Story Archives 2010

The San Francisco Building and Planning Commissions are attempting to fast-track a new condominium construction project, slated to replace a long-dead gas station and active Green Cab parking lot on the north-east quarter of the intersection of 16th Street and South Van Ness Avenue.  This involves the Mission Plan of the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan, and is a violation of it.  Housing for the poor (30% of AMI—Area Median Income—rent paid) is a priority.  In small print, but it’s there!

Two blocks away, at 14th and Mission Streets, is Senior-only housing; the Mission Hotel, a Single Room Occupancy (SRO) building, is half a block away--with another 100 or so resident seniors.  Most of them walk with canes.  The proposed structure will have 88 condos and a 44 space garage in the basement, an increase in traffic generating more respiratory illness in a population already suffering more than its fair share—along with more traffic period, more cars to worry about crossing the street, etc.

16th Street, from So. Van Ness to Mission, frequently hosts film festivals.  The block is less gentrified than others, but that is changing too, as POOR magazine poverty scholars can see from a third story window of the Redstone Building.  New nightclubs, more noise at night, fewer of the original businesses and residents of the area around. 

Small businesses on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the Redstone Building will lose fresh air (ventilation) from their windows, which will increase the odds of catching respiratory diseases (colds, etc) for the people working in those offices.  Residents of the neighborhood on Capp, between 16th and 15th Streets, will endure 2 years of construction noise and pollution.  There is an elementary school, with a (concrete) playground behind the 16th and Mission Walgreens store, on this block of Capp Street as well, half a block from Ground Zero.  Active construction sites, with lots of large moving parts (trucks, etc) are not good for children, who do not respond to stimuli around them the same way adults do.

The Green Cab Company will likely be forced to close.  There aren’t many alternative spaces in the city available, considering all the other Eastern Neighborhoods (and other areas) construction activity going on, the fact that the (local) taxi industry is highly competitive and the awarding of Taxi Medallions is a whole other story (perhaps a novel-length work) all by itself!

Readers of these poverty scholars’ words here have an opportunity to make a difference in how the Mission Plan of the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan is dealt with.  You can contact Jeanie Poling, an Environmental Planner in San Francisco’s Planning Department.  The address is 1650 Mission Street, Suite 400, SF, CA  94103.  Contact by phone is:  415-575-9072 (fax # 415-558-6409).  Poling’s email address is:  jeanie.poling@sfgov.org The address of the condo project is 490 So. Van Ness Avenue, the case number of it is #2010.0043E. 

Get Rich

By Revolutionary Worker Scholar

It was the last day of my security guard job. I had a stain in the collar of my blue shirt that refused to come out and the scent that a skunk shared with me during my nightly bike ride home 5 months ago still lingered on my fur (fake) lined security officer’s jacket.

The property I’d been paid to protect was the "Land O’ Lakes Apartment Complex". I’d been at the Lakes for a year and a half. I remembered the bike rides home at 1am. It was good exercise but it wore me down over time (The bus service in the area was cut leaving me no other choice but the bike). I recalled the near misses I’d had with animals on the way home. I nearly ran over a raccoon as I headed from Skyline towards Sloat. He froze and I swerved, almost hitting a pole.  One evening a coyote ran alongside me as i pumped my bike.  "Are they hiring at your company?" he asked.  I looked at him and told him that the best thing he could do was be a coyote and keep howling at the moon.  He said i was chickenshit but not before I tossed him half a sandwich.  Another time, I almost hit an opossum. He, like the raccoon, froze. It was almost as if the opossum was daring me to run him over. Again, I swerved.  

