Homeless to Yale

And Then Back Again.

On purpose.

By Choice.

Because it Makes More Sense.

Read one woman’s story of why we all should be paying attention to Lisa Tiny Gray-Garcia and POOR Magazine.

Valerie Klokow

May 12, 2017

   I used to think that the worst thing

in life was to end up alone. It's not.

The worst thing in life is to end up with

people who make you feel alone.

   ~   Robin Williams  

I’m probably not going to be able to explain to anyone, including myself, how it is that being a member of a homeless community makes more sense than being an ivy league alumna (or a member of any other privileged group), but that doesn’t make it any less true. I thought about changing the last part of this title to “Because The People Are Nicer,” but that’s just being bitchy and it also doesn’t do justice to what Lisa Tiny Gray-Garcia and everyone at POOR Magazine stand for and are doing. I’ve lived at 2 extreme, opposite “ends” of American society and, while at first –  prior to having “made it” to the more privileged end – I wouldn’t have even attempted to explain how the other end made more sense, I’ve always experienced, felt andknown it to be true.

I dropped out of school in the 7^thgrade, eventually spending some time homeless in California until, in my 30’s, I decided to “turn my life around.” I went, first, to a drug and alcohol treatment facility, and then to a community college where I graduated with a 4.0 and transferred, on scholarship, to Yale. I spent two years in New Haven, where I completed my undergraduate work in philosophy and then went on to earn a J.D. at the University of Connecticut School of Law. I worked for a few years in legal compliance for a large corporation and I’m currently writing grants for a nonprofit organization. I am making considerably less money today than I was when I worked in compliance and I didn’t need my law degree (or, really, even my college degree) to do the work that I’m doing. I have always loved to learn and am very grateful for every bit of my education, but the money really doesn’t matter to me; I am much happier writing grants than I was in compliance and I also have more time to spend with my son – not to mention being in a much better mood while I’m with him! My experience with POOR Magazine’s Stolen Land and Hoarded Wealth Tour has me looking… hard… though, at how I feel about participating even in this type of work. This nation was taken (stolen) by colonizers from the Indigenous peoples who lived here, and then built on the backs of enslaved and exploited people of color. Working in corporate law made me feel complicit –  because I was, contrary to what I’d believed upon having been hired to work in compliance– but the work that I’m doing now is just another cog in the same privilege-machine. The concept of charity… of nonprofit organizations and the infrastructure of this country that has created a “need” for them… isn’t something that I am happy to participate in without question.

symptom

[simp-tuh m]

noun

1. any phenomenon or circumstance accompanying something and serving as evidence of it.

2. a sign of indication of something.

3. Pathology. a phenomenon that arises from and accompanies a particular disease or disorder and serves as an indication of it.

It is my sincere hope that everyone in the United States is questioning a lot of things today. And I’m not just talking about the outcome of the last Presidential election. Donald Trump is not my President, and more importantly, he isn’t the problem. Donald Trump is a monster that we have created and focusing on him is a surefire way to feed the privilege-machine and keep it rolling but, again, he is not the problem. The fact that this particular individual was elected to hold this office is a festering, pus-filled symptom of the problems of savagery and greed that caused colonizers to believe that they had a right to 1) take the land that is today the United States of America; and 2) kill or displace all of the rightful owners of that land. Trump is an insignificant man who is an inevitable, later-stage symptom of the barbarity and inhumanity that plagued the privileged citizens of the newly colonized nation when they enslaved human beings and he is a blinking, flashing, neon-lit symptom of the arrogance, ignorance and apathy (I’m being kind with the use of this last word) that is causing privileged citizens of the United States of America to continue to believe – or, worse, to simply accept it, unquestioned, as being the way things areand thereby assume– themselves to be in possession of rights that others don’t have.

In the past 6 months I’ve felt overwhelmed, inadequate, frustrated and depressed as I’ve tried to figure out how to make people who aren’t experiencing any problems take a look at systems of oppression that have been at work in their lives and their communities since before any of us were born. I still haven’t figured out how to get people to want (or even be willing) to learn more, but I do have a few ideas as to what they can do to get a better understanding, and one of them is to attend a PeopleSkool Decolonization / DegentriFUkation seminar, and to learn more about the Stolen Land Tour. The members of this tour are performing ceremonies of healing every time they offer a seminar or walk in a tour. These Poverty Skolaz are some of the nicest people that I have ever known, and my son said the same thing after we both met them a few weeks ago.

