Shall we go back in time to 1900's For those yearning for the good 'ole days... Its over, you've had your leathal fun killing men, women,
20's 30'maybe 40's anywhere by now....?
children. Women, Men, of varying sexual orientations are
freeing themselves, living our own lives.
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by Joseph Bolden Conflicts, some a eternally compelling as in Saving your mother or wife in a sea encircled by sharks. As Jane/John Law after a killer or assassins one your brother or sister the other your dearest friend who took a bullet or lost a limbs saving you from mortar rounds or hidden booby trapped mind. Extremely difficult what to do between love, honor, an the reality of the job at hand people do make them cognizant of their actions, living with it inside their heads. Mine is about the health of my teeth. Recently going to U. C.S.F.'s [University Of California, San Francisco] I’ve missed one appointment so far. Doing the pay-as-you-go rout solidifies my reputation as a poor non insured person on a low pay job that makes those pays soon as possible. My conflict came last week for every once in a while the job assigns me to take pictures or do a story last week its only pictures in Oakland’s City Hall where a town hall meeting is to take place. On Saturday, September 13, 2003 from 7 am to 12 noon or later is to be an all day event on the seriousness of youth being killed by either other youths or the police. There is no conflict and besides doing this gets me a Monday half day to further my personal dental health. The location: At 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, City Council Chambers. It starts from 7 to 10 am KPOO 89.5 live broadcast begins. Bulldog Coffee Shop donated coffee and pastries. The place on 1739 Broadway near bart served excellent deserts which kept me up and awake when I arrived by 9:45 as the panel were full sessions speaking a small audience of Oakland’s concerned citizen’s. Suspiciously absent is mainstream much media except for An ethnic, financially diverse community, Oakland, California, with approximately 400,000. Over 30% of the households in Oakland live on less that $25,000 per year and unemployment rates is over 10%. This some of the facts from Vice-Mayor Nancy Nadel’s Violence Prevention Working Group Fact Sheet. My notes are sketchy as best. Diverse organizations converged in the hall The first few hours before I am there is discussion about Mr. Ward Connelly and Proposition 54 It makes counting minority (non white) groups saying America’s has achieved its color blind goal when in reality all Prop. 54 has the potential of returning to days gone by of not being included, counted, and less monies for inner city neighborhoods. Davy D said "He wants to put the sheets back on." This backward, reversal or legal rights gained literally by the blood of millions by known and anonymous people We as black, brown, (pick rainbow) folks remain singled out for "lawful-under-suspicion or suspicious character(s). Break-ins by police on black-while-home, on the street, to driving-while-brown or black it has become a normalized pathological systematic stigma that all young black males and women are targets to be stopped, harassed, molested, and in worst cases murdered-by-accident and now a initiative stealthily about to voted on with nearly no fanfare harking back to days when us colored folks supposedly knew or places. Those days are long gone never to return no matter how much a few behind-the-times organizations and people wish to turn the clock back. Our youth’s, assaulted, molested, dying at so alarming a rate that the word "Genocide" comes to mind. Mrs. Lorain Taylor, angrily explains the loss of her twin son’s on February, 8, 2000. One man on the panel said aloud "92 homicides. The Hearings of 1979 and C.I.A’s dumping of guns, drugs in inner city neighborhoods to weaken, cause dissention, breaking up stable families as a systematic destruction of political units to. I could be paranoid but here is what Insane logic that comes to my mind. Destroy families by tracking (black, brown-rainbow) Reducing educated population. Tried as adults for longer jail time and upon return to communities they cannot vote for life. Once the cycle begins running "The Powers That Be tweak it so often so the cycle continues until people within the cycle able to see beyond and brake from it individually and as organized groups to continuously brake and reverse the cycle. The Chicken’s Have Come Home To Roost Again. It may be a racist thought but here goes: if the exact same problems were in white communities and their children were being shot and killed, jailed for lengths of times, and more children and young men in jails than in college and making the military the one option for educational opportunities I dare say the hue and cry would be felt all over the country! Like in the so called war on drugs when its in the rainbow communities its normal but in white suburbia it becomes a panic as parent’s demand treatment on demand doing anything to save their loved ones or abandoning them to their fates. Guess what? Suburbia is going through it now, soon their son’s, daughter’s will be in jails at younger and younger ages if not now. Looks like The Chicken’s Have Come Home To Roost Again. Like I said sketchy notes, I didn’t get too many people’s names, or organizations but hope readers have got most of what I was writing. Donations C/0 Poor Magazine Email: askjoe@poormagazine.org |