2019

Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Tuesday that he is creating a task force to tackle the steady-rising issue of homelessness. After reports of the homeless rate skyrocketing and the failed attempts at “band-aid” solutions, Newsom has proposed for a 1 billion dollar budget to help finance employment and housing assistance programs. Homeless and poverty statistics for California alone was amongst the highest in the nation, with around 130,000 houseless folks and according to the HUD annual homeless assessment report of 2017, there were over 550,000 homeless people in the US in total.

Although lawmakers had allegedly approved a 2 billion dollar bond to create new and affordable housing over two years ago, no money has been spent to house adults, elders, people with disabilities and households with children as of yet- leaving one to believe that poor people and people of color were left for dead with another “pie-crust promise” backed up by “ghost funding”

The constant demand for housing from highly paid non-natives of the communities (gentriFUKation) and the boom for million dollar “luxury” devilopments (development) in the real estate-snake game has been the primary reasons SF is now known as “tent city” plagued with chronic homelessness and with very little support for residents dealing with mental illness, alcohol and drug addiction, life-threatening illnesses and the trauma of being treated less than human.

Gavin Newsom has also named Sacramento Mayor Darryl Steinberg and Los Angeles county supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas as co-chairs of the task force in collaboration to end the homeless crisis. Someone needs to have the courage to challenge the fact that there is a layer of abuse and a violation of one’s human rights when children, elders and folks with disabilities are forced out into the streets with the extra slap in the face being that it is a crime to sleep in cars, tents or parks when there is nowhere else to go without being dehumanized any further.

What makes sense?

Create affordable housing for low-income, impoverished folks by utilizing empty, abandoned, unused lots and spaces of land that don’t come with multi-million dollar price tags. Instead of spending money on just beds for “clients”, spend money on providing enough space for not only a bed, but a kitchen, bathroom, a bedroom- A WHOLE ROOF! As POOR Magazine does with the HOMEFULNESS project and how many tribes before have done before being poisoned with capitalism and colonization.

Provide adequate resources and treatment to people in need and employ staff or fellow poverty “skolars” who possess helpful, compassionate non-judgemental spirits that don’t take pride in representing the “agents of the state” and meeting “quotas” that contributes to the despair of the people.

Powers that be- stop investing in big money corporations that cruelly displaces lifelong residents by creating “booms” that raises the rent so high that the city caters only to those with higher incomes and privilege thus creating an exodus of evictions and cultural destruction/change. It is known that the Ellis Act and real estate snakeculation (speculation) are in the same bed together and if politricksters focused more energy on putting restrictions on high-powered corporations that evicts children onto the streets instead of restricting a woman’s right to choose then the vote will come in as some sort of progress towards a solution to an inhumane problem.

She took shifts sitting by both her son's sides after they both were shot and almost murdered by a lone police officer in Olympia Washington.

As she sat at her son's hospital bed sides she heard on the news of what happened. The news blasted the radio traffic call the officer had made to dispatch about the shooting that late evening/early morning when he shot both her sons.

As the news people went on and showed a video of her youngest son playfully doing air tricks with his skateboard, she knew right then and there what happened to her sons would be twisted to make them look like thugs, poor, thieves, niggers etc.

it was Olympia after all, the Capital of Racism..

And she was right...

The officer made a statement after 5 or 6 days of reviewing this video and then typed out a 6 page letter on what went down

This officer and his buddy's in blue helped him get his bogus ass story about being attack by a skateboard together so this piece of shit officer would be justified

The way the media portrayed what happened and how the police were doing their own investigation bothered her a lot

She was hurt and upset that a police officer who was sworn to protect and serve chose to pull his weapons and excessively fire those weapons multiple times at her sons as they ran for their lives

"Yes, weapons"

Cops voice over radio traffic said....

they're aggressive just so you know...

Seconds pass Cops voice comes over the radio again and he says...

Shots fired one down, then a few seconds after that, Shots fired, second suspect down, what she heard that came across the radio was devastating to hear...

When she heard the cop say they're "aggressive" and just 'so you know," sent a chill through her body,  she felt sick to her stomach, 

in her mind she questioned what he said,  

did he say that just incase if they die he would be justified and his brothers in blue would help cover up for this reckless cop?

Yup and that's exactly what they did, help cover up his shit......

Her sons were in the hospital fighting for their lives, while that officer went home to his family and girlfriend on paid leave..

She sat at her youngest son's bed side holding his hand, talking to him, hang on son, momma is right here, please open your eyes baby, he was in critical condition and she was scared he wouldn't make it, she had know idea how many bullets entered his body, all the bandages and tubes hooked up to his body was overwhelming, she broke down crying in disbelief 

Frantic she needed to see her other son she didn't know what his condition was, she and her daughter got into the car to head to another hospital where her other son had been transported to

She thought why the hell would they separate them

She arrived at the hospital 40 mins later where her other son had been transported too, her son was conscious and alert, she was so relieved too see his eyes open and he was talking but he was in shock, terrified and crying, 

he was concerned for his younger brother and was in disbelief at what had happened to him and his brother

After a while had passed she heard that the narcissistic psychopath cop was justified, just like all the rest of these cops that shot and murder unarmed citizens all across the USA.

Protect And Serve that's a bunch of BULLSHIT!

We Must Protect Our People

Instead of the Cop going to jail, her son's were handcuffed and brought to jail after several weeks in a criminal trial

Her heart broke into a million more pieces watching all this unfold, 

She couldn't not believe what she was seeing, these cops that sat at the back of the courtroom were giving each other hi fives and patting each other on the asses after leaving the court room, this was so fucking sickening to watch

The OPD is Corrupt

The City Of Olympia WA is Corrupt

The whole damn system is Corrupt

Real life story

Written by

Crystal Chaplin

Mother of Andre & Bryson

They Survived

(scroll down for English)

As I looked up at a bus stop on my route home, I recall thinking about the choice I had in that moment to show up or plead exhaustion and go home. Home. I have a home. The irony that I was choosing between going back to the comfort of my house or to a rally explicitly for the housed to show up for the unhoused is more obvious to me now. But I do remember thinking about what POOR has taught me, no, MODELED for me, in the past few years about what it looks like to show up.  And so I turned around and headed towards City Hall.

Once I arrived, albeit a good 20 minutes late, I saw the powerful circle of ceremony that had been created by the Poverty Scholars, and about a dozen of us who were there in solidarity.  Within minutes of sitting on a bench, I felt re-energized by the medicine of what was being shared by both Poverty Scholars and those who had been invited to speak for the housed. Soon, the three of us Solidarity Family members were called to share our stories at the mic.