On Sunday, April 23, 2017, my 11-year-old son and I participated in the Connecticut leg (Pequot/Mohegan Territory) of POOR Magazine’s Stolen Land and Hoarded Wealth Tour. We first attended a PeopleSkool Decolonization / DegentriFUkation seminar at Wesleyan University from 1:00 – 3:30 PM and then, from 5:00 – 6:30 PM we walked with a group of Black, Brown, Indigenous, disabled and homeless youth and adults from POOR magazine, Sogorea Te Land Trust, Krip Hop Nation and Deecolonize Academy as they knocked on doors in a wealthy West Hartford neighborhood to share the medicine of redistribution and community reparations with the residents who live there. For these 5 ½ hours, for the first time in almost 20 years, I felt completely at home. I have not been homeless since 1996, and the hours that I spent with the members of this tour made me feel more at home than any of the houses and apartments that I’ve lived in ever did. There is a sense of community and a feeling of camaraderie amongst the members of the Stolen Land Tour, and within moments of being in their presence, I knew that they followed the same code of honor and respect that I followed (and valued) when I was on the street. Very naïve when I graduated from law school and got my first job, I was stunned when I encountered the very different schema of respect that is employed in corporate America. Working in a nonprofit and living on the outskirts of a suburb put me back into a more comfortable respect-zone, but I hadn’t realized how “not at home” I’ve felt until about halfway through the PeopleSkool seminar at Wesleyan. The social structure at play in that room and on their tour makes much more sense – and feels much better –to me than the capitalist society that we all live in.

I was introduced to the work that POOR Magazine is doing by Reverend Cathy Rion Starr, who is co-minister of the Unitarian Society of Hartford, where I am a member. Reverend Cathy had come to know POOR’s work when she lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, and she asked me if I’d be interested in this East Coast Tour by telling me “I don’t know exactly how to explain or describe it, but every time that I’ve seen the work that these people are doing, I think ‘Yes. This is good and right. This is something that we all should be doing.’”  After spending a day with them, I agreed wholeheartedly with Reverend Cathy’s “not sure how to explain…” comment and now, after doing some more reading of their materials, I also agree that their work is good, right, and something that we all should be doing.

The PeopleSkool’s Decolonization / DegentriFUkation seminar features a series of powerful live theatrical performances that audience members eventually come to understand are depictions of actual scenes from the actors’ lives. From a landlord’s eviction of an elderly tenant, resulting in her death a few days later… to a police officer’s forceful, physical separation of a mother and child based on their status as vendors who are living and working on the streets, these vignettes give spectators an uncensored, up-close view of people living in poverty. These scenes are “the rest of the story” of the homeless and poor people that every one of us “doesn’t see” on the streets every day. Attendees at a PeopleSkool seminar are not able to pretend that they don’t see. Anyone who sees these performances and participates in the seminar discussions will be forever changed, and I believe that this is precisely the change that is needed to meaningfully address the soul-sickness that is at the root of our nation’s problems of arrogance, ignorance and apathy- i.e. the sense of entitlement that allows some people to not understand how truly repugnant the act of hoarding wealth when others have nothing is.  

After the seminar at Wesleyan, my son and I participated in a Stolen Land / Hoarded Resources Tour in a wealthy neighborhood in our hometown, West Hartford, CT. The tour began and ended with sage and humble prayers to the Pequot/Mohegan ancestors of the land that we were walking on, and it felt very different than any protest marches that I’ve participated in. This tour feels like a ceremony, with participants bringing the gift of the richness that they have created in the community that they've built together and asking nothing in return but the opportunity to begin a dialogue on the idea of “community reparations” – of redistributing the stolen and hoarded wealth thatcame about on the backs of others and using it for community good. Leroy Moore, founder of Krip Hop Nation, columnist with POOR Magazine, and Stolen Land Tour co-leader, describes the tour as “…taking our request to the front doors of the most wealthy and powerful from Beverly Hills in LA to Park Avenue in NYC, not to blame and shame but to offer medicine to heal what capitalism teaches us – for example, that we need to cumulate wealth, like many houses, condos, summer homes, cars and such for oneself and at the same time walk past a family on the street and not only do nothing but feel nothing.” I feel very humbled to have been a welcomed participant on this tour; I was sad to drive away when it was over and I’ve thought about the experience and everyone involved every day since. My son has mentioned it, too. He wants to know when we’ll see them again. We live on opposite coasts; I told him that I really don’t know when we’ll see them again, but that I believe that we will.

The words of Aunti Frances Moore, one of the tour’s members, ring true for me:“Sad, exhausting, mind blowing, crucial and very important, connecting dots, getting the word and education not only to the rich but to the people, our people, is critical.”Yes. Getting this word and education out to the people (all of the people) is critical if we are ever going to have even a chance of stopping the privilege/entitlement machine. We are a nation split into two groups: those who are able to clearly see the problem (not the symptoms); and those who do not (and are not willing to) see the problem because they are products of (and benefit from) it. We all are capable of seeing the problem; we all, in fact, were able to see it very clearly when we were children. As soon as we began to communicate with adults, though, we learned that our “survival” (success) depended upon our no longer seeing it – or, for those who were not born into privilege, we learned that our survival depended upon our not speaking of it amongst anyone who is not like us.

