The rubber sides of the boat were like arms- thick - round - hard. “These are the boats refugees have to travel through, men sit on the side, the women, children and elders in the middle, sometimes getting splashed and sick with the leaking gasoline from the engine because they are covering miles of ocean to go from one country to another,”

Each of the tour guide’s words from Medices Sin Fronter MSF (Doctors Without Borders) rolled out of her mouth like water, narrating the “Forced From Home” traveling exhibit of removal, government/empire wars and NGO/Govt abuse of indigenous bodies across the global south. As she spoke she cut lines into my already broken heart, breaking it into even more pieces. Our liberation school Deecolonize Academy was on a field trip to this exhibit, sitting together in a dull gray rubber raft which was sitting on the black asphalt parking lot behind the kaiser auditorium in downtown Oakland. We were surrounded by everything that was allegedly modern and clean and part of this stolen Lisjan/Ohlone territory known as Oakland, California, United States.

As the guide took us through the literal experience of “refugees” across mama earth destroyed, dismantled and exploited from the empire fueled wars and kkkorporate land grabs in  Iraq, Lebanon, Mexico, Tanzania and South Sudan and more, directing us to “pick five things we could take with us with only a 10 second warning, I stood there deciding between a laminated card with a water bottle, passport or money icons on it. I began to get a pit in the deepest part of my stomach. I had been here before, so many times. the minutes to second warnings varied from situation to situation. This was my life as a houseless child.

Beginning at age 11 when i had to decide whether to take my favorite stuffed rabbit, my 6th grade class photo or one other pair of jeans in the hefty bag we were about to throw out of the 3rd floor apartment window me and mama were being evicted from, the 5-10 second warnings began. This was the first eviction we were faced with, our first in a long line of poverty and disability fueled displacements. Then there were the cars that we were living in that were towed, giving me and my mama 2-5 seconds to grab “everything” before they were hitched onto the tow trucks and driven away, never to be seen again. We were towed over and over because we  were parked overnight in neighborhoods that didn’t want “homeless” people and their hoopties (broke-down cars)  on their streets, so we would accumulate “illegal lodging” tickets, which we could never pay until they would tow our home away for good.

And then there were the 5 minute warnings of poLice and Department of public works before all of our belongings were going to be thrown in the trash when we were sleeping in doorways, on benches and in parks, but by this time the deciding got easier, there was hardly anything left to decide on. This was when the numbness of loss set in, this is when the poverty eats you up and you just become the move, the trash, the loss, the end. When the privilege of “belongings” is no longer yours to even consider. When the loss and trauma becomes normalized.

Our poor mama and uncle led liberation school Deecolonize Academy located on the liberated Ohlone Lisjan land us landless peoples at POOR Magazine call Homefulness went on a field trip to report and support for POOR Magazine’s revolutionary journalism class. All of us formerly houseless, currently houseless poverty mama and youth skolaz , whose Black, Brown, unhoused and disabled lives endlessly struggle with eviction, poverty, racism and different forms of Amerikkklan oppression, false borders and poLice terror and community violence, were sadly really natural for us to make this series of horrible crisis decisions, as we rolled through each mock station.  

“Imagine you are stateless,” the tour guide called out as she directed us to different sides of a tall erected fence in the installation. “You are an IDP,.. an international displaced person,” no nation will claim you, no nation will protect you,”

“You mean like me, like Afro-indigenous peoples here,” sis-star warrior, co-teacher at Decolonize Academy and co-founder of Kiss My Black Arts Tracey Bell-Borden, said to me under her breath. “Our Black and Brown bodies always under attack by the state, never protected, never respected..” her voice trailed off and we both got quiet.

International displaced person or IDP’s…as i stood behind that fake fence I thought wouldn’t this be a logical title for Black, Brown and indigenous folks endlessly predated on by the poLice and the politricksters, peoples like Luis Demetrio Gongora Pat and Amilcar Perez Lopez and Jessica Nelson Williams.  And unhoused, criminalized, displaced folks in this stolen indigenous territory ruled over by the land-stealers, banksters and real estate snakes, who thanks to the buying, selling and profiting off of mother earth have made it impossible to afford the basic human right of safe, affordable housing in most urban cities in the United Snakes Families like me and my mama who were permanently outside for over 10 years of my childhood and later when i was a single mama with my infant sun.  

“Now you can only bring two things, and you have 2 seconds to decide,” as she spoke we all numbly dropped our cards, leaving things we would have needed to live, eat and survive. Not because it made sense or was a good decision, but like so many of our brother and sister international refugees, were being told, we had to leave. Cards with food, coins, tools, and ID’s were dropped numbly by all of us into a barrell and we all shuffled off to the next to last installations.

“This is one of the most important parts of what MSF provides in refugee camps, it’s the clean water and sanitation tent,” our guide proceeded to show us an extremely simple shower and water station cobbled together with plastic water bottles and canvas that all derived from a large box of imported clean water that MSF brought to all the camps they supported. Again this was exactly what unhoused folks here need. At every unhoused encampment, folks are criminalized for the sole act of relieving their bodily fluids. Every time a poverty skola is asked directly what they need, we always ask for a porta pottie.

“Where can we pee?” as she spoke about the urgent need for the sanitation to keep everyone in the camps healthy, my mind jumped to the endless attacks on unhoused, disabled Black elders of Aunti Frances Self-Help Hunger Program just to have and keep one porta pottie in a North Oakland “public” park in a neighborhood they were all from and now were displaced from, due to high-speed land-grabs of all of Oakland and now reside in what my mama Dee used to call the card-board motels. The installation of working and maintained porta potties is one of the things that made the self-determined Here/There encampment in Berkeley so beautiful and logical and insane for the Berkeley politricksters to remove.

And then we were directed to the last “station” which was actually a tent. My heart heavy with me and mama’s own street housing and the extreme and non-stop police harassment and DPW removals (called “sweeps”) of tent encampments from Frisco to Berkeley to Oakland, i walked slowly into this station. All of us sat quietly in front of this, the last story as the tour guide spoke.

“This is the story of a young girl, a teenager, who was an IDP in Rohinga, she showed up at the gate of a refugee camp after having five minutes to flee her village out her uncles back window because she would have been killed after her parents had been killed. When she arrived at the refugee camp which she ran and walked all the way to with just the clothes on her back, they wouldn’t let her in, so she, having Nowhere else to GO…Nowhere Else to Goooo, Nowhere Else to Go ( my mind stuck here, as that is what we houseless, displaced, evicted elders and families always say, feel, face,) slept outside the gate, unsheltered in the mud and rain. For weeks. Until she became seriously ill with cholera and almost died. Then they let her in. Then they let her in… Then they let her in..