Here’s what I shared.  That I’d spent the past decade of my adult life organizing from my oppressed identities—queer, poc, assigned female at birth—until I saw that I wasn’t fully acknowledging and leveraging the power that I have as an academic with access to skills, networks, and legitimacy in this society. And that thanks to POOR, I’ve been learning how to enact Community Reparations with gratitude for what it opens up in me, as I see it not only as my duty and responsibility, but also a tangible practice to shift away from the individual-minded system I (and most of us!) have been trained to operate within.  And that Poverty Scholarship continues to teach me what including my whole self in these movements looks like; that my solidarity is most effective when I speak from my own experiences. Finally, I shared how important it was that I and other folks with race, class, and academic privilege talk about these issues with others especially because looking and sounding like us gave us what Poverty Scholars call “Linguistic Domination Skills,” or the ability to use language that is most likely to be heard and respected by people in power within non-profit, government, and financial worlds.

There’s so much more I could share, but I’ll end with my gratitude for encountering POOR Magazine, attending PeopleSkooL (the next one is happening August 23-24, 2019--don’t miss it!), being a part of the Solidarity Family, and most recently being invited to share my words at the rally.  It’s true that I both still have so much to (un)learn and NOW is the time to enact change.

-Miyuki Baker, PhD candidate, UC Berkeley Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies

Growing up, I’d ask my parents why there were people living on the street. What we should do about it. They didn’t have an answer. Neither did the city. That was almost 30 years ago, and houselnessness has only increased in San Francisco.

A few weeks ago, I stood with POOR Magazine, SF DSA and other community members outside SF City Hall. It was an explicit call for housed people to show up for our unhoused neighbors. To say that we don’t support anyone being "swept" away like trash instead of given housing and having their basic human needs met. 

Growing up, I knew that it was wrong for my family to have so much while others had so little. To drive past people asking for a dollar under the freeway at 5th and Bryant and go quiet. This feeling of wrongness turned into anger. I didn’t know what to do with my anger. They told me to forget it, that guilt helps nobody. I didn’t know that what I needed instead was accountability.

POOR Magazine is where I found it. They taught me how to heal from the anger, how to face it at the source. 

As people with class privilege, as people with housing in this impossibly expensive place in this world torn apart by capitalist greed, we have a responsibility. These “sweeps” are being done in our name. We are the people whose"quality of life" the city wants to protect by making it so we don't have to see the suffering the system perpetuates. 

The question isn’t just why are there people living on the street. The question is why are there people living in 2nd and 3rd houses? Why are there people who own empty houses where no one lives at all? Why do we hold on to so much hoarded wealth? Why can’t we just let go?

POOR Magazine gave me the opportunity to let go. To heal with community reparations. 

We can’t just drive past and go quiet. Can’t just shake our heads and ask why. The other side of poverty is wealth hoarding. Those of us with hoarded wealth can step out of our paralyzing guilt and into community. We grew up in a society that’s broken. We can grow together into something new.

- Yael Chanoff, Poor Magazine Solidarity Family Member

(scroll down for English)

Final paper for Decolonized English class by Ziair Hughes

It is because I am black that I chose the subject Being Black in Amerikkka. Being black in Amerikkka means its difficult to go outside with a hoodie on because if we have a hoodie the poLice will frame us as a criminal. Being black in amerikkka means you can’t ride a bike because the poLice will pull u over for riding it while black. This is why my essay will focus on why it's hard to be young and black in Amerikkka.                                   

Here is my case study. On September 2016 my brother, my mom and I were driving in the Eastmont mall parking lot when suddenly…..two poLice cars came up behind our little white hooptie and put on their lights.

“STOP THE VEHICLE” they shouted out their speaker phones.  Two white men suited and booted up with artilleries pulled out their guns. I didn't know what to think, and I put my hands up in the air. My mom did the same.  “STOP” they shouted.  

My mom and my brother and I were terrified. My mom got out and they grabbed her and slammed her on the concrete. My brother and I were still in the car sitting still as a rock. Luckily somebody we knew came to save us and police then realised we didn't do a crime  

“We are sorry, Ma’am,”said the police. At that point they tried to give me a sticker and act like everything was ok. 

I felt like everything was on fire. I was scared for my mom. I thought I was going to get shot. I thought the world was over and I was going to be laying there in a casket. I wanted to put those poLice officers in prison just like our people get put in everyday. Those two OPD officers were over-policing and being bullies to us. I was angry at them because they slammed my mom and they told me to put my hands in the air. This is a formal sign of criminalization. 

Being black in Amerikkka means always being scared and always fearing for your life. On that day I learned that officers aren’t always officers and are not always your friend. That day I learned that you cannot drive while black. You have to be in disguise, they are all lies. When they say they try to help us it's not really true. Let me tell you from the beginning.

 Now I know that we often are exposed to hegemony. Being black in America, we have to act like the oppressor. We get jobs like being poLice officers or lawyer, which isn’t bad, but we sometimes act hegemonic. We are also very much targeted because of the color of our skin. We have to dress like the white man, we have to buy nice cars and nice houses just to be associated with them and fit in. 

We are invisible to society and sometimes we don’t get recognized. We also get profiled for being black in America. For example, Mr. Stephon Clark was killed in his grandmother’s backyard in Sacramento, California, on March 18th, 2018. He was killed because of a vandalism complaint (washingtonpost.com). Being black in America also means we experience systematic oppression. The police officers that shot Mr. Stephon Clark were not prosecuted for killing him, yet YNW Melly, a rapper from Florida who shot two people during a home invasion was charged with the death penalty despite his diagnosed mental illness (complex.com). This is an example of a double-standard because YNW Melly is a black man who killed, the police officers killed as well but YNW Melly now faces the death penalty. 

The same with Mario Woods. “A young black man killed by San Francisco police had 20 gunshot wounds, including six in the back, according to an autopsy report released on Thursday...The shooting was captured on video and circulated widely online, igniting ongoing protests ‘Justice 4 Mario Woods’” (theguardian.com). He was a disabled man that was homeless at the time of his murder. He died on December 2nd, 2015. He was shot 26 times and then he dropped to the floor. He was shot in his head, legs, abdomen and buttocks by SFPD. This is so sad. He was a black man that was profiled as dangerous and they already had the mindset to kill him. It took them 15 minutes to kill him. Sadly, his family settled for a lawsuit against SFPD but they did not win and the police were not prosecuted. 

This is very sad. It happens to all the young black people; we are targeted. The system is the most criminal-based place in the world. It’s a gang. Every gang member has a part - the leader is the government and the police community are the gang members. They take out all the black people they can. Being black in America means that I have to hide my identity, put a mask on, and pretend it is me.

Another example is Sandra Bland. Sandra Bland, an Illinois native made a series of excited phone calls to friends and family, celebrating what she thought was a successful interview for a job at Prairie View A&M University in Texas, her alma mater..

Sandra Bland was a 28-year-old African-American woman who was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, on July 13, 2015, three days after being arrested during a traffic stop. Her death was ruled a suicide, they say, but really it was because she was a woman of color.

 “Officials announced that they have fired the Texas state trooper who pulled over Sandra Bland, whose death in jail last summer fueled criticism of police and their treatment of minorities Trooper Brian T. Encinia, 30, was formally fired Wednesday by Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, who said the officer's actions during the traffic stop with Bland violated department standards. McCraw met with Encinia on Feb. 5 and oversaw months of investigation.”

In this case, we see a police officer actually being prosecuted for their crime. 

