Story Archives 2012

A chill wind whipped thru Pine Ridge, slowing to caress the abandoned automobiles and boarded up shacks that litter the reservation before regaining its strength to scatter the abandoned hopes and dreams of the people who live there, scatter them like so many tumbleweeds. Tendrils of that wind seep into one of many disintegrating housing units, and we follow that wind inside.

Millie Poor Bear stands on a chair, tattooed hands making an adjustment to her final ensemble. It was a snug fit, but that was for the best. She gazed across the room into a cracked mirror that reflected back several Millie Poor Bears, ranging from a smiling round-faced toddler to the ravaged features of a once beautiful young woman. All had their stories to tell.

The tall man strides past the small child, whose upraised arms and pleading eyes signal her desperate need for affection. The child trails behind her father as he opens drawers and cupboards in an increasing frenzy, his anxiety curtailed by the discovery of a bottle of 30% alcohol mouthwash under the bathroom sink.

Dropping the now empty bottle into a bathtub, Lester Poor Bear notices his daughter gazing at him wide eyed. Bending down to scoop the child into his arms, he teeters bowlegged into the kitchen and returns to the cupboards, finding a can of government peanut butter with a little remaining at the bottom. Spreading it on a cracker and filling a bottle with water, he sets Millie onto his knee and gives her breakfast. The memory of these few moments will be treasured by the girl.

Alone again in the house, the youngster sits and looks out the window, awaiting her father’s return. Much time will be spent in this manner in the coming years, a child’s lonely vigil.

The tall girl strides past her shorter half siblings, the more favored offspring of Grace Broken Wing, who has bequeathed raising Millie and the rest of her children to their diabetic grandmother. Grace has departed for parts unknown. Some say she met an American serviceman, others say she dances for money and favors in Grand Island. Truth be known Grace’s ancestors have sung her death songs, for she sleeps in the Badlands, nestled in a bedspread at the foot of an embankment, victim of an unfortunate accident in a Cottonwood motel room.

There are no pizza parlors or malls or video arcades for young people to go for entertainment; there is little money for those things in any case. Children combat boredom and hopelessness by drinking alcohol and sniffing paint thinner or gasoline; casual sex and random violence follow. Soon enough the tall girl will join these children in their pastimes. Soon enough she will bring her own child into the desolate remains of Turtle Island.

If anyone cared to ask the tall young woman’s occupation, they might have been told she was a dancer. Sometimes she danced in the clubs, lost in a haze of music and drugs and alcohol. Other times she worked the fields, occasionally she got factory work. But dancer sounded better.

Once at closing time a man who’d tipped heavily all evening offered the tall young woman a ride home. She accepted, not understanding the man expected a return on his investment. A knife held to her throat convinced her to oblige his needs. While the rapist swore and grunted, her mind sought solace in the only happy time she could remember, memories of her father scooping her into his arms and carrying her.

After satisfying  himself, the man withdrew his knife and shoved her out of the car. She would not be joining her mother tonight. No death songs would be sung, only the chirping of crickets and the hum of power lines above would serenade the tall young woman as she slowly and painfully made her way home. Only the field mice and owls shared in her shame.

Later she dreamed of being home, a houseful of relatives sitting in folding chairs eating from bowls filled with corn stew. Lester Poor Bear proudly carried a baby, Grace fussed over it and smiled back at her daughter. Millie chattered with relatives, many of them long dead. Later there was cake, and strong black coffee for the adults. When she missed her period the following week, the tall young woman knew what she had to do.

At first glance little appears to have changed. The same signs informing those arriving they are now entering the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the same dilapidated shacks, the same abandoned vehicles dotting the properties. Her home is quiet, asking around she determines complications from diabetes have cost grandmother her legs, the old woman is seldom home. Her sisters and brothers have scattered, going to live with various family members. Indian Health Services is far away and their hours have been cut back. She gives birth alone to a baby boy.

