Story Archives 2002

by Andrew DellaRocca/PoorNewsNetwork Media Intern

I registered as a San Francisco voter the other day. It wasn't an easy
thing for me to do. I had resisted declaring myself an official California
resident for quite some time. I'm from New York, and there is that whole
New York pride thing that goes along with it. East coast versus west coast.

Throughout my formative years, this rivalry was sensationalized through
the mediums of MTV and the NBA. I hate the Lakers, I love the Knicks. NWA
did their thing. That was cool. But you'd never have caught me putting
them in the same league as Tribe or the Digable Planets. "California is a
beautiful state", Iíd concede, "but it ainít nothing like New York."

But I'm not even from New York City. I'm from a suburb of Albany, about two
hours north of the City-- a very white, middle class suburb -- and let me
tell you, San Francisco blows it out of the water. And so I decided a
couple weeks back to make it official, and I registered. But with
registration comes a responsibility to find out exactly whatís going on
around here, and I began to watch the local news, and to read the Chronicle
(the Bay Area section).

One face that kept popping up all over the news was Gavin Newsom's. I
couldnít ignore him. Not only because he is constantly covered, but because
he kind of looks like me. Put me in a suit, and we could be brothers. And
I kept reading about this guy, about how he is proposing a new program for
the poor, called Care Not Cash. The local media would pound out the message
that this program would be a solution to the cityís homelessness. Care
sounds good, cash sounds good too but, maybe care is better. I donít know.
And so I decided to find out what it, and this guy, were all about.

And now, let me emphasize something: He aint my brother.

Newsome's Care Not Cash measure is designed, supposedly, to "assist" the
poor and homeless of San Francisco, by reforming the current County Adult
Assistance Program. Since the program is designed to assist the poor, I
thought it would be proper to ask the poor, and those who advocate for the
poor, exactly what this proposal would mean, since it is they who would know
best. They were eager to talk about it, and I soon learned a few things
that my perusals in the Chronicle, and my sittings through the KRON 4 news
report, failed to tell me.

Care Not Cash sounds more like an assault on the poor and homeless than a
program of assistance to the poor. It is a new system that its proponents
say will enable the city to spend more on creating affordable housing, as
well as bettering the services for the homeless. However, it offers no
plans on how to do so, nor does it guarantee that the funding will go into
such programs. What it does guarantee is that money will be taken directly
from the poorest people, who are already required to work for the assistance
they receive.

I spoke with Steve Williams from POWER, and he explained, "He [Gavin
Newsom] is going to require that people continue to work, for free or for
cheap, for the city, and then in the meantime he is going to wind up
slashing the money that the people are receiving. So now, basically, people
would be working in exchange for being able to stay in the shelters, working
to be able to get food at St. Anthonyís or Glide; all services that are
right now free. But now people would have to work in exchange for them.î

Care Not Cash will slash the amount of cash that recipients receive by 85%.
I am unsure of how this will cure homelessness. The plan is to convert this
cash into vouchers, and that these vouchers could be used at the cityís
shelters and food programs. However, these programs are already free, and
by requiring them to accept vouchers, the only thing that this proposal does
is take money away from those that receive it.

I found out from the Committee Against Increased Homelessness that the Care
Not Cash measure would actually increase homelessness. By slashing the
amount of cash that homeless people receive, the measure would prevent them
from having the ability to pay for affordable housing if some became
available. In addition, those persons who are housed ìcasuallyî, who cannot
get a receipt for their arrangement, would be unable to pay the rent,
forcing them onto the street. The shelters are full, and so without any
cash to rent a room, more people would be forced to sleep on the street.

When I learned about all of this, I began to think about what an idiotic
proposal it was. If the man is able to manage wineries and restaurants, why
is he proposing such an incoherent plan to the city of San Francisco, and
then disguising it as a measure that will help the homeless? Then I found
out that he plans to run for Mayor, and things began to make sense.
Although his proposal is idiotic, the man is no idiot, he has a plan. Care
Not Cash gives him media exposure. Homelessness is a problem that everyone
in San Francisco is concerned about, and by advocating this plan, Newsome is
able to get his face all over the News. Likewise, he is able to pay for
media time under the rubric of the Care campaign, preventing those
expenditures from being counted toward his mayoral campaign, bypassing
campaign finance restrictions.

Care Not Cash will also help his campaign in other ways. His website
states, ìThe initiative will bring San Francisco in line with almost every
other major California County, thereby eliminating the incentive for
homeless individuals who want cash rather than services to congregate here.î

The argument that slashing cash assistance will prevent homeless people
from coming to San Francisco, and maybe even compel those already here to
leave, entices the tourist industry, and other big business interests. By
promising them that homeless people in San Francisco will no longer be seen,
Newsom guarantees their endorsement for mayor. However, they fail to
recognize that even if some of the homeless decide to leave, there will be
those on the street that have become newly homeless, as a result of this
measure.

Care Not Cash,if passed, will be a failure to all. The measure, and the
man who endorses it, should be regarded with nothing short of mockery.
Those who support it do so only through ignorance, through pure
self-interest, or through both. I decided to write this piece because I am
disgusted with and concerned about Newsome's proposal. After all, I've got
to make sure us middle-class white boys represent.

by Lisa Gray-Garcia aka tiny/PoorNewsNetwork

"I’m Andrea Cousins with Just Cause Oakland, we are an all volunteer coalition of individuals and 20 community organizations that fought long and hard to put a Just Cause Eviction Measure on the Oakland November 2002 ballot. On June 10th we turned in over 35,000 signatures from Oakland voters saying " stop unfair evictions in Oakland," my eyes closed as I let the words of Just Cause’s triumph wash over me and the near capacity crowd at POOR’s Community Newsroom. Maybe now, I thought, I could forget, or perhaps transcend the fear hurt and loss from each of the unjust, No cause evictions my mother and I experienced in Oakland.

"In the last three years evictions have tripled in Oakland and predominantly lower income people, people on fixed incomes, people of color, and families have been evicted in Oakland", as Andrea continued my mind wandered once again to my not so distant heinous past.

"You need to go" I don’t remember my landlords name, nor even how he looked, he could have been a mirage, yet he wasn’t and with those three little words my life and the life of my family would change forever. I remember carefully locking the tears in my tired skull.

I remember trying to look sort of tough and confused at the same time as I replied calmly, "You have no legal basis for evicting us"

And then his response, each word becoming a long dark echo, like in a really bad horror movie, "WE DON’T neeeeeed a reason to EVICT YOU"

And then the memory goes dark, my life from four years ago, which for a scant eight months had become a little bit normal, a little bit stable, a little bit safe, cause my family and I had a home with neighbors and furniture and a bathroom, a home, that we could sort of afford. And then it was over. We ended up homeless.

