Story Archives 2015

PNN-TV: Youth Skolaz Interview Andres Soto-RYME Climate Change Series

09/24/2021 - 07:46 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
Tiny
Original Body

Youth Skolaz from Deecolonize Academy's Revolutionary Youth Media Education(RYME) Project focus on Climate Destruction and Climate Resistance of their mama earth.

In this PNN-TV interview conducted at the Climate Change March in Oakland they speak with community organizer and climate justice revolutionary Andres Soto for PNN-TV

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Untitled Poem from the Inside

09/24/2021 - 07:46 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
Tiny
Original Body

February 17, 2015

Wishing to be treated as a friend,
Merely fallen from the grace of accepted ways
Denied this at every turn, by
The Religion of Condemnation,
The cult of punishers,
With all fingers pointing outward.
Exceptions to every rule they made.
My very humanity subject to approval,
Revokable by whim of the rawest acolyte.
My every historic transgression of policy
My "criminality," addiction or affiliation,
The unassailable justification for
Anything they say.
Imagining that power over Human Beings
Makes me dizzy and sick.
Maybe that's why they treat us like we're not.
So they don't have to face their own sickness?

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Dying on the Digital Streets

09/24/2021 - 07:46 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
Tiny
Original Body

Tech Addiction of Our Children & the Gentrifyers who "Deal"the Digital Drug

By Lisa "Tiny" Gray-Garcia/daughter of dee, mama of Tiburcio

“You gave away his Xbox????” With a look of terror my 11 year old sun’s friend was desperately hoping this news was not true. “Yes I did,, and if he was given another one, i’d give that away too.”  Since my sun was born i have been living in fear of the impending threat of digital games, phones, pads, pods, chats, tweets, tubes and teeth. This hilariously serious conversation came flooding into my mind when I heard the most recent case of Tech Addiction- (my new name for child addicts dying on the digital streets) the murder of an entire family by 16 year old Jason Hendrix of Corbin, Kentucky

Like the fostering of any new addiction. It always begins with the ready supply of the substance to the potential user and the easy access  to the substance dealer. To lock in and broaden the potential reach and success of the substance it must receive complicit or explicit societal support such as the coming of age alcohol-induced parties and celebrations practiced across Mama Earth by so many of us colonized peoples, normalizing the man's poison aka alcohol for all of our young people.

For the first two years of my sun’s life my family was in deep poverty and struggle, me juggling the extensive care for my mama who was very sick as well as the always hard care of my then infant child. I was unable to work and therefore  unable to afford child care and rent--much less food and diapers. It was at this time in the middle of so much struggle that i launched  Mamahouse a collective home for poor single mamas like myself, so we could support each other with child care and shared resources and support, the one thing so many of us single parents lack. It got me out of homelessness and was beautiful in all the ways of interdependence, sharing and collective work that it should have been, except for one thing, I was now in the position of saying no to my 2 year old sun who was already being offered a video game to play, a computer to play on and a phone to “use”  

I said no many times, even in the face of so many introductions to the digital streets, “You will be forced to come around someday, my co-madres all warned me,  shaking their heads, just wait and see.”

Now don’t get it twisted i am not a hippie mama with back to nature privilege and no phones, TV’s or computers in the house. I am a concrete jungle survivor who barely made it out of a life of poverty and houselessness. I was raised by a poor single Afro-Puerta Rican mama who had  followed the Bernie Mac school of child raising and was still slapping me upside the head till the day she transitioned if i “did something wrong”. But i knew the terrifying way face-book had so easily become “face-crak” to my already formed brain and therefore knew in my deepest heart that these digital streets were no place for a child, much-less a young person’s un-hardened skull open to all the force a satellite transmission ever needs.

From the video game themes, ranging from fetishized gendered characters like Movie star planet that helps young girls and boys be rich and famous so they can spend thousands of “fake” dollars buying inappropriate clothes and things to Grand Theft Auto, that promotes young men and women hurting, stealing, killing or cheating each other in some criminalized image of “pseudo-gangster” (read cool Black, Brown and working-class youth) all created/designed by 20 something mostly white, middle-class tech designers who were raised in the suburbs of Amerikkka or the Military Industrial complex video sponsored killing games like Halo, Dark Souls or  Dead Rising where you can be the shooters ,snipers, killers or zombie killers in the omnipresent zombie apocalypse we all have been waiting for.

