet another deputy

The bullhorn made it through the conveyor belt/scanner in one piece and so did I. I gathered my belongings and headed towards the elevator.

“You can't use the bullhorn inside the courtroom or anywhere inside the building” said a deputy.

“No shit” a voice replied.

“What?
“Yes sir!” I said, entering the elevator. I pushed the button for the 6^th floor.

The elevator took its sweet assed time. I had to get to the 6^th floor and it took forever to get to the 2^nd floor.

“You're a real shit” a voice said.

I looked at the bullhorn in my hand.

“Did you say that?” I asked.

“Well, it sure wasn't your d**k...and that ain't sayin' much”

“Hey, watch your fuckin' mouth”

“What are you gonna do, start chanting?
“This is serious business, ok? An eviction case, and I don't need you fucking me up...understand?

Suddenly I heard the sound of a violin.

“Cry me a river” said the bullhorn

“You got a name? I asked.

“Yeah, the bullhorn replied. “It's bullhorn...motherfucker”

We finally get to the 6^th floor. I walk through the halls looking for room 620. A sherrifs deputy walks towards me.

“Be quiet, don't say nothin'” I say to the bullhorn under my breath.

I almost pass the deputy when a voice calls out: Hey handjob, you know where 620 is?

I look at the deputy. My heart begins its speedbag routine.

“What did you just say?
“Uh, nuthin”

“No, I think you said something. Come with me”

I follow him to the elevator. We head back to the first floor--the checkpoint.

“Who let this asshole in here” said the deputy, motioning towards me. I looked at the deputies. Their glances fall on me as if I were a garbage bin—not compost or recycle—just regular trash.

“What's with the bullhorn?” You can't use that in here” a black deputy said.

“It doesn't work, it's broken” I replied, holding it up like a trumpet.

“Don't give me that Miles Davis shit” said the black deputy, not feeling the melody. He yanked the bullhorn away. I stood there, frightened that the little man or ghost or spirit that inhabited the bullhorn might say something else. The deputy looked inside the bullhorn, sticking his nose in first, then the rest of his face.

“You one big, stupid lookin' motherfucker” a voice said. I stood cringing.

“It was you! A Chinese deputy said, pointing at me.

“Yeah” said a white deputy with a deep tan. “He's one of those guys who throws his voice—a ventrickulist”

“You mean ventriliquist” I said.

The deputies glared at me.

“Look” I said. “I don't know where the voice is coming from. You said I throw my voice. Hell, I can't even throw a tennis ball, much less a pair of dice”.

The bullhorn was shoved back into my hands.

“You give us anymore shit and we'll shove that bullhorn so far up your ass that you'll be a alto--and i ain't talkin' about a sax” said a deputy who appeared to be the main shot caller. As I walked towards the elevator, the shot caller deposited a very firm, very swift--hard and well-intentioned--kick into my ass. I looked back and was blinded by his smile.

I walked past the deputies, bullhorn in hand whispering “Shut your damn mouth and stay quiet”. I got to the elevator and navigated my way upwards and get off on the 6^th floor. I make my way to Judge Kitteridge's courtroom. I get there. It is full except for an empty seat. I take it. 2 Asian deputies sit near the wall. A gaggle of court staff await the judge, their pores soaked in the perfume of power and authority. One of the deputies give me a stern look. The other deputy says: All rise...the honorable judge blah blah blah presiding.

The judge enteres. He doesn't take a seat. His brilliant head of gray hair gives off a glow of florescent nights locked away in law libraries and walk-in closets.

“Be seated please”

The judge called the cases on the docket. He explained the procedures/protocols he requires from counsel and made it clear the things that annoy him. I looked at the faces in the courtroom. My eyes fell on my friend, who, after 30 years of residence in her building, is being evicted—through no fault of her own—but because the landlord wants to sell the building. She's the last remaining tenant in her rent controlled building. She wants to stay in her home, her community. The judge heard the attorneys in other cases state their various positions. The judge stood, hips thrust out, arms crossed—like the narrow assed deputies who seemed to all have John Wayne's marrow in their bones.