And therein lies the root of displacement… gentrification… homelessness. You see, poor folk like me are already unstable. It is so easy to throw us off course, to mess us up – there is no trust fund or back-up – no family with money or savings to fall back on and yet, life happens, we lose our jobs, get sick and have no insurance or get evicted, and in just that blink we can be devastated, permanently scarred. Unable to climb back up. Gone like we were never there.

"What we found is that majority of the evictions that have happened in Oakland over the last three years are evictions for no reason, and when you look at who’s being evicted, its primarily so that people that can pay higher rents can move in so that the developer, the landlord, the rental company will attain greater profit. Not really looking to maintain a sense of community and have families feel a sense of stability in Oakland." Andrea concluded and I was brought back to the moment.

Me and my mom finally met up with a decent landlord who even let us pay rent over time whenever we got behind due to our poverty. We are still at-risk, we own nothing and I haven’t stopped looking over our collective shoulders, but for a moment we can breathe. Unfortunately thousands of other Oakland families continue to face eviction for no cause from their landlords, families like the Sloans who are working with POOR Magazine to fight the unjust eviction they recieved from their landlords; The City Of Oakland. We will fight for and with them and all the other poor folk who are facing injustices as long as there is breath in all of our lungs, but now because of the tireless work of all of the organizers and tenants involved in Just Cause we JUST might be able to Win!

Please get involved with Just Cause Oakland-now that its on the ballot they need your help more than ever - call them at (510) 464-1011

by Wendy Snyder, Oaktown Uhuru News

All across the United States, a long list of police
have come to be known for their role in terrorizing
and brutalizing black people. Two years ago, Clarence
Mabanag, Jude Siapno, and Matthew Hornung and
Francisco Vasquez, the four the OPD gang accused of
planting drug evidence, kidnapping, and severely
beating people in the communities in West and North
Oakland, were added to this list. We can no longer
pretend that these are separate cases of bad apples in
a bunch, but must begin to challenge the popularly
supported public policy of police containment of the
black community.

Right here in the San Francisco Bay Area, police
terrorize African people in East and West Oakland,
South Berkeley, Richmond and the Bayview and Hunter's
Point on a daily basis. Not caught on video tape or
witnessed by rookie cops, these incidents are too
numerous and too heinous for words. We have to join
together and build a strong movement to challenge this
public policy of police containment of the African
community and struggle for reparations, justice, and
genuine economic development for African people.

On Monday, July 15th, the International People's
Democratic Uhuru Movement, Poor News Network, SF
Independent Media and several of the victims of the
"Oakland Riders" stood outside the Alameda County
Courthouse holding signs and chanting at what was
supposed to be the opening of the trial for the
"Oakland Riders," the OPD gang accused of planting
drug evidence, kidnapping, and severely beating people
in communities in West and North Oakland. However,
instead of beginning on Monday, the "Oakland Riders"
trial is still continuing its "jury selection" and is
now expected not to begin until September.

InPDUM organizer Sealli Moyenda explained, "They are
most definitely dragging out this case in an attempt
to silence any kind of protest. We're not going to let
them off the hook though. We are calling for the
criminal prosecution of the four 'Oakland Rider' cops.
We also hold the city responsible for this type of
police brutality and are demanding a public apology
from OPD Chief Word and Mayor Jerry Brown as well as
reparations and justice for all the victims of OPD
brutality."

Continued Moyenda, " Last year, Jamil Muwwakkil was
beaten to death by six Oakland Police Officers, and
no one has even acknowledged that there was any kind
of wrongdoing. Those officers have remained on the
job. It's clear that the city-wide policy for the
African community is one of police containment."

One case in point is the story of Gregory Nash. Nash
came out to the courthouse to stand with the
demonstrators. Nash is part of a class action suit
being filed on behalf of the victims of the "Oakland
Riders." Nash was brutalized and framed by Francisco
Vasquez, the one officer who fled from the Bay Area
and still remains a fugitive.

One February night back in 2000, just months before
the whistle was blown, Gregory Nash crossed the
intersection at 40th and Telegraph and was nearly hit
by a van speeding along recklessly. He'd noticed a bag
that somebody had left on the bench at the bus stop
and had crossed the street thinking he could flag down
the bus to see if someone on the bus had left it
behind.

When Nash was almost hit by the van, he flipped them
the bird in response. The van pulled abruptly into the
parking lot in the strip mall near Payless Shoes. Five
to six undercover Oakland Police officers jumped out
of the van. "Oakland Rider" Francisco Vasquez grabbed
Nash by the neck and called him a "Fucking Nigger!"
Vasquez kept harassing and manhandling Nash, asking
him where the bag had come from. OPD then took Nash to
where he stayed and worked as the live-in security for
a health care facility. Nash said that Vasquez and his
partners proceeded to tear up his room. After that,
Vasquez took a bag out of his pocket containing crack
cocaine and a crack pipe and told Nash, "This is
yours."

Because of the OPD, Nash lost his residence and two
jobs. His personal life, he says, was seriously
disrupted. Nash vows that he and others he knows will
fight this injustice at every turn and calls on others
to do the same.

Attend the Wednesday night meetings of International
People's Democratic Uhuru Movement's Oakland branch to
organize for a massive mobilization at the opening of
the Oakland Riders trial and to continue to struggle
for justice for the African community.
Every Wednesday, 7pm, 7911 MacArthur Blvd, Oakland.
Call (510) 569-9620 for more info or email
oaktownuhuru@yahoo.com.

by Andrew DellaRocca/PoorNewsNetwork Media Intern

I was first introduced to the HOPE legislation when I went to Dolores Park
last Sunday. The San Francisco Mime Troupe was there performing this year's
production Mister Smith Goes to Obscuristanî, a parody on US foreign policy
and the current administrationís version of ìnation-buildingî. I was sent
there by the POOR News Network, to meet with a representative from the San
Francisco tenantís union, and help SFTU to distribute information concerning
their ìHOPE is a Hoaxî campaign. The sun baked the park, and I stood on the
outskirts of the crowd, in an ill-planned outfit that consisted of a black
shirt and long khaki pants. One of SFTUís volunteers was there. She gave
me some flyers, a little background information, and offered me some
sunscreen. I soon learned what HOPE was all about.

HOPE is a current form of legislation, floated by Supervisor Tony Hall, and
backed by the real-estate industry, which seeks to increase the number of
apartment to condominium conversions in San Francisco from 200 per year to
3,500 per year. It is argued that this legislation will help tenants to
purchase their homes, increasing homeownership in San Francisco. But the
so-called benefits to normal San Franciscans, which are promoted deceptively
through the HOPE campaign, are as obscure as Obscuristan. Condominiums,
under California State law, are exempt from rent control. Thus, an increase
in apartment to condo conversions will mean an elimination of rent control
on many units, with subsequent rent increases and tenant displacement.