"I have carefully considered all the points raised by you in our meeting," McCraw wrote in his letter of final termination. "I have determined that you have not rebutted the charges set out in the statement of charges of January 28, 2016. No cause has been presented to alter my preliminary decision" (latimes.com).

“The death of Alejandro "Alex" Nieto occurred on March 21, 2014 in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Nieto was shot by four San Francisco Police Department officers before a night shift at work. A confrontation between Nieto and another civilian led to a bystander calling 911. Nieto was wearing a taser. Police allege that Nieto pointed the taser at them. The responding police officers also claim to have believed that the taser was a firearm

The San Francisco County District Attorney's Office declined to file criminal charges against the four officers involved in the shooting. Nieto's family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, alleging wrongful death. In March 2016, a jury cleared the four officers of all charges.Nieto, 28, was born on March 3, 1986 in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, California, to parents Refugio Nieto and Elvira Nieto (née Rodriguez), Mexican immigrants from the town of Tarimoro, Guanajuato.

In 2007, Nieto obtained a California state license to work as a security guard.Nieto graduated from the community college, City College of San Francisco, with a concentration in criminal justice. During this time he held an internship at the City of San Francisco's juvenile probation department.

Alex's parents retained the Law Offices of John Burris and filed a federal civil rights claim arguing the police wrongfully shot their son. The trial ended on March 10, 2016, a jury unanimously cleared the four officers of all charges. It was found that the taser's clock, the weapon’s trigger, was pulled. Nieto's prior issues with mental health were discussed, as toxicology reports found he was not on medication when he was killed. Also discussed were two separate incidents in 2011 when Nieto had contact with law enforcement and resulted in 72-hour mental health holds. The family argued that the police used excessive force and that there was contradictory evidence and details about what happened.” 

 In the case of Rodney King, who was beaten by police officers in 1991, the police officers were not charged for their brutality. 

“Rodney Glen King was an American construction worker turned writer and activist after surviving an act of police brutality by the Los Angeles Police Department. On March 3, 1991, King was violently beaten by LAPD officers during his arrest for fleeing and evading on California State Route 210. A civilian, George Holliday, filmed the incident from his nearby balcony and sent the footage to local news station KTLA. The footage clearly showed King being beaten repeatedly, and the incident was covered by news media around the world.” (wikipedia)

“The four officers were tried on charges of use of excessive force; three were acquitted, the jury failed to reach a verdict on one charge for the fourth.” 

A few hours after they were acquitted the LA riots started, and black people in LA were upset about the verdict. 

“The rioting lasted six days, during which 63 people were killed and 2,373 were injured; it ended only after the California Army National Guard, the United States Army, and the United States Marine Corps provided reinforcements to re-establish control.”

The police officers were then taken to federal court for their crimes after the riots. 

“Their trial in a federal district court ended on April 16, 1993, with two of the officers being found guilty and sentenced to prison. The other two were acquitted of the charges. The city of Los Angeles awarded King $3.8 million in damages, in a separate suit. He struggled to start a business, but was not successful. In 2012, he was found dead in his swimming pool two months after publishing his memoir.” 

In conclusion aside from Oscar Grant, Sandra and my own family, being black in America, we are looked at as hazardous. Our race is an endangered species. We are looked at as disgusting, ghetto and poor. They stereotype us as being criminals. This country does not protect us. We are listed as the dangerous people. The reason why they kill us is because they are scared of us. These stories relate to each other because they were killed by police who have power. Police are seen as the “good guys,” and the governement cleans up the dirt when they murder black and brown people. I feel like there will be no black people left in the future if this keeps happening. 

I would take away weapons from police and stop the selling of weapons. I would get all the black people out of the penitentiary so that the fathers could teach their children how to not use a gun and how to fight so that they all the black on black crimes disappear. And for the police, I would teach them how to talk to people and use their words so they can figure out the situation before shooting. And, I would teach them how not to profile and ask “hey, did you do this?” 

I would tell any other kid that went through what I went through with my mom that they shouldn’t fear the police. Just do what they say, that is how I stayed alive. Don’t forget to be a kid and don’t let this get to you. My advice if you feel scared is to make sure your mom is okay (that cheered me up). 

Racism is defined as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior. We are often exposed to racism in this country. Being black in America means you are looked at with prejudice. The only way we will survive being black in America is to either be hegemonic or revolutionary. Hegemony, or acting like the oppressor, means that black people have to fit in with white people. 

Reference

https://www.complex.com/music/2019/02/ynw-melly-interview https://www.latimes.com

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/12/mario-woods-autopsy-san-francisco-police-fatal-shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Alex_Nieto

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/how-the-stephon-clark-shooting-unfolded/2018/03/22/7165a116-2e0e-11e8-8dc9-3b51e028b845_video.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.68c27 I\ovenc108356 

Everything is a Waiting List

I was on my way home from middle school one day. WHAT! A sheriff deputy is at my house with a pink lockout notice on the door and my mom's in tears. What to do, another homeless family in SF. My mother has been on the Section 8 waiting list for years.

It took 20 years to get a Section 8 place. The old apartment went from $650 to $3500 in one month. After years of homelessness as a single mother, three young boys and two girls our lives are now devastated. You grow up in the streets then lives change daily. Drugs and everything that goes with that life. Mostly death. 

I myself have been homeless for 10 years waiting in lines at Glide. Sometimes there were no beds so back to the streets. Long ass waiting list destroys lives. 

There are 8,011 homeless families in San Francisco as of now. And here we are in 2019. The waiting list for Section 8 says four to five years. A lot of things change in that time. Families are divided. It trickles down to the next generation of homeless.

Will I have to be on the waiting list all my life? What we need is to make new homeless laws to protect families and just homeless people in general. We as San Franciscans have gotten over 60 million in homeless funds. Where is the money? Tied up in City Hall.

I'm going to City hall and taking some friends in to talk to those who are accountable for this waiting list. The money is here. Why do I have to wait!

What is cultural genocide? Cultural identity is an element that unites and binds people together. The lack of cultural identity has left some of “us” in society fragmented and can be defined as cultural genocide. “We Charge Genocide.” Quoted by the UN's definition of genocide as “Any intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, racial, or religious group is genocide." It concludes that "the oppressed Negro citizens of the United States, segregated, discriminated against, and long the target of violence, suffer from genocide as the result of the consistent, conscious, unified policies of every branch of government. The  National Black United Front petitioned the United Nations in 1996–1997, directly citing “We Charge Genocide” and using the same slogan. 

Their petition begins: 

Declaration of Genocide by the U.S. Government Against the Black Population in the United States. 

Whereas, we the undersigned people of African ancestry understand that the proliferation of the distribution and sale of crack cocaine...has reached epidemic proportions, causing serious harm to the African community in the United States. Therefore, we understand that this harm can only be described as acts of genocide by the United States government through its Central Intelligence Agency. 