I’d been trying to get out of security since I got hired nearly 2 years ago. I sent out many resumes and got only a few responses. In the bad economy, people are selling themselves out in record numbers. I applied at non-profit organizations mostly and got a couple of responses but no job. In fact, I interviewed at one place with a white haired saintly man and a woman who looked like she’d dropped out of a convent. It was my second interview with this pair in 2 years, this time for an on-call employment counselor position for an organization serving folks with developmental disabilities. The interview was a repeat of the first. I thought I was a shoe-in. I had them laughing and pouring me cups of coffee. I left thinking it was in the bag. Before I walked out the door I went to the restroom, inadvertently walking over the janitor’s freshly mopped floor. He gave me a scowl and I thought to myself: you can kiss that job goodbye. I never got a call from the saintly white haired man or the convent drop out.

I met a lot of good guys at "Land O Lakes". The common thread among them is that they are mostly men in their mid 50’s and have been security guards 15 years or more—lifers. I said: I ain’t gonna end up like them, I’m not gonna guard the hen house for the man for an extended period of time. Hell, the man’s lucky I’m even doing this. Then I thought about the fact that I’d been working as a security guard off and on for almost 20 years. Maybe I am a lifer too.

The job had its good points. It was a multi-layered quilt of multicultural private security goodness. There was Norman, the Samoan guard who was one of the best human beings I’d ever met. He was a big muscular guy with a big muscular smile who used to tell me stories about fishing at night back home in Samoa. His favorite thing to eat was king crab, which, when he said it, sounded like king crap. He directed the choir at his church and was taking classes to become a minister. He would bring leftovers from Sunday Service—ham, taro, chicken, noodles—never reciting scripture but sharing his food and his laughter and his smile—which told me more about him than anything else. Once he brought a tin of fancy cookies. I said, those are some white people cookies. He laughed and with a mouthful of cookies said, brown people can eat these cookies too. He went on to tell me about his uncle who was a minister: He is a bastard. (It sounded like he said bastard, but what he actually said was pastor). There was another guard who we called Shark, who used to guard nothing but the swimming pool, smiling at the girls. There was Billy, who everyone called ‘backwards’ because he got things backwards…such as pronouncing the word harmonica as marhonica…and so on. We’d all sit in the security guard shack talking about the job, about who was trying to sneak into the pool, which tenants played their music too loud or who was stealing recyclables from the garbage dumpsters etc. Those conversations were boring. It made me crave white people cookies and king crap (crab).

I decided to quit the security job. I’ve thrown off my security rope—which I never got a chance to hang myself with—and have traded it in for a new rope—with another security guard company paying 2 dollars an hour more.

My orientation with the new company was yesterday. I watched some training films on workplace safety and various forms of harassment. The films are so bad that they themselves qualify as harassment. The orientation manager informed me that my supervisor would be either Ted or Rich. I was a little tired and thought he’d said I was going to get rich. I sat in the training room in anticipation of getting rich. "I want to get rich" I repeated to myself over and over, taking sips of lukewarm coffee. The door finally opened, I was going to get rich I thought. The orientation manager smiled as a man followed him through the door. This is Ted, he said…smiling.

© Revolutionary Worker Scholar 2010

Students who attended the Genoa Industrial School for Indian Youth in Nebraska in 1910, when this photograph was taken, were mostly Sioux, placed off the reservation and away from their families. The Indian Child Welfare Act reacted against this long history of displacement as well as against the Indian Adoption Project of the 1950s and 1960s.

“I have been working in the Housing Authority for over twenty years, we do not work with Indians, Indian tribes, or the Indian Child Welfare Act. Never have...never will”, said Myron Standing Bear, father of two and Native American social worker, as he repeated the words said to him by a case worker at the San Francisco Housing Authority to POOR Magazine’s Indigenous News-Making Circle. This horrible sentence launched his families’ journey to his current state of homelessness

Mr. Standing Bear, who suffers from congestive heart failure, has been living out of his car with his two disabled teenage sons, who like him are members of the Oglala Lakota Sioux Nation. He was granted guardianship of his two sons by his tribe, a sovereign nation located in South Dakota, under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The ICWA is a federal law that seeks to keep American Indian children with American Indian families. Congress passed ICWA in 1978 in response to the extremely high number of Indian children being removed from their homes by both public and private agencies.

