Story Archives 2011

            “You- are -eight-y sixed”, he unblinkingly growled through bared teeth. What is eighty sixed? I thought to myself.  The bar blurred, my pants grew moist and the rancid smell of alcohol filled my nostrils. I was on a Bar’s floor with a pool stick around my neck. Once the pool stick was taken from around my neck I instantly called the police.

            The police arrived, they spoke with the perpetrator and his friends, whom were the bar’s staff. The police came to speak with me. After our short dialogue they asked me to get into the police car. I refused and ended up tussling with the police for fifteen minutes. I did not have one drink nor a Breathalyzer and there I was spending my Friday on the cold cement floor of the San Francisco County jail’s drunk tank. This night is one of many examples of profiling that I have experienced being a young woman of color.

            This is the same type of racial profiling and harassment that led to the death of Raheim Brown. 20-year-old Raheim Brown was shot and killed by the Oakland Unified School District’s police force outside Skyline High School. The police stated that Brown tried to stab an officer with a screwdriver, and a second officer shot Brown five times – once in each arm, once in his chest and twice in his head – in defense of his partner. Tamisha Stewart, the only civilian witness to the killing, who was in a car with Brown outside Skyline High, spoke for the first time publicly about the event. The screwdriver Brown was accused of using as a weapon, according to Stewart, was being used in an attempt to hotwire the car, and it “never left the ignition.”

            One of the root causes of racial profiling is the criminalization of poor people and peoples of color. Another example of this is the recent case of low-income African descendant mother of two, Kelley Williams-Bolar served nine days in jail, is currently on parole and faces a huge fine. As result of the Ohio state law that mandates that a person with a felony cannot be a teacher she is no longer eligible to pursue her career as a teacher despite the fact that she is very close to receiving her certification. Kelly William-Bola is being convicted of falsifying records so that her children could receive a quality education and would not be subjected to the sub-standard education that was available to them.

            Kelly William-Bola and Raheim Brown are heart throbbing stories of how our unjust educational institutions in combination with police violence against people of color can rob a person of their careers and lives. In my opinion we must become a part of our schools community to stimulate positive change and deconstruct the stereotypes of people of color. We must also pursue our education and link up with organizations that are currently laying the groundwork to resist, such as the Idriss Stelley foundation which was organized to combat racial intolerance and violence. La Mesha Irizarry formed this organization after the murder of her son by the SFPD..

The morning I got out of the drunk tank these injustices hit me hard. Since then I have learned there are many forms of resistance. I myself choose to write about the injustice we encounter along life’s journey. Choose your resistance nich!  For we are all woven tightly with a common goal, justice.

I met DJ Danforth at a Reproductive Rights Conference that I was a presenter at. I heard him spoke at the Indigenous Peoples Caucus and knew I needed to get a interview with him. I cound out he was part of the Tha Tribe (a Rounddance group) and had to hear a song. I love his perspective on the feminine and masculine!

I met Gaby at the From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom at Hampshire College. Her mother was a co-presenter with me on a lecture about community healing. I love meeting women who hold it down for their families, and Mala is at the top of that list. The result she produce is her beautiful daughter Gaby who inspires me to be the authentic self that I am.

Her daughter and I connected on many levels and she even knew how I was a butterfly from the beginning and showed me the colors of a butterfly that I am. I love her... Enjoy one of our many conversations about the word... WEPA!

The Empire strikes black and all other poor and at risk people

Monday, February 15, 2010

Bass in your face on an 8 track givin’it good to the wood’s so the people can give me some reaction to the fact’s that I kick, givin’ it up so turn me loose then again I got a story that’s harder than the hard cost, cost of the haulacaust I’m talkin’ ‘bout the one still goin’ on… beware of the hand when it’s comin from the left I ain’t trippin’ just watch your step can’t Truss it! --Chuck D. Public Enemy

Often times we as poor people get so bogged down by poverty itself and defending ourselves from other poor folks , priveleged people the system itself and or a combination of 2 or all three that we don’t take the time to try to get even a little enjoyment out of life.

