I travel for gigs, Krip-Hop Nation and other projects however at this time facing a lawsuit against my landlord and helping another Black disabled friend who is facing illegal eviction. So being deeply involved in POOR magàzine's East Coast Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour was more than just a project. Plus being back in cities that I grew up in like Manhattan and West Hartford, CT was hard and beautiful.
In my activism from police brutality to budget cuts, I always felt that people in power could escape our activism by retreating to their wealthy neighborhoods. I and other activists spent countless hours at City Hall or police stations shouting at buildings. Poor Magazine with their Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour have taken our request to the front doors of the most wealthy and powerful, from Beverly Hills in LA to Park Avenue in New York City, 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.
Leroy Moore with Jean Rice, one of the original board members of Picture the Homeless
New York is a different city compared to the days of the 70's & 80's when I was growing up there. I say all the time these days and that is, gentrification have killed the notion of home! Now a days you can't go home cause the home i.e. City you grew up in is now too expensive and looks totally different almost like it is dead with city policies that makes it hard to live in your old neighborhood. I‘ve seen cities i.e. San Francisco and New York become cities unrecognizable with so much wealth, a whole new landscape and local laws that profile you if you are like me poor, Black and disabled man living in section eight apartment.
When I was a teenager I lived on Greyhound going from CT. to NY and the landmarks were the tall public housing brick buildings when I saw those buildings/housing complex where my friends were creating what we know today as Hip-Hop I knew I was in NY.. On the East CoastStolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour, we stopped by the new office of Picture Of The Homeless in Harlem and interviewed the new executive director and long time member Luie who told us that privatization is hitting New York hard. He went on to say that all of those tall public housing buildings are slatted for privatization. My heart dropped!
One of Krip-Hop Nation co/founder, Rob 'Da Noize Temple who has been living in Brooklyn all of his live and opened up a music studio is facing eviction cause the landlord wants to privatize the building.
Poverty skolaz offering the medicine of redistribution
Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour like in San Francisco, Beverly Hills now New York, Philly to West Hartford, CT., the common factor was that the wealthy were and are protected by layers upon layers of barriers from isolation and gated off communities to security guards to police to even other poor people who are their nannies, gardeners or dog walkers and this was the reality on Park Avenue in New York and other cities on the East Coast!
As universities get bigger taking over cities in CT, NY, Philly and Berkeley and public housing from CA to NY become privatize, the question remains, where can we live, pee etc. The Poor Magazine's Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour from West to East also have been invited into colleges and universities like Weselyn University, U.C. Berkeley, Vassar College to name a few to tell real everyday struggles through poetry, plays, songs and lectures that touches on the way that the capitalist society police us on where we can pee, where we live, who is acceptable to receive services and what we have to do to keep those services, public housing, food stamps and more.
Queenandi Xshena of POOR Magazine in North Philly
From San Francisco to Beverly Hills, LA to Philly to West Hartford, CT the police were called and came out to protect wealthy neighborhoods from what we call our medicine from the disease of wealth hoarding. From police to the media the main assumption of touring wealthy areas was nothing more than just begging and pouring on the pity.
However once people, like reporters, professors, wealthy college students and even some police officers listen and read what Poor Magazine is teaching they nine times out of ten agree and realize that Poor Magazine have taught a few wealthy people that the wealth that they do have came from the backs of others and needed to be brought back for community good, what Poor Magazine calls community reparations. It is powerful to listen to Poor Magazine's People School graduates who are now spreading the teachings of Poor Magazine with us on these tours in their own wealthy neighborhoods.
On this East Coast Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour, Poor Magazine went up face to face with East Coast wealth that is different from West Coast wealth! East Coast wealth is very intrench, cold and has no liberal costume on. The only city that showed us any love was Philly where we got some media and some wealthy folks gave up some dollars to local poverty scholars to meet extreme housing emergency.
Our East Coast Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour hit three states knocking on doors of the wealthy and for me the South Hamptons, upstate New York was really tough and beautiful at the same time! Being from the East Coast, I grew up hearing how the wealthy escape to the Hamptons for vacation but I never been there. I heard New York rappers boast about the bling bling of the Hamptons but I didn't know about how the South Hamptons was originally Native American land. Now Native Americans, Shinnecock tribe has been pushed to a tiny reservation, away from the big houses with front yards that don't end.
Poor Magazine connected to the Shinnecock tribe in South Hamptons way before the tour so when we told them about the tour, they were down for it and took us around to the wealthy neighborhoods. Poor magazine really loved the tour and teachings of the tribe in South Hamptons!
In South Hamptons, we went into a museum, the Chamber of Commerce and City Hall and in all of these places we were met with White faces professing that they are working very closely with the tribe. This White guilt was corrected by Ahna Red Fox who was from the Shinnecock tribe . The only place that agreed to do better collaborating with the Shinnecock tribe was the museum in which Poor Magazine agree to follow up. Once again the cops were called on us this time at South Hamptons' City Hall.
From left - Laure, Ahna Red Fox, Aunti Frances, Tiny, Queena and Leroy in front of the Colonizer Museum - Shinnecock
In West Hartford, CT., my sister, Melissa Moore and my nephews and nieces came on the tour with us. Ace, my niece, who is eight years old was all into going up to front doors, knocking and saying her two cents. I was glad that Tiny's son, Tibu and Sasha had a chance to hang out again. Sasha knew Tibu when my sister lived in West Oakland before she was force to move back to CT cause of the expensive housing market in the Bay Area.
As we head back to the gentrify Bay Area all of us of Poor Magazine are worried about our own housing situation as many of us are fighting illegal evictions, cuts in our benefits like SSI and separation of our family and friends as more and more love ones in the Bay have to move to different states like my sister in search for cheaper housing. The struggle and Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour continues. Look out for Poor Magazine Poverty Scholar textbook, out Summer 2017!