Signatures have been being collected by the cityís landlords for the past
months, and were submitted last week. Now, the HOPE measure will be an item
in Novemberís ballot box. People on the street were deceived by the
petitioners (perhaps, even, the petitioners were deceived by the
legislation), and told that the measure will result in more tenants becoming
owners of their homes. The truth is, very few condo conversions (less than
10%) are actually purchased by the tenants. The average price of a
condominium in San Francisco is $400,000, a figure that is out of a normal
tenantís reach. Signers of the petition were also told that those tenants
who did not want to purchase the converted apartments would be protected by
a series of tenant protections, such as a lifetime lease and a restriction
on rent increases. These ìtenant protectionsî are illusory, however,
because they are in direct contradiction with, and are therefore invalidated
by, established state laws. The Costa Hawkins State Law, for example,
prohibits rent limitations on condominiums. Likewise, court rulings on the
Ellis Act have consistently prevented any locality from trying to prohibit
certain types of evictions from condominiums. In spite of these blatant
contradictions, designers of the HOPE measure have included the protections
in order to deceive the voters, who are mostly tenants, into supporting the
very same legislation that would make them vulnerable.

In Santa Monica, during the 1990ís, a similar measure was passed. The
measure, however, was soon after repealed when it was discovered that only
8% of the converted apartments were purchased by the tenants. Over 3,000 of
Santa Monicaís apartments were converted, however, and 80% of the tenants in
those buildings were displaced. The San Francisco measure provides even
weaker tenant protections than the Santa Monica measure did, and if it is
passed, San Francisco will be facing a huge tenant displacement crisis.

One of the main concerns about the measure is the undemocratic process by
which a landlord gets approval to convert a building. Only 25% of the
lease-holders will need to sign an approval form with their landlord in
order to convert the entire building into condominiums.
ìThey say the justification is that in order for the wealthy people to be
able to buy homes, they should be able to kick out the less wealthy people,
and they see condo conversions as a great way to do thatî said Ted Gulucson
of the San Francisco Tenantís Union

I took a trip to the San Francisco Tenantís Union on Capp St. to speak with
Ted and find out more about their HOPE is a Hoax campaign. The SFTU has
been in existence since 1971, fighting for tenants rights and affordable
housing. We spoke in his office, the backroom in the bottom apartment of a
Mission Victorian. The apartment unpretentiously announces that it is the
SFTU headquarters, with black and white paper signs taped on the windows.
The walls in Tedís office are covered with placards from previous campaigns.
One of them announces ìHomes: Everybody gets one before anybody gets
two.î We sat down at a wooden table to talk.

Ted tells me that he is the office manager of the Tenantís Union, and that
he performs ìbasic administrative work, and organizing work, everything from
sweeping the floors to going to hearings.î He speaks with a drawl, and
doesnít pronounce his Rís. He refers to HOPEís assurances of lifetime
leases, and the prohibitions on rent increases, as ìbogus tenant protections
put in there as window dressing.î

The fact that condos are now exempt from rent control has created a whole
new demand, on the industry side, to do condo conversions. Because not only
do they get the ability to sell units as condos, and make a lot of money
that way, but they can just remove the units from rent control.î

The HOPE measure is created by the real estate industry, designed to
increase the wealth of the landlords. But in addition to its role in
creating profit, it is an extension of a United Statesí political backlash,
begun in the 1980s, and the overall shift towards neo-conservativism.

ìOne of the very interesting things about these movements is the groups
behind them. Groups like the Small Property Owners of San Francisco, and
similar groups across the country, are part of this emerging, growing
property-rights movement. They have as a sort of larger agenda, simply
getting rid of tenants. They donít want tenants in San Francisco, or
Boston, or Santa Monica. The reason is, they envision a San Francisco with
home owners as being a conservative city thatíll pay attention to issues
like police and low taxes, as opposed to the tenants who are more
progressive and see the city as a city of diversity. And in fact some of
the early HOPE literature has argued that point. If people of San Francisco
pass HOPE, then we will see less progressive legislation passed in SF, we
will not see bonds, we will not see tax increases. Besides the lead of the
Real Estate industry which has this thing moving, we also have this
right-wing property rights fundamentalism that is behind it. And what they
see is a very different San Francisco than what we have today, one much more
like the suburbs than a vibrant city with lots of different people.î

Ted and the San Francisco Tenantís Union have much work to do in the months
before the vote. The organizationís funds do not compete with the
million-dollar budget of the HOPE advocates. There is no money to counter
the ad campaigns on television and in the newspapers. The campaigning is
going to have to be on the grass-roots level, through tabling and outreach.
Volunteers are needed, and you can help by going to www.saverentcontrol.org
or www.sftu.org. You can also call 282-5525 to offer help. The
overwhelming majority of us in San Francisco are tenants. We will all be on
the defensive if the HOPE measure passes. HOPE is a hoax.

by Tanya Brannan/Purple Berets for Courtwatch

On April 15, 1996 in the tiny Northern California town of Sonoma, María Teresa Macias, a 36-year old Mexican immigrant woman and mother of three small children, was shot to death by her husband Avelino.  Avelino then shot Teresa‚s mother, Sara Hernandez, before turning the gun on himself. 

In the two years prior to her death, Teresa had contacted the Sonoma County Sheriff‚s Department more than 25 times asking for protection from Avelino‚s stalking, threats to kill and physical and sexual abuse of >Teresa and her three young children.  Despite their own department policy and California law requiring arrest on domestic violelnce and on restraining order violations, Avelino was never arrested or cited.  Only two police reports were written.

On June 18th, two days into the trial, the federal civil rights lawsuit, María Teresa Macias v. Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Ihde, ended with a historic $1 million settlement.  This is the first time in history a police agency has paid for their failure to provide equal protection to a domestic violence homicide victim.

But the Sheriff‚s Department was not the only Sonoma County agency that bears responsibility for Teresa‚s death.  In fact, perhaps the ugliest piece of the Teresa Macias story is the family‚s interaction with Child Protective Services (CPS).

The Criminal Investigation of Child Abuse

In 1995, as Teresa was making her initial escape from Avelino, a contact with a Sonoma health center told her of services available to protect herself and her children.  On March 31, 1995, Georgina Warmouth with the YWCA battered women‚s shelter filed a child abuse report with Child Protective Services.  The report outlined Avelino‚s physical and sexual abuse of all three children, as well as Teresa‚s fear of what Avelino would do to her family if he learned she had reported the abuse.