And then the endless chatting, texting , tweeting, role playing, and tagging. Between all this simulated life who has time for real life?  especially real , boring, hard-working, not really that exciting life.

And although I think it is actually urgent for us to completely move off the killer digital streets, or at least severely limit our use, if for nothing else to stop the never ending hunger for more and more of Mama Earth's finite energy, the reality is that the internet is a powerful research tool and there are thousands of great math, science, art, media and music sites that can be used for learning and teaching, talking and communicating.

And yes as a poor single mama i have needed a “break” raising my energetic sun multiple times just like the next in-struggle mama. When we were in our deepest financial stress i went through elaborate schemes to prop my sun up in front of a cartoon show that i thought was age appropriate so i could get some work done, help my mama or just rest. I can’t always be there to entertain this goofy child who is endlessly wanting my attention. But books and art and drawing and sports are real too. And so i would limit the TV and cartoons and the movies to a minimum of one night a week. And i begged, borrowed and stole for endless paper and art supplies and went to the library A lot.

And no matter how tired or depressed i was I would read to him and tell him bed-time stories when i didn’t have to work at night. And most importantly i began teaching him very early on that if he ever wanted to play a “video” game he would have to learn to make one, I taught him the little i knew about the “code source” the root, back-end of every website and video game and digital application from twitter to face-crak. And perhaps most important of all, I taught him to be conscious, I explained to him in detail who owned most of the games and phones he and his friends desired so much, how the Zuckerbergs of the world made millions of billions of dollars off him and his friends every time he would click, chat, drag, text or tweet,only to flood our no longer affordable city with more 20 something over-paid employees riding in private buses. The same 20 & 30 something people who would rather my sun and his poor, working class Black and Brown friends and their families were no longer living in Gentrification City, USA. Yes i made the connection between video games, tweeting, face-craking, i-phoning and gentrification and the direct impact it all had on our lives.

The final tragic irony was both Mamahouses were ended by greedy, gentryFUKing landlords, burning us out in MamaHouse 1 and raising our rent by $700. 00 in one month in MamaHouse 2 scattering all of us formally houseless mamas into houselessness, again, gentrified out of our working class neighborhoods of color forever by the same forces, industries and tax breaks who were supplying our children with so much digital distraction. 

Then in the last three months dozens of  different mamas and aunties have come to me with stories of 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 and 16 year old children screaming, destroying things, and/or becoming dangerously violent against their own families when their technology was taken away, limited or withheld. And then the story of Jason Hendrix, 16, of Corbin, Kentucky, who killed his parents,, and his sister Grace Hendrix execution style on Wednesday in their home, police believe after his computer privileges were taken away.

In our own Deecolonize Academy - a revolutionary indigenous -run/poor people-led, arts - based school at POOR Magazine and Homefulness we have addicted children who don’t sleep all night because they proudly announce, “ I’m a gamer, yo.”  We have a no-technology rule at skoo, but sometimes they are so tired they can barely get through a school day.  We are hoping to break this addiction next semester when we ask them to lead a WeSearch investigation on the radiation, racist and classist stereotypes and Military Industrial complex lies funneling into their young heads from the devices. Not to mention their current investigations into gentrification and Climate Change both side effects of these extremely wealthy Tech Dealers who ride private buses and never get arrested for their drug pushing into our children’s minds.

So this is my point fellow mamas and uncles and grammas and dads, you aren’t being mean cause you make your child read a paper book, or go outside and play with a ball or have them sit in a car and look out the window without something in their head, hand, ear or eyes, endlessly distracting them, exciting them , stimulating them. This is called Life, and its not always that fun,  and there are real tangible ways to interact and get along and learn and be in the world that has NOTHNG to do with digital interaction.

You aren’t being mean if you just say no to a phone at 10 or a computer at 12 or an iPad or tablet at 5. It's not necessary. Your children will live and guess what they will thrive and not be in any creeping danger of never spoken of but very real, brain tumors, early cataracts, glaucoma or thyroid cancers caused by phones, pads, wifi signals or computer blue screens. And if they challenge you, " well you use the phone, ipad and computer,"  remember who the parent is and say, that's right , i do and I'm an adult and you are not, and you have no business comparing yourself to me (followed up by other issues like who pays the bills, rent, food, clothes, etc if you even entertain their "challenge" this long).