So, what’s the problem? Here’s where we’d all like to think that it gets complicated, but that’s only because we’ve all been trained to not see or speak the truth about what’s going on in our society. The problem is privileged peoples’ sense of entitlement. The problem begins with the fact that the land that the United States of America sits on was stolen from Indigenous peoples, and then this leads to the fact that everything that exists today on that stolen land was built on the backs of enslaved people, and exploited people of color and poor people. All of the “success” that anyone in this country has enjoyed is a result of the systems of exploitation that grew out of these initial, barbarous acts of pillaging and savagery. The problem is that the descendants of the monstrous colonizers who annihilated everyone and everything in their path have inherited all of the spoils of their ancestors’ acts. These material spoils afforded the colonizers’ descendants with unearned power, and they used that power to write laws and develop political structures to ensure that they would maintain that power. Our nation is based on the morals and belief systems of brutal, ruthless conquerors who valued material wealth above all else. Anyone wishing to “survive” (succeed) in this nation has to agree to not acknowledge any of this; they have to agree to comply with the systems that are in place. Which brings us back to…

Homeless to Yale

And Then Back Again.

On Purpose.

By Choice.

Because it Makes More Sense.

I wasn’t born into poverty; I grew up in a predominately white, working class, factory town in the Midwest. My mother and her husband owned a small house and none of us ever went hungry. My neighbors, friends and family all believed in the American Dream, and everyone worked hard to try and give their kids a better life than they’d had. What I remember most about my childhood, though, is always wondering why no one’s actions ever matched what they said. As a little girl Ibought the whole "Sesame Street" thing about being kind, sharing and treating everyone fairly.

Come and play, everything’s A-OK…

I believed everything that Luis, Maria, Gordon and Susan said. I loved Mr. Hooper, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, and especially Oscar the Grouch. I traipsed through the first 3-4 years of my life trusting that, so long as I was kind and good, everything would be A-OK. By the time I got to kindergarten I’d learned that this is not the case. I watched adults mouthing the Sesame Street credos as they behaved in adversarial, self-interested ways. I especially hated watching when they acted like assholes to kids; I was sometimes completely unable to focus for the rest of the day (or year) in classrooms that were led by teachers who were mean to poor kids, kids of color, or kids who struggled to learn. I learned about the Bill of Rights on School House Rock and, until I was 9-10 years old I believed that all I had to do was get good grades, go to law school and then I’d be able to come back and make grown-ups act like the law said they were supposed to act.

I wasn’t a quiet or a shy child. I asked, first my mother and then the other adults in my world, to explain to me why no one ever actually acted like they said that we all should, and I got really unsatisfactory answers. I spent a lot of time being frustrated, but until I was 9 or 10 years old I held out hope that I would, indeed, “understand when I got older.” I’m 52 years old today and I still don’t understand any of it. I’ve come to know that our society is based on a lot of bullshit, but I don’t understand why we’ve all agreed to go along with it. I mean, I sort of get it on a surface level. We all have been raised in a culture that has instructed us to value material things above all else. We all have been programmed to agree that it is acceptable, on a daily basis, to walk past poor people and homeless people on the street... and pretend like we don't see them. I, for one, do not understand. I don't understand how we have gotten here. I don't agree. I don't and have not ever accepted this as being the way that any of us should be living. I rebelled as a young person; I walked away from the bullshit bases of power and privilege that I was being indoctrinated to build my life on.

The emperor is not and has not ever been wearing any clothes.

As a young child I realized that I didn't have any power; I knew that I couldn't change anything around me and I felt angry, confused and... increasingly... frantic in a world that didn’t make any sense to  me. As a pre-teen I discovered alcohol and other substances that made it less uncomfortable and painful to exist in the unacceptable reality that is our society. At 13 years old I struck out on my own because I couldn't stomach it any more. I couldn't "behave;" I absolutely was not willing to act the way that I was told that I was supposed to act – I refused to "be a good girl" and just be quiet. I rebelled and my rebellion damn near killed me, but it didn't. I am still alive. I am still here and I have opted to not base my life or my worth on material possessions. I spent one day a few weeks ago with Lisa Tiny Gray-Garcia and the members of the Stolen Land Tour; I did this on purpose and by choice because it makes sense. The research that these Poverty Skolaz have done on models of self-determined solutions to land use, homelessness, poverty and gentrification made possible through redistributed wealth and resources makes much more sense to me than capitalism ever has or will. The work that they are doing is something that I am paying attention to and it is something that I will be contributing to in any way that I can.

After my story was featured on a 2002 "Graduates Overcoming Obstacles" episode of the Oprah show, I received emails and other communications congratulating me. One that I will never forget said a lot of things about how horrible my life must have been prior to being accepted to Yale, and in conclusion, this email said "But thank heavens you got out! You made something of yourself and you got out."

No.

I was not nothing prior to attending Yale.

I was not nothing that needed to be made into something. I was not nothing and, despite other peoples' attitudes and behaviors, I was not even invisible. Prior to my attending Yale I was the same person that I am today. Please think about this the next time you don't see a homeless person on the street. Please think today about Lisa Tiny Gray-Garcia, POOR magazine, Sogorea Te Land Trust, Deecolonize Academy, and Krip Hop Nation. The work that they are doing is good and right. The work that they are doing is what we all should be doing to begin needed change in our nation today. Plus, they're really nice people whose message makes a lot of sense.

Other than the terrifying 21st century hetero-patriarchal kkklan-colonial violence I couldnt tell what else bothered me about Charlottesville and Berkeley and all the other sites of this recent wave of amerikkklan hate.