As is standard policy, when the report of child abuse was filed, a copy was also forwarded to the Sheriff‚s Department for criminal investigation. In his final investigative report, Sheriff‚s Detective Lorenzo DueZas outlined significant evidence that the abuse had occurred, complete with three corroborating witnesses for every charge. Clearly there was enough there for the sheriff to arrest Avelino Macias and file multiple charges of felony child abuse against him. No such arrest ever occurred.

By the time the investigation was completed, Teresa had left the women‚s shelter and returned home after learning that Avelino had gone back to Mexico. Free at last of the violence and abuse, Teresa was preparing to flee with her children and start a new life. Instead she was to be literally held in place with the agonizing separation from her children and continual forced contact with Avelino until the day he tracked her down and shot her to death.

When Det. DueZas called Teresa to discuss the results of his investigation, there was no mention of arresting Avelino; only the threat that if Teresa allowed Avelino back into the home the children would be removed from her custody for her failure to protect them. Not long after that warning, Avelino returned >from Mexico and immediately broke into Teresa‚s house. Knowing of the CPS investigation, he threatened Teresa that if she reported his presence to the sheriff she would lose her kids. Thus extorted, Teresa remained silent.

Within weeks, a CPS worker called DueZas  to report Avelino was back and in June, 1995, the Macias children just didn‚t come home from school one day.  Only after a number of frantic phone calls did Teresa learn that her three children, ages 5, 11 and 12, had been picked up by the sheriff‚s department and taken to the Valley of the Moon Children‚s Center. They were later put into foster care.  The reason: because Teresa could not protect her kids from Avelino‚s violence.

The Insanity of Family Reunification

Thus began Teresa‚s torturous odyssey through the CPS system to which she had turned for help. Over the next nine months she would be driven to distraction by CPS‚s conflicting demands. On the one hand they had taken her kids because she hadn‚t protected them from Avelino. On the other, she was forced into joint counseling sessions with her batterer with the state-mandated goal of re-unifying the family. As she struggled to comply with CPS‚s ever-growing and contradictory demands, Teresa began to despair.

In addition to thwarting Teresa‚s escape from Avelino (as she surely wouldn‚t leave without her kids), the conduct of the plethora of social workers and counselors who then held ultimate power over her family may well have contributed to Teresa‚s murder.

For anyone who‚s ever had the illusion that a counselor‚s pledge of confidentiality is unbreakable, the Macias case provides a rude awakening.  Again and again information Teresa gave to CPS was passed on to Avelino, including the fact that she was filing for divorce. To Avelino, already enraged at losing his stranglehold of control over Teresa, this was like waving a red flag before a charging bull.

But it was Teresa‚s mother, Sara Hernandez, who tells of the deadliest of CPS‚s many interventions in the Macias family‚s lives. Sara and Teresa were driving together to a counseling session in Santa Rosa ˆ one of >those sessions Child Protective Services forced Teresa to attend with Avelino.

„Teresa noticed Avelino following us in his car,‰ Sara relates. Shaking in terror, Teresa drove straight to the Santa Rosa Police station. There she handed police the restraining order she had obtained some months before and asked that they arrest Avelino, who had boldly followed her into the station in direct violation of that order.  As police handcuffed Avelino, Teresa called her CPS worker, Suni Levi to tell her what happened and to ask her to help translate with the police. Levi told Teresa to put the officer on the phone.

According to the SRPD officer, Levi then told him to release Avelino because the couple‚s counseling session was more important than arresting Avelino. Police removed the handcuffs and Avelino left, a free man. Three weeks later, Teresa Macias was dead.

But there was still one more blow that certainly contributed to Avelino‚s complete disintegration not long before the murder. According to family friend Marty Cabello, Avelino received a bill from the County of Sonoma requiring him to pay the children‚s foster care expenses.  With no hope of ever paying the bill, amounting to „thousands of >dollars,‰ according to Cabello, Avelino went even deeper into the dark place he inhabited until that final bloody moment when he ended Teresa‚s life and his own.

(While Avelino‚s bill is not accessible, we do have a copy of a similar bill sent to Teresa two months after her death.  Citing past due and current charges for her share of the foster care expenses for just one of the three children, the bill totals $1,053.50.)

Using Children As Pawns

But even after the double-homicide, CPS maintained a powerful hold over the Macias family. Teresa‚s mother Sara and her sister, Ana Rosa Rubio, logically thought that with the violent death of both parents, Teresa‚s children would be immediately released into the consoling arms of their loving extended family.

Instead, CPS held on to the children for five full months after the murder, and in fact still had no plans to release them at the September 1996 hearing until they saw the family was accompanied by Purple Berets advocate, Tanya Brannan. [Purple Berets is a kick-ass, California-based women‚s rights group.] In a sudden shifting of gears, Judge Arnie Rosenfield signed the order releasing the children to the custody of their grandmother, Sara Hernandez.

Why would CPS not release the children, you might ask? While there is no written documentation of their reasoning, two effects of the embargo are clear. 

First, as long as the children were in CPS custody, Teresa‚s family was extremely hesitant to talk to the press about the daily revelations of the county‚s misconduct in the domestic violence case, fearing the county would retaliate by holding on to the children.

And secondly, whoever controlled the children controlled any possibility of a lawsuit, as technically the County of Sonoma was the children‚s legal guardian.  With a statutory limitation of six months on filing tort claims in California, had the kids not been liberated at that final CPS review, the next scheduled review date would have been at the end of the year ˆ well after the deadline for filing a claim.

The Bad News: It Happens All the Time

Unfortunately, Teresa Macias‚ experience both with the Sheriff‚s Department and Child Protective Services is not an uncommon experience for domestic violence victims.  The very existence of CPS gives law enforcement a place to shuffle off the many crimes against children that arise out of domestic violence in the home.  Since for the most part police everywhere detest doing domestic violence investigations, CPS gives them a convenient way to leave the case to be „social-worked‰ rather than prosecuted.  This has a devastating, sometimes deadly effect on the families involved.

Had CPS been really doing their job, they would have advocated for Teresa with the sheriff, pointing out that filing criminal charges against the abuser is a far more effective way of protecting the children than putting them in foster care.  And if they were too afraid of losing their jobs for doing the right thing, they knew well the few independent advocacy organizations that could have done it for them.  But as usual, CPS went along to get along; they did nothing and said nothing to those who could have helped Teresa Macias and her children, and the result was a dead woman, three motherless children and a wounded, heartbroken grandmother.