In August of 2009, the family was informed of their approved Section 8 Voucher, a list they had been on for 11 years. Upon finding a home, however, they were told by their worker that they were immediately being taken off of the Section 8 housing list where they had reached rank #1 and put on the Public Housing list where they are currently number 564.

On September 16th, 2010 a meeting took place between Mr. Standing Bear, two S.F.H.A administrative officials, and an advocate for the S.F. Coalition on Homelessness. At this meeting, he was told by one of the officials that none of his supporting documents that were issued to him through the Sioux Tribal government, were “legal and binding." This included his documentation of guardianship, a letter of recognition by the Oglala Lakota Sioux Nation, and even a will signed by three witnesses--licensed attorneys with a notary seal. The terms of his will were that Standing Bear will have guardianship of his two sons until their 21st Birthday.

Because of this denial of services based on discrimination by the S.F. Housing Authority, he and his two sons have been forced to live in a car.

As I listened to the horrible tragedy of Myron, I was reminded of my great grandfather who is member of the Sioux Nation and how the history and herstory of native peoples in the US is riddled with struggle, theft and resistance, and how we must advocate outside and around all of these government systems of oppression if we want to get any justice. At POOR Magazine we have implemented the UN declaration on Indigenous Peoples as a resistance document for native peoples struggling with false borders, globalization and the abuses of the rights of indigenous peoples across Pachamama in poverty.

“I have been an advocate for my people for the last 17 years, I know what my rights are, and yet it seems like I can’t get any justice,” Myron’s voice faltered as he concluded, “I am only trying to get the basic human rights of housing for my family.”

Burgers, Fries and Hegemony: An Unhappy Meal

By Revolutionary Worker Scholar

Fast food. There was a time when there were no fast food restaurants in San Francisco. The closest fast food establishments to the city were McDonalds and Taco Bell—both located in South San Francisco. My father would take me there once in a while—an occasional excursion—a treat, but it never took the place of the Filipino food we ate at home. I remember the first fast food restaurant in ever saw in the city—in 1974 or so—a Jack in the Box on the corner of 7th and Market Streets. It looked strangely out of place, almost adolescent with its candy lights among the more adult and long-established businesses. Somehow, the presence of a fast food restaurant seemed beneath the elegance that was Market Street.

I’d gone downtown to attend a training session of a new job I’d gotten and arrived early so I walked into the Jack ‘n The Box on First Street for a cup of coffee. The restaurant was empty, except for one other person. I sat down wearing a sport jacket, white shirt, tie and cheap shoes I’d gotten from payless during a two for one promotion. In short, I looked like a midwest funeral director minus the pasty skin.

I waited at the counter. The crew was all Raza women, their voices in Spanish confined within walls of tile mixed with bubbling, splattering grease and running water—every other word submerged in kitchen noise, finally managing to escape through the front door. I took my coffee, 2 creams and 3 packs of sugar and started writing in my journal. I was writing my thoughts about people who had come before me—my elders—the community of poets whose voices spoke out against gentrification in Manilatown, Fillmore, Hunters Point--whose voices still cry out in resistance to the demolition of the Transbay Terminal--a mere 2 blocks away from where I sat nursing my coffee, privileged to be able to write my thoughts.

A few minutes went by. An African descended man of about 60 years of age walked in and sat a few yards away. He sipped coffee and kept to himself--engaging in a dialogue with someone whose presence I could not see but feel. I looked at the man’s stained clothes, his backpack and worn suitcase. He spoke with a deep twang mixed with laughter, words flowing like a river from some region that is forgotten but moving quietly under a night sky so deep that it lives in our dreams. I couldn’t make out with the man was saying. But as POOR Magazine co-founder Mama Dee used to say, it was one of those conversations that go way back, where the words that didn’t get said come up for air and do not get resolved but rather, dissolve.