Actually with this "no" you will be saving your child, from the increasing robotization and corporate theft of our bodies, minds, souls and neighborhoods, and your children will be the few among us actually awake and aware enough to help heal this very tortured mama earth, help their lost, evicted and zombified friends and families and as an extra added bonus they will be ready for the real zombie apocalypse when it arrives

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San Francisco and the Culture of Deletion

09/24/2021 - 07:46 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
PNNscholar1
Original Body

 

 

I recently read the text of author David Talbot’s speech, “Don’t be a Stanford Asshole” (http://48hillsonline.org/2015/01/26/dont-stanford-asshole/) in which he connects the dots between San Francisco and Silicon Valley.  He spoke of the incestuous relationship between tech and politics and how the tandem workings of both have caused both positive and insidious consequences to the city of my birth and across the globe.  As impassioned as Talbot’s speech was, I was in somewhat of a quandary.  Was he speaking to me, or was he speaking to those who arrived in San Francisco in the last 15 or so years, survivors of the first dot-com boom?  Mind you, as a native born San Franciscan, I have become accustomed to being talked over, looked over and unconsidered.  I do not suggest that Talbot was ignoring born and raised San Franciscans like myself, but being someone born and raised in the city, we often occupy a gray area in which we ask ourselves—when a narrative about the city is explored or expounded—is this narrative reflective of my experience, my history, my skin, my roots?  Or is it a reflection of those who have arrived in recent years, who have benefited from my culture—that is, my San Francisco and or/ethnic culture—and the beauty that goes with it, while I—and other native-borns-- have not benefited to the same degree.  It is to question your visibility, your voice, your presence.  It is to ask yourself, do I even exist? To be a born and raised San Franciscan, particularly one of color, is to be invisible, to receive a cursory sideways glance that suggests the question: Oh, you live here too?   It is to exist but not be acknowledged. It is to be seen as a hindrance, an eyesore, grudgingly accepted as part of the landscape that is far too nice and picturesque and valuable for you to inhabit—despite your generations as part of the landscape—especially if you’re black.  To be a native born San Franciscan is to be disrespected; it is putting up with the whimsical, often obnoxious hordes that flock here, planting seeds imported from elsewhere without regards for the roots already here.  This phenomenon prompted the late Manilatown poet Al Robles, who was a native San Franciscan and one of the primary fighters in the I-Hotel struggle for housing rights of seniors and all people, to pose this question

 

Who is to say the

Weeds are not the roots?

Who is to say the

Roots are not the weeds?

 

Of course, Robles was speaking of the community whose voices were silenced—working class communities of color who Justin Herman, Ben Swig and their descendants saw as hindrances and blight; communities in need of revitalization, a word that is used in the current iteration of the city.  Our communities were black, brown, red, yellow and working class/poor white.  It was multicultural before that word became fashionable.  It was mestizo and mestiza.  It was hapa before hapa knew what hapa was; before some genius mixed rice, spam and seaweed and gave it a name.  We had a vibe, a way of speaking, a way of walking that was the city—part black, part brown, part yellow—a vibe that was Frisco.  Now, I know there are those who decry the use of that word.  But Frisco represents what isn’t seen in the cutesy postcards from Walgreens.  Frisco is everything you don’t want to see, it’s the city that the tech billionaires, the Mayor, the minions etc. don’t want you to remember.  It’s the built up grease in the pots and pans of an abuelita’s kitchen, it’s the southern tongue whose stories speak in the TL, it’s the Filipino World War II Veteranos in SOMA whose lives are written in their faces and are spoken in a silence that make the fog horns seem like a whisper.  With such richness of culture, who needs the fuzzy 20-something blue-eyed blond, fresh out of the peace corps, to tell us what life’s about?

 

The San Francisco I grew up with, the culture I came to know by being bathed in it and by tasting its dirt is dying at the hands of another culture—that of deletion.  One by one—communities, lives, homes—are deleted with as much forethought as pushing a button or clicking a mouse.  And what better metaphor for the concept of deletion than the tech apparatuses that are abound—encroaching on every aspect of our lives in the name of convenience—but whose convenience?  The tech industry has carved its reality into the city, its presence felt in every crevice—from the gentrification induced murder of Alex Nieto to born and raised San Francisco kids having to duel a group of entitled, obnoxious tech boys over who gets to play (or pay) in the playground.  The kids—and I don’t refer to the young folks who stood their ground at the Mission Playground—the tech kids (it would be disingenuous to refer to them as men or adults) who have no reflection, no respect, no regard, and no foresight—have taken over.  Their values are quickly becoming the rule in San Francisco—and the city is going to hell—not in a hand basket—but in an app. 