CPS also serves another convenient function for police.  I have interviewed scores of women who had called police for protection from their batterer, only to be threatened with being arrested themselves and losing their children to CPS if the women kept on calling police.  When you think about it, it‚s a great way for police to cut down on the number of domestic violence calls, as I can assure you, the women who talked with me about the threats from police will never call them for protection again.  Domestic violence rates go down ˆ no muss, no fuss.

by Joe B.

I won’t be talk of the Kennedyesque guy gunning for mayor and last weeks protest of small business shaking hands.

Because some who is very good at investigation told me what I should’ve known had I been thinking about being in the public eye and perception good or bad can for a few pol’s can be just as calming as nicotine and chocolate for others.

So I’ll speak of other things for a while.

Cool, the word conjures up refreshing drinks, cold ice across warm heads hot summer days and as an adjective a way of feeling, being, or becoming.

There was a program on a few months on PBS’s Front Line called "The Merchants of Cool" about Madison Addison Avenue and other Ad agencies hiring Teens to capture the market on the latest trends, fads, who and what is in or out.

It got me thinking about cool’s meaning through the ages.

The meaning of cool is mercurial and since it is a recent phenomenon I wondered even the word at first didn’t convey what it does now how did folks in the past define the certain Panache, flair, charm, in the past?

Beside the few words above what set these few individuals apart. What is the secret "It" they have had, lost, gained, other men, women, children, and young adults didn’t posses? What I’ve learned is that cool in the past, present, or future cannot be quantified like the soul its essence is felt, known, quantified only by humans or sentient beings we have yet to make first contact with.

Take away fashion, looks, intelligence, and sense of humor, honor, and bravery even if it’s the accidental kind. You know when the high school, college, university bully girl, man, woman, or girl who’s been picked on all during the year; and there’s a personal crisis that the bully(s) didn’t know about. So they do their routine.

This time however something goes wrong as the victim doesn’t act as usual, in fact they just don’t care, the victim want to get the taunting and beating over with once and for all and never go through it ever again.
No longer embarrassed by a crowd say things they never would of said other wise never would and win or lose the bully may not change but the former victims can never set upon again and gains an inner "cool" from that time on.

Cool can be lost if one thinks about being it and yet when not being aware of if makes one cool! We never know when we’re cool and when where not is so arbitrary and subjective. Like the picture of a shirtless brawny guy gently holding an infant or playing with children being natural and completely not unaware of women and girls looking at them and mental swoon. Because he looks to be not only good lover but husband, father and nurturing material for the children and herself.

The same guy in a bar, on the street can be a jerk.
Children and animals can sense reality when people talk or smile at them.
Me I was raised with lizards, fish, cat, dogs, and turtles. There must be some kind of balance I’ve achieved because I keep hearing most people like dogs because they’re loyal than cats with their independent airs.

I don’t know which to chose it could be cats because they chose who they want to be with while dogs love being petted if they sense no fear.
However cats even if they like you may not want to nuzzled or pet and spit or scratch if they’re moody. A last thing is the future of cool.

It might be distilled or not from chemical or genetic means from folks who have so much charisma they become famous.

The next Frontier of "Cool" is many faceted whether it’s an Astronaut, researcher, scientist, or regular J. Q. public participating in life extending science and technologies, what type of personality is willing to be live a century or more?

A failure means illness or death but succeeding will mean a longer life than participants ever dreamed.

The question is how does a person(s) deal with an extended life span with the public looking on?

What will make him/her seem cool to the public after 30 to 50 years with a slowed or age stop so they are a strong in body, quick minded as they were decades past?

Like cats, dogs, and children might help and keeping up with the times also is a way of remaining cool.

Wanting everyone to have what they have, forming ways it could happen make enemies but ultimately is "Hero Cool."

Having a "God" complex is anti-cool, Hiding out, traveling, learning languages or otherwise being out of the public eye then returning on they’re own or because they are needed is or is not cool.

But staying in the public eye as a public immortal is tacky and will not be perceived as cool.

I think of cool as both cultural, sociological, mental construct.

Though it can be nudged cannot be directed or controlled by Ad agencies but up to individuals to define.

Long ago I myself learned that cool happens spontaneously and one cannot depend on friends to clue you in because our own minds have to decide our own way of what is comfortable for us.

To those who were and are always cool.

You know being yourself when everyone is against you is one of many secrets.

When I was growing up being cool meant dressing, having a dangerous, menacing aura about them was way cooler than a non-threatening one.

Later lots of the danger guys and gals died or in jails and it came to me that I’d rather live a quiet longer life, have lots of safe sex, and live longer less stressful life.

In the not to near future there will be a four way split in humanity:
1)

Will be having a traditional burial or being cryo-frozen.
2) learning and self-participation in life extension.
3) Going further to be an active immoralist.

4) Those on the sidelines trying to decide the best path for them to join.

They’re looking at the good and bad of all the three other groups.

For myself my own three pronged strategy of cool is learning about the Life

Extension and Immoralist, revolution while preparing for Cryonics Freezing immediately after death.

I figure, the longer I live a healthier life I might live through the small and medium extension breakthroughs and if not the cold cooling option is waiting.

I didn’t want to place all my eggs in one basket but spread them because if any of these blending and merging sciences begin feeding off each other…

I want to be around, sound, healthy, with regained youth and glad for taking the ultimate gamble.

You see, I don’t gamble a lot or bet but this last one is for a lifetime.

I cannot afford to make any errors in judgments as I’ve done in my still too short life. At least they weren’t fatal but now near infinity is on the line so slow, steady, for now as a turtle then fast and furious as a hare when the best of science and technology is able to save me.

It may not be cool to plan for death, yet hope for eternal life. But I see it this way; if I lose no big deal but if I live or get revived from a frozen coffin I’ll will be smiling with tears in my eyes shivering and shaking from cold and excitement.

I may be seen as an anachronism, barbarian, or one of the lucky few with enough vision to go for one last adventure.

If I’m revived, the cool mentality construct will be the last thing on my mind.

How about you readers out there, if it happens to you how would you then define
"COOL? Bye…

by Leroy Moore/DAMO and PoorNewsNetwork

I can’t rest

My disabled brothers and sisters

Are shot, dragged and beaten to death……….