The tall young woman does her best to raise the infant son she has christened Lester Junior. She no longer drinks, doing her best to meet his needs with tribal and government assistance. She tickles him to make him laugh, sings songs to him. His smiles are immediately returned by smiles of her own. When he begins to bleed profusely from his nose she hitchhikes to Indian Health Services. She is sent home with aspirin and instructions to return in a few days if the condition persists. During the night the infant begins to bleed from the mouth. The frantic mother and hemorrhaging child are taken by tribal police to Indian Health Services, where a duty nurse pronounces the baby dead.

Family members pool their sparse resources for a coffin and a church burial, then they do their best to provide a wake following the services. A table is laden with a pot of corn stew, apples, soda and coffee. Most attending are well acquainted with loss and pain, they share with Millie what they themselves have heard. The young woman spends the next few days gazing out the window, waiting for something that will never arrive. Then she makes her decision.

Millie Poor Bear stands on a chair, ensemble complete, eyes still riveted on faces reflected back from the cracked mirror. As she begins to gasp for breath, one face comes to the forefront. Her father smiles and reaches out to her. Seeing he has finally returned, she steps forward to greet him, the chair tipping over onto the floor.

In this world, a shoe drops onto the floor as a young woman’s body slowly twists, her ancestors singing her death songs.

In another world, Lester Poor Bear scoops up his daughter. Millie Poor Bear is going home.

I remember you reciting your poem
while jazzy hands slapped
against an upright bass.
Your words perfumed with the scent
of sampaguita memories
and resonated the sounds of jeepneys
passing by San Francisco cable cars.
Stories that still warm the soul
like fresh pan de sal in the morning

That iconic beard and those glasses
you brought to life with your stunning presence.
This world painted and created
by the strokes of your poety;
communities built with the beat of your heart.

Thinking about you…

Was just reading some poetry and looking at pictures of Al Robles during Filipino American Month. Trying to remember you, Al. Full of nonsense and a Zen mystique that played games with your love of the people. Filipino people, Asian people, Black people, Latino people, Native American people…..all people. So much love. And each one with an individual look. An individual look for each person and each friendship. And Al was full of those loves and friendships. An honest and original and child-like openness spun in the Zen Buddhist koan of Al Robles’ words. And thoughts and love. Inimitable. How can I describe it without saying too much? That twinkle in the eye and a ready laughter. Slapping your hands with his brown hands and smiling under his wispy grey mustache. A surprisingly strong grip and a straight strong body. Pretty good for someone in his late 70s. How many people did Al help out with a strong mind support? How many people did Al help out with a free box lunch? Saint Al. Al was a Saint. And Al was a friend. Always there and everywhere. Al really was everywhere. Laughing and standing strong in his army jacket and fur hat. Or his famous Hawaiian shirts and hiking boots. Thinking about you, Al. I would miss you so much I could cry except that is so contrary to what you stood for. Always moving in and out and punching and counterpunching this life. Like a Filipino flyweight fighter who asks for one more round, and one more round. But it’s hard to believe that you’re not around. It’s still hard to believe, years later. You are missed. And we love you.

Krip-Hop Nation (KHN)  We met through Binki Woi Founder of MCEES With Disabilities, MWD, tell us how did you get to know Binki and his radio show, On The Grind?

Christian Bruckner: I got to know Binki and Krip-Hop-Nation through the track Round 1 being a fan of Hans Solos rap

KHN: You told me about your life and mental health disabilities.  Can you share some highlights?

Christian Bruckner: I got a disability through drug abuse at the age of 13 to 16. The last 16 years I was 13 times in psychological treatment in mental hospitals. From these 13 times, I was 3 years in a forensic establishment for assaulting 3 guys with a knife in one of my psychoses. I have been prescribed up to 30 different psycotropical products since than. The side effects of this treatment were sometimes nasty, so I could not eat or sleep and had serious motor dysfunctions.

KHN:  With your music do you explain your story of drugs and being institutionalized?

Christian Bruckner: I’m basically a battle MC. I love writing punchiness about all sorts of rappers, that I don’t respect. On the other hand I’m writing about serious themes like depressions, death, institutionalization and drug abuse.