Two ways that I have found to personally deal with my own struggles with poverty and the baggage that is associated with it are #1 getting out and involving myself with social events in my community which includes entertainment i.e. movies ,concerts, and other such events which I shall further revue and discuss in the future. #2 developing a dark since of humor . The following article will be presentend not only as actual events in my personal and current struggle but also as a political satire using the Star Wars trilogy as a model. I Brother Y! shall take on the persona of O.G.Won Cannabis B! The current manager of the Allstar shall be refered to as Java the Butt and the S.F.P.D. as The Storm troopers.

Not very long ago [in fact in the present] in a community near you [if you’re ,poor , disabled or otherwise at risk,it is in your community]

It is a period of war against the poor[ so called quality of life violations, laws that were created intentionally to have a negative impact on the poor and other extremely desperate individuals] and budget cuts, rebel freedom fighters striking from hidden bases in the real world and in cyber space have won their first big victory against the evil California State Government led by the evil dictator Grand Moff Governater Schwarzenhater, with the use of the Jett-I mind trick the rebels have managed to get the other evil empire[The Federal Government of the United Snakes of Amerikkka] to force the hand of the California prison system to release thousands of inmates convicted of non-violent offenses from the California Penal System during the battle rebel infiltrators manage to steal secret plans for the Allstar a.k.a. “The DeathStar” a dilapidated pest infested,miswired, blown out plumbing Single Room Occupancy hotel known as an s.r.o. or welfare hotel

Run be the evil overlord and poverty pimp Darth Hater Sha[his real name is a four letter word but 4 letters is way more than he deserves] with enough bueacracy to run the poor out of town

Faze of the evil Mayor Darth Douche Bag Newsom’s plans “to end homelessness as we know it” a.k.a. “the final solution” ,[sometime in the latter part of 2009 Newsom imposed a a “soft drink” tax yet another way of attempting to balance the budget on the back’s of the poor, being that poor people drink more soft drinks than anyother class of people, ironically now some brands of imported beer are less exspensive to purchase than domestic soft drinks. Even more ironic soft drinks both diet and the sugary kind can literally save the lives of diabetic’s and other’s with blood sugar diseases or disorder’s ,and again their are more poor people who fall in these categories than any other socio-economic group.

Burdened with the perils of single parenthood, a low budget that’s closer to no budget most of the time and tons of baggage from being poor and raised “homeless” in Amerikkka, Lisa a.k.a. “Tiny” co -founder and director of POOR Magazine races on her bicecleta, custodian of the stolen plans that can restore freedom to all the playaz in the state…

Once again it’s on at the AllStar a.k.a. “The DeathStar

Once again it’s on at the AllStar a.k.a. “The DeathStar” management is up to their old tricks or need I say never stopped.In the past few months they have posted flyer’s all over the hotel “ informing “ tenants of the following

ATTENTION ALL TENANTS

Beginning Immediately we are asking you to please

STOP bringing (LARGE)

household size refrigerators into your units.

We are trying to cut back our energy bill.

If you bring a household size refrigerator into

the building you will be asked

immediately to take the equipment off of the premises.

If you do not take the refrigerator off the premises

it will lead to disciplinary action.

Small personal refrigerators are still permitted.

Java the Butt inter-galactic prankster ,to bad none of his jokes or pranks are funny alleged called former gang member [yeah, right!] continues his harassment of O.G. Won Cannabis B!

In his first attack against O.G. The Butt attacks him with a written lease violation for allegedly using to much toilet paper and not flushing the toilet.

After the Butt see’s that O.G. is a fighter and not a bitch like him this “lease violation” miracoulously disappears

Over the course of the following months the Butt sends more lease violations for allegedly baking marijuana brownies. Although the people of California passed proposition 215 thirteen years prior and to some degree took power away from the state to enforce federal laws against marijuana some storm troopers and other haters persist such is the case with the Butt.

Eventually the Butt begins to call in Stormtroopers regarding the brownies.

On the first occaision O.G. incorporates the Jett-I mind trick and the stormtrooper tells management not to call back. Because the Butt is an extreme hater the lease violations regarding brownies continue, but to no avail because O.g. is a true soldier! Again the StormTroopers are summoned and once again the Jett-I mind trick is applied this time the stormTroopers say they don’t smell marijuana completely knocking the wind out of the sails of the Butt , but because he has no work ethic other than trying to get others to do his work and is obviously a slow learner, he continues to harass in every possible way his little pea brain will allow! The Butt’s Lackey’s and ass kissers [droids] continue to harass and attempt to cause discomfort to O.G.

