No Mo' Mail for the Po'

p bPNN-TV coverage of the Town Hall/b/p piframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/86nMCG8rDQA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen/iframe/p p Mama came out of the Fox Plaza post office in San Francisco with that look. You know the one, the- I#39;m going to get that MF who did me wrong, no matter what it takes- look.nbsp; Before I could ask what happened, she said with her deepest warrior wobyn tone, Get the number for the postmaster- someone#39;s got to speak back to this racist Sh@@#*t/p p When mama and me were houseless throughout my childhood into young adulthood, which was alot of our time in SF and Oakland,nbsp; i was made keenly aware of the ways poor people of color in AMerikkka were racialized and profiled for being poor and/or a person of color. It happened while shopping, while walking, while driving, while living. And it happened to me and my mama more times than i would care to remember. It never happened at the General delivery post office in the tenderloin. It did happen in Fox Plaza station four blocks away./p p There is a proposal to close this post office andnbsp; build out the Fox Plaza post office to accomadate the customers from this (Tenderloin) station, Acting general manager from the tenderloin post office spoke to at least 75 people who showed up for a town hall on the closure of the tenderloin post office which is the only San Francisco post office that offers general delivery service for over 1000 houseless people in San Francisco./p p When i got the call about the proposed closure of thenbsp; Tenderloin, Bayview and Visitation Valley post offices from a local activist David Welsh, i was completely thrown. We as poor peoples, landless peoples, disabled peoples, youth of color and elders already feel the hate of society on the daily through racist and classist profiling and exclusion, but moves like these are like a collective slap in the face. The message was clear, we weren#39;t important, we didnt matter. Landless, disabled, elders, poor peoples of color, Afrikan peoples, houseless peoples did not matter. On the contrary, stations that serve mostly white, middle class folks like the post office on Pine Street are never even mentioned. Is it just me or is the apartheid blatant?./p p We are keeping track of all of the comments in this meeting, nothing is confirmed yet, you will all have a chance to weigh in again.nbsp; One of the three oddly CIA-ish post office representatives who showed up at the town hall declared as people became more and more agitated in the meeting./p p The proposed closures is a direct attack on poor peoples of color, because they are trying to privatize the post officenbsp; like so much of government services. Jose Carlos from the postal workers union spoke to PNN We-Search Camp set up outside of the Tenderloin and Bay view stations after the notice went out to get the peoples version of this budget genocide lie, The union postal workers have been under attack for years, we are the only governnent office required to make bring in 5 billion a year, this is an attack on workers because we are a strong union and protected under a congressional law, which is why we are asking people to call their congress representatives and tell them how they feel, Jose concluded/p p There are roughly 12,000 seniors using this post office because they live in unsafe housing and can#39;t receive their mail at their residences, this will be a serious hardship on seniors, said poverty scholar and PNN reporter Bruce Allison/p p This is the communities life-line, when i was homeless it was the only way i got my GA check and letters from family, Vanessa Marks, life-long San Francisco resident said./p p I am 78 years old and can barely walk, if this post office closes, i will not be able to get my mail, Miss Landly, an African-American elder from the Bayview said about the closure of the Bayview post office branch../p p Oddly, in the flurry ofnbsp; powerful actions across the nations against wall street and banks, this life-line about to be destroyed, has seemed to get lost in the shuffle, the subtext seems to be, who needs snail mail, we are all on-line, we all use email, but do we?nbsp; and who is we? I guess its the same, hooked-up, e-connected, we that always seems to improperly speak for me and allnbsp; poor, landless, disabled, un-remembered, oppressed, peoples of color in Amerikkka./p p nbsp;/p