Obviously the dangerous-ignorant white men perpetrators are violent and erratic and we lost a sister in the struggle (Ibaye Heather Heyer) and so many more in the last year since they got their boy in the white peoples house and got even more arrogant.  These new hyphy attacks are terrifying and triggering like all the attacks on indigenous people and people of color have been  for as long as indigenous peoples, 1st peoples and poor peoples have been struggling with repression, incarceration and exploitation from the kolonizers.

But still something was missing. And then I found out who the perpetrators really are. Other than appearing flagrantly melanin free and moving in fascist-like formation while uttering idiotic, meaningless chants, the demographic of who these people are was the key to the missing piece of this story

These are not the "white working class" that Bernie and the liberal democans supposedly  "forgot about" in the recent (s)election, in fact most of them are currently enrolled in formal institutions of learning in highly paid degree programs, they are driving late model vehicles and tweeting, face-craking and insta-scaming on $800.00 Iphones and/or currently being well-paid workers in the tech industry. These are not “ignorant” kkklan members. This is not your grandfathers nazi’s. These perpetrators are housed, fed and cared for. These are a new brand of millennial, privileged, bored and rage-filled 21st century dangerous 20-30 something white men.

And their "fight" has no basis in Anything, except their own confused angst.. These are the logical progressions of the separation nation. Of confused, violent, video-gaming testosterone filled, isolated teenagers, embued with all the un-bridled access that this stolen nation grants white people for no reason, but for the fact that they are white, with the added cocktail of extreme violence-promoting media and gaming. This elder-abusing, violent young man attacked his disabled mother over and over again when she tried to stop him from video-gaming 24 hours a day. These are adult -sized versions of the columbine shooters. And this is what amerikkklan has birthed.

But there is also a specific class analysis here. These people have no farms to tend to, no crisis of hunger or housing or health. They are middle-class and upper middle class people with nothing to do. They have no empathy and no spirit and no sense. And this is what they are spending their money, time, gas and effort on. 

Do you know how much it costs in gas to drive from Ohio to Charlottesville like 20 year old klan wanna be, video-gamer murderer James Fields did ? Do you know how much a late-model Dodge Charger costs? This is a privileged mans struggle for Nothing?  And we are sanctifying it.

Just like Trump, there is something so comical and pathetic about these men ( and the women who enable them) that like we all know they are actually frighteningly laughable. When we see them in their weird, campy marches with their weird , strange shields and weaponry, its actually hard not to laugh. And i know we need to respond somehow, but like any privileged people who like my mama used to say, have never missed a meal, im just not sure about giving them, their "movements" and their actions all this collective credibility.

As a formerly unhoused, incarcerated, white appearing, mixed race poverty skola ( daughter of a woman of color and a white man colonizer) who has struggled with homelessness, poverty and criminalization of my mama, myself and my community for years, i teach, speak, walk, fight and manifest liberation, struggle and resistance to race and class supremacy everyday. Most of which means showing up, advocating, standing with, standing along-side and/or creatively visioning different worlds not laden by the rules and guidelines of the amerikkklan separation nation, cult of independence and the criminalization of all of us indigenous and poor people.

It seems like a privileged position to even be in this fight. To lose good-hearted sisters like Heather Hyer to the idiot whims of these fools when they could be fighting and achieving real change so that less of us are being deported across these false borders, less of us are living outside, less of us are incarcerated for poverty and racist crimes.

Yes I overstand that one important perspective is that folks need to show up, especially white people, to counter these perpetrators, but be strategic and don't lose another brother or sister in the process.

And in the mean-time, stop waiting for the pathetic video-gamers to make a move. Don't  wait for protests, marches, events countering privileged, bored, violent white men- speak to EVERY FUKING BODY!!!! every day, in stores, in the DMV, in banks, at events- wherever & whenever u have the energy- teach, preach, speak, & say: Fuk Your Fascism, White Supreamcy and revisionist his-story.

Like any trauma survivor Mama Earth is unsettled, anxious, in physical and mental pain and actling erratic. This state of her being is now her norm, not the aberrant, so I refuse to call it Climate Change or any other euphemism. Mama Earth is in crisis, period.

And to all of us earth peoples struggling with the collective pain caused by the crises and trauma of our post-colonized and corporate tortured Mama Earth - i am sending so much prayer and healing across these digital streets
 
That said, the way Mama Earth in her trauma-filled state hits different communities is complex, tragic and horrifying. If you are already unhoused and on the street and the street you reside on gets flooded. You have now lost the nothing you already didn’t have and somehow even have less.

On Monday, Oct 9th Northern California, in a county with a very high medium income just sufferred with a serious fire crisis resulting in over 1500 homes being destroyed and over 10 people dying. The story of the poor folks lost to this fire, the hurricanes of Texas and Florida and Puerto Rico and the earthquakes of Mexico is rarely, if ever, spoken about or considered.