KHN: Tells us about the underground Hip-Hop scene in your city in Germany?

Christian Bruckner: In Germany the most underground Hip-Hop activities are to find in the major cities. In small cities, like the one I’m living in, there is only a small amount of rap-artists, DJs, writers and producers. So most of the times you know each other and sometimes  you collaborate. There are still haters but the competition attitude is not on the some level as  it was in the 90s.

KHN:  You worked in a workshop for people with mental health disabilities.  What were your duties and did you teach Hip-Hop?

Christian Bruckner: I m still working in this workshop and I will for the next years to come. Because of my disability, I’m only convenient for the second labor market. And I did give away some of my releases to my colleagues.

KHN:  What do you want to say to Hip-Hop industry about artists with disabilities?

Christian Bruckner:  I don t have a relation to hip hop as an industry.

But there should be acceptance, tolerance and respect for any artist

KHN:  What are your future goals with your music?

Christian Bruckner: I had 4 CD-releases. My goal is to have at least 20 of them. Some Clips would be nice and some unusual releases as Picture Vinyl. I love to do feature tracks with all kinds of rap artists. That is what I live for.

KHN:  Can you share some of your lyrics?

Christian Bruckner: I m rapping in German or rarely in my mother Turkish tongue. but as an exclusive for the Krip-Hop-Nation and Leroy Moore, I recorded the track "cold life" to introduce myself. The song is a short story about my life:

Hallo Mr. Moore, I got sick and paranoid

I take my schizophrenic Mind and tell it to the homeboys,

I m just Chris, thirty-three years old from Germany,

the stories may be common, but I got the balls to tell u this,

I grew from an Austrian father, a Turkish mother,

unusual relation, for the society not to bother,

but it bothered me, at only 6 my life turned upside down,

after divorce, I moved with my father to another town,

met new kids, but hell they were no friend,

they called me a fatty, a hybrid, a mongrel,

did not accept me, beat the shit out of me in alliance,

left me bitter, deep down to defiance, just where my life is,

That’s when my father remarried,

a women from Egypt, she treated me badly, some may know what that means,

And it’s surely been out of her schizophrenia,

is it why today I am a maniac?

When I was 12, I found new friends, who where older than me,

I started drinking alcohol, and smoking some weed,

at thirteen, I tried LSD for the first time,

at fifteen I realized, I’m Paranoid and not fine

Any more, about drugs there came many more,

they where funded by dealing, I took them killing feelings,

My father took me to hospital for a speed overdose,

I was not dead but man it came close,

Got the Valium to come down,

like todays rap volume to come down

psychosis, psychotropic to calm down,

20 years, mental hospital for 6 times,

a personal disorder of the impulsive type,

in 1999 I was caught and condemned for Hashish,

a kilo brought me probation, so I stopped smoking shit,

it went well except the depression till 2005,

when the biggest shit began und fucked up my life

that year I had so much stress with my job,

another psychosis, so I gave my neighbor a shot,

but not in the scene of a chance, but in the scene of a gas pistol,

a whole swat team brought me again to mental hospital,

I went from psychosis to psychosis,

from doctor to doctor asking myself who the psycho is,

I gave the answer 2008, downed 2 guys with a knife,

a punch to the face, a neck got a scribe,

I can’t describe, sentenced for aggravated assault,

in the forensic seems a whole life, taken apart

1 year to make a load-testing operation,

5 years of probation, 5 years I’m still facing,

daily work in the disabled workshop for ill people,

to structure my life, suppressing the evil,

psychotropic tablets, increasing my fatness,

but still better, than all of this madness

KHN:  How can people reach you and any last words:

Christian Bruckner: You can reach me in Facebook, MySpace, Reverbnation, Hip-hop is alive.  Life is not a picnic. You must face it, fall, than get up. I wish the best luck to everybody out there doing so or trying.  Keep our head up!