Who shall be the Luke SkyWalker character in this topsy- turvy almost surreal but to true to be fiction where names were changed To protect the not so innocent? Stay tuned o true believers!

Recently while attempting to converse with the maintainence man he became decidedly beligerent when I attempted to talk with him regarding the hotel, however I must say in his defense that not only is he the best maintainence man that we have had since I moved in close to five years ago, but if all T.H.C. employee’s worked as hard as him I would have very few complaint’s personalitie’s not withstanding! However knowing what I do know about him I think a lot of it is him taking pride in his work and almost literally having nothing to work with but still being espected to perform within the time frame given, regardless the truth must be told not only for my own peace of mind but for the sake of justice. The janitor of the death-star works hard but needs additional help. It is entirely to large of a space to honestly espect one person to cover in a forty hour work week. Occasionally when enough of the tenants complain long enough a janitor is added for a few hour’s over the weekend.

And then when no one is looking without any explanation they stop showing up.What is needed is one full time janitor, And one part time janitor to work who would work a minimum of four, four hour shifts. Sometime in the latter part of 2009 ,all Tenderloin housing clinic employee’s who handle trash were instructed to periodically empty

Small amounts of garbage from all receptacles into one main trash bag, in order to save money.This is an obvious bio-hazard that not only effects tenants it also effects employee’s and the comunity at large. Especially in an age that it appears a new or ever evolving pathogen seems to be introduced into the eco system at least once a year.

Towards the end of last year grand moff douchebag Newsom created a special “tax” for soft drinks . This is not only unfair to poor people who drink more soft drinks than anyone, but also to folks with diabetes and other blood sugar disorders for diabetics a sugary soft drink can save their life and the same goes for a diet drink[ if anything he should be giving them coupons to farmers market!] for a guy who claims to be so sensetive to gay marriage he sure seems to be insensetive to poor peoples right to survive many of whom are gay! He sure seems to want the rest of us to suck it up and take it in the hip, as it were! Now he and Chief Gascon want to make it illegal to sit or lie on the sidewalk. Isn’t that the way Hitler got started!

Po' Wars- The Po'lice

The saga continues, The onslaught continues as the evil emperoer Newsom sends armed and un armed stormtroopers to attack the defenseless poor in a plot to evil to be fiction the sight of the latest atrocities is literally right under our nose’s at Po’ H.Q.

The corner of 16th and Mission was swarming with police and Muni meter maids.At least 4 uniformed SFPD officers were present along with an equal number of meter maids.

Why is there never this much show of force in the rich white neighborhoods where just as many if not more sneak on the back of the bus who can actually afford the ridiculously high fare of $2.

This is an impoverished neighborhood of working poor folks struggling with feeding their children,keeping them in school and many seeking employment.There certainly was’nt this much show of force the night my head was split open in front of the building that houses the humble office of POOR magazine. In fact the Sargeant who showed up on the scene first wanted to put the blame on me.I guess being black, a local and having dreads is indicative of a crime!

Say’s RAM, staff writer at POOR Magazine “I was almost arrested,for shouting, How come you don’t do this in rich neighborhoods? You only do it in the ghetto and the barrio!”

This is just another example of the evil empereor Newsom attempting to close his budget shortfalls with double jeopardy and double standards. Muni just recently raised the fare and intends to do so again with cuts in services in the neighborhoods that struggle the hardest financially. Enough is enough it is time to hold the alleged leaders accountable for their evil deeds!

Monday, February 15, 2010;

People protest the treatment of sex workers

Voices shouted out on Polk Street near Sutter Street in San Francisco. Organized by Rachel West of US PROS (US Prostitutes Collective), a group gathered to protest the treatment and plight of sex workers. This is a highly vulnerable and easily exploited group that now faces further oppression by an increasingly aggressive SF Police force.

Since January 1st, 36 women and 15 men have been arrested for soliciting. This intensified policing has caused a number of unfortunate consequences including pushing sex workers into more isolated areas, which places them in far greater danger. Rachel also said that Police stings send the message to violent men that sex workers are fair game. Lori Nairne, a nurse, said that killers often start with sex workers and go on to kill other women.

