Prop N is Racist

by Clive Whistle and Reginald Williams/PoorNewsNetwork

As very low-income black folk, who have historically sufferred from institutional racism and classism which manifests in Government and Corporate policies such as Redlining, Redevelopment and Police harassment, leave the Bay Area in droves, the mainstream media would like us to believe this is due to their desire to "move up and out of poverty". Unfortunately, that is sometimes the case for middle and upper class black folk, but for very poor people who are already close to the financial edge of stability and were houzed in recently demolished or "redeveloped" public housing projects and given a piece of paper (i.e.voucher) in exchange for their apartments - and/or were residing in gentrified neighborhoods like West Oakland, The Bayview and The Mission District and have now been evicted (such as POOR Magazine contributors; Mama aka Lula b. Seymour and The Sloan Family of Oakland) these folks have dropped off the face of statistics and counts and are now some of the poorest homeless and/or vehicularily housed Bay Area residents. In other words these folks are not being heard and are now at the mercy of new and exciting forms of racism and classism such as Proposition N. This is our response to this recent assault on our civil and human rights.

Prop N is racist – there I said it.. and I’ll say it again, Prop N is racist and classist – it is targeted at very poor folks SUB-sisting on welfare in San francisco and the reality is that most of us very poor folk are people of color – and the people bringing this legislation on are very rich, mostly white folks who have a racist,classist agenda to "clean" us out of town – now what’s different bout that? – that’s been happening in the country since the beginning of time – once poor folks are no longer "useful" we aren’t wanted – or better yet, once we are taking up space that rich folks want we are kicked out.

So let’s begin by shattering a few myths, first of all poor people like myself who receive that little bit of money from General Assistance are WORKING for every penny – I wake up at 6:00 am two days a week to do my street cleaning job to EARN that little bit of nothing, $320.00 per month, (which Newsome proposes to take down to $1.84 per hour). I used to clean Muni Buses til my arms couldn’t do it no more. These and other GA jobs are union jobs that used to pay union wages of $15.00 dollars and above until they were turned into this new form of slavery; WORKFARE,

Finally, people harass me cause I spend my Workfare wages on alcohol – well, like my editors at POOR say, its my business what I do with my wage- I mean did they take Michael Milkins’ wages away cause he spent most of it on cocaine? Do they question a ceo at Enron on what he does with his wages…I am a very poor worker with a low-wage job and what these rich folks like Diane Feinstein, Gavin Newsome and the CEO’s of the GAP and The Restaurant Association ( all backers of Prop N) want to do is put us poor folks in mini-prisons like the ones that that Mayor Guiliani of New York City helped to establish – where instead of a GA check you get a shelter bed, have to work 8 hours a day sweeping the streets and if you don’t check in by 6:00 pm every day with a clean piss test you are kicked out and you don’t get a second chance- I know, I was there. all I am saying is folks – there are many reasons that very poor people and people of color like myself are homeless, beat down and living on welfare and most of it has to do with Institutional racist, classist policies like redlining, redevelopment and downsizing that cause gentrification, homelessness and joblessness for very low-income communities this legislation which proposes to take even the little I get now and drop it down to $59.00 dollars per month is just another example of life in Amerikka for poor folk like me.