If you are in prison and “asked” to be a volunteer firefighter, what choice do you really have? Or worse if your cell-block is flooded like in Houston recently, and now filled with growing black mold, where do you go?  If you are living in what i call  poor people housing unit with 6 families in one room so you can collectively pay the over-priced rent and still have money to send home as remittances across the false borders, what happens when your roof burns down or is flooded. If you are a disabled elder holding on to your “house” by any means necessary, but u can’t afford  the earthquake insurance or the “good” fire insurance with the low deductible or the earthquake insurance at all, what do you do to rebuild? If you are renting from a scam lord who was already trying to evict you illegally and now you are burned out or flood out or earthquaked out, where do you go?

Mary X who is a very low-income, disabled elder who suffers from asthma and was living in poor people housing in downtown Santa Rosa, not only lost her home but can’t even stay in a shelter in Santa Rosa cause she can’t breathe. Juan L who was juggling three dishwashing jobs in kitchens in Napa County under the table now has no home and no jobs and no unemployment. Rena who was sleeping in a “same” place next to her old home in Santa Rosa, now can’t even breath muchness “sleep” in her tent hidden in Sonoma County.

Struggle hits different people depending on your support networks, access to resources and village support. Most people who are poor in a captialist society are isolated, and like my mama used to say Isolation kills,

The other terrifying lesson that can come from these fires, hurricanes, Tsunamis and earthquakes is a horrible and real empathy exercise, the kind we teach in PeopleSkool. The ways in which folks with different forms of race and class privilege can now overstand and understand the violence of losing Everything you care about in one minute. From baby pictures to your favorite momentos burned up in a tragic and immediate fire or thrown away by DPW workers cause you are unhoused and on the street when they are doing a “sweep” the pain is the same.

The way people recover from these little murders of the soul as my mama used to call them is
strikingly different if you have another home to go to, a family with extra room to house you, a trust fund, surplus income , a good fire or earthquake insurance policy or just a really powerful network of friends who love and are always there for you makes the difference between surviving and giving up competely.

These violent lessons of empathy are more important than ever as we learn back inter-dependence and move away from the lie of independence. Which cannot sustain any of us, rich or poor, struggling or supported as more and more of us lose more and more of our lives behind these times.

If we can take anything away form these violent and diffincult series of new Mama Earth normals, it is that we must care for each other in a deeper and different way and spend much less time on the lie of "succeeding" and more on the notion of caring for one another. And ultimately caring for our Earth Mother for without whom there woudl be no us. Otherwise, as indigenous nations and earth care-givers have taught for years, none of us, not just some of us, will survive.

Sending love, empathy, activation and healing to all of the victims of Trauma-FilledMama Earth in so much crisis  and all of us earth peoples from all four corners trying to survive, thrive and be alive.

UN-Habitat, The UN’s human settlements program, states that the number of people living in slum conditions is now estimated at 863 million, which was only a couple hundred million less in the 1990’s.

 The Shack Dwellers Movement or Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) is a political group dedicated to the betterment of the urban poor’s living. They strive to organize “a society where everyone counts and where capital and the state are subordinate to society”

AbM was started 2005, in Durban, South Africa, and spawned from a road-blockade meant to protest the selling of land promised to shack dwellers.

Since then, the movement is still going strong with thousands of active members and supporters. But, it doesn’t change the fact that their communities are sometimes riddled with brutality, harassment, and arrests from police and other locals parties.

Marcus Garvey believed in black nationalism which encouraged black people to be separate from European society to maintain their identity. He has Inspired many people to excel and fend for themselves without “the white man’s help”. Which is quite similar to AbM’s ideology regarding the government.

Some of the criticisms the group has been that they don't listen to the authority of the city and that they are violent. AbM’s responded saying, "We have never called for violence. Violence is harm to human beings. Blockading a road is not violence."

Abahlali baseMjondolo to this day continues to fight against unethical evictions and other issues that oppress shack settlements. It understands the post-apartheid struggles, & I think Shack dwellers’ Union empowers the impoverished to take back their country from the oppressors. It’s one critical example of a society that will show the rest of the world how to run one better.

References:

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Jamaica-hailed-for-role-in-anti-apartheid-fight_15633822

http://africasacountry.com/2013/03/marcus-garveys-africa/

http://www.lancerlibrary.org/heroes-of-the-apartheid-in-south-africa.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_nationalism

to this day continues to fight against unethical evictions and other issues that oppress shack settlements.

https://www.cordaid.org/en/news/un-habitat-number-slum-dwellers-grows-863-million/

REPORT FROM PUERTO RICO. It's taken me a couple of days to write. I am so furious with the way the Puerto Rican people are being left to suffer and die. The US government, military, FEMA, Rossello and PR state government have mounted little response. Everything you have hear is true and worse by 100 times. The military s a policing presence rarely actually helping the people...no surprise there. Unconfirmed word is that Tiger Swan (Blackwater spin off) may be coming in to handle security. I was told repeatedly by aid organizations that it was unsafe to go places without armed guards...not at all true. False reports spread to intimidate people.

There are still trailer tractors of donations sitting at the airport and port not getting out to people. There are trucks and cars willing to transport supplies. Many grassroots folks are distributing tons of supplies despite harassment by police or difficulty in getting their supplies out of the airport.