This action drew at its peak more than a dozen protesters and about a dozen members of the media and police. At one time, there were at least five simultaneous video-graphers documenting the event including one from KGO and another from our local NBC network affiliate.

Another purpose of this rally is to voice opposition to our city's proposed plan to post arrested client mug photos online. This helps no one. It just hurts everyone involved. It will also needlessly break up families, damage social networks, cause job loss and as secondary fallout, leave even more children unsupported and traumatized.

Additionally, Rachel said that the enforcement of solicitation laws produces a disproportionate impact on minorities. Black women are seven times more likely to be arrested. Men of color also make up 40% of the men arrested. Most tragically, immigrant women are routinely targeted for both arrest and then deportation which often separates them from their families.

Rachel stated how San Francisco's politicians blame sex workers for the increasing visibility of street prostitution while conveniently forgetting that we are in the middle of the worst economic recession since the great depression. The fact is that about 70% of all sex workers are mothers trying to support their families. It is even more tragic that of the millions in city funds spent on prostitution enforcement, our city is robbed of the same amount of money that could have been used to help lift people out of poverty. In 2005, San Francisco spent 11.4 million on enforcement. Spending has only gone up since then.

Many countries (e.g. Germany, Australia, Netherlands, New Zealand, etc.) have decriminalized prostitution and as a result have enjoyed many societal benefits. These include lower rates of all types of sex crimes and markedly safer conditions for those who work or purchase services in their sex industries. These countries benefit from significantly lower rates of rape, sexual assault and other sex crimes.

Rape doesn't just traumatize its immediate victim, often for life, but often transmits and reverberates its trauma throughout the victim's social network. Children, spouses, parents, siblings and friends of the victim are also severely impacted, often for years or decades.

A single rape can result in an unending multi-dimensional severe form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for every person that cares for or depends upon the victim. Therefore, if a society possesses knowledge of how to reduce its frequency of sexual assaults, it can and should do everything possible to act upon this knowledge. To not act is a crime of both omission and negligence. Easier access to prostitution reduces rape. This has been found in every country that tried it.

In 1996, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors established a task force on prostitution. This resulted in a two year examination of the impact of prostitution laws and policy in the city. This study made a number of significant findings. They included the following.

a) San Francisco's enforcement of its prostitution laws marginalizes and victimizes prostitutes making it more difficult for those who want to get out and also more difficult for those who remain to claim their civil and human rights.

b) Once a person gets a rap sheet as a known prostitute she/he is trapped and stigmatized for life, unable to pursue other jobs.

c) Prostitutes are afraid to call the police when they are crime victims, for fear of being arrested themselves.

d) Enforcement targets those most vulnerable, including African American, transgender and immigrant women and rather than reduce prostitution, it just pushes them from one place to the next.

This report recommended shifting spending from law enforcement to services and alternatives for the prostitutes themselves.

In 1998, a public hearing by the Commission on the Status of Women reported some very troubling findings. They included:

a) While prostitutes suffer an extremely high incidence of violence they are least likely to report violence and rarely seek crisis support services.

b) Police do not take violence against prostitutes seriously. Rather, they are typically treated with disregard and contempt. Also, police misconduct and violence against prostitutes is commonplace in San Francisco and that women on the streets believe they are at risk of sexual assault and other abuse from members of the San Francisco Police Department.

c) Prostitution is inextricably linked to poverty, limited employment opportunities and the challenges of being the sole support for one's children.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors' Mitigating Violence Against Prostitutes Resolution passed in 2000. Its task force recommendations included:

a) Criminalization of prostitution only forces prostitution further underground and increases incidents of violence against prostitutes . . . such as coercion, extortion, rape, battery, robbery, attempted homicide.

b) Many of these women have children and must rely on prostitution to support their families. Prostitution often results from rejection by family, poverty and homelessness.

This resolution was supported by our city's Immigrant Rights Commission, the Youth Commission and our Human Rights Commission among many other groups and individuals.

It should also be noted that in 2008, while Proposition K, the attempt to decriminalize prostitution, failed because of a well funded campaign of disinformation and misinformation, it still won 41% of the ballot vote.