“After getting treatment and healing several weeks later, she woke up one morning and decided to try to get her  life back together. She had been going to culinary school in her village before her family was murdered and she was forced to flee. So one morning, after getting all her books and things ready, she got dressed, got her hair fixed, her shoes and socks on and walked toward the door of the tent, and then stopped, paralyzed by fear and trauma and turned around. She could not leave…. paralyzed by fear and trauma, she could not leave. At this point, my chest tensed up, my head started to pound, my heart started to race and i couldnt breathe. tears streamed down my face. I began violently shaking. I couldnt move in my metal chair. my sun and the other youth skolaz at our small school surrounded me, holding my hand and repeating, “its going to be ok Mama tiny,”

My mama, a torture survivor, whose own teenage immigrant, abused mama had tried to kill her, and who barely survived extreme abuse in foster homes and orphanages, could not leave the house, even when we had no house. I was her sole caregiver, i held her through that torture, that terror, everyday as her daughter, until the day she transitioned. It was why she could no longer work after being laid off, “one more little murder of the soul, Lisa,” she would whisper, and then grip my arm and then just sit down. She tried so hard, just like this young warrior, she tried so many times. And yet she could never overcome that terror. She could never leave the car, the doorway, the tent, and then eventually the apartment once we were finally re-housed.

“The MSF offers mental health treatment to folks in the camps as well, we are still working with this young woman, and she is still trying,”

As the tour guide wound down, the stories of 100 year old evicted elder Iris Canada who died within two days of being forced from her home, of Elaine Turner, Ron Likkers and so many more elders whose lives are destroyed, whose bodies and lives are abused by the violence of Ellis Act evictions that plagues the land-grabs of the Bay Area and causes so many of us poor and working class families, elders and folks to become unhoused.

“Have you ever considered the “refugees” right here, right around your installation?,” we asked the tour guide at the end of the tour pointing to several tents across the street near the state building.

She didn’t really have anything to say. she nodded her head as we explained the situation of so many people in poverty right here.

As we all walked away slowly, in a daze, I  pondered our own state of being IDP’s. The connections between the original peoples colonization and genocide. The way that those same settler colonizer laws inform poLice culture that terrorizes Black and Brown peoples, that endlessly removes and displaces and criminalizes poor and houseless elders and families from their communities of origin and legislates the so-called public land so its never for the public good. And how this same empire and stolen state supports wealth hoarders and starts and funds wars all across Mama Earth so peoples from Yemen to Palestine, Sudan to San Francisco we are always “forced to move” and all becoming IDP's

Since 1951, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has been working to provide free healthcare for refugees and internally displaced people. I had just learned this today when myself, along with my class, went to a workshop created by MSF to inform the city and community of Oakland what they do around the world.

They had us go through a mock simulation of what it would be like to go on these journeys that these refugees go through having to discard certain items and make hard decisions. Toward the end of the tour, MSF showed more of what they provided to help along the way. 

One of the stops was explaining what it was like, crossing the Mediterranean into Greece on a boat made for fifteen and holding one hundred and fifty.  Another station told us what it was like for people to have to be forced out of their house and have to choose five things to bring in a matter of seconds. I could relate to that one because I was n that experience many times in my life when my mother and I were forcefully evicted from apartments and houses.

In the beginning of the workshop, they gave us a passport type of thing that told us where we-we came from. I was from Honduras. The main reason why most people are migrating from Honduras is that of the high murder and homicide rate from the cartels and gangs.

I have been thinking of you.  There’s an emptiness since you left us.  I do not speak merely of your physical presence--the presence of an elder whose mere gestures and silence spoke of the community that was built by hands such as yours—a community that is being taken away from us;  but a presence that was as real as any tourist landmark—more real, in fact, because you spoke to us, to our core of what it means to be an elder, a black woman in San Francisco. You refused to be silenced.  Postcard images are flat and tailored made for the whimsy of those who are just passing through.  Perhaps the words, “Since you left us” is inappropriate, for it betrays the truth of what you were burdened with in the last years—last moments of your life.  You were taken from us, your memories and your life—the years that wrote itself in the creases of your face, the aroma of your kitchen, the colors that surrounded and bloomed in your living room—minimized and disrespected in the ugliest way in an attempt to erase your presence from our landscape in the name of making money at any cost.  To those who bought your building, you were the “furniture that came with the place”—an old lady that “needed to go”--because there were units that needed condo-converting and you were old--there wasn't space for you and what you represented.  We know better.  I needn’t repeat how ugly the city was in your eviction struggle, allowing a 100 year old woman to be evicted; sheriff’s locking you out of your home while you were away at a community senior program.  This is San Francisco?  San Francisco is a city of facelifts and buzzwords—beautify, renew—words that get tossed around a whole lot.  But this beauty is surface beauty only.  The fault lines are hidden, invisible to many but they break through just as sure as the fog eventually breaks.  As rich as this city is, it is evident that its infrastructure is falling apart—that of civility, decorum, community—those things that connect us as human beings. Iris, I am ashamed of this city and I am ashamed of how it treated you and the legacy that was you, that was your community—without so much as a thank you.  This city lives with a poverty of human connectedness. We needn’t intellectualize this—it is abound.  Iris, we miss you.  The roots you left are still strong.  We still feel your presence—we have not forgotten you—those of us who love this city, those of us who don’t forget the connectedness the city has to our lives in real ways that can be breathed and tasted and felt and touched, beyond commercial exchanges mediated by the digital parade that gives the illusion of connectedness.  Iris, you lived 100 years and every day I walk in this city and see 100 lifetimes in the faces living in the cold--broken but still here.  Iris, we want to push onward but how do we?  How do we throw off the blanket of indifference that smothers this city?  Iris, the broken bodies, minds and spirits are piling up under a full moon fit for a postcard addressed to no one.  Iris, we miss you, we haven’t forgotten you or the city that forgot you.  How can we forget?  How can we forget your face?  How can we forget your voice?  How can we forget what the city allowed to happen to you?  How can we forget your so-called neighbors and landlord who wanted you out?  How can we forget such abuse of an elder?  We are hungry for your words, your wisdom, your heart.  Speak to us, Iris.  We need you.

On September 29, 2017 the Appellant Division of San Francisco Superior Court heard the housing case filed by Appellant Gavin against Parkmerced Investors Properties, LLC.

Appellant Gavin alleged in Appellant's brief that Judge Donald Sullivan did not have jurisdiction of the subject matter to hear her case and his decision is void under the law.

Appellant Gavin discovered in the copy of the court's record that Appellant Gavin received for preparation of  the appeal there were very important items missing such as: the original contract for Appellant Gavin's apartment, the Housing Assistance Payment contract required for subsidized housing signed by landlord  Parkmerced and San Francisco Housing Authority and there was no disclosure that Appellant Gavin was a recipient of subsidized housing from the U.S. Dept. of Housing & Urban Development.  In other words fraud was perpetrated upon the court.

Parkmerced's attorney David Wasserman states that he followed the state law for evictions in the pleadings.  Attorney Wasserman also signed an declaration stating that Parkmerced looked really hard but could not find the original contract for Appellant Gavin's apartment.  This is also a breach of Appellant Gavin's substantive procedural due process rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.  Parkmerced did not follow HUD's termination requirements that mandatory in their pleadings.

Appellant Gavin alleged several breaches by Parkmerced in the court documents and eviction.  Appellant Gavin stated that under California law for delayed discovery there is no statute of limitation of an err made by a judge that can be proven to be void.  Due to further pending litigation in the case,  Appellant Gavin will not discuss other reasons stated at the hearing.

Appellant Gavin also stated that the actions of Judge Ronald Quidachay were unprofessional and violates Appellant Gavin's family civil rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.