10 minutes or so went by when the door to the kitchen area opened. A woman’s voice rang out “You have to go now!”  The African descended elder looked at the woman. Why do I got to leave? He asked. The door closed. The man picked up his coffee and bags and headed to the door. I followed and asked him how much he paid for the coffee. He told me it was a senior coffee. He told me his name was James. My father’s name is James, my best friend’s is too. I never met a James I didn’t like.

“Why was this man asked to leave?”

I posed this question to the restaurant manager, a Raza woman in her mid 30’s. She was dressed in a Jack ‘n the Box blue issue uniform. We have a 30-minute seating limit, she answered, pointing to a sign that said 30 minutes. I informed the woman that I had been sitting in the restaurant longer than the man—why hadn’t I (With my Mid-west funeral director attire) been asked to leave? She explained that the man frequents the restaurant and that, despite seeming well-behaved at the moment—had assaulted her employees and caused disturbances. “These people make trouble in my restaurant” she said. These people? It was heartbreaking to hear her talk this way. I told her that the man was a paying customer and that he was entitled to sit and enjoy his coffee just like any other paying customer.  I also added to the good lady that it was not her restaurant and not her employees. She just looked at me and recited store policy, as if it were some kind of ancient and Holy Scripture. I told her I was not going to patronize the restaurant in the future and that I’d urge others to do likewise.

When I finished speaking I turned towards James. He was gone. As I left and headed to my appointment, I saw the Transbay Terminal that is being torn down to make way for a new transportation hub. What happened to the houseless, landless people that used to sleep on its benches and scale its stairs? How many of them have been asked to leave, how many are in jail, how many have died? Is there no room left to have a cup of coffee, a moment of pause—at least one inch of this earth where we can truly be human?

© 2010 Revolutionary Worker Scholar

District 6 Mission PEOPLE's Debate part 2

1. San Francisco and the Redstone Building, a Micro-History

Poormagazine's Elderscholar Bad News Bruce Allison first walked into the Redstone Building in 2000 when Chris Daley, and Mission Resistance, had an office there.  A very small office, but Daley used it as his headquarters to run for Supervisor.  The Redstone has a long history of involvement in the affairs of San Francisco's labor unions and other organizations.

The building is registered as San Francisco Historic Landmark Building Number 238.  The block (its official name is "Block 34") and the building are zoned commercial, and the Planning Commission promised that this zoning would remain in place through the implementation of the Mission Plan of the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan.  One would think that "Historic Landmark Building" status would make a structure immune to the games that Planning Commissions and building contractors play, but this is not so!

One of the reasons the building has Historic status is that it was around the 1906 earthquake.  It was destroyed and burned to the ground by the ensuing firestorms, and rebuilt a few years later.  Today, the building has solar panels on the roof that would be shrouded in the shadow of the proposed new structure.

The Redstone's tenants are in considerable danger of being evicted because of a re-classification to Mixed-Use Zoning status.  San Francisco has a lot of history, like the Redstone, some of it dark and vicious:  struggles over the I-Hotel, redevelopment that destroyed the Western Addition neighborhood community and left it in limbo until the power-players-that-be deemed it time to gentrify the Fillmore with Yoshi's jazz club and much more; Lennar Corp owns the Bayview-Hunter's Point area and is content to have its way or the highway with the Navy Yard whitewash...I mean "environmental clean-up"...with the cooperation of Mayor Gavin Newsom and other folks who should know better.

Thus and thus and thus, the San Francisco Planning Commission has been working at Warp Speed to morph the 16th Street end of the Mission District (and the Mission Plan of the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan) into something unrecognizeable to anyone paying attention at the official (Sunshiny-like?) beginning of the process of planning...whatever.

The parking-lot make-over, it turns out, isn't the last word in this episode of The San Francisco Twilight Zone.  Another Con-D'oh! slated to be built as part of this project will replace a gas station and car wash across the street.  Anyone remember the song "They Paved Paradise, Put Up A Parking Lot"?  Ironic, perfectly nice pavement (and buildings) being abused, replaced with con-d'ohs.