One fellow, a young guy, was in court representing himself. The judge asked him why he hadn't paid his outstanding rent and why he'd waited so long to address the problem. The young man said that his mother had normally taken care of those things but had died and that he had become depressed. The judge looked at the young man.

“What's your educational background?” the judge asked.

The young man stood silent.

“Cut the fucking bullshit, judge!” a voice called out.

The deputies looked at me.

“Yeah judge, I remember you” the voice said. “I remember you when you used to walk around with shit stains in your underwear, afraid to walk down the street for fear you'd get your ass whipped.  I'll bet you still got shit stains in your designer underwear.  It took you forever to get laid--how old were you, 30?”.

“Detain that man!” the judge said, pointing at me, his well tanned face turning red.

The two deputies came around the table towards me.

“Up your ass, judge! Up your ass!” the voice kept repeating.

The deputies looked at me and realized my lips weren't moving. They looked at the bullhorn, perplexed. A deputy picked it up and held it like a trumpet. “What the hell?” he said.

The voice was clear as it vibrated from the bullhorn across the courtroom, making the walls move. Its words: What do we want...JUSTICE! When do we want it...NOW!

(c) 2915 Tony Robles

10 in SF in Need of an Asswhipping

by Tony Robles

Many people are getting whipped and beaten down in the city of St. Francis.  It is feeling more like the city of “Ain't Francis”.  Everywhere you look, there is the word change—as in a “changing city”, or a "neighborhood undergoing change".  The city is changing, the neighborhoods are changing; those words rolling off the tongue, whose tone suggests that change happens through osmosis.  Those of us who feel the changes the most—service workers, artists, seniors, working class youth, etc.--know otherwise.  Regular folks are getting beaten down by landlords, real estate agents, property managers, law enforcement and any number of bureaucratic apparatuses.  But the folks taking the beating, the ones not invited to the tech/real estate orgy, the one's who subsidize the wealthy—live in a state of fear; of evictions, of losing employment, their minds, etc.  That being said, I have compiled a list of those who I feel are in desperate need of and are overdue for an asswhipping.  The list, by no means, is a complete list, but it is a list nonetheless, of those most deserving souls who have done much, in the name of greed and insidiousness, to make life difficult for the rest of us.

1.   Airbnb—The pimps at this corporation continue to pimp out the city's housing stock while ignoring city ordinances and laws.  The boys from Cleveland have thumbed their noses at the city, refusing to disclose information on who uses their platform to offer short term rentals.  This business model has taken precious housing stock off the rental market and caused evictions. Airbnb shamelessly pimped the pride parade, taking out full page ads, urging people to rent their rooms/homes with pride. However, the vast majority of people are not registering—as mandated by the short term rental law passed last year—which is a violation of that law.  And Airbnb has taken to the billboards, asserting that they have paid millions to the city in taxes and that they allow people the means to make ends meet to remain in San Francisco.   Pimping at its most shameless.  And since City Hall appears to be the crown jewel of this ubiquitous pimpdom, I anticipate its listing on Airbnb, complete with rooms such as the Conway Suite, just a few feet away from the RonCon Rotunda, the Breed Suite (for dogs and cats) and the mustache massage area for those who want to get the kinks out (or freak on). The owners of this outfit deserve an asswhipping, along with their followers and minnions who misuse and misrepresent the word sharing.

2.   Daniel Bornstein—Landlord attorney from hell and Anton Lavey look alike.  I spotted him at the couthouse on McAllister, pacing the halls, whistling that tune, “We're in the money”. After taking that in, I surmised that Anton Lavey probably wasn't that bad.

3.   The company responsible for “The Hottest Tech Talent” billboards—It's bad enough to see them in the flesh, walking around, oblivious, stuffing their faces with bacon wrapped in hot dogs in the Mission and stocking up on artisan toilet paper but must we see their hairy, scrawny, non-descript bodies on billboards as well?  These folks are begging for an asswhipping.

 4.  SF Board of Supervisors who voted against the Mission Housing Moratorium—A mass of community folks from the Mission and beyond came before the board to testify to the need to halt or pause market rate development that is turning the Mission into a hipster outpost where murals are painted over in various shades of white.  Youth and people who don't often make it to City Hall came out in numbers, pouring their hearts out eloquently and passionately about their community and how it is being destroyed by rich people housing.  Perhaps due to wax build up in the ear canal, some supervisors didn't hear the voices and voted it down.  The message: Let them eat tortillas at Camp Campos.  If ever an asswhipping was in order...