On October 24, 2016 according to Appellant Gavin Judge Ronald Quidachay who is the head of the Housing Court in Dept. 501 at San Francisco Superior Court (SFSC) said to Appellant Gavin, "shut up!" "Get out of his courtroom and take the matter to federal court!"  "He has heard an appeal on this case once before and no matter what new evidence Appellant Gavin had he did not care and will not hear anything about this case again."

Appellant Gavin found these statements to be so egregious and shocking that Appellant Gavin had nightmares about being denied access to the courtroom which is a constitutional right. 

Appellant Gavin was so distraught by Judge Quidachay's appalling behavior that Appellant Gavin filed an appeal on the last day to hear this new evidence.

Appellant Gavin alleges the judicial system has an innate bias against low-income people whom they consider poor litigants.  Low-income litigants are treated with disdain, judged on how they look, the clothes they wear and their language skills.  The SFSC  also dismisses the courtroom reporter and there are unprofessional comments made to these litigants.

The courtroom clerk does not type the unprofessional remarks made by judges because they are suppose to be made off record.  Low-income people should always have at least five people in the courtroom with them or a courtroom reporter if they can afford it.

On July 02, 2012 the day of the court hearing from Appellant Gavin's wrongful eviction case, Appellant Gavin was at SFSC for two hours in arbitration.  In a conflict of interest Appellant Gavin fired her attorney who was insufficient.  Due to heart palpitations Appellant Gavin left the court.  Judge Katherine Feinstein sent the case to be heard by Judge Donald Sullivan.

Judge Donald Sullivan dismissed the jury trial aspect of the case that Appellant Gavin had filed and proceeded with a bench hearing.   Despite not having authenticated evidence, a competent witness, a signature of Appellant Gavin on any document and no jurisdiction over the subject matter, Judge Donald Sullivan ruled in Parkmerced's favor, granting an eviction and issued a writ of possession for the apartment.  All of these actions committed by the judge are a deprivation of Appellant Gavin Family's civil rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution. 

Parkmerced discarded Appellant Gavin's Family property without notice in violation of Appellant Gavin's Family substantive procedural due process. This action is also a violation of Appellant Gavin's Family civil rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution under the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

The appellant division of San Francisco Superior Court has 90 days to make a decision in Appellant Gavin's case.

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied.

A report of an aggressive sea lion at the city’s Aquatic Cove made the news recently. According to officials, 3 swimmers were attacked in a span of 5 days by what was described as “aggressive marine mammals”. Aquatic Park Cove is frequented by triathletes and members of the South End Rowing Club—among others—for the chilly waters that can get the heart pumping during an early morning swim. Many professionals, including Doctors and lawyers—the kind that Richard Pryor described as “old white men that be lappin’ yo’ ass while you tryin’ to jog in the park”--no doubt frequent Aquatic Park Cove to maintain both physical and mental prowess that can, ultimately, be applied to the corporate board room or spa. I was intrigued to learn of the attacks because during my visits to North Beach, I have witnessed sea lions on wooden planks lying in the sun, the planks undulating to the rhythms and currents of the emerald waters, still and serene, except for a sudden eruption of barks emanating from their bewhiskered mouths.

Good natured, almost regal they appear, in the presence of tourists from around the globe who gawk at them while stuffing their faces with local fare—bread bowls overflowing with clam chowder, ice cream cones and any number of concoctions featuring the vast array of crustaceans that inhabit the bay and beyond. The sea lions themselves appear to be satisfied—as if lying after a big meal, waiting for someone to toss a cigar, jump in the water, swim over and perform the duty of lighting it.

Having grown up in North Beach, I remember the sound of conga drums, bongos, timbales, tin cans—all coming together at Aquatic Park. With fond memories I embarked on a search for the sea lion deemed the “aggressive marine mammal.” I gazed at the wide expanse of water along Aquatic Cove for 3 days and for three days all I saw were seagulls and ripples in the water. I was ready to give up until I encountered the sight of a sea lion navigating effortlessly the brisk emerald waters it calls home. There was nobody in the vicinity, just the sea lion and I. I got its attention. It swam to the shore.

TR: Hey!
Sea Lion: What’s up? Where do I know you from?
TR: I don’t know
Sea Lion: Didn’t you used to hang out at Aquatic Park? You used to drum with those guys on the weekends.
TR: I remember that. I never played the drums but I listened
Sea lion: It was cool, but everything damn thing they played sounded the same…it was like listening to Santana…Jingo Bop for 10 hours straight
TR: Can I ask you something?
Sea Lion: Shoot
TR: Did you do it?
Sea Lion: What are you referring to?
TR: Did you attack 3 swimmers in 5 days?
Sea Lion: It wasn’t me. But I know who it was. Not all sea lions look alike you know.
TR: Who was it?
Sea Lion: Hey, I ain’t no sea snitch but he’s been around for a long time. He’s scared.
TR: Scared? Why?
Sea Lion: We got internet access down below. We know what’s going on. North Beach is plagued with short term rentals and evictions. There’s a real fear that we’ll get evicted from our planks. Someone will want to use them for a short term rental or condo. We don’t want to live in no condo-submarine, you know?
TR: So, you’re scared?
Sea Lion: Wouldn’t you be? Nobody’s safe. Look, we’re a tourist attraction…people come around snapping our pictures all the time. Taking our best poses and sticking them on postcards. And the verbal abuse we take to boot. And everybody takes a selfie with us. But did they ever ask us if we wanted to be in their little pictures?
TR: But that doesn’t justify attacking someone
Sea Lion: I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t in the vicinity. But I asked him about it.
TR: What did he say?
Sea Lion: He said it was a nip, a love bite. Said he was trying to get their attention.
TR: The guy who got bit had a tourniquet applied to his arm.
Sea Lion: I heard about it. The one who bit him felt bad about it.
TR: Remorse
Sea Lion: I suppose. He did say that those old guys don’t have much meat on their bones. But he regretted it.
TR: What are you going to do now?
Sea Lion: Try to keep out of trouble. But the places we can swim and breathe seem to be getting smaller. We have to share but it seems that sharing has taken a different meaning. A coyote friend of mine told me that there was a mountain lion seen up on Diamond Heights. I’d heard that the mountain lion had gotten wind of the evictions and that the people were vanishing so he thought there’d be space for him. What he didn’t know was that people were being replaced with more people. So they shot his ass with a tranquilizer gun. But we got to share this planet, this space. But it seems that sharing has taken a different meaning. This is a problem on both land and sea.
TR: Any final words or thoughts?
Sea Lion: Yeah, you want a love bite?

The sea lion gave me a fist bump with his flipper. He trudged along the shore and into the cool waters of Aquatic Cove. I watched as his figure became one with the ocean, among the thousands of ripples taking shape along the current. I headed towards the sound of drums, timbales, congas and tin cans…Jingooooo Bop!

© 2017 Tony Robles

“I was anticipating a breakthrough -- hoping that the protest would not be instantly dispersed by riot police, like so many previous marches. On that day I thought that if everybody does their part, we will have tens of thousands. What happened was a shock to me. Instead of tens of thousands, there were hundreds of thousands”.

-Ahmed Salah, speaking to Washington Post reporter Jackson Diehl

Oddly, people who speak to me about revolution quote theorists of the 19^th Century or their favorite heroes, now dead, from the 20^th. Certainly, there are lessons to be learned there. Yet here in San Francisco, California, we have the key designer of the successful revolution in the most important country in the 21^st Century Arab world. And far from being mobbed with inquiries from admirers, he instead lives in obscurity and near poverty.