In addition to acts of genocide perpetuated through the CIA and in this recent revelation, acts of genocide can also be attributed to the Government's use of taxpayers' resources to wage war on a segment of the U.S. population. This is evidenced by the following: (1) cutting back on welfare; (2) privatization of public housing and land grab schemes; (3) privatization of public education; (4) racist immigration policies; (5) privatization of basic health care; (6) building prisons and the expanding incarceration of millions of African and Latino youth. 

The effects of the lack of cultural indoctrination of individualism has been instilled within the cultural psyche to further complicate the ability of people to unite. As a result, it has left “us” more vulnerable as a society. The unwillingness by those in charge to address this deficiency within society has resulted in genocidal warfare within the social, political, economic and education systems. If this mind-frame persists, it will erode the very foundation of humanity and continue to divide “us” as a people.

The tragedy of injustice is that it doesn’t identify the systemic oppression of the perpetrators of cultural genocide. We have unconsciously participated in the oppression of our own people by denying them the knowledge of their own culture. One form of cultural genocide that is been demonstrated within our communities is gun violence. It has become a sub-culture within our neighborhoods that has filtered throughout communities affecting our school grounds permeating to the very core of society where the vulnerable reside, meaning the children. And the root cause of gun violence stems from a society who hasn’t been taught as to who they are as a people and who their neighbors are as human beings. It has resulted in innocent individuals having their lives snuffed out, not being able to even understand and families being left behind asking the age-old question of why did this happen to “us”? It’s the “us” versus “them” mentality. The stigma by society was that those in the inner cities mostly people of color, who are killing each other through gun violence, are not cultivated enough to see their communities as human beings therefore, they behave as savage beasts and that is “their” problem. It wasn’t until gun violence reared its ugly head in Caucasian classrooms that brought the necessary attention it that was needed to address the issue correctly. That being the problem as opposed to “us” who are cultivated therefore this should never happen in our communities. No sense of cultural identity as human beings.

Cultural genocide has a systemic effect as well as a psychological one. The systemic effect erodes from within the lives of individuals and proceeds to throughout communities and holds the very people hostage to their own demise. It spans demographics to several generations. The psychological effect extends to racial disparity. It takes place in the forms of gangs. Some gangs are formed in an effort to become their own society. They become the “law enforcers” within their communities. One reason for this is the disparity or the lack of protection by those who have been commissioned to protect and serve, (meaning police officers), those in these communities. Instead of protecting them and serving them, they instill fear therefore eroding the trust of law enforcement and the criminal justice system and causing them to create their own sub-culture within their communities. Because of their isolation gangs and lack of community identity they do not cross ethnic lines and they become a component of racism. In other words, the same thing that they hate I society, they become.

So, what do we do about these issues that result from a systemic cultural breakdown that affect every area of our society, political, social, economic, and educational. The question for “us” is how are “we” the conscious going to address these issues. We can begin by asking ourselves some pertinent questions:

• What are the social, political, economic, and educational effects of cultural genocide?
• How do we begin to lift people out of these deficiencies?
• What are the imminent dangers of not addressing these issues?
• How much has slavery played a role in cultural genocide within the African American community?
• Have the victims of cultural genocide become pons in their own demise?
• Have we become sympathetic to our captors and now we’re actually feeling sorry for those who would deprive “us” (the Stockholm Syndrome) of what actually is a basic human right to know who we are as a people and where we need to go as a society (Menocide)?
   

According to, William Chancellor (1973), “Because only from history can we learn what our strengths were and, especially, in what particular aspect we are weak and vulnerable. Our history can then become at once the …” 

In conclusion, and this is food for thought. If we are to have a successful society, one that is co-dependent and one that can co-exist, then we will need to incorporate cultural identification throughout the communities; socially, politically, institutionally, educationally, and economically.

References

Lynch, William. (1712 December 25). The Willie Lynch Letter: The Making Of A Slave! 

file://Y:\BPP_Books\temp\Fw. It is never to late to get up off of your knees and fight for w... 8/20/2005. Retrieved from    https://archive.org/stream/WillieLynchLetter1712/the_willie_lynch_letter_the_making_of_a_slave_1712_djvu.txt

Chancellor, William. (1973 Feb 1). The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a 

Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. 3rd Revised Edition, Chicago, Ill: Third World, 215. 17 December 1951^ We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief from a Crime of the United States Government Against the Negro People Civil Rights Congress. 195. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Charge_Genocide

Final paper by Kimo Umu.

It is estimated that we have 7 billion people that live on earth today. That means that there are 7 billion people that need to be fed and taken care of, which also means gas, water, medicine and land. In today's day and age our production and use of resources have grown because our populations have increased . So because of this increase in populations, places like the US(United States) and CHN(China) that have enormous population density, their supply and demand would be more. In the united states we waste 133 billion pounds of food. That is 30-40 percent of the US food bank.    

In the United States we have a population of 300,000,000 people. The United States is one of the largest countries in the world, alongside China and India. China has 1,386 billion people. This amount of people is enormous, but this means for every new person that comes into this world they will need the use of resources for everyday life.

The percentage of the world’s resources used by China is 11% The percentage of resources used by the US is 10%.

Food and water for example are resources  it is very important for our way of life and well being to be sustained. As of 2011, food consumption of the US person was up to 1,996 pounds of food per year.

We use 10 billion tons of water in the US and China as of 2015.  The U.S has consumed 322 billion gallons per day. China consumes 116,000 gallons of water. At the same time, agriculture – especially intensive agriculture, characterised by monocultures and aimed at feeding farm animals is one of the sectors that generates the highest amount of emissions of CO2(Carbon emissions).( Life Gate.com)

How much fossil  fuel is used in the US and China?

As of 2015 the US consumed 140.43 billion gallons of oil

China consumes 19.9 million barrels a day

How much plastic does us and china consume?

China consumes 3 billion plastic bags a year.

According to the EPA, the average American person will produce about 5.91 pounds of trash, with about 1.51 pounds being recycled; 4.40 pounds is the rough average daily waste per person. 

Destruction of Mama Earth leading to Climate Change through extractive industries  

Fracking  

In western states like Texas and Colorado, over 3.6 million gallons of water are needed per fracture. 

A local example of climate change and pollution is Medicine Lake, (Something we learned about and marched for in our school- Deecolonize Academy). Medicine Lake is a sacred site for the first nations people located northeast of mount shasta in the mountains of northern california the pit river, Modoc, Shasta, Karuk and Wintu tribes. 

In the highlands of Medicine Lake there are efforts being made to use geothermal hydraulic drills to fracture for oil. Fracking would cause the water supply of Medicine Lake to be polluted, this is a major issue since Medicine Lake is the largest water supply to the state. The mountain captures and discharges over 1.2 million acre-feet of snowmelt annually, emerging as the Fall River Springs, the largest spring system in the state.Save Medicine Lake

In conclusion these four issues are related because the high rise in global population causes the increase in pollution due to increased use of everything. For example, plastic bags are used dominantly by China and the US which causes pollution to the ocean and its eco-system, and even though China decreased their use the US still uses more bags than almost any other country. 

In addition Climate Change can be very dangerous for everyone’s water and food systems. Digging up fossil fuels could put communities at risk for contamination of water and starve people to death.