5.   Anna Kihagi Swain—Landlord/Speculator who has harassed tenants in her buildings by      withholding mail, cable servies and making the most outrageous and fatuous claims about her tenants—such as accusing a elder tenant of selling drugs door to door.  A special foot in the ass for this saint.

6.  Real Estate companies who change names of neighborhoods as if they were changing a pair of socks or underwear.

7.   Those tight assed MF's walking around with beards and bow ties (With names like Dylan and Zach...or Zack)

8.   Annlia Paganini-Hill—This landlord used the Ellis Act to evict tenants from her Lombard Street Building.  One tenant, Elaine Turner, 88, a resident of more than 3 decades in her North Beach unit, died due to health complications brought on by the stress of the eviction. Hill is proceeding with the eviction of her two remaining tenants, who are resisting and fighting the battle in the courts.  Ironically, Paganini-Hill is a researcher with UC Irvine's 90+ Study, a study funded by the National Institute on Aging on Alzheimers with the focus on promoting “Quality and Quantity of life”.  How is evicting an 88 year old senior from her long time home showing concern for quality or quantity of life?

9.  Uber and Lyft—Airbnb on wheels, pimpin your ride as well as your hide.

10.  SF Barf—An asswhipping for trying to convince us that more market rate housing is thesolution to the affordability crisis and for also trying to convince us that they are a legitimate organization.  Who gave them a speaking part?    

WeSearch Study-

Subject: Anti-Poor People Criminalization in Berkeley

Date: July 6, 2015

Location: Berkeley, California

WeSearchers: RYME Youth Skolaz: Heidy, 15 yrs old Ana, 15 yrs old,  Tiburcio 11yrs old

Poverty Skolaz, Muteado Silencio, "Tiny" & Tony Robles

What is WeSearch: Wesearch is poor people lead research and pro-active media deconstructing the lies told about criminalized communities. We say wesearch instead of researching because we, the people, are searching for answers while research means going to an institutional source or point of view.

The problem being WeSearched was anti-poor people criminalization and profiling by Po'Lice and business owners in light of recent attacks on houseless residents of Berkely. 

On June 30th yet another layer of poor laws were proposed to the Berkeley City Council which would make it illegal for houseless people to use technology, including phones and computers on the streets or put their backpack on the sidewalk or street.

So our WeSearch team from POOR Magazine conducted an experiment and a survey on Monday July 7, 2015 in Berkeley on Shattuck Avenue. We would walk on the sidewalk and put a backpack down while pretending to be on a cellular device. We wanted to see if any of the establishments there would call the police on us or if the police would just “mysteriously” show up.While we were there for approximately 45 minutes using our phone and leaving our backpack on the ground no police bothered us or asked us to leave. The houseless people sitting on the street next to us were asked to leave by police within that same 45 minutes.

After that, we conducted a survey with four random people, as they passed by, each from different races, age, class, and gender. When asked if any of them have ever been arrested for putting their backpack down on the street or using their digital devices all of them said no except the one houseless person of the four/(see below to watch the interviews)

He goes by the name of Moon and he said, “What's even more concerning to me is the fact that there's so many people that have a valid voice that see it occurring everyday and they do nothing...it's very easy to brush aside homeless people. There's a large attempt nationwide to make homeless people look bad.”

As we left that day we returned back to homefulness with the findings that if you are a person of color or not, who's dressed nice, you wouldn't be arrested for putting your backpack down or using any electronic device.

 

19) There is a “blue light” in every computer screen that is manufactured for consumers that has been proven to cause early cataracts ( eye diseases) and reduced vision in children as young as 6 years old as well as insomnia, breast and ovarian cancer and depression
 
There is a way of taking off the blue light or reducing the blue light and yet it is never spoken about except to other rich people. ( research by Dr. William Harrison, a renowned optometrist in Laguna Beach, Calif.,said he doubts the corporations will ever reduce the “blue light” because then the corporations will have to admit they were harming us and then they will have to deal with lawsuits- i learned about this because my partner, a security guard at a rich people hotel snuck us into a rich people only health tips workshop)

20) Most poor people ( which we Po folks already know) are some of the hardest working, humble, big-hearted and generous people and may not have alot of the fake paper dollars created by the same rich people who stay rich but have more wealth in their hearts and souls and minds than any rich people ever did.