How could Americans let Nikola Tesla, the genius who invented the modern era, die alone and in obscurity? Why do we ignore such people, but only revere them in death? Don’t it always seem to go/That you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone?

In 1991, Ahmed Salah was a translator and teacher of Arabic to tourists and journalists. Within 20 years he would become a key player in the Arab Spring and a central designer of the revolution in Egypt itself. His memoir (co-written with Alex Mayyasi), You Are Under Arrest for Masterminding the Egyptian Revolution is a textbook for what makes mass social movements succeed and fail, and what makes revolutions triumph against all odds.

They’d tried everything in Egypt before. They’d held marches and demonstrations. They’d taken Tahrir Square before the revolution, only have the police violently take it back. They tried using social media, but that only gave the police their plans in advance. (Yes, “The Twitter Revolution” is an outright lie.) Nothing they tried gained any ground against the security forces until they took their organization and did actual market research, among the population of Cairo. Not that they used that term, but as “journalists”, they took to the streets and asked people if they heard of the upcoming demonstrations. Promising to use no names, they then asked if they planned to attend. Receiving the almost universal answer of “no”, they asked why, and listened. And they took the time to ask each person what their most important concerns about life were.

 “It sounds simple for a group of idealists to express noble sentiments like ‘Bread, freedom, and dignity’—as Arabs articulated their demands during the Arab Spring. Yet as I learned from Youth for Change and April 6th, it is incredibly difficult. Activists and dissidents are humans who argue and make mistakes and let ego lead them astray. “

-You Are Under Arrest for Masterminding the Egyptian Revolution, p291

Salah’s memoir gives key insights into issues, not only in Egypt, but in the Middle East as a whole. He grew up in the most secular, educated and modern country in the entire region.

If you think what’s happening Syria is big, notice how central to the Middle East Egypt is on a map. Now note that, while Syria has a population of about 17 million people, Egypt has a population of 96 million. And in spite of all the oppression financed with U.S. tax dollars, parts of Egypt remain outside of government control to this day. There are parts of Egypt the government simply bombs a few times a month, unable to take control, but only fighting to keep rebellions from spreading. The country will fall apart, and when it does, what’s been happening in the Middle East up until now could look like a picnic by comparison. The instability, coupled with the increasing aggressions of Israeli and Saudi forces could lead to anything. Only an education on the realities, not the propaganda, of the region can save it.

 “No one could wait for Mubarak to get out of power. Egyptians filled Tahrir Square, the surrounding blocks, and even the bridges over the Nile so thickly that it took hours to move a few hundred yards. When I managed to call activists over the overburdened cell phone network, I learned that protesters remained at the presidential palace and that worker strikes had ended train service, blocked roadways, “

-IBID p242

The revolutions, of course, were betrayed. Neither George W. Bush, nor Barack Obama had more then rhetoric for the Arab World’s yearning for freedom. Backing a strongman just feels safer to them, since an educated electorate will act in their own best interests, but dictators can be swayed with money and threats. But despite the bluster and out of control aggression of the Trump administration (or perhaps because of it), the empire is faltering. Future rebellions may not be so easy to reverse and threats may be harder to carry out.

Ahmed Salah lives with medical conditions resulting from torture paid for with U.S. tax dollars. He gets by from money earned from speaking engagements and from selling copies of his memoir. You can buy it at amazon.com or by contacting him personally at asea1009@yahoo.com.

The landless people's movement is located in Brazil the idea of the project is to grow their own food instead of killing off their people and also to get the farmers back their land so they can have collective living and live in harmony.

The living condition in Brazil's landless people's movement are similar to standing rock’s but there's no snow there is dirt, and stove oven, tipis, and tents that are much like tiny houses so that they can live in they depending on the tent determines how many people will live there.

This can relate to Homefulness because just like the movement homefulness goal is to grow their own food so they won't have to eat GMO food and get killed off.

This also relates to self-determination by the government of MST has gender equality and a country determines its own statehood and forms its own allegiances and government.in which all these things can relate to Marcus Garvey he was a black man who lived in Jamaica and came to America and started to make well for himself and wanted this all over the world.

Since it's creation in the early 1980's the MST has pressured the government to give land titles to approximately 150,000 families.

Today the movement supports the struggle of over 57,000 families who have occupied uncultivated land in 23 states.

In my opinion, the movement is interesting and much like hopefulness I think it's creative and innovating that they have enough brains to actually realize the government wants to give us extra body parts by feeding us GMO.

The landless people's movement in Brazil in my opinion is a good thing, they are very good farmers and deserve respect.

Image credit: Coalition for a Taser-Free Berkeley

On November 3, 2017, the San Francisco Po-Lice Commission voted 4 to 3 to Yes on the question of should the San Francisco Police Department be awarded with Energy Conducted Weapons i.e. another weapon (Tasers)?  

This question has been raised 5 times in the last 13 years, and San Franciscans, for the most part have answered with a resounding No!  Yet, the question of arming the SFPD, with an additional weapon in their arsenal has resurfaced again.  Why?  The SFPD, argues its need of Tasers is because “it is an intermediate force weapon between a baton and guns.”  Or is it because the national push to arm police departments with Energy Conducted Weapons, is due to the lobbying and big spending that Axon, manufacturer of ECW’s has done, miseducating many to believe that these weapons are a safe alternative to other options?  

As a black person of African descent living in San Francisco, I am highly suspicions of arming the SFPD, with these so-called “less lethal” weapons.  My suspicions are partly based on recent studies that point to the disparate impact that ECW’s have had impact on Black folks, and People experiencing mental crisis, the homeless and disabled.

The State of Connecticut:  Electronic Defense Weapon Analysis and Findings, 2015.  The Central Connecticut State University analyzed data submitted by 79 Connecticut police departments in 2015.  The state-wide data indicated that 83% of persons tasered were unarmed, one-third of the individuals subject to being tased were described as emotionally disturbed and people of color were more likely to be tased and less likely to be given a warning before being tasered than whites.

The Baltimore Sun analyzed data on statewide Taser incidents between 2012-2014 and found that out of nearly 3,000 Taser uses, 64 percent of those hit by the stun guns were black men, and nearly 60 percent of those hit by Tasers were described as “non-compliant and non-threatening” (i.e. officers often turned to Tasers before exhausting less forceful means).

A cornerstone of police community relationships requires trust between the police and community members.  Arming the SFPD, with ECW’s will not engender trust in my community.  It is seen as awarding the SFPD another weapon to be used against vulnerable populations and will serve to widen the chasm that already exists in our communities regarding police community relations.

De-escalation techniques, time and distance, is a real solution,” something which the officers, mental health advocates and social workers made up of Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), through community pressure already implements.

This martial state apparatus answer to the crisis of black and brown youth being murdered by terrorist organizations - popularly known as the police, was a thinly veiled more humanitarian approach, e.g., “it is better to be shocked, than shot”.  Now the po-Lice and po-Lice Commission seems to have effectively and successfully co-opted the communities rightful anger and demands for accountability through this seemingly humanitarian solution.  A kinder and gentler settler-kkkop, method.  While neglecting the legitimate concerns and fears of those who will be disproportionately impacted by energy conducted weapons.   