My poem, Can’t Rest, is more than words on paper, unfortunately it’s reality. In the last four years, Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization (DAMO) and I had many sleepless nights because of the continuous brutality and senseless crimes against our disabled bothers and sisters of color. What really keeps us up at night is the lack of awareness, media attention and no local community forums to educate and heal on this issue. Last July DAMO organized and implemented the first ever Senseless Crimes Open Forum dealing with people with disabilities of color in the community. However, since last July, DAMO and I still can’t rest

It’s been a year since our open forum and the physical attacks and police brutalities continue to happen to disabled people of color all over California. The following is a brief picture of this year's senseless crimes and police brutality against people of color with disabilities;
-

On Sunday evening, March 16th, Richard Tims, a frail, Black, mentally-ill young man, felt threatened when a teen stepped on his foot on a San Francisco Muni Bus and therefore tried to protect himself with a knife. He stabbed the teen, but when he got off the bus and hid in a bus shelter, the police arrived and talked to the wounded teen. After locating Mr. Tims the SFPD shot up the bus shelter killing Mr. Tims and seriously injuring an elderly woman coming out of a nearby fast food restaurant.
-

During Malcolm X’s birthday on May 19th, a disabled immigrant man of color was walking out of VALMAR SUPER LIQUOR & DELI on 16th & Valencia St. in the Mission District of San Francisco. A White male in his forties on a big skateboard was screaming about how this country was his country and how he hated fags and foreigners. He approached this elderly, disabled man and asked, "Are you an immigrant?" But the elderly man kept on walking. That’s when this White man picked up his big skateboard and hit the elderly man on the back of his head. On top of that, the three men of color inside the deli watched the whole thing and did nothing.
-

David Smith, a Black developmentally disabled youth of West Oakland was frisked and taken into police custody in the week of May 27th for no reason. After hours of questioning the officer realized they had the wrong person. David was let go with no apologies. David is still traumatized by the whole incident.

All of the above cases of police brutality and senseless crimes have been against poor people of color with disabilities who have very little resources to fight back. None of the cases had a witness video taping the incident so they were invisible to the public. Another example of this invisibility was the shooting and killing of Margaret L. Mitchell of L.A. You’d think the LAPD, and police in general, would stop, think and learn? However the recent L.A. police brutality against a Black, developmentally disabled and hard of hearing teen, Donovan Jackson of Inglewood, CA. is an on-going example that the LAPD doesn’t seem to have the intellectual capacity to learn from their history.

The LAPD & SFPD share a common reason why their victims end up wounded or dead: because "the victim had lunged towards the officer and the officer felt his life was in danger." From the above cases this reason doesn’t add up to me. Both Margaret L Mitchell and Richard Tims were frail and weighed only a hundred pounds. Both were accused of lunging toward the police officer with a very small weapon, but in both incidents the victims were outnumbered by police officers at the scene. Now why can’t police officers use reasonable thinking and come up with a less lethal tactic to deescalate the situation in which the police outnumber and outweigh its victim?

Donovan Jackson, a skinny teenager with developmental disabilities, only had a bag of chips. But once again an LA police officer, Jeremy Morse, said the Black disabled teen lunged at him and squeezed his testicles. So this forty-something year old grown man, who outweighed Jackson, punched him with all his weight. Although Jackson was punched, slammed on the roof of the police car, and dragged by his necklace, Jackson was booked for investigation of battery on a police office. As a Black, disabled advocate who worked with youth and young adults with developmental disabilities (for example, mental retardation) for almost twenty years, I have learned a lot about common traits they share. One common trait in most of the youth and young adults with mental retardation is the strong sense of loyalty and protectiveness some have towards family members and friends. So when Jackson returned to the car and saw the police still there, like any son he wanted to know what was going on and protect his father.

If you add that Jackson was hard of hearing, you get a very confused and hostile environment this teen had never been in before. If Morse took his time and realized that Jackson had developmental disabilities and was hard of hearing, he would have realized that Jackson needed accommodation. Morse could have let Jackson’s father do all the explaining on what was going on, or Morse could have turned face-to-face with Jackson to see if Jackson could read lips, or to see which ear had better hearing. Instead Morse escalated the situation, from which there was no turning back from that point on.

Another common factor found in some youth and young adults I’ve worked with who have developmental disabilities, is that if he or she has a good or bad experience with something or someone, it’s very difficult to change his or her mind of that person. Jackson is only a teenager, and from this horrible brutality it might be very hard to change his views about police. I don’t blame him! The most shocking but common finding in police brutality cases is that the officers, nine times out of ten, have a closet full of brutality cases against individuals (or a whole class of people) that haven’t been let out of their closet. Well Jeremy Morse’s closet is wide open and the media has been doing some Spring-cleaning. One of his brutality cases hit many news services, including the Saturday, July 13th LA Times. One case almost resembled what happen on Martin Luther Kings’ Birthday this year, in the Bayview Hunters Point District in San Francisco, where Black teens were physically and sexually assaulted and forced to lie on the ground at gunpoint. According to the July 13th LA Times, Morse had other legal and disciplinary problems including an off-duty incident in which he forced three teenagers at gunpoint to lie on the ground because he incorrectly believed they were stalking the sister of his then-girlfriend, court records showed. Morse was suspended for 13 days in connection with the incident, and the city settled a lawsuit with the teenagers for $37,000. Before Jackson’s tragic incident, Morse had continued to work for the Inglewood Police Department.

I’m glad that the Mayor of Inglewood, Roosevelt Dorn, took action and was vocal about the behavior of Morse. But I wonder, if there was no videotape, would he still react like he did? For example, the shooting of Idriss Stelley, a young Black man with mental illness in the San Francisco Sony Metreon Theater, didn’t have a video of the shooting that could have played nationwide. Although the grassroots campaign for Justice for Idriss is strong, still Mayor Willie Brown and the Chief of Police have been very slow to the demands of Idriss’ family and supporters. What are we saying? If it’s not on TV, then its not real and elected officials don’t need to react?

I agree with the Mayor that these cops should be fired and brought up on charges! As the Justice system does its job, we, the people, must do ours. I think it’s time for a grassroots movement on police brutality and senseless crimes against people with disabilities, especially people of color with disabilities including mental illness, locally and on a state level. Right here in San Francisco, Idriss’ mother, Mesha Irizarry, started a support group, Victory Over Violence, for families and loved ones who lost their disabled or non-disabled loved ones by the hands of the police. They meet the first Sunday of every month. There also has to be more community open forums on this issue with the financial and community support; more training of police officers on how to deescalate a tense situation involving people with mental illness and others with disabilities. Local groups and activists like:

Najee Ali of Project Islamic HOPE of LA,
Mesha Irizarry of Victory Over Violence of San Francisco and
Myself of Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization of San Francisco Bay Area
need more support, resources and media attention throughout the year for our work on this issue, not national leaders and not only during crisis!

My disabled brothers and sisters are put to rest

On the streets, in psychiatric wards & in prison

But I feel your sprit & anger in my chest

I won’t rest

Your sprit & anger won’t

We won’t let you rest

By Leroy F. Moore Jr.

