November 20th, 2012
My name is General Dojon, and I was born and raised on Skid Row, got into my addiction on Skid Row, was arrested for bank robbery (feeding my serious addiction), and sentenced to 18 years in state prison. I entered state prison as a brain-dead Christian and leader of Denver Lanes Blood gang in South Central. I was sent to Corcoran SHU Program where I did five years in the hole. There I met George Jackson's comrade who had been in the hole since 1972. He re-educated me about who I am as a Black Hue-man, about God, and the principles of revolution. Basically I did the Malcolm X Transformation: came into prison a mis-educated gang member, and paroled as a member of the Black Guerilla Family in 2004.
After eleven years I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to fight for social justice. I came to LA because I had a complaint about the police and private security guards. I was told by Bilal Ali (a Black Panther), "We don't talk about it, we be about it." He gave me a camera and clipboard and said go get some evidence and come back. I went, got evidence of police and private security guards racial profiling and targeting low-income Blacks during
gentrification. I came back to LA CAN. Bilal, Pete White (the director of LA CAN) and I talked. We decided to create a community watch program to monitor LAPD and private security to ensure no biased policing was going on.
In 2006, LA Mayor Villaraigosa and Police Chief Bratton released a Safer Cities Initiative on Skid Row which brought 110 extra pigs to Skid Row, making it the most policed community in America. Their goal was to gentrify Skid Row. They had a six-month plan to wipe out poor
folks so that the yuppies can walk their $5000 french poodles down Main St. without seeing Ed the wino and Ted the pan-handler. For the last six years since then we've been at war fighting for the land, and LA CAN has led the charge.
I'm the point man on our community watch team. I was sitting in meetings with Mayor Villaraigosa, meeting with Chiefs Blatter and Beck. I've been to the LAPD Training Camps giving them information on how not to participate in racial profiling. I've been to LAPD 4K
trainings on policing people with mental disabilities. I've helped ACLU bring lawsuits against the city for violating rights of homeless people. I've worked with UCLA to document police brutality. I've been in may newspapers, books, and movies. I've been arrested for felony
and facing 25 years to life twice for doing this work. The United Nations has requested information about me because of a report they got saying the government is targeting me.
And the story goes on because I'm still fighting daily. As a three-striker my biggest fear is being struck out with 25 to life, before I can finish my mission. Can't stop, won't stop. All power to the people.
This story was written by General Dojon, a poverty skolar from the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), for the Voices of Poverty Resist series. This series was launched out of a fellowship that Lisa received from the Marguerite Casey Foundation for journalism focused on poverty. Because Lisa leads with her indigenous values of inter-dependence she has created this collective journalism process where all of our voices in poverty are speaking for ourselves.