The Mess Talks Back

pstrongTurd-Filled Donut zine at Artists Television Accessbr / turns tables on the SFPD, the SF Examiner and thebr / so-called “Mess on Market Street”.br / /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/501/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Gretchen Hildebrand/PoorNewsNetwork/p pLast Saturday night at ATA, the writers of the zinebr / Turd-Filled Donut and a standing room only crowdbr / responded to the Examiner’s inflammatory “Mess onbr / Market" series. The rowdy, lighthearted and incendiarybr / evening featured a slideshow, oral histories, personalbr / accounts, political rants and documentary videos thatbr / turned the tables on mainstream media’s treatmentbr / of people in the Tenderloin, and instead, celebratedbr / their histories, lives, work and struggles in thisbr / neighborhood./p pFamed street-corner bluesman Carlos Guitarlos warmedbr / up the crowd with his high-energy brand ofbr / down-and-out blues, borrowing riffs from Robertbr / Johnson and lyrics from Chris Daly’s campaign, singing “It’sbr / about housing, don’t you know!”/p pThis was a warm introduction to a slide showbr / featuring the history of Turd-Filled Donut, a zinebr / which 6th Street residents Iggy Scam and Ivy McClelland started 4 years ago to inspire positive action in their SRO hotel andbr / community. Ivy read stories and showed slides of thebr / neighborhood that document the zine’s projects.br / These ranged from growing tomatoes on your fire escapebr / to a city-wide treasure hunt for beer, as well as the spreading of thebr / word about tenant’s rights 28-day eviction policies,br / how to get a meeting with the Mayor and stories ofbr / folks who fought their landlords and won./p pThe most recent events in the TFD agit-prop historybr / have been in response to the Examiner’s recent seriesbr / about 6th Street and the Mid-Market area, which havebr / targeted Tenderloin residents as “trash” and calledbr / for the City to sanitize the area. The owners of thebr / Examiner, the Fangs, are new property owners in thisbr / area and sure to profit from this type of “cleansing”br / and the subsequent anticipated rise in propertybr / values. /p pThe TFD and their friends took their issuesbr / with this “story” and its hidden profit motive back tobr / its source. They shared with the crowd a videotape ofbr / the meeting where they confronted Examiner editorsbr / with local responses to the Examiner story and to demand abr / “full-page apology to Tenderloin residents”./p pIn the video of the meeting, the editors of the Exbr / intently scribbled on legal pads but failed to makebr / eye-contact, much less answer essential questionsbr / like, “Where do you get off describing people as abr / mess that needs to be cleaned up?” In-between takingbr / notes and checking their watches, the blank-facedbr / editors stammered nonsense ranging from, “We agreebr / completely,” to, “The police came to us…” butbr / had no reply to the responses of actual 6th Streetbr / residents to the paper’s series./p pIggy Scam pointed out the failure of the paper’sbr / journalistic integrity and asked, “Is it just lazybr / reporting or a failure of moral resolve?” Or anbr / obvious bid for gentrification by the Fangs? Thebr / editors’ silence is golden. The answer, all of the above./p pTFD also shared interviews they did on the streetbr / with folks living and working in Mid-Market. Thebr / voices of the people on the street described anbr / atmosphere of police intimidation and harassment thatbr / makes it difficult for them to live their daily lives.br / A 6th Street resident at the show chimed in tobr / describe how an environment of fear is part of the Mid-Marketbr / agenda—police work hand in hand with hotelbr / managers, raiding tenants’ private rooms and arrestingbr / homeless folks./p pMany people living in SROs in this part of townbr / survive on a fixed income and have nowhere else to go.br / In an interview, one woman described how hard it wasbr / to find a room for her family because so few hotelsbr / allow children./p pOther residents’ commented that there should bebr / more lights on the street at night, more benches forbr / people to sit on, pay phones that cost 35 centsbr / instead of 50 cents and hotels that allow visitors.br / Paying weekly or nightly for an SRO is expensive, morebr / than it costs to get a monthly room and yet SRObr / tenants are still told when they can come and go, arebr / not guaranteed privacy, and have to pay for guests tobr / visit their rooms. As one woman put it, “We pay thebr / rent, we should be able to have any visitors we want!”