Tasers are a thinly disguised veil use to obscure the hyper-militarization of law enforcement and its repression of black and brown communities in San Francisco.

So let’s now give credit where credit is due:

We want to give credit to the san francisco police commission for their cowardice and capitulation to the reactionary elements of the city of Francisco.

We want to give credit to them for once again siding with these reactionary element against the people's will and demands to not to arm the SFPD with additional weapons that will be used against black, brown and red people, the disabled, people experiencing mental crisis and the homeless & the poor. I.e., vulnerable segments of our community

We want to give credit to po-Lice commissioners,Sonia E. Melara Thomas Mazzucco, Joe Marshall and Robert Hirsch, for their blatantly, shameful, obvious disregard for the concerned community members who attended the meeting to voice their continous opposition to this racist and classist weapons policy and the sham amendment that would require these weapons next year.  It would have taken a year to implement ECW’s, anyway, so this was a bullshit amendment anyway.

We want to give credit to the San Francisco Po-Lice commission, for once again reminding the people that this commission is nothing more than a Rubber-Stamp commission, doing the bidding of mayor Ed Lee, The San Francisco board of supervisors, San Francisco po-Lice department, and Axon, the manufactures of these weapons, who will continue to profit off of the police state and the misery the police state places on our communities.

Finally, we want to give credit to this rubber stamp commission for clearly illustrating that what is needed is a Democratically chosen and Elected, People's Commission for Justice, that will replace the current rubber-stamp Po-Lice Commission with a People's Commission for Justice, with the power to fire, suspend, investigate, charge and prosecute offices and control the budget of the SFPD.

In other words, the San Francisco po-Lice commission’s betrayal of the people’s will and its continued support of the blux klux klan,  justifies our calls for Community Control of the po-Lice.

All Power to the People!!!

“Mr A, Mr A, this is your case-mangler, we are here for your daily,weekly hourly room inspection ,” Covered in face mask, latex gloves and waving a mock pesticide spray bottle, I, playing a character i created called The Case-mangler in POOR Magazine’s 2017 production of Theatre of the POOR  yelled through the “door” on the stage at poverty , disability, elder Skola Bruce. This play, like all of the Theatre of the POOR productions at PeopleSkool, is based on our real lives, our real experience, our real trauma. This is what happened to Bruce when after years of homelessness and languishing on endless groups of waitlists he got a tiny 5 x 5 room in a Single Room Occupancy Hotel (SRO) in the tenderloin district of San Francisico. And although it was billed as “housing” it was really a kinder , gentler, poor people jail. With ID checks, no guests after a certain time and an endless list of rules to contain the rowdy poor “residents’. But above all, one of the worst “rules” was and continues to be the constant and unbridled room and apartment inspections of his not at all private space.

Privacy is a privilege
For any of us houseless and formerly houseless folks who have lived in any public or privately “funded” poor people housing ( or any kind of aid for that matter) we have been subjected to incessant inspections of our yards, our rooms, our cars, our bodies and our children. In the SRO or project based section 8 units, these inspections are constant and focused mainly on the “disease” as it is called, of “hoarding”. It actually has a number attached to it and is listed in the encyclopedia of the empire - The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual)which has created an official diagnosis for this “disorder” and like all of the disorders listed in the DSM is now used to criminalize, fund, organize and stereotype poor people who supposedly “suffer” from it. the mere act of poor people having access to privacy is seen as a privilege we are not deserving of.

The odd part of all of this, is there are literally millions of people all over the world struggling with the CONfusion, violence, isolation, poverty, structural racism and classism, greed and resulting trauma of a global post-colonial reality, and even more specifically the disease of Western hetero-patriarchal capitalism. In other words there are a lot of people with this “disease” but most of them don’t get called sick. It is a class and race based “illness” and the ones who get “diagnosed” with it are us poor folks.

The Rich are called Collectors
Rich people are called archivists, collectors, stock-pilers, museum curators, buyers and owners. Having two or three or nine homes, condominiums, vacation getaways, more pictures than you can fit on your wall, in your home or in your office, four, five or 15 luxury vehicles, planes or boats, designer shoes you never wear, clothes you never try on equipment you never use and/or literally billions of dollars they could never possibly need to survive. They are rarely, if ever, called out for their capitalist sickness of hoarding, never forced out of their housing, threatened, inspected and/or harassed, but rather they get complemented on their ability to archive or collect or buy more and more things, and  dollars and stolen land. They are held up as examples of capitalist success and their class based sickness remains hyper-normalized. 

On the converse if you are poor, you do not have the privilege or the “right” to have “too” many things or actually pretty much anything. No matter how important our things even are. Once our lives are deemed dependent on the state we have no right to the precious. How dare we collect mementoes, art, archives, papers, or anything deemed not absolutely necessary by a litany of people now “responsible” for our lives, housing and survival, or as i affectionately call the army of our saviors: The case manglers, poverty pimps, anti-social workers, or poLice who believe they are necessary for our daily survival.

Now its true that sanitation and cleanliness is an important part of health and safety and its also true that many of us poverty skolaz who are “saved” by the system from our lives of homelessness suffer from extreme depression, struggle with serious trauma, psychological disabilities and the long-term effects of post-traumatic slave syndrome, capitalism and colonization. We sometimes keep or get things to replace all the people, family, loved ones and/or children we have lost or who have been stolen from us.  Normal things like momentos, family photos, cards or old toys were long ago lost to the multiple evictions, displacements, foreclosures and/or incarcerations people like me and my mama suffered with throughout my childhood. So we might begin to collect picture frames or batteries or like my tortured, traumatized mama, literally hundreds of pairs of socks and pill bottles. Due to our trauma we lack organizational skills so we just make piles of things on top of more piles of things. A part of what is happening to a lot of us at POOR Magazine like Bruce and his beautiful partner Kathy, in their “affordable” housing units in GentriFUKation City. Both are disabled elders, with trauma of homelessness and ableism and endless harassing inspections.

The insane, hypocritical cycle of this process, is that the few of us who get off the street into housing, end up facing homelessness again, almost immediately once we are in housing, due to the poison cocktail of DSM fueled patholigizing and criminalizing of our behavior and actions and living spaces and the battery of anti-poor people laws that support the criminalizing and even the so-called advocates who more often than not encourage folks to sign stipulated judgements to vacate, thereby supporting the non-profit housing developers they work with, All of which results in us being on the street. again.    

Hoarding When you have no roof at all…
The collections, belongings, products of poor workers/recyclers, unhoused folks who haven’t been lucky enough to get access to a roof ( or who are back outside again) don’t even get the “privilege” of an inspection, rather our belongings and our bodies are constantly and immediately viewed as trash, blight, a mess, dirty, unsanitary, dangerous and unsightly and whisked away daily, weekly, monthly, hourly by a society and a system that refuses to allow poor people to even be seen, muchless be human. Hence the constant “sweeps” and the use of the word “sweep” to describe the removal of unhoused peoples from so-called public streets. These violent acts of race and class based removal happens everyday in San Francisco, Oakland and everywhere where this lie of public and private space and use of this already occupied indigenous land rules. 