"Hands"

My father joked once
About a man who moved
His hands a lot when
He spoke

Dad would say that if

You cut the man’s
Hands off, he wouldn’t
Be able to speak

My uncle, the poet Al
Robles, my father's
brother, spoke with
His hands

Hands attached to nothing
Hands attached to something
Mind attached to nothing
Mind attached to something
Heart attached to nothing
Heart attached to something

Yet everything

Uncle Al spoke with
Hands not cut
Off

From elders
From manongs
From community
From the whispering kulintang eyes of
Carabaos
From Nihonmachi
From jazz
From thick Manilatown dreams
Dancing in steam rice
From Kearny Street
From struggle
From the I-Hotel
From Delano and Watsonville
From Gold Mountain
From Angel Island
From Fillmore Street
From Ifugao Mountain
From Agbayani Village

With hands
He spoke of
Things

With hands
He felt
Things

Felt life

With his
Hands

Never cut
Off

© 2012 Tony Robles

(Photo by Bob Hsiang)

[ Editors Note: Support Berkeley Homeless & Low Income Kids @ Upcoming School Board Meeting on October 24 @ 7.30 pm ]

I am a poor, African-American single parent, who did not graduate from a 4-year college.  Neither of my parents obtained a college degree.  Not one person in my family has attended a 4-year college. A quality education can give racial minorities, low-income individuals and women opportunities they may not otherwise have. 

When my daughter started out at Berkeley High School, I was scared. BHS is the largest high school in the Bay Area, and it was known for its Racial Achievement Gap at the time, which is the largest in California. 

Now she's in her senior year, and she has performed at an exceptional level at the Berkeley High International School.  She will have the opportunity to attend the college of her choice. A quick analysis her high school performance:  She sits well within the top quartile of all students in the country as far SAT Scores, she is a 3-year varsity wrestler, with a high G.P.A., and a list of extra curricular activities.  So she has done well, but she has had a zealous and vigilant advocate in me, offering her the guidance she would not have received from Berkeley High School staff.

During her education she was eligible for the free lunch program, and received assistance under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Educational Act.  I know my daughter's performance is hers, but I wonder where she would be without the assistance she received under the McKinney-Vento Act.  Many students at BHS owe their graduation and success to the assistance under this law.   

The federal government enacted a statute over 30 years ago to assist homeless families and students in obtaining an education.  The McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Act, more formally known as Title 42 § 11341 et. seq., mandates that states and local school districts break down and eliminate all barriers to homeless students enrollment, success and participation. In addition, local school districts must do outreach at shelters, and where there are homeless students and families. Is Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) performing its duty?  An example of their failures, as when we were having habitability issues at our home, and my daughter was hospitalized because she was ill. When she turned in an assignment late, her teacher refused to credit her for that assignment, causing her a “B” grade instead of an “A.”  So I don't think the staff at BHS has an understanding of what poor students go through, and I believe many of them don't care.   

At a time when homelessness has increased in the nation, BUSD is slashing funds to implement programs that assist its McKinney-Vento families.  The “Berkeley High School Self Study” for Western Association and School and College (WASC) illustrates tales of two high schools, one for the African-American and Latino students and another for Asian and Caucasian students. 

In America you can speak about racism without speaking about race. Income does play a role the Berkeley High Racial Achievement Gap.  They lead the state in the Gap.  Not all Black and Brown students are eligible for services under the McKinney-Vento Act. However, the majority of the students receiving assistance under the act are Black and Brown. Examples of these mathematical disparities are: the GPAs of African-American and Latino students are 1 full point average less than White students at BHS, and SAT scores for African-American and Latino Students are nearly 500 points less than their White counterparts.

They never look through the lens of struggling students that may lack material needs. For example, I have seen many students enrolled math classes in which graphing calculators are necessary that cost 90 bucks, and they fail the class because they can't afford to purchase one.  Or how about when some teacher mandates the class homework be performed on the internet, when students lack consistent housing, let alone access to a computer or internet. Many low-income and homeless students lack the material resources to perform the most rudimentary in many of their classes.   