Peoples attitudes continue to change. More and more believe it is time for our society to stop living by antiquated puritan values. Many now believe it is also a self-evident Human Right to decide for ourselves what one can or cannot do with their own bodies.

This includes the right to rent them out. People already legally rent out their minds, hands and legs. Renting one's body is seen as a basic issue of personal liberty. Until enough citizens stand up for this basic right, this war of oppression against sex workers will not stop.

The US PROStitutes Collective phone number is 415-626-4114.

Their contact address is PO BOX 14512, San Francisco, CA 94114.

Two additional informative websites include:

http://allwomencount.net/

http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/

Friday, January 15, 2010

From 1997 to 2001, Craig Rosebraugh acted as a public spokesperson for the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a self-described “international, underground movement consisting of autonomous groups of people who carry out direct action in defense of the planet.” On February 12, 2002, Rosebraugh was made to testify against his will before the US Congress’ House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health. The FBI had recently declared the ELF the #1 domestic terrorist threat, and Congress had subpoenaed Rosebraugh demanding he help them investigate “eco-terrorism.” Rosebraugh had already received seven grand jury subpoenas from various federal investigations, but had always refused to cooperate. After he rejected this particular Subcommittee’s offer to voluntarily testify, they seemed to think that intimidation might help. They were wrong.

Rosebraugh invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 54 times that day, instead issuing his now-famous 11-page statement declaring that “the US government by far has been the most extreme terrorist organization in planetary history,” He cited a long list of crimes, beginning with the history of Black chattel slavery and the genocide of indigenous peoples, and concluding with a long list of US military interventions since WWII. He argued that it was hypocritical to label the ELF “terrorist,” since all ELF actions had been directed towards corporate property, and had never injured anyone: “This noble pursuit does not constitute terrorism, but rather seeks to abolish it.”

Rosebraugh has since continued his public advocacy of direct action and has edited a new book entitled This Country Must Change: Essays on the Necessity of Revolution in the USA. This collection of twelve essays, most written by current and former political prisoners, discusses the many problems with today’s corporate state and why the contributors believe a fundamental revolution is the only practical solution. Furthermore, Rosebraugh writes that “it is literally impossible to create fundamental political and social change by strictly adhering to only those methods approved by the government.”

Many of these writers were imprisoned for their actions with the ELF or with other groups that have used extreme direct action tactics, such as sabotage. These tactics will doubtless remain controversial, but This Country Must Change makes clear how important it is that activists reject the state’s vilification of those who use unlawful tactics. Their voices reveal that they are not “agent provocateurs,” but well-intentioned, thoughtful individuals who felt limited by lawful protest tactics. Therefore, even if many in the activist community do not agree with authors’ more radical tactics, this should not be a reason to ostracize political prisoners who badly need our support.

Jeff “Free” Luers was one of the first targeted in the recent “Green Scare” repression wave against environmental activists. He received a 23-year sentence in 2001 after he admitted setting fire to several SUVs at a Eugene, Oregon car dealership. He was also convicted of putting an incendiary device on an oil delivery truck, but he has always repudiated this charge. In 2009, his sentence was reduced and he was released this past December. In his essay here, Luers defends his actions: “when faced with the degree our own government has colluded to cover up global warming, dismantle the endangered species act, give industry loopholes around the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, and in general put corporate interests before the interests of its own people, the use of extreme direct action, such as sabotage or arson, against government and corporate institutions or their agents is justified.”

Luers recognizes the complexity and “the severity of extreme direct action,” writing “the tactic of property destruction is not nonviolent. It is true that the violence is not directed against life. Yet, property destruction, particularly arson, can create a level of fear and insecurity in those targeted…It is not a tactic that should be romanticized or taken lightly.” As a strategy for making change, Luers emphasizes “sabotage and political arson are only tools. Outside of targeting a specific company until it is forced out of business, they will not and cannot create social change. Only a change in the social consciousness and thinking can do that.” Luers concludes that “like the numerous successful social justice movements that have come before, only the successful weaving of multiple strategies will lead to success. The combined efforts of education, non-violent protest, and militant resistance is the only method by which to both raise public awareness and confront those responsible for ongoing injustices.”