Touring the Real Blighted Hoods
This is why POOR Magazine and the Sogorea Te Land Trust launched the Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tours through the other kind of “Blight”, the other hoarders. Challenging and sharing the medicine of redistribution and something i developed called Community Reparations with people never seen as suffering from a disease. Lifting up and sharing a different way of being with people whose actions are never questioned, whose choices to keep hoarding, exploiting, acquiring, and owning are not only unquestioned and un-pathologized but complemented, enabled and encouraged. From gated communities in Pacific Heights to the Shinnecock Nation in Eastern Turtle Island ( The Hamptons) where the extreme wealth- hoarders acquire acres and acres of stolen indigenous territory only to put a house on it. No food is grown, no peoples are housed, no ancestors are honored. This is the blight of poverty and scarcity and capitalism. And the shared belief that this is ok, that this is normal, that this is success is actually frightening to me.

Trauma Support Healing Groups at Homefulness
For us unhoused and formerly unhoused poverty, disability, migrant and indigenous skolaz at POOR Magazine barely surviving the loss and trauma of so much we hold each other in ongoing healing as we try to build a poor people-led movement to land liberation and housing.  In this process one of the most important parts of this movement work is the creation of the Peoples Agreement which each member of the Homefulness/POOR Magazine Family had to write and co-create over a three year period, a document which remains a living document, moving and shaping and changing each time we see another manifestation of our collective trauma. One of our many innovative ways we try to build in the healing is through the creation of a trauma - support therapy healing group to process the collection of belongings and its relation to our collective living and build. As well as we will eventually launch a redistribution store for all the things we don’t need that we might acquire.

As the daughter, granddaughter and descendent of so many broken poor, indigenous and colonized women who have collected little tiny broken things to fill the places of so much broken and stolen from them I do this work and teach this medicine to heal  through a new, non-punitive frame-work towards our collective healing. I don't blame the wealth-hoarding 1%-ers anymore than i blame myself or my family of unhoused poverty skolaz for accumulating, collecting, desiring of collecting or desperate with the stuckness of it all. This is the lie we are all taught in a capitalist system. And it might take 530 years to unlearn. But toward this end i share this frame to change the way folks view the process of accumulation and its class-based criminalization with the idea that there is another way to be.

As well, please see this as a call out to the hard-working advocates to consider inviting me and other poverty skolaz from PeopleSkool in to your organizations and centers to teach advocates different models to hold the trauma of poverty in re-housing unhoused folks and finally an invitation to as many people as want to walk, co-lead or join us in the next Stolen Land/Hoarded Tour through Miwok Territory (Marin County) as we share out this medicine with the people who no-one ever views as "sick".

We all suffer from this disease called capitalism. Let’s all heal together.
 

To join , co-lead, or walk with us in the next Stolen land tour thru Marin County email us at poormag@gmail.com. To find out more about the next peopleskool for folks with race and class privilege which will be held in Black August 2017 email us at deeandtiny@gmail.com

(Photo Credit: PoorNewsNetwork)

Day 1 (Yelamu) San Francisco

"This is an order to evacuate…” The mechanical PoLice voice rang out - sailing through the morning air, through the medicine of the Danzantes drum, above the heads of a thousand bodies, colors, cultures and souls in resistance to hate, white supremacy,racism,violence and white terrorist threats descending on this occupied indigenous territory.

We were in stolen Ohlone/Lisjan Land (San Francisco)  at a corner called (oddly enough) "Alamo Square", where the Alt-right/ White Terrorists who call themselves "Patriot Prayer" were supposed to meet for a rally. A rally/press conference which was canceled, which followed another rally which was planned for and then canceled at Crissy Field.

Con-fusion reigned. Fear of racist, amerikkklan violence threatened by terrified,ignorant racists. Which followed several other statements by poltricksters, PoLice, and anyone else involved.

Organizers from ALL Across the Bay Actually spoke to each other.

A beautiful process of coordination, which sadly and rarely ever happens in the movement world where so many folks are separated by the lie of the philanthro-pimps, grant guidelines, the structure of racism and classism, akademia and even the movement itself. In this fight against this weird, old but still very real hate, that lurks everyDAY in amerikkka, folks of conscious actually spoke to each other, came to each others meetings, shared each others plans, and planned a somewhat complex, but beautiful form of unity.

Frisco Resistance in Frisco (Stolen Ohlone/Lisjan Village of Yelamu)
Spear-headed by Amor for Alex organizer, poet and teacher Benjamin Bac Sierra, Frank Lara and Gloria La Riva from Answer, a gathering was called only two weeks prior to the planned rally of hate and white terror in Crissy Field. Walking alongside ILWU union organizers and held together by love and resistance and a refusal to ever back down, several hundred people came together to gather more people, who gathered more people who gathered more people.

BlackAugust 27th came to Alamo Square

Launched with the drum (Huetlhuetl) and the prayer of the Aztec danzantes who held space in the street for over an hour after all of us were evicted from the park at Alamo Square while Ben negotiated with the literally thousands of poLice who were descending on the huge crowd with billy clubs, helmets down. Never sure where the violence, the supposed klan and the terror was supposedly going to come from, we were relieved when Ben announced that one of the streets would be opened for the massive march to come through and gather.

Within 30 minutes we had over five thousand people stream onto Hayes and Steiner streets. A beautiful rally ensued. And then we marched to 24th and Mission streets. Poet Gina Madrid, Equipto, Union Organizers, SURJ, ILWU, Answer and  so many more spoke, marched and dreamt powerful work.

People came together in Yelamu, as Ben Bac Sierra would say with, “Puro amor..” 

The Patriot Prayer folks ended up holding a "press conference" put of an "undisclosed" motel room and later than day approximately 20 Patriot Prayer zealots ended up showing up to Crissy Field where more Frisco resistance warriors were there to meet and greet them. 

Day 1 ended up without violence and only with sheer resistance.

Day 2 -Huchuin Ohlone/Lisjan Land (Berkeley)
Indigenous resistance from 1st nations folks led the powerful resistance of this day. All peoples came together - from all four corners - resisted white terror and 21st century kkkolonizers. The following two young women resistors narrate this powerful day of resistance...

Neo-Nazi's had officially left and people power on occupied Ohlone territory here in Berkeley have declared victory! We as people with not be silent when hate, racism, fascism, oppression and so forth try to come to our grounds! , 1st Nations Youth warrior
Isabella Zizi

Progressives, liberals, radicals, antifa, black bloc came out en masse with the directive of unity and solidarity. Throughout the day people who have previously condemned militant resistance were stepping forward to thank #Antifa, whose huge presence scared more than a small handful of Nazis from showing up. Speaker after speaker called to respect the diversity of tactics, acknowledging that the nonviolence of moderate folks relied on the militance of #Antifa.
The mass of families, religious folks, celebrities, community leaders who came out made the event feel safe and welcoming for people who may never have been to anything like this before, and made it possible for #Antifa to unmask safely without surveillance one the protest was ending.