/p pIggy Scam contrasted these first person accounts bybr / reading letters in the police file that are part ofbr / the “case” against the people and the neighborhood.br / These letters complained that 6th and Market is full of “toobr / much hard-core urban living” and that people were annoyed by thebr / “non-stop crime”. Had these letter writers recentlybr / bought lofts in the area in the hopes that thebr / neighborhood would change to suit their upscalebr / lifestyles? Maybe they, like the Fangs and otherbr / speculators and developers, smelled money under thebr / crumbling buildings of Mid-Market but weren’t sobr / interested in the people who call this neighborhoodbr / home./p pFollowing the slide show and video was the writer Urg, whobr / writes a workfare diary for Turd-Filled Donut. Hisbr / writings tied the undeclared war on poor folks and thebr / homeless together with the more blatant push towardsbr / war happening on a national scale. He pointed out thebr / connection between people on workfare and your averagebr / Afghani terrorist—grinding poverty. Thisbr / commonality explains why a war against terrorism inbr / the Middle East also means a war against poorbr / folks in the US. Why stop foot traffic on the Goldenbr / Gate Bridge but allow cars to proceed? Maybe becausebr / the rich and powerful are afraid of what a personbr / without a car might do./p pIggy Scam wrapped up the spoken word part of the evening with a storybr / from the city’s recent past. He described how in thebr / Mission, lawyers, landlords and the county sheriff wonbr / a turf battle on San Carlos Street. Before this boom,br / it had been a neighborhood and a street where peoplebr / could tolerate and respect each other. He kept thebr / audience enthralled with this comedy and tragedy of thebr / last wave of gentrification in the Mission./p pTimes have changed but the motives and methods ofbr / speculators and merchants’ associations are identicalbr / to the days before dotcommers lost their stockbr / options. It’s the same story now in the Tenderloinbr / with the Examiner doing the work to transform, in Iggybr / Scam's words, “Greed into a moral force.”/p pThe second half of the evening featured excellentbr / short videos exploring the history and currentbr / realities of life on the streets. Greta Snider’s videobr / ITenderloin Shopping Cart/i shows the project that brings free booksbr / to folks via shopping cart. The cart navigates thebr / streets of the Tenderloin on Fridays from 12-3pm, bringingbr / free reading material to folks in hotels and on thebr / streets, and you don’t need a library card./p pILooking for Compton’s/iwas a trailer for a longerbr / piece by Susan Stryker of the LGBT Historical Society.br / It introduced a little known riot in 1970 at a dinerbr / in the Tenderloin called Compton’s. This was wherebr / queens and their friends came to eat, drink and oftenbr / get arrested for “perversion” or impersonating abr / woman. This diner was also the scene of a showdown where cops were fought off successfully with hotbr / coffee, flying plates and some knees to the groin.br / Hooray to the director for unearthing this history ofbr / resistance in the TL. Hopefully the full story willbr / be coming to us soon./p pThe Coalition on Homelessness also presented their ownbr / version of ICops/i by turning the tables on police andbr / interrogating them on camera while arresting andbr / harassing the homeless. We saw cops ticketing folksbr / for sleeping in parks at 6pm (it is illegal afterbr / 10pm), using excessive force and trying to stand withbr / their backs to the camera whenever possible. Thebr / police in the video don’t want to answer questionsbr / about their actions and don’t quite understand all thebr / attention (the most common response to seeing thebr / camera being, “Can I help you with something?”). It wasbr / chilling to see the cops in action—intimidating,br / ticketing, arresting people and destroying the property ofbr / people on the street, things they usually do without abr / camera as a witness./p pThe final piece of the night was IAnother Shittybr / Movie/i which was made by homeless kids in the Haight.br / The young people who made the video talk aboutbr / why they are on the street and what makes their livesbr / good and bad. While hitting all the negative points—br / police harassment, hustling to stay well and find abr / place to sleep—the youth also explain how they valuebr / each other and how their community is essential tobr / their survival./p pIt was an excellent final note, a reminder thatbr / beyond the plans of the developers, corporations, thebr / Mayor’s office and the police, are the people. Andbr / people are the first and the last thing that defines abr / place. The beauty of a zine like Turd-Filled Donut,br / as Urg put it, it that they are out there on thebr / street “tearing things up”, reminding people that webr / and our neighborhoods deserve to be cared for in waysbr / that make sense for us. The entire evening was abr / reminder to us all to talk back and that we have thebr / power to fight for our lives and communities.br / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p