2.  What's Wrong With This Picture?

The Redstone Building is like many houses that have been built and sold by developers who wanted to make quick bucks from flood-prone areas and didn't bother to tell the hordes of home-hungry folk seeking to become part of the property-owning class.  The area is flood-prone.  The manager of the building, deals with a virtual daily invasion of water in the basement, which would fill it to the ceiling were it left alone.

Division Street (one of many Bermuda Triangle-like streets in some large cities that create pedestrian-unfriendly micro-environments where two neighborhoods meet), at the beginning of Potrero Street--sort of part of the base of the Potrero Hill 'hood--which is within a few blocks of 16th Street, is another flood-prone area.  Residents there have endured several rain-related floods in recent years that have caused a lot of damage and traffic nightmares. 

The combined area once included Mission Creek and Dolores Lagoon, which were covered over and forgotten.  "Gone", but, actually, not forgotten.  Like the ghosts of the "Poltergeist" movies, they keep coming back to wreak havoc. 

Across the street from the Redstone is an underground electrical vault hosting pumps to get rid of more of you-know-what.  Like many other aging and long-unimproved electrical-power-channeling underground vaults in the city, which have exploded and sent human-hole covers flying into the air (sometimes severely injuring people), the pump vault is prone to catastrophic "accidents" every 3 to 5 years, leaving parts of the neighborhood in the dark.

Will the people who want to sell the condominiums they want to build next to the Redstone tell potential buyers of the risks and the frustrations (like a perpetually flooded parking garage!) they will inherit?

The Redstone also sits on top of the ancient neighborhood of the Chutchui village of the Ramaytush-speaking Ohlone people, which came to the light of day during the re-construction of the Redstone (1912-1915) when artifacts were discovered. Back in the day, often, nobody cared and artifacts were either carted off to a museum or ignored.  Today, after many Native struggles for sovereign nationhood, respect, and the honoring of burial grounds and other manifestations of historic Native presence (battles which have to be re-fought too often), one wonders if the Planning Commission knows any of this history...and if they give a damn.

Again, readers seeking to save the Redstone, preserve what little is left of the Mission District, should contact Jeanie Poling, an Environmental Planner in San Francisco’s Planning Department.  The address is 1650 Mission Street, Suite 400, SF, CA  94103.  Contact by phone is:  415-575-9072 (fax # 415-558-6409).  Poling’s email address is:  jeanie.poling@sfgov.org.

Readers should also contact Corey Teague, the case planner on the project approval (not the environmental review), at corey.teague@sfgov.org  Bill Wycko, her boss, can be contacted at bill.wycko@sfgov.org  Last, but never least, anyone concerned about this should contact San Francisco Supervisors Chris Daly and David Campos, at chris.daly@sfgov.org and david.campos@sfgov.org

In 2011 concerned people will also need to contact Jane Kim, one of several down-town un-friends of poor people candidates for District 6 who won election to that seat on the Board Of Supervisors, to let her know this is important to you.

The address of the condo project is 490 So. Van Ness Avenue, the case number of it is #2010.0043E.