Executive Director of DAMO

(510) 569-8438 sfdamo@Yahoo.com

by Christina Heatherton/PNN Media intern

My pencil tears across the page in a frenzied scrawl, desperately trying to follow Bruce Ellison’s lecture about Leonard Peltier and the American Indian Movement. I catch a few alarming phrases "…1/3 of Native American women unwittingly sterilized…64 people on the reservation killed…blood on the FBI’s hands…" but the context and stories are completely unfamiliar to me. Dates, events, and names merge into irrelevance. I have never heard of the American Indian Movement and am as vaguely familiar with the name Leonard Peltier as any UC Berkeley-part-time-student-activist might be. After a few minutes I squint at my notes in the dim auditorium and solemnly realize that my pencil has been outpaced by my swifter confusion.

I resign myself to observing the event from my seat, high at the back of the New College Auditorium in San Francisco. Ellison faces the audience of 35-40, sitting comfortably under warm lights with his arms casually folded on a table before him. His low-key manner and "aw-shucks" humility belie a well-educated confidence and sophistication. Bruce Ellison has served on Leonard Peltier’s defense team since Peltier’s original trial some 27 years ago. He flashes a self effacing smile and relates that at the time he was only a young lawyer who was often got to hold the other lawyers suitcases.

For most of the evening, Ellison does not speak of Peltier. With a lawyer’s persuasive simplicity, he sweeps through the history of US-Native American relations to demonstrate that persecution of the Native Americans has historically coincided with growing speculation into Native American territory. The history of indigenous people in our country and throughout the world, he says, is a history of people being deemed "in the way" of land and of resource exploitation. Ellison launches into a litany of injustices beginning in 1874 when Native Americans were forcibly removed from reservations after gold was discovered on their land. He picks up a century later in the 1960’s and 70s, when 27 multinational corporations quietly began to stake claims of reservation land for gold, coal, uranium, iron, and natural gas extraction.

It was during this time that the American Indian Movement (AIM) a leading proponent of indigenous rights emerged. In 1972, AIM lead a march on Washington called the "Trail of Broken Treaties" to protest the government’s defiance of past treaties as well as its responsibility for the impoverished conditions and suffering on Native American reservations. The march culminated in a raid on the Bureau of Indian Affairs. There AIM members uncovered classified documents which entailed the government’s plans to slowly eradicate the native people. Bruce Ellison’s tone becomes hardened as he relates that AIM discovered evidence that 1/3 of the female indigenous population between the ages of 18 and 25 had been involuntarily sterilized.

Leonard Peltier was a member of AIM. In 1973 he participated in AIM’s occupation of Wounded Knee, a dramatic protest against the human rights violations occurring on the Pine Ridge Reservation. A corrupt, US backed, tribal government had been in control of the Pine Ridge Reservation and had been enforcing its laws through the deployment of a violent militia known as the GOON squad (Guardians of the Oglala Nation). The US government responded to AIM’s occupation with military force. A 71-day standoff between AIM and heavily armed federal authorities ensued. The FBI armed and equipped the GOON squad to smother AIM’s dissent. After the standoff, violence on the reservation increased under the GOONs’ reign of terror. Residents of the reservation and AIM members lived under the constant threat of violence. Mothers, children, husbands, and relatives became victims of random beatings, tortures, gang rapes, and murders. 64 men, women, and children were murdered during this time. No one ever stood trial for the crimes despite the FBI’s presence.

It was in midst of this "climate of fear", as Ellison describes it, that two FBI agents were killed. On June 26, 1975, the two agents, driving an unmarked car, chased a small pick-up truck on to the ranch where AIM had its headquarters. A firefight broke out. AIM members heard the gunshots and believed they were under attack from the GOON squad. To protect the women, elders, and children inside, AIM members returned gunfire. In the skirmish, the two FBI agents and one Native American youth were killed.

Four AIM members were accused of the agents’ murders including Leonard Peltier. After hearing details of the "climate of fear", as well as significant proof of FBI misconduct, and a lack of evidence condemning the AIM members, a conservative Midwestern jury acquitted the first two suspects.

To suppress this embarrassing acquittal, according to Ellison, the FBI dropped the charges against the third suspect and targeted Leonard Peltier. Reading from an internal FBI document Ellison demonstrates that the government planned "to develop information to lock Peltier into the case" and place "the full prosecutive weight of the federal government" against him. Documents released from the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the government withheld and fabricated evidence, threatened and coerced witnesses, and flat out lied in order to get a conviction. In addition, Peltier’s lawyers were not allowed to introduce evidence of the "climate of fear" that had influenced the jury in the other trial. Peltier was convicted for the murder of the two FBI agents. He is currently in prison having served 26 years of his double life sentence.

So here’s the punch line…..

Terrorism, according to the government’s own federal guidelines, is defined as: "…the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." (28 Code of Federal Regulations Section 0.85)

Ellison demonstrates that the federal government is guilty by its own definition. Its support of GOON squad violence and its neglect of Pine Ridge residents constituted an unlawful use of force against American citizens. Additionally, the government’s fraudulent prosecution of Leonard Peltier revealed its subversive capacity to manipulate the criminal justice system for political purposes. Ellison asks the audience to consider who the real terrorists are.

Aside from its political agenda, Ellison suggests that persecution of Native Americans in the 70’s was additionally driven by economic objectives. He reveals that the FBI’s war on the American Indian Movement coincided with corporate plans to develop reservation land into the largest coal generating system in the country. Ellison points out that AIM attracted the most FBI attention when, in 1975, it adopted a decidedly more anti-corporate position with an emphasis on protecting land and water supplies from the corporate exploitation of mineral sources. With this shift, the FBI declared AIM one of most dangerous groups in the country.

Of the many "remarkable" and "frightening similarities" Ellison draws between the government’s suppression of AIM 27 years ago and its current War on Terrorism, his reference to the recent ruling in the Oakland EarthFirst! trial resonates strongly with the government’s persecution of AIM. Last June’s trial revealed that the Oakland Police Department had conspired with the FBI to suppress EarthFirst!’s environmental activism. While the group had been accused of terrorist activity, it became apparent that the only interests that EarthFirst! had threatened were those of the timber industry in Northern California. The EarthFirst! example illustrates the questionable ground upon which the national climate of fear is being founded.

Ellison’s voice gains a severe edge as he argues for the present relevance of Leonard Peltier’s case. He sees the same excessive governmental authority being granted to the FBI "not only without question but clearly without any consideration as to whether this new authority will actually in any way make us safer". The danger, he believes, is in the secrecy surrounding current government action. He sees secret military tribunals, for example, as being necessary to hide evidence of FBI misconduct and government abuse of the criminal justice system. Within the present climate of fear created by the government, Ellison suggests that dissension is being suppressed and civil liberties are being quietly decimated.