 

It is these smug, so-called clever—what Talbot’s speech referred to as assholes—that are laughing, drinking, smirking, taking more than their share—at our expense, laughing in our faces, so self-assured in their genius, sauntering to the bank while the rest of us subsidize them and their self-centered frat boy obnoxiousness.  I’m tired of the bullshit, are you?  The city has rolled out the red carpet for tech priests and priestesses but that carpet is stained with the blood of eviction and removal; it is stained with the shoeprints of arrogance and a lack of grace, manners, tact, dignity or respect.  It is stained with the blood of our elders that are being preyed upon daily by real estate speculators, real estate agents and their appendages whose only work is destruction of people and communities.  It is being destroyed by 20-something tech millionaire idiots who want the world to believe that they are about a “sharing economy”.  To them I pose the question: Why haven’t your “sharing” hordes offered housing to the victims of the Mission street apartment fire that left many elder and families homeless?  We native born San Franciscans know the answer (and you don’t have to be a native born to know this).  The answer is that they don’t care, they only care about their own particular class or kind.  What they want is a tailor made San Francisco exclusively for them, complete with artisan this and that, windows painfully buffed to a shine while dinky little cupcakes await in quaint display cases—equally buffed.  They want community alright, a golden gated community.  They want their own private Disneyland on their terms.  And the Greg Gopmans and Peter Shihs who come dripping of entitlement articulate an attitude that has become clear without words.  But Gopman, Shih and those of similar ilk, I ask, did you earn the right to speak disparagingly of my hometown, a place you have helped to destroy?  Make no mistake, the city is dying.  It may look alive on the surface with cranes and buildings stabbing into the skyline, but it is a wrinkled postcard with a facelift, a world class city reduced to an app.

 

The impending earthquake that is sure to hit San Francisco is spoken of with a tone—from some—that appears to welcome that event.  But to me and many other born and raised San Franciscans (particularly of color), the earthquake has already happened.  When the real one comes it will be a mere afterthought, a whimper compared to the evictions and the effects they have had on the health of seniors, the disabled, on the families who are now without housing.  And yet, the mayor acts as if these things haven’t happened.

 

Yesterday was the birthday of my uncle, the late Al Robles, who spent much of his life fighting for the rights of elder tenants in Manilatown and the International Hotel.  As current board president of the Manilatown Heritage Foundation, I am disgusted by what has been allowed to happen to seniors and communities of color in the city—a city that bends over backwards catering to and coddling entitled tech idiot millionaires, real estate speculators, the owners of big boats and those who profess to share but share nothing, contribute nothing. 

 

The mayor recently spoke of the I-Hotel struggle at a gathering of a Filipino community center that has served the community for many years. From what I understand, he was once a tenant lawyer. 

 

What happened to him?  What happened to my city?

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Black Disabled Families in Amerikkka-The Crisis of Bessie and Devonte Taylor--Settler Colonial Lies from Salinas to San Francisco

09/24/2021 - 07:46 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
PNNscholar1
Original Body

“The families homelessness has nothing to do with the Housing Authority, we couldn’t help what the landlord did.” I listened as the Housing Authority of Monterey County supervisor rattled off a long list of reasons that they  thought released their agency from any responsibility for the crisis of Bessie Taylor and her disabled sun Devonte who are now living houselessly in Salinas, California because the Housing Authority took too long to move on the families reasonable accommodation claim and they subsequently lost their home of 22 years.

The California Fair Employment and Housing Act protects you from illegal discrimination and harassment in housing based on a mental or physical disability. Discrimination includes, but is not limited to, the following actions failure to provide reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices, or procedures when necessary to afford a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, read at the Press conference by Krip Hop Nation/POOR Magazine reporter Leroy Moore.

After being contacted by the Taylor family and their revolutionary advocate Pamela Weston POOR Magazine youth and adult poverty skolaz held an emegerncy Black History Month press conference and rally for the Taylor family and all Black and Brown families with disabled children struggling in Monterey county with endless poverty “industry” pimping, racism, classism and ableism.