Per FEMA, 6.2 million gallons of water has been distributed since September 20 for 3.4 million people or less than 9% of the minimum drinking water needed (per WHO, 2,5 liters per day.) And, of course even more water is needed for cooking, washing fruits and vegetables, and hygiene like brushing your teeth. One cannot trust any of the water as not being contaminated. With electricity gone, sewage plants backed up into the San Juan water supply in the mountains (like Hetch Tetchy for the SF Bay Area). There are cases of leptospirosis with some fatalaties from the contaminated water as well as other other bacterial and protozoal water-borne illnesses. DHHS, FEMA, the military and Red Cross told their workers not to drink anything but purified water.

The worst hit areas are those still barely accessible in the mountains. These folks need food and water air dropped to them. Most hospitals are working on back up generators as their is little electricity on the island. I understand the Hope hospital ship is almost empty docked in PR but patients are not getting transferred there. Folks are desperate for insulin.

The beautiful tropical forests have been stripped of their foliage leaving brown trunks of "burned" trees still standing instead of the luscious green we think of PR. Even the ocean is contaminated and I was told not to go in. The beaches are empty. Electrical poles have been knocked over, sometimes destroying buildings. Light posts are snapped off at their base. Traffic lights are blown away or a twisted mess even if there was electricity. Poles and trees still standing have been damaged and continue to fall unexpectedly. San Juan's tall buildings are dark at night as are most other places, Those with generators have electricity but pollute the air with the exhaust.

Communication is shaky in San Juan and nonexistent in much of the island. Most of the island cell towers were destroyed in the hurricane. In Ponce's biggest hospital with its own internet connection, I could usually text but except for 2-5 am had little or no internet. I was only able to make one call out (to my mother who was on stand by to evacuate from the California fires). The hospital in Adjuntas had no communication with the outside world. I met a ham radio operator who was going to towns in the mountains to help them get their communications up. Boricua in the diaspora have been desperate to reach their families. Of course, there is no 911.

Of course, the poor are hardest hit with wooden structures that fell down and zinc roofs that flew off. The strength of the hurricane and its tornados is inescapably evident. Even concrete buildings have collapsed. . Giant tree trunks twisted off and many trees fallen, crushing buildings and cars. Landslides, bridges washed out, roads just gone.

The PR people have worked tirelessly to clear roads and highways. People with chain saws and machetes clearing paths for neighbors to connect and get to roads, rescuing people in flooded areas with boats. Still, the rains are continuing with more landslides, flash flood warnings, and often deteriorating conditions. The spirit of the people is amazing. Most people say they are "fine" when asked. Their houses are also "fine" even though they were flooded with several inches of water and perhaps a portion of the roof flew off. There is the endless daily searching for water, food, batteries, diapers, formula, and hours-long lines to get money, ice, or entrance to a big store that has goods. Gas is more available now than it was the first days.

The people who are not so fine are those I cared for in the shelters, many disabled, whose homes have been totally destroyed, who do not have family or other resources to have another place to stay. There were so many sick and disabled in the largest shelter of 124 people in Ponce where I spent the most time. I couldn't believe the problems people were living with: muscular dystrophy (paralyzed with a urine bag), AIDS, uncontrolled insulin-dependent diabetes, 2 adults with cerebral palsy, myasthenia graves, Bilateral below the knee amputee, blind and paralyzed, bedridden diabetic elder, patients with wounds, numerous out of control hypertensives. Everyone very stressed, A young woman, single parent with 2 young children and her disabled parents, elders alone with no family. No one had any idea where they would be able to go long term, no places available to rent. The shelters are run by a private corporation and although there were some big-hearted workers, the corporation's overall response to needs as basic as filling prescriptions was horrible.

So many businesses are closed, the tourism industry is gone, and reports are that 3,000 people a day are leaving the island. Their jobs are gone, they have no income. Survival is very challenging. The colonial nightmare is intensifying. There are those who plan to become fabulously wealthy off this disaster, buying up all the land and eventually turning PR into a wealthy people's playground. Fortunately, there are boricua on the island and in the diaspora working for another reality.

I searched for the hope, saw a tree that was nearly bare sprout leaves during the days I was in Ponce. I heard of a pediatrician in the mountains who was pregnant, had lost her home and clinic, but was seeing long lines of patients every day in a parking lot. I saw neighbors taking care of each other who had barely spoken before the hurricane, I saw so many working nonstop to help their families and communities survive. There are also many great reporters documenting. Thank you Rosa Clemente, Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, and all. Please donate as possible to the grassroots folks who are doing so much.

in struggle and preparing to return to PR,

Amanda Bloom

Just to start off, Philadelphia is one of the most racist states in the U.S now. Imagine how racist it was in the middle of the Civil Rights movement. The Mayor, then one of the most racist people alive former police commissioner Frank Rizzo was supporting and urging on the brutalization of black people all over Philadelphia. That is the reason why MOVE was started to state that black people and people of color can fight for their rights.

The belief system of the MOVE Organization is based on the writings of John Africa known as “The Guidelines”,  MOVE are deeply committed revolutionaries the way they honor their father and founder John Africa is they chant, “Long Live John Africa!”

The way MOVE contributes the revolution is they show an alternative way of living and introduce it to the world. They put out a template that other revolutionaries could see and do good things with.