 Search of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Pollution and Climate Change’

On the green planet (My term for planet earth) we consume more than we produce maybe we're biting of more than we can chew. In our own selfish search for new lands                                                                             to colonize, like we did to Turtle Island (The Americas) we are looking for planets that have plentiful resources to sustain our way of living.

On the Green Planet we have a population of 7 billion people from different countries with different values but one thing is common they all need self-sustaining resources, but since we're using up these resources.  Industries constantly are damaging the Earth, producing products that pollute the earth like oil that cause carbon emissions, plastic damage since oil is used to mak.                                                                                                        

One solution to our overwhelming resource issue  would be to find other planets similar to our own. An Earth Analog is a term to describe planets that are similar to our own. Earth Analogs could have the same resources like Water, Food, Oil, and Land, it is very important for the human race to consider if we were to make contact with extraterrestrial life.

If humans were to reach an Earth Analog they may encounter extraterrestrial life and it may not be the alien from the X files, we might not be able to see these aliens, they could be microorganisms. We may find microorganisms called extremophiles that can survive in conditions like volcanoes or the deepest parts of this new ocean.   

A planet that has self-sustaining resources considerably would be from Mars is 33.9 million miles away making it the closet Earth Analog near us. Mars has water in the forms of ice and vapor also there's water underneath Mars surface. Extracting water from mars would help countries with water issues to help fight against Global Warming that is destroying ice glaciers and fresh water supplies.

I care about the planet because on this green planet are my friends, family, and way of living. I wanted to present to people issues and solutions about the Earth. It's time we made adjustments in the way we live and think and not be so selfish and appreciate the little things.  

EAST SIDE ARTS ALLIANCE 

2277 International Boulevard. Oakland, 94606

Sunday, December 1, 2019 at 3pm to 7pm

The Mercado de CAmbio/Tha Po Sto' Holiday Art Market & Knowledge XCHange

Poverty, Indigenous, Youth, Elder, and Disability skolaz- altho struggling to even BE/Stay /Live in this stolen colonized Ohlone /Lisjan Land (Oakland) will be putting on our 10th annual revolutionary art market for the holidaze!

Launched with Indigenous Prayer from From revolutionary Hip Hop to the debut of a film by Youth Poverty Skolaz from Deecolonize Academy called "Animal Eviction" to the release of Volume #14 of Decolonewz on Black Land Theft from The Amazon to Oakland - original art & crafts for sale from over 30 indigenous and poverty skola artists-

Yummy food for donation and there will be Po'Kies & the Debut of PoNuts!!! - we will have a whole afternoon of fun.

$1-20.00 donation at the door- No-one turned away - no matter what you got..

If you are an artist/crafts-person and would like to reserve a vendor table- pls email poormag@gmail.com/ by Nov 15th

Man-Skool Blues

For the first ten years of my life, I wanted to be normal. To not be the son of someone who is looked at with reverence by a lot of people. To not be the supposed leader of the next generation. Instead, I wanted to be a child that doesn’t have to go to a protest or action every other weekend. That's because for my entire life, being normal, having a life without protests and marches every other weekend, was something that constantly eluded me. The one thing, however, that was normal about my life was my school. I went to a normal, low-income elementary school in San Francisco, Leonard R. Flynn. I loved being normal so much that I missed being at school when I wasn't there. While I was there, I was exactly like every other kid. I got normal grades, got in a normal amount of trouble, and generally fit in. I loved it. I was a part of the soccer team, and we won a couple of games but lost an equal amount of games, perfectly normal. We weren't the most extraordinary soccer team on the field. I played kickball when I could, and had three best friends and I had a crush on the most popular girl in school before even knowing what a crush really meant. Like I said, normal. After elementary, however, the one thing that made me normal, my one connection to the norms of people my age, vanished. When I was 9 years old, after systematically being evicted from house to house in San Francisco, the tide of gentrification finally swept us into homelessness, and then Oakland, after not being able to afford San Francisco’s rapidly rising rent.

It was Deecolonize Academy. The radical and revolutionary school for children who needed to be taught the “real” education, how America was colonized, not “discovered,” how the Obama Administration wasn't everything we had hoped and dreamed for. That's beautiful right?, something to “Deecolonize” the minds of the new generation, the kids who will save the world one day with the knowledge and teaching that they have been given. It was a beautiful, amazing, wonderful idea for everyone...but me.

Now remember, back to my normalcy and my fun times, after elementary, I was already expecting to go to the most normal middle school in San Francisco, James Lick Middle School, and follow all of my normal friends all the way until college. I was so ready. I had my book bag all picked out, not too flashy, and an unobtrusive but cool gray backpack that I was planning to show off on the first day, and a bunch of school supplies. That bookbag was a doorway to my future. After James Lick, I had planned to go to Mission High, and then if I could, UC Berkeley. That excitement ended when I heard about Deecolonize Academy. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't completely hating the idea of going to school at home, (Homefulness, which was soon to be my new residency, was going to be the main campus of Deecolonize Academy) or the idea of going to a new, unheard of school with people who I've been hanging out with since I was little. But somewhere, somewhere not too deep in the back of mind was angry and hateful for not being able to continue the normal life that I once enjoyed. That was the beginning of my plot to return back to the mans-school, and normalcy as I knew it.

Do you know what is really hard? Trying to stay mad at something you like. I'm not really good at keeping grudges anyways, but Deecolonize Academy was a whole different story. I was everything anyone who has been stuck in an institutional learning environment their entire life could ever dream of. Me, who has been stuck in an institutional school since I could remember, loved it, and it showed. There was a reason, also why I loved Deecolonize Academy and that is because it is a fun school. Every Tuesdays, we took a trip to IKEA for our lunch, getting it free because we were under the age of 13, and IKEA lunch was heaven after 5 years of soggy public school lunches. The other four days we had lunch homemade by a Latina lady who has been cooking her entire life, and she made food that I still remember 5 years later. We had an extreme variety of classes every single day, from Spanish 101 to Herbs and Potions, to Permaculture and Construction, Art and Science, Native Creations and Guitar and Indigenous Music Class, to Capuera in a Capuera studio, taught to us by a master of the art.

Year two of Deecolonize, and I continued on like always. I kept moving throughout this deep community, not feeling enough of it yet but starting to feel a bit cramped. Some of the old students left, and new ones took their place. I laughed and played every day, and overall was a cheery lad in those times. I started really doing Aztec Dance (Danza), something that I am really into today. I also got into karate, something that changed my life. It was a schedule. I would be at school until I went to karate. On Mondays I would do Danza from 6:30 until 9:30 and that would be that. It wasn't until something happened in my family that introduced me into real depression that I started to see it.

My thoughts became really refined after that incident, observing things that I hadn't before, yet still not thinking about them fully. It was then that I started to see it. The monotony of Deecolonize Academy. Every day, wake up and take care of the animals, be in school and do the same classes, do P.E and go back to class, go to karate and on Monday go to Danza, day by day, hour by hour, over and over. That’s when I really started “remembering” my times of the man's-skool (what public schools are referred as in Deecolonize Academy). “Remembering” referring to the fun times I had with friends at the man's-skool, in my desperation making them more exciting then they were, furthering my want to go back to public school.