If BHS was in compliance with the McKinney-Vento Act, and keeping track of its homeless students as they are required to do by the Act, they would have data on who is homeless. The numbers in their own reports show that the economically disadvantaged are suffering. What does the district do? They cuttings funds that are meant assist homeless students. 

Does BUSD understand the struggles of low-income students? Does BHS attempt to guide our children through the maze of Berkeley High School?  According to the BHS WASC report my people are struggling.  The Achievement Gap shows how the BUSD in general and BHS specifically are crushing the economically weak.  They perpetuate the racial and income inequalities of America.  Only when threatened by WASC with possible loss of accreditation has Berkeley High explored the possibility assisting some of its most needy students.        

On September 19, 2012, at a BUSD Board Meeting, I spoke on how I have seen many kids who have benefited from receiving assistance under the McKinney-Vento Act, but by no means was the implementation of this law funded adequately.  Reducing the  funding will have drastic and dramatic effects on students in BUSD eligible to receive services under the act.  The BUSD board members were alarmed and worried about the reduction of McKinney-Vento Act funding, and decided to bring up the issue before the Board again on October 24, 2012, at 7.30 pm.  The community needs your support!  Please come and attend!!!

Many of these same kids are the homeless kids on the streets in Berkeley. The ones City Council wants to stop from sitting on the streets.  When we have city schools that are fulfilling their legal responsibility to their most needy students, and when these students fail to graduate, they find legal mechanisms to attempt to purge the streets of the City of Berkeley.  The street kids are the result of failed social and economic policies.  The passage of Measure S would make the result of these economic policies invisible.

I had just seen a news report telling of a catamaran collapsing and sinking into San Francisco Bay.  The mast, the sum of parts that made up this vessel seemed to tangle in the rise and fall of water which made it appear as unstable and flimsy as a cheap umbrella in a rainstorm.  The reporter indicated that the catamaran was part of Team Oracle, part of the big to-do known as the America’s cup.  The dramatic images make for good TV but I couldn’t get emotionally attached like so many millions over this spectacle--the fate of this symbol of rich man’s watersports—with accompanying privilege and arrogance-was something I couldn’t care less about.  Shortly after the newscast, I spoke to a friend who summed up my feelings about the sinking catamaran and the America’s Cup:  “Please tell me Larry Ellison was on that boat”.  Was he?

While these folks made it to the six o’clock news, flaunting said wealth and privilege, African descended elder and native San Franciscan Kathy Galves tries to maintain a roof over her head.  Ms. Galves lost her home of 40 years to foreclosure.  Ms. Galves, a black woman, a black elder trying to stay in the city of her birth.  A city whose mandate to erase the black community that was conceived and hatched by the agents of redevelopment and business long ago, a city whose black exodus is a mark of its shame, an exodus that is killing the heart and soul of the city.

However, you won’t see Ms. Galves story on the news.  Eviction of black elders in the city doesn’t seem to be newsworthy to those who own and control media, at least, not as newsworthy as Larry Ellison’s boat.  Ms. Galves now stays in a motel and is a step away from houselessness.  The owner of the motel tried to evict her after 30 days residence—the period in which she would establish tenant’s rights in the city of San Francisco.  Ms.Galves walks with a dignity that cannot be sunk, her eyes still holding light, unsinkable in the arid landscape of gentrifiers and corporate unaccountability.

Ms. Galves story is more important than the sinking catamaran with the oracle logo.  It holds more meaning than all those boats on the bay and everything they stand for.  Their lack of dignity and humility—floating on the bay—is a blight on our city, an eye sore to those with eyes who see a city losing its spirit, its heart, its soul.

Ms. Galves moves forward, dignity in place—looking for a place to call home, in a city that is her home, yet filled with exiles and those displaced in a city that was their birthplace, a birthplace of dreams, an escape from Jim Crow terror to become the blueprint model for gentrification.

Kathy Galves—let her name ring out in every corner, every rooftop, every street, every inch of the city.  We are not going to forget.