The book’s most obvious shortcoming is the dearth of female writers. Rosebraugh apologizes for this, explaining that the publisher, Arissa Media Group, is planning a follow-up book focusing on female activists. The sole female voice comes from Ramona Africa, of the MOVE Organization. Africa was imprisoned for seven years, after she survived the May 13, 1985 police assault on MOVE’s West Philadelphia home. The police killed 6 adults and five children that day, firing over 10,000 rounds of gunfire, dropping a C-4 bomb on the roof that started a fire, and shooting at the occupants who tried to escape. The MOVE Commission later appointed by the mayor concluded that the deaths of the children “appeared to be unjustified homicides which should be investigated by a grand jury,” however no official has ever faced criminal charges. This backdrop illustrates the truth in Africa’s argument that “legal is not the same as right. Apartheid, The Holocaust, Slavery were all legal and all wrong. Resisting these horrors were all ‘illegal’ but they certainly were not wrong. It is our duty, our obligation to revolt against anything that wrongs us, our babies, our family in any way and nobody can prove this position wrong.”

Other featured writers present a variety of strategic plans to build a popular movement, including former Black Panther Jalil Muntaquim, a widely recognized political prisoner from the COINTELPRO era. Muntaquim argues that a call for human rights should be central to movement-building because it synthesizes many issues, makes the struggle international, and “embodies the collective human will to be free from racist, capitalist-imperialist oppression and domination.”

Chicano anarchist Rob Los Ricos was released from prison in June 2006, following his conviction for allegedly throwing a rock at a police officer during a Reclaim The Streets protest in Eugene, Oregon on June 18, 1999. He writes that we are suffering from “a failure of imagination. We cannot envision a world, or a way of living, that is vastly different (personally rewarding, nurturing, cooperative, gentle on our planet) because it is beyond the reach of our imagination.” To counter this, he argues that “we need to band together with strong-willed and like-minded people in order to produce working models of how we think life could be, were there not coercive forces severely limiting our option.”

This Country Must Change makes two important contributions to US activist literature. It raises awareness around the neglected issue of political prisoners and state repression, and it encourages an honest dialogue and critical thinking about the effectiveness of activist strategies and tactics. Readers may not agree with everything written here, but they will certainly have their beliefs challenged.

--Hans Bennett is an independent multi-media journalist (www.insubordination.blogspot.com) and co-founder of Journalists for Mumia (www.abu-jamal-news.com). This article was first published at www.towardfreedom.com on January 13, 2009.
 

We used to be here

Living, working and keeping families near

Then Land and lives were stolen

Through paper trails and legal theft

We the original peoples must get clear

We must resist ...

...excerpt from Walking Softly on our Mama (Earth)

The boards were up. Tall, thick, plywood boards, standing upright, like the multiple lids of coffins. Coffin lids covering vast plate glass windows that fronted the used to be thriving but now-dead Van Ness Bakery, the furniture store, the restaurant, the hotel,  and within a few months, the homes of 11 disabled elders in poverty who reside in the Single Room Occupancy Hotel rooms on the block of Van Ness to Geary to Polk. An entire block was dead and a hospital killed it.

The Block was “Killed”  by the Sutter Health Corporation and its affiliate, California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC)in a move of intentional blight to a thriving neighborhood by CPMC in order to garner building permits to construct a huge corporate hospital complex which hasn’t received planning commission approval yet a hospital built to serve rich people who don’t even live in the surrounding Tenderloin neighborhood.

“Many people in the Tenderloin rely on Medi-Cal and charity care services and are concerned that CPMC has one of the worst records of serving the poor in San Francisco,” said Nella Manuel, a Tenderloin resident and Medi-Cal patient who lives just a few blocks from CPMC’s proposed new hospital at Van Ness and Geary.  Despite record profits, CPMC has some of the lowest records in the City of serving charity care and Medi-Cal patients.

The Van Ness Bakery employed nine poor migrant women. Nine daughters, aunties & mothers. They were paid a living wage by the immigrant family who owned the shop. They had a steady and loyal business. The furniture store,  restaurant and hotel employed several hundred people . All of these workers’ are now unemployed

From our first day in San Francisco, while in and out houselessness and deep poverty, my disabled mama and I  always found a hospitable space in the Bakery to sit and drink pre-corporate, diner-style coffee and munch on chocolate iced cake donuts. Since my mama’s passing in 2006 and later, PNN co-editor Tony Robles’s Uncle Al Robles, my son and I still went in daily to get coffee, remember my mama and get her and Uncle Al’s donuts to place on their altars as an offering, always given to us for free by the staff of humble, indigenous diasporic daughters who worked at the Bakery to support families in struggle.