“I really can’t have you guys sitting here, you need to move,” said the
security guard with tired eyes. My son and I, after ordering a slice of pizza from a
window, walked along the front to the pizza shop and sat under the front windows
with our backs on the wall. Three bites into our slice, myself sitting and by this
time my son running circles on the sidewalk in front of me, we were approached
by the security guard …“ Wait what?” I thought, “ Where are we supposed to
eat?” This was in Santa Cruz, CA April 2010. Santa Cruz’s sit-lie ordinance was
enacted in 1994.
       San Francisco has followed the trend set by cities like Santa Cruz and
Seattle in proposing a specific sit-lie ordinance making it illegal to sit or lay on
public sidewalk or on anything put on the sidewalk between the hours of 7am and
11pm. But this sit-lie ordinance is not the first of it’s kind in the city of San
Francisco, it is only the most recent attack on the city’s poor, homeless, youth,
day laborers, black and brown peoples, and people participating in underground
economic strategies. If passed in November the law would give police another
tool to criminalize these already highly criminalized people if caught sitting or
lying on public sidewalks.
       While sitting at a friends dinner table I told him about who I had seen
that day while biking around the city, “ There were elderly men resting, children
playing, people eating, mothers chatting, and groups of men talking, all while
sitting on the sidewalk,” and his response was “ They aren’t going to be
affected by this law, it is the people that businesses think are bad for business
that are going to be targeted.” In other words this is an attempt at a law that
would act as a sweeping law that would work to criminalize many of capitalism's “undesirables”.
       In a thriving western capitalist city, such as San Francisco, we are led to
believe that only certain people should be seen in public. In this city it is not okay
for people to be houseless, poverty is something to be hidden away out of the
public view because its threatens the image of a “clean “ city.
I don’t think that it was an accident that it took four years of living near the
city of Santa Cruz for me to be told to “ move along” while sitting on the sidewalk.
My white skin, clean clothes, and my association as a college student in a college
town has allowed me to mask my herstory of poverty and houselessness and, in
many authorities eyes, allowed me to be privileged enough to sit on the sidewalk
when I pleased. This is one of the layers that lies within the proposed law, in most
cases there are only some who will be harassed in the name of the sit lie
ordinance. Perceived race and economic status will determine to what extent
authorities will punish you for sitting or lying in public space.
       Many have already pointed out the law will most likely have to be used
selectively with people who are either homeless, youth, day laborers, poor, a
person of color and or those surviving on the underground economy being the
most hard hit. We are continuing in a pattern to criminalize public space and
sending a clear message that these people are not welcome or wanted in public
space.
       After this ordinance was voted down by the board of supervisors, Mayor
Gavin Newsom used his executive privileges to put it on this November's ballot
and I can’t help but wonder were is it that Gavin Newsom wants us to be? Where
is it okay to be?

Picture featured online at FederalJack.com Conspiracy is No Longer Theory.

“They (young men of color) are murdered twice, by the cops and……....... by the media!” Riveting words from D’andre, lead speaker following the march on October 22nd National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and Criminalization of a Generation.

There is only one big difference between a holiday and a day of resistance. Holidays, families in all cultures are expected to rejoice themselves through celebration and festivities. On a day of resistance, however, people are not expected to rejoice themselves, whatsoever. The reason for no rejoice for many communities of color, poverty, indigenous, and in some cases, people of privilege is injustice.

A wide spreading injustice incurable from its own diseased divide and conquering system. A structure, with a certain culture as its iron fist, deeply spirited like wicked wolves, and pit bulls. (Though they’re often slurred and referred to as “pig.”) A culture programmed by a political machine that generates repression, and oppression to the duress of the above said communities. Institutionalized in a robotic fascist form, we all become its victim, its casualty, or both:

(Resisting Linguistic Domination) LA POLICIA (Spanish) UN OFFICIER DE POLICE (French) CONSTABLE (Commonwealth of Nations, other European countries) POLICE! October 22nd National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and Criminalization of a Generation.

Or rather, "the po-lice" as we at POOR have slightly re-named it, because they crawl all over our lives everyday. "No More Stolen Lives!" People in response rally and support each other, each single year on this very day. Locally and globally, POOR Magazine/PNN re-ports on what this day means for the affected communities of this trendy terrorism through media, and sup-ports them with our presence.

Most of my family of POOR, who've had experiences of po-lice terror trade war stories often, with one another. It feel at times as if we're gathered around a campfire telling horror stories. Except our "horror" stories are not fiction, and they each target a culture that targets us 24/7. “If you don’t like Stop and Frisk!” “Let me see you raise your fist!”

Chants from the October 22nd March.