It was when I was thirteen, so, the third year of Deecolonize Academy for me and of its existence, I started making it known that next year, I wanted to leave Deecolonize Academy to go to a nearby public school. It was a decision that I thought about for a long time, not about whether or not I should leave or stay, but where I would want to go, what kind of friends I would get, if I would get a girlfriend, how popular I would be, which I now realize were the fantasies of a fool. I pressed hard on the issue for the entirety of my 8th grade, and since my mom didn't let me go for my freshman year, the entirety of my ninth grade as well. I begged and pleaded to my mom, and used all of what I thought was my voluminous wit to convince her. So, finally, after a lot of thought, she allowed me to go to Coliseum College Prep Academy.

This is what messes me up to this day, but is also something I am very grateful for. When I left Deecolonize Academy, and basically the village in general, I had no idea what I was leaving behind. Leaving this village helped me truly appreciate every blessing that I was receiving while being enveloped in its folds. So I went to the public institution. Something I had been dreaming about ever since I left it, retaining that “grass is always greener” mentality that dominated my thought process at the time.

 There were valid reasons for me to leave Deecolonize Academy, and I used them because even though I was a fool, I wasn't an idiot. I did not take the homework in Deecolonize seriously because it usually wasn't seriously given out. There was no solid due date, and the pages of the assignments changed, however, my mother wanted them too, and therefore I gave that as an excuse for me not being able to learn in this environment, not taking responsibility for the fact that if I wanted to, I could conform to the ways of teaching in Deecolonize, and be a better learner and person because of it, but I selfishly blamed Deecolonize for my personal learning issues.

That summer was one of the best I have ever had. The entire summer was me eagerly anticipating going back to public school, making friends and interacting with other peers of my age, the whole lot. I spent countless hours on the computer, looking up the website of the school I was going to, seeing all the classes it had and immediately looking to sign up for the soccer team, it was a whole dream. I and my mom went uniform shopping, uniform shopping!! even though we went to DD's discount I couldn't stop grinning. I was finally going to be safe, back where I belonged, and in an institutional system that respected the way I wanted to learn, which was by-the-books, straightforward, old-fashioned, lessons. What I knew was that the curriculum at Deecolonize Academy was made that way because the people who go to Deecolonize go there because they weren't able to learn in the formal institutional systems, and I solidly believed that I was a person who thrived in those systems.

The time for going to my new school was rapidly approaching, and I had everything together weeks before school was even on. I thought constantly of how my first day would be, laying out the exact pants I was going to wear and the perfect shirt and undershirt to have on that would make me look cool and not like a nerd, all of the best school supplies and a cool backpack, good, solid, notebooks I got from Target, and every expectation of the public school system that I had in my head straining to be proved right. I would talk constantly to my mom about how cool I would be, if I would be cool, how the teachers would like me, not seeing how extremely depressed she got with every word I spoke about the system. I didn't notice that in the weeks, and then days leading up to me leaving the village and going to public school, her health got increasingly worse, and she got sick very often.

Yet I still continued, to talk constantly about how much fun I was going to have, to her, to my other friends in Deecolonize Academy, to everyone. This decision that I was making was also creating a bit of a rift between my community, in the form of my aunties and uncles. Some of them thought that it was a good idea that I was transitioning to the public school system, because they saw that my way of learning would be a good fit for a formal institution, or simply because they wanted to see me make some more friends, or get a girlfriend among the many kids my age I would meet when I went there.

Others believed that the “man's-skool” as we call it, was going to poison my thinking, make me lose faith in the idea of this community, and become a capitalist when I grew older. My mother was one of those people. In fact, one of the founding ideas of Poor Magazine is taking care of your mother, and showing Deference to the person (or people) who birthed you or raised you. In fact, one of the original magazines that Poor Magazine wrote, Issue 4 the “Mothers Issue”, talks about eldership, and the very idea of deference that capitalism was born to destroy.

“Of course my mother will always live with my family- no matter if she becomes very ill. How could that be a burden? She is our mother...”, these are the words of Nani, a Palestinian daughter, from an excerpt of The Mothers Issue, Poor Magazine Vol.4. The thing that we talk about in this community all the time, called “the cult of separation” by my mother, is the very thing capitalism promotes constantly.

The cult of separation works in many different ways in a capitalist system, weaving throughout a young person's life. One of the most common forms and most obvious examples of this practice are young adults graduating from high school, and immediately leaving to go to a good college thousands of miles away. Then staying in the place you went to college to and only visiting your parents twice a year for holidays or family emergencies. Not once thinking about the mental and physical well-being of the people who raised you and took care of you for your entire life, not to mention brought you into this world.

Another example of the cult of separation that capitalism promotes constantly is the idea of putting your parents or grandparents in an “elder home”. Elder or Old folks homes are one of the many systems that America has created to profit off of multi-generational families. They seed the idea that if you want to truly be a free adult, stop worrying and taking care of your mom and dad and dump them in the place that we have created for them, allowing you to live your life without having to take care of your parents. That is one of the best-selling business in America, simply because in order to achieve the true American Dream of complete freedom is to completely get rid of everything that is holding you back.

A final example of the cult of separation is the very thing that I did myself. Leaving the care of your mother and a tight-knit community to go to a school that counters the beliefs of your family. And I left all the people who loved me behind with the biggest smile on my face. While I was there, I abandoned all lessons of deference and humility that have been carefully placed in me by my community and family for my entire life for the allure of an intricate and Hollywood-like high school experience inside the public school system. I will get nothing out of regretting what I have done, so I should just learn from it instead. Learn how I hurt my mother and my community in order to never do it again. The way that I am able to do that is to truly examine, what was I thinking?

It is difficult for someone with a bad memory like myself to examine my thoughts from a year ago, but what I can remember is the media that influenced that decision. There is a constant stream of media promoting my brand of separation. You have high-school movies, TV shows that show kids my age falling in love and finding romance in high school, or the books that I have read that talk about high-school being the best time of their lives, the stories I heard about chess clubs, sports teams, and student electives. I dreamed of being apart of every single one of the things that I watched, listened to, read and saw personally.

However, I didn't go without internal conflict. As stupid as I was at the time, I still did see the conflict I was creating at least within my community, and it created a bit of unease within my head. I saw the grand prize of high-school, but also saw the love of my people, the ones who have always have been there for me. And yet, my want for something better won out. To be completely honest, I'm glad It did.

“I stayed out late, roaming with my friends on the far side of town the night before. But he silence that shadowed our dinner hour was hardly a sign that God was about to punish me for my sneaky ways”, an excerpt from the short story, Detained. The story of a small slice of conflict in the young life of Challa Tabeson. The conflict that he was having at that time in his life was very similar to my own. He didn't know how to deal with the opposing sides of his life, his colonized friends or his very religious family. He was bearing that weight constantly, almost “Detained” by it.