Monday, March 28^th 2011 was the Bakery’s last day open. POOR Magazine staged a grief rally outside the Bakery. Myself and fellow poverty scholars from POOR, Muteado Silencio, Charles Pitts, Bruce Allison and Carina Lomeli laid our bodies down on the sidewalk, while Marlon Crump, “playing” a character called, Corporate Death, covered us with a black sheet, a staging by POOR’s Theatre of the POOR to mark the death of a neighborhood by a corporation and its subsequent criminalization of the poor people who dare to sit, stand, congregate or lie on the now-empty block.

We used to be here

Walking Softly on Mama Earth

And then there were red-lines, bread-lines, outcomes

And paper trails

All leading to the stealing of our, land, jobs and homes

Cleaning Lady

By RWS

Chinatowns of america--run from coast to coast, from Trinity county to sisikyu mountains, from locke california, to king street seattle, from stockton to San Francisco hidden cobblestone alleyways, from canton to fairfield. leongs, lims, chins, wongs, laus, lees, choys, toms fill the chinatown landscape. gung yan rise like winter storms. steel rails whip around gold mountain. --From "Chinatown Blues for Blues poets" by Al Robles

For some reason I look forward to seeing her.  I am a doorman. I sit at a fancy marble desk as classical music is piped in through the overhead speakers.   The apartment complex is much like a museum.  I spend much time cleaning the marble counter with a cloth and purple colored solution.  The floor tiles sparkle and I buff the countertop.  I see my reflection along with the reflection of the chandelier.  I buff rigorously, using circular motions.  I buff over my image, my face—trying to make it disappear but all I get is a shinier version of my own face and cleaning solution mist in my lungs.

She walks in.  She smiles to hide her shyness.  Hello, she says, carrying a vacuum, broom and bucket filled with cleaning supplies.  “I’m here to clean MS’s apartment”, she says.   MS, the CEO of some kind of marketing company.  I’ve nicknamed him “The whale” for his resemblance to that marine mammal.  I picture him floating, his back hovering over the face of the ocean looking into an endless sky, a small bird landing on his barge-like belly pecking away until it pops.  The bird flutters away and so does MS, like a big balloon farting away all that air, launching into oblivion among the heavens, only to create a blip upon hitting the water below.

I open the vendor book and ask her to sign it.  I look at her hands.  Her skin is the skin of a poem, a history of a people who built a civilization, railroads, and Chinatowns in Amerikkk.   Her skin is slightly burnt in the bursting sun and cool in the turquoise water of memory.  She signs the book and I tell her that someone from the maintenance department will let her into the apartment she is scheduled to clean (since the whale is not home to graciously welcome her with a cavernous belly full of kindness).  I call maintenance on the walkie talkie.  The supervisor, a burly Latino man who I’ve affectionately nicknamed, “Buffalo meat”, responds by saying that I should call someone in the leasing office to let the cleaning lady in.  I call the leasing office—no response, probably busy on the phone.  I want to call Buffalo Meat back on the radio to ask him to open the unit but he is gruff, with a tendency to grunt his thoughts as well as his afterthoughts, and, heaven forbid, that I make him grunt unnecessarily.  I call leasing again and again there is no answer.  The cleaning lady is standing there, on the clock—the clock on her—with a limited amount of time to complete the job—at a minimum rate of pay.  I look at the security monitor and see Buffalo Meat leaning against a wall talking to a coworker.  The cleaning lady smiles a nervous smile.  Is her time not worth anything to these people?  We wait.

