It was a warm beautiful day in Oakland as our POOR Magazine family made its way to the site where the dream of homefulness is taking bloom. We got to MacArthur Blvd. and met up with shovels, jackhammers, wheel barrows and lots of concrete to be broken up and removed. The sun was directly above, watching this joining together of hands, hearts and minds—witnessing the birth of something beautiful. It has taken a long time to get to this place—a lot of sweat, frustration, perseverance and trust in the creator. To make homefulness happen, many people suffered incarceration, houselessness and removal due to gentrification—making up what Mama Dee Gray-Garcia referred to “Little murders of the soul”. Some folks have passed on—Bill Sorro, Al Robles, Mama Dee—but these powerful ancestors continue to inform our day to day thinking, working alongside us as homefulness fulfills its mission of taking back the land.
I got out of the van and looked up at the sun. It spoke: “You might have this land and all kinds of lofty dreams—but don’t think you ain’t gonna bust your ass out here today”. I looked directly into the sun’s face and said “Yes, we have this land but we don’t believe anybody owns land, it’s just a bunch of fake paper trails and land theft. It is a gift from the creator. We’re all standing on pachamama”. The sun shook its head. “I know, I know” it said. “You’re gonna bust your ass anyway”. I turned away seeing spots and commenced to bust my ass. Just as we got set to begin work, we noticed a car parked on the site where we plan to have our homefulness garden, a place where we plan to grow fresh, non-pesticide tainted vegetables for the community. We are fully aware of the attitudes people have towards people who call this area home—residents that somehow neither need nor deserve fresh vegetables since they are low income folks of color. But alcohol and tobacco and food laden with fat and sodium—bring in the truckloads!
The car sitting atop our future garden belonged to the landlord of the apartment building next door. He had arrived nice and early and assumed the self-appointed, officious and imaginary role of foreman, exuding a pomposity which included asking questions and generally treating our family like diseased underlings. Observing this, I came to the very well thought out conclusion that this man was a pain in the ass. We couldn’t begin work his car blocking the way so POOR family member Constantine and I decided to tell the man to move his vehicle. I admit, I was a bit nervous, given my experiences with landlords in the past. We approached the man and he looked at us as if we were supposed to genuflect or begin osculating (IE: kissing) his ass. “You’re going to have to move your car” I said, standing tall but still 2-3 inches shorter than the man. “I’m not moving anything” he replied, with a twinge of landlord smugness. I examined his face, the full cheeks, condescending eyes and nose. “My God, this guy looks a lot like Don King, the boxing promoter, I thought. Only difference was that Don King was better looking and had a better hairstyle.
The reason for the man’s obnoxious behavior is that he believes that several parking spaces located on homefulness land are his via something called “implied easement”. The spaces are clearly on homefulness property and we have documentation to prove it. As a result of this dispute, our querulous landlord neighbor has launched numerous complaints on the POOR Magazine family to the Building Inspection Department, causing delays to our garden and work towards providing sweat equity housing. We finally got the landlord to move his car and we began work.
I used a jackhammer for the first time, helped lift slabs of concrete with a crowbar and carried the slabs, stacking them to form a barrier between our garden and any perceived parking spaces. When we finished the day’s work, my hands were torn apart, my lower back aching. I thought of the day laborers who really work, whose hands are hard with the feel of the land and hearts that are heavy with memories of home. As we began loading our tools and equipment, the landlord from next door asked, “When are you going to remove all that cement?” Remove the cement? I thought. Didn’t this guy see us busting our asses in the hot sun? No he didn’t I thought--because that isn’t something within the purview of a landlord. He stood about and spoke as if he were my and everybody else’s boss. “Let me explain something to you”, I said, “You ain’t my boss…I don’t work for you”. He looked at me, somewhat surprised. “Do you dislike me because I’m rich?” he asked. I looked at him and walked away.
By the way, his name is Ramble--and boy, does he ever. To refer to him or say he looks like Don King would be an insult to Don King. He can osculate my ass, I thought as I drove away.