That was one of the main allures that high-school had for me when it all boils down to it. I wanted to escape the conflict that was my life. It became difficult to just talk and be around my mother and everyone, and I wasn't completely aware of why. I just knew that that would just stop if I went to the mans-skool because I wouldn't have to see them. Having that mentality in mind, I eagerly awaited the time I would be able to “escape” from Deecolonize Academy.

So, the day finally came. After a summer of waiting and planning and registering for the school and its classes, the big day finally came. The weekend before was surprisingly and anticlimactically normal. Which, at the time, was an even bigger nerve inducer for me. I could barely sleep Monday night, thinking about all of the friends I was going to make and the high-school experiences I was going to have, not realizing my mother not going to sleep and thinking about the exact same thing I was, except not with an electrifying expectation, yet one of mind-numbing fear.

We were late to school that morning, eventually creating an uneven early morning schedule where sometimes I would wake up on time and other times I would be early, and other times I would wake up late and we would be late or I would wake up on time and we would be late because of the different things going on at Homefulness. Because of this uneven schedule, I started to skateboard or bike to school every morning and return the same way to control my timing. I was able to get on school early those days, up until my ankle injury which forced me to return to the schedule of waking up early or late and arriving early or late.

I had already seen the school, so it wasn't like I was seeing anything different when I came to the schoolhouse that morning yet it was like I was seeing a whole new thing in front of me when my mother pulled into the parking lot. I saw a whole chapter of my future ahead of me, shining with a bright white light, not knowing that the angler fish behind that light was waiting to strike.

My mother walked me in, we talked to the receptionist and walked down the hallway to go find my classes. I was extremely nervous and at the same time buzzing with excitement. One of the things I didn't notice at the time was the looks on the faces of the kids returning to school. What I remember now, looking back on that day, was the complete and utter listless looks on these teenagers faces as they marched into the campus. Almost like prisoners being escorted into a penitentiary.

Being who I was, having the expectations I did, blinded me from seeing almost anything about that school at all. Like the fact that our grade was not allowed to use the Gymnasium, we had no Physical Education, no art class, and no classes at all besides the core important ones. I was also blinding myself (because I did notice them) to the looks that I got from the other kids who I was walking among, taking in my Caucasian skin and features, immediately classifying me as someone who doesn't belong here.

I chatted with some of the kids, and they were actually kind of inviting at first introduction and didn't hesitate to fill me in on the goings-on of the school. Who was with who, which teacher they hated because they were the most annoying, girls to avoid, things to do after school, so on and so forth. To them, these were normal everyday conversations, but to me, those were the conversations that I had been dreaming of for the last five years.

I went into my first class, and there was nothing unusual about it. I loved it. It was an Algebra II class with a pretty disinterested teacher and some of the students that I had met prior to the school beginning. We started the class, and most of the things that he was teaching I didn't know, but they looked relatively easy to learn. I tried my hardest to contain my delight when I pulled out my pencils, pens, and a notebook to begin writing down notes. I was flying high, yet looking completely normal in the process. Nobody at all could tell by looking at my face that I was completely euphoric.

One thing that was on my mind the entire first day of my supposed “new life” was that I was glad to be rid of every burden that I had at Deecolonize Academy and the Homefulness community in general. It became a surreal experience, me, being a formerly homeless, currently poor teen, usually, am not able to have my deepest desires come true, and the euphoria came from actually feeling that desire play out in front of my eyes.

Then, I was that kid. I look around, shocked at what I'm seeing because what faces me is nothing at all. It is two months later. I snapped out of my Deja Vu, shaking off the memories of when everyone surrounded me, my false, self-proclaimed family that were the kids in this new school. In my khaki pants, and a black tee shirt, with my crutches laid out next to me on the bench, knowing the crutches were not the reason that I had no one sitting at my table. I had ostracized myself, not feeling right with the way that the kids my age lived their life. Every petty squabble became meaningless, every girlfriend and boyfriend became irrelevant, and once again I fell into a pit of depression, deeper than the one I was trying to get out of by going to that school. 

I walked (hobbled) across the campus, the morning air whipping my skin, as I rushed on crutches to class, everyone else who was going to the same class far ahead of me. Alone, again. I had no trouble in my classes, but learning was difficult when you were teased for raising your hand in class. Loving to learn is criminalized when you are taught by society that school is worthless. There were some classes in which I smiled, and others where I just wished the day was over with already. When I attempted to hang out with others, my limited knowledge of Spanish prevented me from getting too far into a conversation, and that frustrated me. It wasn't only Spanish I was lacking in, it was the cultural knowledge of not growing up with a predominantly Latino family. 

I didn't actually grow up in any one specific culture. I never went to family barbeques or quinceaneras. I didn't have 5 brothers and/or sisters to teach me the way of the world and the do’s and don’ts of my community. I grew up in something that my Mama Junebug has coined “the culture of poverty”. It's a culture that unsurprisingly, many from other cultures growing up in the same places I did were able to understand. My entire cultural learning experience from my childhood was completely based around poverty. I learned how to socialize by teaching myself on the street, and that prevented me from being as comfortably outgoing to kids my age as my peers were. That, combined with my limited cultural knowledge, made it very hard to survive in that predominantly latino school. 

Those conversations...even though the school semester only lasted for a couple of months, those conversations had been going on my entire life. To me, this was just another relapse into trying to fit in where I knew I don't belong and failing to fit in, as I always do, because of the various reasons that make me different. The linguistics that escaped me were the ones I was clowned for. In most conversations, so many spanish “slang” words were tossed around I had no idea where the conversation was headed. 

When I was 6 years old, in first grade I believe, I was in a school that actively taught light-skinned children like myself Spanish. For the beginning of my life, I felt like I had the actual right to speak Spanish. I didn't know that the act of speaking Spanish itself, being a white kid, being poor, and hanging around Latinos for most of my life, would be the biggest challenge I would have to face so far.   

I also didn't know that being a poor “white” kid in a latino neighborhood would mean always having to prove myself if I was cool enough if I knew an adequate amount of Spanish and didn't get too excited when something cool happened. My entire life has been about proving myself because my one fatal flaw is that I live to make others like me. I am never able to develop my personality and image enough because it might contradict a positive image someone has of me. For my entire life, the “cool” guys were the ones who just didn't care about how they were seen or who was looking at them, even if they were the ugliest and the worst-dressed.

In high school, that passive-aggressive oppression took my self-consciousness to a whole another level. When you are in high school, especially one where your entire grade is comprised of about 100 or so students, you are looked at constantly, no matter who you are. This was torture on a cellular level for me, my main level of paranoia deriving from other people’s thoughts about me, so I did what any self-respecting depressed teen would do. I curled up.

“Curling up” is defined by me and most commonly diagnosed (and undiagnosed) depressed persons as “putting up every mental wall imaginable, not talking or doing as little as you can, and walking through life quietly enough so that everyone you once knew eventually forgets or stops caring about you”. I wasn't that dramatic about it though. I loved being the person who was in the spotlight, as long as I was seen as cool and talented. So, I only shone when it was time for me to do things I liked, and the rest of the time I was a dried out husk.