There’s a musical quality to her voice.  When she speaks, the classical music on the overhead speakers fade—all that composition passed down through the ages—violins, oboes, cellos, harps, cymbals—all melt away when she speaks. I ask her where she's from.   I’m from China, she says, carrying her cleaning supplies”.  “I’m here to clean MS’s apartment”.  She’s conscious of her accent but not overly so.  Her voice is like the whisper of a bell, or the jazz notes of a vibe player whose sounds fill up a room with colors that only the heart can see.  Soon she is led to MS’s apartment, led by a leasing agent with a leasing agent’s voice, leasing agent’s walk and leasing agent’s talk.  She pushes her vacuum and balances her supply buckets and brooms through a world that is out of balance.  She is left to do her job.  She does it.  I’m at the desk doing mine.  Her name is in the sign-in book.  I close it, the classical music plays.  Suddenly I hear the vacuum cleaner and the sound of a broom brushing aside what needs to be brushed aside.  The classical music fades and i think of my father and uncles who did  janitorial work in the past, whose opportunities were limited but whose lives and songs resonate within me deeper than any symphony.  Their lives provide the music to which i write.  All is silent for a moment.  Then I hear the voice:  My name is Janice,  I’m here to...

Her voice fills this empty space for the moment.

Interview with the Raven known as Yoazz

I caught up with a raven while walking home.  The raven indicated that he was a philosopher.  I told him I’d been trying to catch up with him for quite some time.  He informed me that his name was YOAZZ…and that he didn’t really want to get into my shit—but since I was being a rather insistent pain in the ass—he’d grant me a few minutes of his time.

Q: Nice day isn’t it?

A: What Yoazz know about a nice day?

Q: Ok, then it isn’t a nice day.

A: Yoazz gettin’ smart with me?  If you is…then I’ll put my foot in Yoazz

Q:  You mean you’ll put your talon in my ass?

A:  Oh…yoazz an intellectual, huh?

Q: No, just wanted to ask you a question

A: Go ahead…make it quick.  I ain’t got all day to wait on yoazz

Q: What do you think about Twitter?

A: A punk ass bird of the highest order.  Yoazz would mention that.  Twitter is the type of bird that just flew into town and think they own it—the kind that wants to fly but don’t want to pay the fiddler.

Q: The Fiddler?

A: Yeah, you know…payroll taxes.  Yoazz know what that is…right?  I think Noam Chomsky had a name for it…corporate welfare freak…that’s right.  Twitter is a welfare freak with a bit of punk ass bird mixed in.  They are a typical hipster, filled with entitlement and subcriptions of  7 X 7 Magazine that they recycle as well as their thoughts.  They hover around the cafes posing and prancing and displaying their bad art/bad tattoos and hipster ways, gathering about like a preponderance of flies swarming around mounds of horseshit left behind courtesy of  SFPD mounted patrol.  Basically a high-tech hipster that wants a free ride.  I'm just a low tech bird on another altitude--and this ain't no platitude--but i'm into solitude.   That's why I didn't want to get into your shit today.  But i'm just hanging loose, you know?

Q: I see.  What else have you been doing with yourself?

A: just flying around here and there. I see lots of guys that look like YOAZZ…gathering together like barnacles on a defunct ship.

Q: Where are they?

A: Yoazz know where they at…they at the mall, getting into shape

Q: Shape?

A: Yeah…mall shape.  Yoazz can't miss 'em coming and going out of the parking lots, big guts hanging out stuffing their faces with cotton candy, corn dogs, burritos and lemonade.  It’s a shame, a lot of them guys are in their late 20’s, early 30’s, the prime of life.  But all the fire is gone, replaced by fat.  With all the injustice and wrongdoing staring them right in the nose, their big concerns are car seat cushions, videogames and air freshener.  And don't get me started on their cell phones.  Eyes and ears on those cell phones.  Why don't they just put those cell phones between two pieces of bread, slap a little mustard on 'em and eat them, then wash it down with a Yoohoo or something?  When it comes out the other end, it'll, no doubt, be one long text message that says very little.  I just shake my head and ask myself, these are men? 

Q: What’s the answer?

A:  I wish I knew.  These folks got to get some fire somehow.  The sad thing is that most people are gone, shot before the age of 35.

Q: Shot?

A: Yeah…shot.  You know, like a fighter that just can’t do it anymore…or the elastic on a pair of underwear.  When it’s gone, it’s gone.  Kiss it goodbye.  No more fire.

Q: Any last words?

A: Yeah, get yoazz outta my face before I lose my fire.

© 2011 RWS