Haci hera la addicion

[scroll down for English]

Tello

quiero platicar una historia de una esperiencia muy muy desagradable que vivi. Yo andaba en la adiccion y tambien de vagamundo o sea ingovernable y me encontraba en una calle de la ciudad conprando mas gasolina de avion,esa gasolina me hacia sentir bien, tenia que conserguirla como fuera,regalada,vendidad, o robada,pero yo tenia que consegirla.

En ese mismo domicilio en las callles de la cuidad encontre una amiga, que recuerdo que tenia una tarjeta para compra comida y comiamos pero tambien me preocupaba por atenderla y compartiamos todo lo que conseguiamos,pero aveces no encontrabamos dinero y nos desesperabamos y no habia donde conseguir miramos una persona muy hebria y le quitamos su celular por que se descuido y seguiamos tratando de conseguir mas dinero porque haci hera la adiccion, nunca tiene fin, seguiamos buscando dinero, otra persona que tambien andaba tomada y manejando le quitamos su carro y lo vendimos por mildolares y rentamos un cuarto en hotel de la cuidad porque dormiamos en un carro, esa noche yo tenia ganas de descansar y recuerdo que compramos un 24 de coronas y seguiamos consumiendo.

Because this is how addiction is

Tello

I want to talk about an unpleasant experience that I lived in addiction....I was a drifter....in other words I was ingovernable. I would find myself every time in a corner of a gasoline station purchasing gasoline for airplanes, that gasoline would make me feel good.... I had to purchase it no matter what...FREE...STOLEN... otherwise purchasing it. In that same address in the city streets I remember I found a friend that had a card to buy food but at the same time I would worry for her well-being. We would share everything we would gather. But sometimes we would not find money and would get anxiety and lose hope.....now where would we find money? Nowhere. If we would see a drunk person we would take their cellular phone because they were not aware this is how we would try to manage the way to find more money.... WHY? Because this is how addiction is, this never has an END, We would continue trying to find money....another person that was drinking and driving we took his car and sell it for one thousand dollars we rented a Hotel room in the City. WHY? Because we would sleep in a car, that night I remember I wanted to rest I remember that we bought a 24 of Coronas we continued consuming alcohol I also remember telling someone to bring airplane gasoline to sell I gave him a car we had and $500 dollars or more I stayed in the Hotel enjoying the coronitas and the airplane gasoline?

The next day it was dawn he has not come back till this day? That morning he did not come back I left early kept on looking for money to keep consuming and that morning I remember it was not a good day. I was trying to get a Van. 2006. And it was also year 2006 the day 6-7 I remember the day because a day after it was a friend’s birthday the ones I was trying to steel their Van they came out and beat me up. They wanted to beat me up really bad but I had left the Van in reverse it accelerated and hit another truck that was nearby.

As someone who once lived in substandard constructed Section-8 project-based housing in Berkeley, California for six years, I can assure you that all so-called ‘affordable housing’ built and/or refurbished with HUD (U.S. Government Housing for Urban Development) funding for low-income communities was built with many corners being cut in order to meet the limited financial budget of the HUD funding building subsidy. This is true of the ‘Library Gardens’ apartment complex in Berkeley which was actually built in 2003, where 12 years later on June 16, 2015, thirteen J-1 Visa summer work program young adults from Ireland would tragically fall, six of them to their untimely deaths and seven of them seriously injured, from a faulty balcony. It collapsed as a result of substandard low-budget HUD funded faulty construction.

What the mainstream media is failing to tell everyone is that the Library Gardens apartment complex in Berkeley was first built in 2003, not in 2006.  How do I know this?  Well…  In 2003, I was a full-time student attending Vista Community College, which today is known as Berkeley City College, working on my Associate’s Degree in Multimedia Digital Imaging. There were many other students in my class like myself who were low-income and during this time, several of them were trying to get into affordable housing at Library Gardens as during this time, Library Gardens was being built to be project-based low-income affordable housing, not market rate housing.  