As Ellison discusses the intensifying counter-surveillance operations occurring nationally, he proposes that the very people we are sitting next to might be gathering information about us. For a long self-conscious moment, the auditorium is gripped with uncertainty. I look warily at the circulating petition requesting my name and address. I scan the room for infiltrators. I spot a head of blonde dreadlocks, some billows of white floating above creased collars, long manes of black strung with feathers and beads, a stray perm, some deliberately unkempt, clean chic, and/or spiky heads, and a cluster of disheveled masses strangled back into pony tails. I see no suspects in the audience, but then again, I have no idea what the back of a fed’s head might look like.

For more information, please go to:

The International Office of the Leonard Peltier Legal Defense Committee

http://www.freepeltier.org



First Nations: Issues of Consequence

http://www.dickshovel.com



Judi Bari’s Homepage (for information about EarthFirst!’s trial)

http://www.judibari.org

by Liz Rodda/PoorNewsNetwork media intern

Four men fit into an olive metal box. I joined them with a smile for a new political adventure. Sitting quietly toward the back of Ed’s van, I observed their expertise. Here I was the uneducated: the POOR Magazine interns and staff whom I sat amongst understood social inequity in a way which I would never fully understand, each having dealt with poverty first hand. Nevertheless, they did not filter me from their bated breath, but immediately welcomed me into their endless madcap songs. We were high on life and ready to enlighten Gavin Newsome that his plan to cut General Assistance to fifty-nine dollars a month was absolutely unacceptable. Succeeding a chain of seven police on motorbikes, we spun up to our destination of 2311 Taraval Street, the Cal Insurance and Associates Building where we would meet Mr. Gavin Newsom for a bit of "conversation". Ed Willard, from PNN and POWER dropped us off along side the action, demanding us out of the van and into the heart of the protest.

"Newsom babozo! Tu eres un mentiroso!" I stepped into the street amongst these words: "Newsom baboza!" with fellow strangers throwing fists high, demanding, "Tu eres un mentiroso!" A red banner dangled from apartment windows opposite us reading, "Don’t Buy the Lies!" A picket march was already in full motion amongst hoarse voices screaming cantos just as a tremendous upheaval blew us away. Voices ran wild with the appearance of Gavin Newsom on the scene. "Mr. Newsom! Speak with us! We want to talk!" He quickly disappeared into the crowd with his team of guards and into the safety of the building. Mr. Newsom’s choice to ignore us only made our chants grow intensively louder, "Shame! Shame! Shame!" We continued to shout until it became apparent Mr. Newsom would not be making an appearance anytime soon. With a slowing shift in energy, several selected speakers began to tell their stories of how Mr. Newsom’s cut in GA would affect them individually.

"Without the money I have received from GA, I would be homeless". Thomas spoke with an appealing sweetness that only enhanced a powerful intensity he emitted. "It has allowed me to both find an apartment and hold onto it. If the money is cut, I will become homeless." His dark eyes looked up to thirty stoic police who were being paid incredible capital to stand in a straight line. Thomas took a deep breath and continued into the microphone, "I challenge you Mr. Newsom to come out here and speak with us, your voters. You will be surprised how willing we are to tell you what we need." He concluded his short speech with how GA has the ability to directly benefit families and children through increasing self-esteem, hope, and the possibility of permanent change. The crowd commended him for his words as retired to the sidewalk and Lucky Jones picked up the mike. Young and animated, Lucky immediately threw us into a terrific rhythm of "Gavin Newsom you think you’re sly. All you do is lie, lie, lie!" He entranced us with his extraordinary sense of verbal communication and I immediately knew he was the man for an interview.

When he finished his raucous chants and a new speaker commenced, I asked him for a few words. He nodded, having me follow him to a quieter area of the street where we could speak. He needed little prompting before laying the situation in full detail before me. "You see these streets?" His face was inches from mine, demanding every breath of my attention. His dark eyes and powerful presence immediately devoured me. I swallowed, trying to appear at ease "yeah". "How do they look?" "Clean", I retorted, glad I had paid attention to his earlier speech. "That’s right", he bellowed, "That is because people on GA keep it clean, working every day for less than minimum wage. And what happens when they get too old to clean the street? You have a grandma?" I nodded. "How would you like to see her working on the street to make less than minimum?" I closed my eyes, feeling overwhelmed by his presence and all that I didn’t know. He continued, "I need to be able to save 1/3 of my income to even think about coming out of my current situation. 1/3 of 59 dollars is 12 dollars. 12 dollars isn’t going to get me anywhere." His eyes remained fixated on mine becoming dry from ceasing to blink. "The money cut from GA will supposedly go to shelters which only means we will be paying high rent for a place to stay." He sighed, finally looking away from me to the dimming sky.

Gavin Newsom spends over seven hundred and fifty dollars for each advertisement he puts up, more than what several GA recipients receive in a month. He pays ten thousand dollars for every television advertisement he puts on air and recently received a three hundred thousand dollar wedding reception. The statistics are appalling. I remembered the words of Lucky, "Can I sleep on your door step tonight Mr. Gavin Newsom? No, I don’t think so." The evening air was growing cool as I bent down to pick up a lost photocopy of Gavin Newsom’s face floating down the street. Bold black letters were scratched across his smooth features, reading "SO HOT: And YOU can party with ME. Come and tell me how much you care about me. How much you love that I’m cashing in on making more people homeless. Call anytime. I need you NOW." Clever, I smiled. My head began to ache from a day of chanting and all of us looked ready for home. Unfortunately not all of us would have the luxury of returning to a warm apartment like I could. Ed, Charles, Richard and I ambled back to the van discussing the rally and Newsom’s super sly disappearing act. Ed shut the metal doors behind us and we returned to familiar territory. I revisited my corner of the van, quietly pondering the impact of an incredible experience.

by Youth Making a Change (YMAC)

San Francisco, CA Wednesday the 17th at 3:30pm in front of the Youth
Guidance Center seventy-five youth rallied to show support for Youth Making
A Change's campaign to support the JDAI process and relay the message that
the Risk Assessment Instrument needs to be implemented inorder to stop
unfair incarceration of youth.

The youth groups that represented were the United Playas, Homey, Conscious
Roots, MOVE, EID, OLIN, and CYWD. There was a speech made by Ray Balberon
and a spoken word piece by Javier Reyes of Colored Ink and Saron Angola of
SOUL. The rally was non-violent and there were no altercations with the
cops. Youth Making A Change's goal of letting city officials know that youth
care about this issue and promoting awareness to the youth was solidly
achieved. For info, contact YMAC @ 415-239-0161