This is the power that comes from leftists across the board working together. Thank you to EVERYONE who came out yesterday, and a special thank you to #Antifa who seems to be getting a bad rap, but who really kept us safe yesterday! organizer and resistor Lesley Haddock

And the energy of these two days of powerFUL resistance is all in this beautiful warrior Niccolette Portillo's poem

Post-Script-
In some strange way we have the Orange man to thank for the end of kkkolonizer days. His pure hate has forced us to lead with pure love- to overturn and destroy age-old, disgusting markers (statues) which glorify genocide, people who promote hate, His-Stories told only from the oppressors POV. And as painful and strange as this bizarre and beautiful weekend was- it is also pushed us truly into decolonization. Leading us into the seven generations where Mama Earth and her earth peoples rise up into truth, into leadership, into liberation. Ase, Ahoooo, Ometeotl...tiny

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images. Bad News Bruce can be seen participating in the die-in just to the right and behind where the motorcyclist plowed through the protesters.

About three weeks ago on a rally against Donald Trump's cuts to health care, I almost got killed. Let me explain it in terms that even the rich can understand.

Let me explain about the main villain in this piece. For a man that is supposed to have graduated from college, and supposed to be a Master of Industry, Donald Trump is missing a few faculties upstairs. Out of the five points that is needed to be classified insane (you only need three out of these five points to be classified) Donald Trump has all five points. His knowledge of science is very limited and is the equivalent to a kid watching Sesame Street. As an example, cruise ships are booking tours on the North West Passage that is usually closed 12 months out of the year, big land masses like Greenland has defrosted three times last year -- and he’s denying that there is climate change. As a business man his companies went bankrupt 12 times. Including a casino. As the so called leader of the free world, he would have trouble leading a group of men into a Cathouse. He is using scapegoats like Undocumented Migrants; people of the Islamic Faith that live mainly in the Middle East. the poor and destitute; people of color and the disabled and the elderly. Just like the tyrannical leader of the 30’s and 40’s Adolph Hitler. One of these practices got this author the view from his street eye level of a motorcycle wheel.

Trumps idea of health care is something out of the Medieval Period. Something out of Circa 1125 AD to 1420 AD during the Feudal Periods. Where the masses of the poor weak treated by unskilled surgeons. This is the type of health care that Trump and the Republican leadership would put on the poor, disabled and the elderly. One hundred percent of the rest of the developed countries have universal health care. How comed we don’t?

This story begins with me, Bad News Bruce covering a rally against Trump and the Republican’s health plan. It was sponsored by California Alliance of Retired Americans’; San Francisco’s Labor Council; Senior and Disability Action, and a group of doctors and the California Nurses Union and a group of other concerned citizens. As a good reporter I did my homework. While using the Block Grant each person on Medi-Cal will only have $5,000.00 per person per year for medical expenses. A tax of 1% should be placed on any person or company making over $1,000,000.00 per year. That would replace all medical expenses for the country. That means that health insurance companies would not have to exist. That would make the insurance companies go away like using leeches in medicine.

In the rally, after chanting and singing and hearing from the usual windbags, we did the die-in as a reporter of POOR we support and report. This old fart laid down on the ground and held my tombstone up on the last row. After five minutes I heard a motorcycle behind me going the wrong way down a one way street. I thought this imbecile was just going to play chicken. Being a crazy Scotsman I thought, I’m not going to move either. As I was trying to get up off the ground, I turned my head-he missed my nose about a quarter of a inch. It was actually a few seconds. It felt like it was one hour. I could see each spoke of the wheel. It felt like a cheap horror movie in 3-D.

Next week we returned to the same location (7th and Mission Streets) This time the demonstrators and especially the police were blocking the streets. The demonstrators were twice the amount they were last week. This reporter wimped out and did not lie in the street. I supported them from the sidewalk.

Bad News Bruce singing off.  

Part 1 By Tiburcio
“Come on, let’s get out of here, we have to get out of here” those were the words of my mother, frantic after we told her what happened to Uncle Leroy. “That is so messed up”

She was reacting this way because after me and Leroy, still cracking up about what happened explained what she missed. We were in the Star Wars exhibit of the Marin County Fair, the most racist place we could be inside of California the weekend before Fourth Of You-Lie.

We (Uncle Leroy, My mother and I) had just experienced a special type of racism and ageism. The ignorant kind. As we walked in the Star Wars exhibit, three completely regular people just trying to enjoy ourselves at the county fair (we weren't even protesting or in revolutionary action!) and Leroy wants to take a picture with Greedo* and when he’s walking over to leave after the picture, the people who were about to take a picture with Greedo, then...

Part 2 by Tiny
“What kind of creature is that?” the elder white woman’s gray strings of hair flowed down her back and blended into her tie dye t-shirt and matching tie dye pants as she mumbled this loud enough to hear. Her words were directed toward my brother, Po Poet and Kip Hop founder Leroy Moore. It was 4th of U Lie in the stolen Miwok territory the colonizers call Marin County. We were at the County fair which is always loaded up with an excess of white folks, but this year something was very different. We were at the Star Wars exhibit and this hater racist statement was made by a woman who herself resembled part troll and part wookie and yet felt emboldened enough to express her hate openly.



From the minute we arrived we noticed an extra eery amerikkklan arrogance pervaded the warm sunny afternoon. First of all there was only one Lemonade stand, which I’m not sure how this played in but it irked me just the same, as in previous years there was a lemonade stand on every other corner of the fair.



Since my days of unlicensed micro-business vending t-shirts on the street with my mama, we went to this fair because we got in for free, and were always able to sit with the animals, which relaxed my trauma filled concrete jungle stuck mama even though she barely was able to tolerate the great white way of the fair. But in the end the animal calmness always made everything ok so we went anyways.



As we walked in this year the veneer of racist hate was palpable. We walked to the tent that in previous years held all the POC entertainment under one little roof, was now filled with mediocre “folk” singers doing Beatles covers. The entire day’s offering of POC music was reduced to one mariachi band tucked between literally doznes of variations on folk music. By this time me and Leroy and Tiburcio were getting officially concerned. but we pushed on determined to get our Turkey leg, corn on the cob and see farm animals, which is the only reason we came.



Then we saw it. The protest we didn’t know we needed to hold. Proudly standing at the first row of vendor booths was a huge red , white and blue amerikkklan flag slathered with the words Trump/Pence . Yes it was a Trump /Pence booth. and there were literally dozens of people swarming around it. When we saw it, we both looked away. Nooooooooo we cried in unison.



“Do you want some yogurt?” Our next encounter which was actually more typical than strange for Leroy and me with my mama, who are and were always being “mistaken” for unhoused  people, (whatever racist and classist, ableist and ageist indicators tell people that about us?)  was another woman who began to shower us with free clover yogurt and carefully napkin wrapped spoons, repeatedly mumbling sorry to Leroy. Sorry for 525 years of stolen land and stolen bodies, for white supremacy? for her soft complicitness in the criminalization of black, brown and poor, disabled bodies, sorry for wealth-hoarding, sorry for her enabling of anti-poor laws, sorry????



“Moooooooo, “ we finally made it to the fair tent and had some quality time with the goats and cows and llamas and mules, which made everything a little less crazier seeming and was the only reason we went there cause we could get free animal advice and ideas for our tiny, poor people farm at Homefulness. Then onto the Star Wars exhibit. When we walked in we were bombarded by the soft confused strains of renaissance music aka the only time white people had culture or something… and then we finally found the much reduced Star Wars exhibit with the usual Star Wars characters- a couple of guys of in “storm-trooper” suits, a couple of guys playing Darth Vadar, a guy who was supposed to be a wookie and the requisite “bar Scene”. At the sight of the Bar Scene, Leroy said, take a picture of me there. Me and tibu and Leroy ambled over to ostensibly “take a picture” it was there that we encountered the wookie-troll doll family.