This part of Library Garden’s initial history to how it was built and funded has been intentionally kept out of the mainstream media, away from the public ear, therefore the truth has not been told about its history of when it was built.  Mysteriously, sometime between 2004 and 2006, Library Gardens silently changed hands of ownership without any public input nor notification of any sort after it had sat dormant for a couple of years until a new owner quietly acquired it.  Almost immediately, this new owner would rent to primarily market rate paying tenants and students only.

However, Library Gardens had been initially ‘quickly’ built with a HUD funded cheap, substandard construction materials with many ‘short-cuts’ made in the overall construction work to stay within its tight budget, including a low-bid construction contract with Segue Construction who has a track record for faulty construction practices, which in turn would later render multiple problems with Library Gardens, as it was initially built for low-income communities. It’s obvious that the City of Berkeley in its entirety had intentionally turned the other way on this issue, failing to research Segue Construction’s bad history of multiple problems with their construction of balconies at other properties, but then again…this apartment complex (Library Gardens) was being built for poor communities, right?

Unfortunately in 2006, after Library Gardens was bought by an out-of-state real estate developer with offices based out of both Delaware and New Jersey, calling themselves Library Gardens LLC Delaware and Library Gardens International and California (I am unable to now find their contact information online since the balcony collapse incident), with the property being managed by Texas based Greystar Real Estate Management, who specializes in renting properties at top dollar to starving students in college towns across the United States, nearly all of the rental units turned into market rate units.  Eventually, Library Gardens rental prices skyrocketed with a two-bedroom/1-bath costing $3,600.00 a month for 719 sq. ft. which forced many struggling young college students, including visiting J-1 visa international students to bunk up in these cramped over-priced apartments in large numbers due to the extremely high rent.

Since 2006, there has been minimal construction maintenance work and inspection done on the Library Gardens property although there were multiple complaints about structural problems from the tenants over the years with no inspections made on the balconies. The balconies were cheaply made with substandard construction and building materials, including the lack of waterproofing the structure around the balcony areas of the apartment complex.  

In all truth, this unfortunate tragedy could have been avoided by all means.  And, the fact that the property was virtually ‘flipped’ to become a ‘for profit’ apartment complex after remaining dormant for 1-2 years was intentional so that it would no longer be mandated to remain primarily low-income affordable housing, instead turned for profit despite the low-budget construction which would result to the balcony collapse tragedy for these young Irish J-1 visa students who most likely come from working-class families.  

And on top of that, I can only imagine that nobody has really stepped out to ensure that those young adults from Ireland who came to the U.S. on J-1 visas affected by this horrible and preventable tragic incident were informed about the ‘HealthPAC’ Medi-CAL program in Alameda County (Berkeley is in Alameda County), which is a low-cost/free State run medical insurance program made specifically for immigrants/undocumented immigrants in the United States. This could surely help those injured and their families who have been adversely affected by this tragedy to avoid being faced with astronomical medical bills for being a victim of some big real estate conglomerate’s excessive greed and neglectful practice.

Yet, let’s not forget that this apartment complex ‘Library Gardens’ was originally built for low-income communities, which only tells me as someone who once resided for six years in an apartment complex in Berkeley that also had multiple structural problems due to HUD budget cutting limitations, that our lives don’t matter as these contractual privatized real estate developers don’t truly care about our overall well-being. Instead they are only out to grab government subsidized funding from HUD to build their property development for ‘cheap’ just to later, ‘flip’ the property for a huge profit after getting rid of the low-income tenants through a ‘new owner’ along with new bogus rental contracts that include discriminatory policies intentionally designed to disqualify us.  However, in the case of Library Gardens, this horrible balcony collapsing incident has truly shed light upon the frivolous and wrongful practices in which big money real estate developers are partaking in, their lies in disguise and how we in the end pay the ‘price’.

BUENO escribi sobre mi vida.

[Scroll down for English]

Mi nombre es Teresa C.

Mis padres: Beatriz Bautista Lerdo,

Mauro Cortes Rosas.