Attempting to do anything but my designated shine spots was immediate pain, so recoiling immediately was the only option. Becoming someone else was never a thought. What would never cross my mind at that point in time, which I look back at now seems ridiculous but if I go through that process again I would do the exact same, was maybe being myself, not worrying at all about how other people saw and or addressed me, and lived my own life. The funny part about that is I am still unable to that, hence the process is repeated.

A couple of months later, with the life of Homefulness bustling around us, I sit down and talk with my mother about how she felt about me going to that school and about public education in general. This all started with me and my mom, so it would only be right if I really sat down with her and asked her thoughts on the matter. 

--INTERVIEW--

Me: Hi mom. 

Mom: okay are we doing the interview or not?

Me: yeah, ok so how did you feel when I asked you to go to the mans-school?

Mom: yeah...I knew it was the culmination of your “grass-is-always-greener” complex. I felt like the state won, I felt like the digital streets won, but then...then i was at peace. Like the great philosopher Thich Nhat Hahn said, it wasn't about winning or losing. 

Me: Cool. cool, cool, cool. 

Me: so how was your experience in the mans-school.

Mom: I loved being in school. Even though I was put in the middle of the classroom, called stupid by the teacher, and tried so hard to fit in, I still loved it, and i felt so inadequate that I wasn't “Brady Bunch White”

Me: Did you see a noticeable change in me when i was in the mans-school? How?

Mom: Yes. You became withdrawn, weirdly sad and quiet, and dark. You became more pessimistic, and sort of stopped caring about stuff that you normally cared about, adapting to the no-caring mannerism of the rest of the world. 

Me: Did you see a change in my overall personality from before I ever went to a public high school, to now, after I got out of one?

Mom: I did. Before you went, you were constantly dismissive of all of the blessings you had here, of the people that loved you, of the knowledge you already had, and the work that we all did. You were dreaming constantly of what was waiting for you in the “mans-school”, and the funny thing was, you didn't see the man's-school aspect of going to college, no, you were only fixated on going to High-School. 

Me: Thanks. 

 --END-- 

“(colonial education) annihilate(s) a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland of non-achievement and it makes them want to distance themselves from that wasteland. It makes them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from themselves.”, quote by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Kenyan writer, from page 157 of Poverty Scholarship 101.  

Those were words that as I read them, felt like they were springing from my head when I was in the man's-school. I was beginning to lose every lesson i learned at Decolonize, lessons that even I knew would help me later on in life, and replacing them with the monotonous droning of general education. I stopped reading books like Assata, and Always Running, and started reading vaguely revolutionary books that didn't begin to touch on current struggles but instead talked about the civil rights movement about 50 times.

I realized now that at that time, I was beginning to be ok with my loss of intense, activist studies and sink in to the everyday mud of hearing the teachers drone on about things I know won't help me help the world. This isn't criticism to any of the teachers. Some of them actually cared about the education that they were providing. Some of them, in their way, wanted me to succeed and really learn what they had to offer. I also saw that most of them would be interested in the idea of Deecolonize Academy, and Homefulness, because of the education it provides and the care for its students. 

I had a little bit more than a vague idea of what the “cult of separation” was before I went to the mans-school. I believed it was spoiled, rich white kids leaving their hometown to go to a far off college to try as hard as they could to forget about everything that made them who they were. To forget about their parents, who constantly cared for them enough so they could have the educational prowess to be able to go to that college, and their lives before while going to a college and seeing a bright future ahead of them.  

What I ended up figuring out is that I was perpetrating the cult of separation by going to that school. What I didn't realize until later is that the cult of separation is a process, not just done by rich kids going to college, but by almost every young person and their parents influenced by capitalism. The idea behind the separation nation is media constantly telling you you need to leave the house as soon as you are 18, strike out on your own and find your way, and that sounds all fun and good except for the fact that you are ignoring your parents and the people who raised you. 

Just like Ngugi wa Thiong'o said, being in those formal institutions makes you believe that any education and informal, spiritual and/or personal learning is inconsequential. It made me believe in the security of the learning system, and take comfort in the fact that my entire education was being planned out by a big system that cranks out tests, and results, so nothing personal is involved in the process. There is a countrywide curriculum that is only slightly altered by the teachers, and every bit of knowledge that is taught is expected to be learned at the same pace as everyone else you are left in the dust.

I had a friend named Chris in the mans-school who was 17, in my grade and had given up on learning. After years and years of not being given a reason to care about his education, he started to think sensibly about what his life was going to look like from here on out. He needed to get a job that paid, and support himself and his family. This thinking was the creation of years and years of the educational system leaving him behind. 

What I realized as I thought about leaving public school once and for all is that people like Chris are all over the U.S, in every school, and just like him, will be stuck in low-wage jobs like fast-food restaurants because they are barely able to read and write. This is the result of the school system passing them every year without truly being interested in their skill level, and at the end of the line they are spit out to fend for themselves. The system thrives off of kids like my friend Chris, and actually loses money off of the people who succeed. This is a never-ending chain that makes most of the United States’s total profit, the school to work or prison pipeline. 

I bought into that pipeline, if only for a bit, because of my shame of not fitting in, because of my grass-is always greener complex and caused my mother unnecessary stress. I strived once again for the false sense of security and perfection that my previous experience with public school had left me with. I went in there, believing that once again, i would be the popular class clown but ended up being that sad white kid with crutches. I went in to the behemoth system not realizing that my being in Deecolonize Academy has irreversibly changed me into a person that could no longer fit in. And for that, every single day I am grateful.  

It is said that for every perfect system to work, there has to be a few failures. That is true. However, The “perfect system” of the U.S education system is perfect in its goal to not have everyone succeed, and its failures are the people who are able to break free of that system entirely. I was one of those failures. Because of the teachings of Deecolonize Academy, of my mother, and the support of my community, I failed to fit in the system. In every way, I failed to be colonized, and decided to rejoin the revolutionary school known as Deecolonize Academy.

Bibliography

• Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-Led Theory, Art, Words and Tears Across Mama Earth

Page 157 “Colonial Education” 

• Lisa “Tiny” Gray Garcia, Co-Founder of Poor Magazine and authors Mother.

• Poor Magazine: #4 “Mothers Issue” Editors Statement, Page 14 “Detained” story by Challa Tabeson

A day they will mark my life.

When people, when they come to hte United States, they right away identify as Americans. They forget about their own culture, they forget about their own families. And some of our family members need support from the family.

And some can actually fit in these USA society. They happen to be people who humiliate anyone. Without knowing that they themselves can also be facing difficult times.

But we as warrior people, we have the fortune of coming from our ancestors. We also have our traditions. Which we don't forget about. and we're not artificial, like people that idenify as American people.

There are many forms to idenify yourself. But how to know, to know that theyr'e real people, or just being fake? Just like I went through. Thie could happen to anyone. No matter your race, your class, if you're rich or poor. People should be more humble, to better this world and to end all the wars.