A light rainfall began to descend upon me and my comrades after we arrived from San Francisco to Oakland. It would not prevent us from solidarity. We marched from 71st /International Blvd and doubled back after an approx. eight block walk. On this very corner was the tragic death of Brownie Polk by members of the Oakland Police Department.

Hasting back and forth in carrying the POOR Magazine banner, while taking notes despite the raindrops; everyone chanted a particular question that makes one wonder if they (the Oakland Police Department) even knew the answer: “O.P.D, what do you say?” “How many kids have you killed today?”

“Can you imagine people having your back, and not SHOOTING you in the back?” D’andre yelled out to the crowd following the march. This statement from D’andre hit my mind like a blunt force. When lives are stolen (killed) by po-lice officers, the media immediately demonizes the victims by broadcasting sins from their past. This goes without saying of Oscar Grant, killed in cold blood on January 1st, 2009, (barely two hours into the new year) by BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle.

Over a year later, communities still defy an injustice of an alleged “justice” following an “involuntary manslaughter” conviction on July 8th, 2010. Though this is the first time a po-lice officer has ever been convicted in the State of California; the greatest dread by many communities is will Mehserle even serve time at all? The nature of the beast never cease to prowl within the legal system.

The next day, a rainfall increased even more into near showers as a huge turnout of communities rallied, outside Oakland City Hall at the Frank Ogawa Plaza. Community leaders, grassroots organizations, labor unions that organized this event, music artists, the family of Oscar Grant, their attorney John Burris, a live voice broadcast of political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal, Black Panther Party Chairman Bobby Seale, myself and POOR, among many others were here to overwhelm this entire unjust judicial system, once and for all.

The sight of a human being (Grant) shot once in the back as he lay spread eagle on the ground, even as he was in compliance with the orders of a remorseless po-lice officer (Mehserle) had driven us to withstand any weather condition, at this point. Po-lice exemption from accountability has gotten us beyond the point of no return.

“Unfortunately, I’m not surprised that he was murdered in cold blood.” Amy Dorris-Peter, a member of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) said to me. She further explained stating, “I think its an inherent part of capitalism to have a brutally oppressive police force.” When everyone repeated the chant “I am Oscar Grant” I hoped that no one took this lightly. Whether people were po-lice victims or not, this IS the reality.

Believe it or not, Jesus Christ himself was a true testament to this for just speaking the truth. The sight of twelve officers of the San Francisco Police Department storming into my Single Occupancy Hotel Room, at twelve midnight forcing me to lay spread eagle on my bed at gun point for a crime I didn’t commit is a testament to that reality.

“All were armed with a lie, ready to gun down the truth.” I recently said during a presentation regarding my po-lice brutality experience. When certain people are exempt from accountability and justice (in an unjust system) atmospheres of anger asserts an opposition. This particular act of injustice motivated by racist intent, has extended opposition even on a global level.

“We’ve even gotten letters of support from France, Japan, and the British Parliament.” Stated Cephus Johnson, the uncle of Oscar Grant. When crimes occur, and people are in crisis, po-lice quickly comes to their mind. Where does the officer's obligation really lie?

Is it when they are salaried from every cent spent by tax payers to “to serve and protect” while they spill the blood of the innocent, and tax the back of the working poor? Or is it while ensuring that “quality of life” doesn’t interfere with wealthy class? Everyone is entitled to safety, security, and sanctuary from harm. Its what our indigenous ancestors and elders have worked, shedded blood, and died for. Unfortunately, and as many people have even experienced, safety is too often selective. Politicians, celebrities, and authority figures are prioritized more than others.

“Can we envision ourselves collectively, interdependently, dreaming and holding our ancestors teachings?” is the question and challenge my mentor and POOR co-founder, “Tiny” Lisa Gray Garcia presents to the world in her article, “No Police Terror.” She offers an explanation to the answer to this solution, and the only one at best. “How does this happen. It begins with us breaking through the hypocrisy of our own lives on the daily. Recognizing our own impulse to resort to po’lice calls in situations of struggle cause it’s easier and faster to solve a “difficult problem” But of course it’s much deeper than that.” http://poormagazine.org/node/3165

Thus, POOR Magazine/PNN practices absolutely NO PO-LICE CALLS EVER!! Instead, we collectively address accountability in a community circle, called “Family Council” oversighted by our indigenous ancestors. During the Slave Era, when a black slave escaped, white slave catchers carried their lanterns, and sicced their hounds on them.