El verir a USA me cambio la vida. Trabajo, en salubridad en el estado de Puebla , pue., y tenia una cita para trabajar en la camara de sensdores, para el (P.R.D.) vine a trabajar cuidando niños y me pagarian $1500.00. Y fue mentrira pues trabajarba 24 hrs. Y con $450.00 al mes. Eran 2 niños. Una niña de 3 años y un niño recien nacido. Al paso del tiempo., no me gustaba, pues llege en Abril (13 abril 1997) llego la epoca de lluvia y dias grises, 12 hras continuas, muy aburridas, y extraño mi vida, Y despues de 7 meses cuidaba 12 niños de todas las edades y las otras familias me pagaban 1 dollar por dia y era muy cansado y le dije a la familia que no trabajaba mas. Ellos dijeron no pues si te vas me tienes que pagar $3500. El me dijo: si ves este frasco, todos estos Tickets son lo que tu me debes. Cuando yo le pregunte cuando llege aqui: Cuanto te debo y el dijo luego hacemos cuentas. Entonces me dijo si ya no quieres trabajar aqui, tienes que pagarme. Entonces hicimos cuentas; 1 año de 400x12=4800 y el tenia mas dimero de lo que a mi me pagaron.

ALRIGHT. I’m going to write about my life.

My name is Teresa C.

My Parents are Beatriz Bautista Lerdo and Mauro Cortes Rosas.

   Coming to the U.S changed my life. I worked in health care in the state of Puebla but I had an interview to work for the chamber of senators for the PRD. I came here to work as a nanny, caring for children with a promised wage of 1,500 dollars a month. It was a lie. I worked 24 hours with a monthly pay of $450. I cared for two children: a 3 year old girl and a new born boy. In time, I didn’t like it. It was April 13^th, 1997, a time of rain and gloom. Twelve boring, continuous hours back to back. I missed my life! After 7 months, I was watching 12 children of all ages and the families only paid me a dollar a day. I was exhausted, so I told them I wasn’t going to work for them anymore. I was then told that if I left, I would have to pay them $3,500 dollars. “You see that dish, and all of those tickets? This is what you owe me,” they said.

When I first arrived, I asked them: “How much do I owe you?”

                                                              “Later, we’ll do the math,” they would answer.

  Once again, I was reminded, “If you no longer want to work here, you need to pay.” So we did the math: 1 year and 400 dollars X 12= 4,800. They ended up with more money than what I earned the entire year.

Translated and co-edited by Laura Cedillo

July 14, 2015

I suppose I should just resign myself to being emotionally abused by my new doctor
or to find another one.

The onslaught continues in the emotional tug of war between me ascertaining my rights and her attempting to impose her will over me.

My doctor continues to attempt to interrogate and cross examine me rather than advise and offer me words of encouragement. Case in point occured during my most recent office visit to Tenderloin Healthcare formerly known as Glide Health Services. I far exceeded my health goal of walking more. I also joined a gym. I routinely put in excess of 2 hours a day in the gym not just a couple of times a week but about everyday, taking an occasional day off only because I know my back will give out if I don't. My walks are not just around the block but rather up and down some of the steepest hills the city has to offer. My diet, although it's not perfect, has been trimmed of many of the bad food items and they have been replaced with healthier alternatives. True enough, I admit that I'm eating more but it's due mainly to my increased physical activity.

Rather than congratulate me and encourage me to keep up the good work she just tells me unnecessary and unwanted things like, "If you need me to write a letter to the Y to get a discount, I can do that." Why would that be necessary if I joined a gym?

According to my chart I gained 2 lbs, but rather than thinking that maybe the best plan of action is doing a body mass index [bmi], she says, "well it looks like you gained 2 lbs. so you're right back where you were. I would advise you to watch what you eat so you can lose weight." Why would she say this when she knows that my diet is cheifly dictated by food pantries and soup kitchens?
Could it be that I gained 2 lbs or more of muscle and lost some fat?

When I told her I'm peeing more because I'm drinking more tea she asked, "Is it sweetened tea?"
I feel like she is constantly trying to catch me in a lie so she can prove how right she is. If she bothered listening to me she would know I know a great deal about nutrition and exercise and have been applying it.