MOVE was founded by John Africa but he was not their leader. They led themselves and they did not have one person leading them but all of them made executive decisions. They also didn't have to depend on the government for things because they made their own food, clothing, shelter etc.

John Africa was one of many people who started and later continued MOVE. There was also MOVE 9. MOVE 9 are 9 people who were arrested in a military attack on the MOVE household. This was August 8, 1978. This attack. Led by the Mayor and former police commissioner and before that officer Frank Rizzo. The brutally racist man who hated all people of color.

Police squadron’s filled the house with tear gas while the MOVE members who were at the house at the time were hiding from them in the basement. The MOVE members were not doing anything wrong in fact before the Philadelphia police force stormed their house they were just hanging out. They weren’t even having anything important like an event or a secret meeting. They were just being a family.

The police proceeded to pump 40,000 gallons of water into the basement with 40 fire hoses from the Philadelphia Fire Dept. It got so bad that the MOVE members had to hold their babies and animals above their heads so the children and pets wouldn't drown while MOVE was. When they tried to escape the house they were riddled with bullets from the police department that killed two of their members.

They were forced to choke on the tear gas and avoid the water that was slowly filling up their house. Nine of the members that escaped that were not killed from the bullets were brutally beaten by the police and then arrested. Those nine members were MOVE 9 who I might add, are still in jail today. The MOVE 9 are Debbie Sims Africa, Janet Holloway Africa, Janine Phillips Africa, William Phillips Africa, Delbert Orr Africa, Michael Davis Africa, Charles Sims Africa, Edward Goodman Africa and Pam Africa. They have been in jail for 39 years. Pam Africa was released in 1992 and is still fighting for the release of the other eight.

MOVE is a strong believer of Garveyism. They maintain their own food and business without relying on the white man to solve all of their problems. The government and clan members believed that MOVE was a cult and hated them. I believe the reason why they hated MOVE was because they were afraid of them. They do not want to see black people stand up for themselves and fight for their rights.

My opinion about MOVE is that it is an amazing liberation movement that encourages black and brown people to fight for themselves.

“Everyone in the hotel was saying how happy John was, that he would never have ended his own life,” power-FULL, superbabymama Stephanie Grant said through tears over the phone. Stephanie, who like John Visor, was a witness to the San Francisco poLice murder of Luis Demetrio Gongora Pat over a year and a half ago, was discussing the increasingly suspicious death of her long-time boyfriend and comrade John in the Mission hotel last week.

“Myself and John's sister Maria Martinez, have spoken with three medical examiners and they all had different stories, first he was sitting on a chair, then he was on a desk, then he had marks on him, then something else, “ Stephanie concluded exasperated.

“It is critical that the death of John Visor be examined by an independent agency to uncover any foul play that might have occurred,” said lawyer for the people Adante Pointer who has been working tirelessly on this case since the murder occurred, “ Anytime someone dies like this we are suspicious about the circumstances given the implications his death may have against the Luis Gongora Pat case against the SFPD,” Pointer concluded. 

John was a poverty scholar, a street scholar who struggled with houselessness and the trauma that is lodged in our collective heads in this post-colonial gentrified streets of amerikkklan, in this case the stolen village of Yelamu (aka San Francisco ), where people like Luis were homeless because of gentrification and an extreme housing shortage.

Myself, my sun and POOR Magazine extended family, artist and organizer Pearl Ubungen had the blessing of meeting  john and Stephanie in April of 2016 within days of the murder of Mayan father, uncle Husband Luis Demetrio Gongora Pat as the tent cities surrounding his murder were being poLice harassed because the witnesses, like Luis, were unhoused,. POOR Magazine’s village of houseless and formerly unhoused revolutionary reporters and advocates were called in to assist, advocate and do whatever needed to be done to support the witnesses and the unhoused community surrounding the murder. When we arrived on Shotwell near 19th street John and Stephanie were standing in front of their tent while two police officers singled them out, threatening them with tent and belonging removal if they didn’t leave immediately, which of course was strange considering no other tents right around them were being targeted in the same way.

Poverty skolaz at POOR Magazine who have all been unhoused ourselves and therefore know the nuanced trauma /drama of what needs to happen to support folks in these moments, began a process  along with Pearl and her husband Ken Miller, advocate Laura Guzman, and advocate poverty scholar Nancy Scott to help them store their stuff, raise money, get into rehab and protect them from more police targeting.

At the same time us revolutionary advocates were advocating many of us were working alongside writer and organizers Adriana Camarena, Flora Campoy and the family of Luis Demetrio Gongora Pat  and many others to form the Justice & Amor 4 Luis Demetrio Pat Coalition in support of liberation lawyer Adante Pointer from the John Burris Law Firm.

The fight for the safety and protection of the witnesses and the victims became connected and enmeshed as they should always be in cases like this. It was at this point that Pearl and Nancy and myself began to focus on getting the about to be mama Stephanie permanently off the streets so she could properly mama, while also working to support John into transitional housing. 

Months passed, a beautiful baby was born and a mama was lifted up.