Once caught, they were either lynched or severely beaten beyond humanity, as a punishment for their defiance to enslavement. In eras of unforgettable uprisings, such as the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, dogs, water hoses, and batons were (and still are) used as tools to torment marchers. Old World Order.

Present day, po-lice culture and its proponents have immobilized communities, backlogged oversight agencies, purposely prolonged court processes, implemented po-lice protect laws, routine-d rallies, and discouraged many from the will to fight back. Its trademark symbolism, globally and locally is not just unjustified "Use of Force" by an officer, but its visible detail of intimidation as well. Its members are men and women of color. New World Order. An old saying goes, "To strike terror into the hearts of evil doers."

Consequently, this can apply to anyone that’s viewed as weak and vulnerable.

The image of individuals in a well-tailored uniform, bearing shiny stars (badge) broad shoulders, a militant masculine mentality, and armed with a gun. A hierarchical attitude soon follows, with a voice sounding robotic-ally rehearsed, in fascist formulation. Like corporate mainstream media, just a few choice of words can dehumanize one’s spirit, especially when society perpetuates this culture as “role models.”

How can they possibly give lectures at schools knowing they’ve run houseless/landless people off of sidewalks, fined them for pushing shopping carts, sitting on sidewalks, harassing them for holding a newspaper (Street Sheet) for donations, evicting families from vehicles, (parking violations) racial profiling, and murdering the youth?

In cases involving women and children beaten, raped, tasered, and ultimately killed by po-lice officers, where can “justice” lie when the judicial system not only fail to convict, but refuse to do so even when these crimes are proven “beyond a shadow of a doubt.” Instead, they’ve choose to recycle them through re-evaluation, re-training, and alleged admonishments. Crimes cannot arrest crimes anymore than the blind can lead the blind.

The state of their mind in light of these instances is quite frightening, as well as their “mental health crisis intervention” towards a citizen. “Asking the police to do mental health intervention is like asking a mortician to deliver babies.” Explains my comrade, director of Idriss Stelley Action Resource Center, mesha Monge-Irizarry. The death of her son Idriss who was felled 48 shots by S.F.P.D. Officers as he suffered a psychological breakdown prompted her activism against po-lice terror. mesha even took a 15 week Citizen’s Training at the S.F.P.D. Academy where she was told “Remember, we are not psychiatrists, or social workers. We always shoot at center mass.”

I personally feel that just like the military, they are hired for a terrifying purpose………...regardless if (and I do mean if) they truly want to “make a difference” and being a “good cop.”

At the Oscar Grant Rally, Chairman Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party recalled a past event in which a white po-lice officer actually did the right thing. In breaking down the “Blue Wall of Silence” the cop turned over secret files to the Black Panther Party, in exposing the F.B.I’s secret covert organization “Cointelpro” and their illegal activities. Talk about revolutionary consciousness!

I offer a series of questions and even challenge them once they read (po-lice) my article.

“Would this difference include telling the truth if your comrade brethren committed a crime? Would you be remorseful, do the right thing even if it meant your job and your life? Will you po-lice, on global levels do the same and disengage from oppression? Would you plea guilty and not “feel guilty” for your crime, unlike the pathetic claims of Johannes Mehserle following his verdict? Who’s life more sacred, yours…….……....or mine?” So very few seldom do.

Excerpt from a Proclamation by the People: The days when this system can just keep on doing what it does to people, here and all over the world, when people are not inspired and organized to stand up against outrages, and to build up the strength to put an end to this madness. Those days must be GONE…..…..and they can be.