“Get Out”……
“Ive been called a lot of things in my 49 years as a disabled Black man, but that took it to a new level,” Leroy recanted as we figured out the closest exit to this terrifying place.

Before we left i had to get some coffee, so we stopped at the outdoor cafe area, thinking what else could possibly happen? well never fear, Trump fans were here.Out of the corner of our eyes while we were sitting quietly sipping our coffee in a corner, a wave of stop -motion blue nylon floats by. Yes it happened, a white man with a blue and white Trump Pence flag tied to his shoulders like a child playing batman, floated by looking at us with a weird threatening look. Or maybe he didn’t look at us. Me and Leroy looked at each other and screamed under our breath that is, GEEEEEET OUUUUTTT….

Part 3 by Leroy

This is the only way that I will celebrate the Americans with Disabilities Act if the court in Kayla Moore case rule that Berkeley police valiated Kayla ADA rights.

Stay tune for the upcoming court date for Kayla Moore's ADA trail.

[Image description: The graphic shows a drawing of Kayla Moore, a large black trans woman. She has shoulder-length brown hair, and she is smiling and flashing a peace sign. Her shirt is purple and black with a blue heart, and the words “Justice for Kayla” appear in orange on her shoulder and neckline. Above her face are the words, “We remember Kayla Moore” in a purple and teal banner. Below the banner, the text reads, “4-17-71 to 2-13-13. Poet, singer, sister, daughter, genius, friend, black trans woman with a mental health diagnosis killed by Berkeley Police in her own home. They tried to blame her death on ‘obesity’!!! Shame on BPD!” Drawing copyright Nomy Lamm.] Leroy Moore and Al Osorio next to the poster of Kayla

“All fire victims will have to leave the “temporary shelter” with or without  any money or housing on April 6th,”  reported Audrey Candy Corn, POOR Magazine reporter, single mama of 3 and founder of TAZ clothing company who has been on the ground from Day 1 standing , advocating and caring for all the low-income families who lost everything they had in the West Oakland Fire of last week that diplsaced over 150 people and killed four. “The relocation funds given by the Red Cross and all the other entities over here claiming to help are as low as $150.00 for an individual and only goes up to $500.00 for a family of four, which covers nothing as we already know “ Audrey concluded.

From the beginning the displaced low-income, disabled children and adults, all Black and Brown, who were already poor before the fire, have been neglected, forgotten, criminalized, poverty Gansta-Pimped and/ or lied to by a stream of Old- School Big Non-profit poverty industries. Some people have made the connection between the Ghost Ship fire and this fire, and the glaringly obvious ways that poor folks of color and disabled folks are consistently criminalized, predated on and lied to because of the very things we had going on before crisis hits us. In ghost ship there were vigils, investigations and endless media attention. In this fire, confusion, case-manglement, empty promises, lost money and jail-like conditions at the temporary shelter are the norm.

Unlike the Ghost Ship victims and this fire victims, our lives as poor folks have already been normalized to include substandard living conditions, and the constant  threat of displacement and no real help. In this story, Mayors have visited, The Raiders have served food, GoFundMe’s have been started that didn’t actually go the individual families and was actually meant for the organization that was also housed in the building.And then the Salvation Army was called in to take away the bags and bags of unusable clothes that well-meaning folks had left for the fire victims, ostensibly adding the profits of their sale to the Salvation Army's already million dollar used clothing industry.

Just like the post -pimping of Haiti after the earthquake, another horrible example of poverty pimping of poor folks of color by Poverty Industries, no talk of reparations for low-income Black families in Oakland were had before the fire and so of course no talk of reparations is being talked about now. The conditions that families were living in and normalized were already bad, not hipster bad like Ghost Ship. Of oh- this is a warehouse and we are making art and we know that artists who don’t have a lot of money are stuck with less that safe housing, but we are young, mostly white, mostly middle class people who can move. No this was all poor folks, with children, elders, with disabilities, all of color, and had NOWHERE ELSE TO GO.

When myself and another POOR Magazine reporter Vivi T, both survivors of homelessness and gentrification fires ourselves, were at the site of the fire and first relocation center, a church at 27th and Broadway, talking to victims to get the truth behind this fire , we witnessed our fellow po folks suffering the classic example of poor folks predation, as the PoLice pulled up to the “relocation” center just in time to discover that one of the victims who was living in the building had a warrant and the poLice used their need for help as a chance to arrest them

From poverty pimping to poltrickster  promising.
Audrey who was filming the struggles and pimping everyday. on Facebook live explained that from the beginning the process has been almost intentionally confusing, Many families who were living together only received one stipend because the red cross “volunteers” who had no experience with crisis or communities in struggle and what we would call poverty scholarship, only distributed one application, which meant that some folks got the little Red Cross stipend, and a lot of folks had to fight to get it cause they were FUCKED FROM THE START by the confusing application process of the Red Cross.

Transcript from a conversation between Mayor Libby Shaaf (LS) and one of the mamas at the shelter (P) trying to get some help:
(P) “I think mothers and children should be given priority first.  I’m not knocking anyone else.  I just think that mothers with kids should be at the top of the list.  in one of the few times that Libby Schaaf  made her way over to the center, she came up with a barrage of excuses for why children were still here without clothing.”

LS: I’m not actually the best person to tell, remember, i delegate stuff to other people, i’m not sitting, there

LS:what i can tell you is that i have staff at the city, not here, but city hall, who are doing research on all of the housing resources and trying to figure out what housing resources are available.  

P: All i’m saying is that that couple are going now.  What did they say special that we didn’t say?  We’ve got kids up here too.  

LS: all i was told is that people who have medical conditions should get priority.

P: So that’s the cap?  They’ve always got to put a cap on these things.  Like i’ve told you my son had medical conditions.  He ‘s hospitalized all the time- seizures, asthma,

P: You’re asking me what could you do.   I’m telling you but it’s like no, it’s not just you, a gang of people came here and asked me like you asked me

LS:   i’m not writing it down.  

P: I thought since you’re the mayor, i thought you would have some kind of seniority, something you could do.  So many women want to be there for her children.  If I was in your place I know I’d be working my ass off to help people, that’s just me.
 
“Maybe we should just join the folks in the tents on the street,” One of the poverty scholars I spoke to on day 1 broke my heart, when he said this, cause a lot of times when an already hard life gets even harder we just give up - another little murder of the soul my ghetto scholar mama Dee used to call it, her and i falling deep into those “give-Ups’ more times than my trauma -filled mind cares to remember when these kid of crises would happen.

Folks are about to displaced on Thursday, april  With no real money or support or housing, just a lot of pamphlets and case-manglement. If folks want to help, victims are asking not for food or clothes or toiletries but for a direct donation of cash money or gift cards that can be distributed directly to the families..To arrange a meeting with the families directly, call Audrey Candy Corn at (510) 830-8822.

POOR Magazine will be helping the families organize an emergency press conference for Housing and Support on Tuesday, April 4th at 2pm in front of the West Oakland Youth Center  at 3222 Market street in West Oakland,