So in the last few months Stephanie has been on track to get housing, raising her  baby and supporting John through his own recovery. John got housing at the Mission Hotel, working on recovery and helping out everyone in the Mission Hotel building who needed it. 

“He is sweet to everyone in the hotel , always ready to help, always there if you need him and always talking about his future, said an anonymous source to POOR Magazine about John.
 
“And the timing is all wrong, first his mama said he spoke with him on Wednesday but he was supposedly dead on Tuesday, We just want justice, we just want the truth to come out,” Stephanie and Maria stated clearly. "We refuse to be silent."

Please support the  Gofundme for John Visor by clicking https://www.gofundme.com/funeral-expences-for-john-visor

I’m the Black Kripple founder of Krip-Ho Nation.  Like our bi-line says, Krip-Hop is more than music, Krip-Hop Nation has been on a roll with interviewing creators of comics books and animated films and sires who are Black. From Kounterclockwise’s THE GREAT ADVENTURES OF KOUNTERCLOCKWISE aka Deacon Burns & Kaya Rogue Cleveland’s first hip hop sci-fi animated series to D.M.C.’S first comic book, D.M.C. (with my nephew Tiburcio Garcia) and Rosalind Alexander-Kasparik's upcoming comic book Recall and Given, Krip-Hop have been on it.  Well Krip-Hop is back with this interview with Joshua Leonard about Team Supreme, an upcoming animate cartoon sires with all disabled youth characters.

Krip-Hop Nation, KHN: Before we get into  the cartoon, Team Supreme, I want to talk about your background being homeless because hurrican Katrina to actor to CEO.

Joshua Leonard: I was born in Miami, FL in 1983 to a military family.  I moved quite a bit as a child.  I lived in Alaska, Miami, Maryland, and Biloxi, MS.  I’ve always been able to draw, but as a child and teen, I was mainly focused on sports, mainly football, where I was recruited pretty well.  Injury set in my senior year so I turned to the arts.  I did music for a while and toured a few cities, where I was featured in VIBE Magazine in 2007.  After the music, I began to act.  I have been in 6 movies, and 2 shows.  Before all of this, I was homeless from hurricane Katrina in 2005.  That small setback just motivated me to work harder.

KHN:  Being a Black non-disabled how did you get an ideal of Team Supreme, a cartoon with characters with disabilities especially have a Black autistic   youth as a lead character?

Joshua Leonard: I knew I wanted to do something different.  Something that has never been done.  I had the idea for TS for years because I have friends who have children with a special need.  A few of my friends have a child with autism, so I was able to study and learn from them.

KHN:  Can you give us a storyline of on episodie? 

Joshua Leonard:  My episodes will be pretty self explanatory, such as an episode about Bravery, Bullies, etc…

KHN:  Who is writing the scripts do you hire writers with disabilities?

Joshua Leonard:  I’m writing scripts with the help from my daughter for now, but eventually, when I can afford to pay other writers, I can bring in more people, yes.  

KHN:  Lately more and more comics are coming to the big screen with disabled characters like Daredevil, full-length documentary category, Life, Animated, upcoming Power Ranger movie and   What makes Team Supreme different and what is the future of this project?

Joshua Leonard:  Team Supreme is different from these other films because all of my characters have a special need, and super powers.  It will also teach people about these special needs so they can understand them better.

KHN:  Tell us about your studio/company, Leonard Studios.

Joshua Leonard:  Well, I’m currently an animation student at the Art Institute of Atlanta, where I’ll graduate in March 2018.  I always wanted to have my own studio so I could tell my own stories, etc… I believe representation in cartoons is vital.  I also started my own studio because it’s not the easiest to get into these big studios if you’re an African American.  Just check the numbers.  Why?  I’m not sure, but I’ve seen plenty of talented brothers and sisters who would be useful, but just looking at group pictures of these big studios, there’s usually only 1-2 african American people and it’s unacceptable.  

KHN: What is your favorite animated film?

Joshua Leonard:  My favorite animated film would have to be Toy Story

KHN: So I read that you will be starting a Kickstarter campaign for Team Supreme tell us what are you raising for and how can people help?

Joshua Leonard:  Yes, I’ll actually be doing an Indiegogo campaign to raise $25K to make either a short film, or an episode.  The funds will be used for voice actors, music, orchestra, writers, promotion and animators.

KHN:  Do you see this project going into schools and if so how?

Joshua Leonard:  I can see this project being in schools, yes.  My cartoon will be a learning tool, and also an overall dope cartoon that kids will love.

KHN:  Beyond Team Supreme will you continue to create artistic products with a disability them? 

Joshua Leonard:  Absolutely.  I feel like it is needed.  My goal is to have a DC or Marvel type universe with all of the disabilities.

KHN:  Being Black, how do you think Team Supreme will do in the Black community and have Black people, funders, artists support your ideal so far?

Joshua Leonard:  TS will be amazing in the black community because many autistic kids are black.  I have a few celebs behind the project, such as R&B singer Ginuwine.

KHN:  How can people support this project and reach you? 

Joshua Leonard:  People can support this project by emailing me at: joshua@leonardstudios.com

Or on twitter @joshua__leonard

Instagram @joshua__leonard & @leonardstudios

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