“There are so many homeless people in Monterey County, said Jamellah, Bessie’s beautiful, strong hearted, adult daughter explained to me as we walked through the brush-stroked painting that is downtown Salinas, “Its really cause the rent is so high here and there is no rent control,” she concluded.

No rent control, old-school scarcity model poverty pimps, racist klan agri-business run city hall, anti-poor people laws that criminalize, harass and arrest poor people and ableist laws that don’t protect disabled peoples at all. This is Salinas. This is Monterey County. This is most of what i affectionately call Amerikkklan. And more and more poor, Black, Brown, disabled families and elders across this stolen indigenous land are in a serious crisis. 

From Salinas to San Francisco the rich white people (created) laws protect the rich white poeple class or “stolen indigenous land” class  (i.e., landlords) so much so that in places  like Monterey County they have managed to twist and turn the laws so insanely that they have made the city exempt form rent control???

“This city does not treat  poor families, peoples of color right, it never has,” conscious servant of the peoples and city council member Jose Castaneda narrated our 6 minute journey from the oddly clean, boutique downtown of Salinas into a tiny area known since the Steinbeck days as “Chinatown”.

Tents, lean-tos, cardboard boxes and abandoned couches butted up against sleeping bags, plastic bags, suitcases, shopping carts and the scattered belongings of peoples who once had a home. And then i saw it, the part that always pierces my already broken heart, baby strollers, coloring books, and half-broken toddler toys, remnants of houseless children, a silent statistic lost in the vortex of greed, profit and earnings off of the fake notion of “owning” land.

I was houseless with my mama for most of my childhood across this state. Ended up sleeping in our car when we had one and on the street when there was no room in shelters or money to rent a motel. This trauma haunts me to this day and often renders me speechless when i witness children and families living like me and my mama did for so long. We were houseless cause my mama was disabled and as an orphan, an unwanted child  of color in Amerikkklan, severely abused and tortured as a child in racist foster homes and orphanages. So much of what she went through had everything to do with US scarcity models, white-supremacy and the criminalization of poor mothers, I eventually did “time” for the poverty crime of houselessness. These are the roots and the real of everything we work on at POOR Magazine as fellow poor, disabled, indigenous peoples of color in resistance.

After the rally and press conference our crew of conscious youth from Decolonize Academy, the school we landless peoples at POOR Magazine started in conjunction with Homefulness- ( a poor people-led solution to Houselessness) and reporters Queenandi,Leroy Moore, also with Krip Hop Nation and POOR and migrant poverty skola Muteado SIlencio and myself accompanied the family to Assemblyman Alejo’s office to try to get some justice for the family.After the original meeting our youth skolaz and I  went to Dorothy’s Kitchen, a free lunch in the middle of Chinatown which is where we witnessed the violence of poverty this town wages against its poor.

“Several times a year the City does sweeps of this area, arresting people, throwing away belongings and tents and completely dismantling this community, “ Jose explained pointing toward the several lines of tents and peoples crammed into a five block long area with an odd prison like boundary. The same exact scene i have witnessed, lived in and fought against in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland and Phoenix, Arizona, the latter being a scandal perpetrated and set-up by none other than Migrant hater Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona

After we are displaced and gentrified..
Generations of exploitation and colonization. Beginning with the original displacement and genocide by colonizers and missionaries of 1st Nations peoples there followed generations of ablism, shame, classism, false borders, and wite-supreamcist kkkourts have led to shanty town after shanty town from Sacramento to San Francisco. After we are evicted and displaced, we are hiding under bus shelters, doorways and in cars, arrested for sleeping, standing, being alive while poor, disabled, Black and Brown. While i was writing this article i received four calls from families and elders facing unlawful, gentrification-fueled evictions in San Francisco and Oakland. In every case, people cried, “ Where will we go?”

After Jose and I drove around the corner leaving the tragedy of “Chinatown” we had the surreal experience of going to the John Steinbeck museum only to learn how Steinbeck chronicled the ways in which poor white people who were refugess from the Dust Bowl and the depression-era banksters had been violated and abused, by the rich white land-owners of the Salinas valley. Ironically, the same rich white land-owners seem to run the town now.  The “Monster” as the companies were called by, Tom Joad from Grapes of Wrath who exploited poor people then are acting the same now - except now the monster has expanded to include housing developers and slum-lords who charge exorbitant rent from the poor, migrant and very poor people who go there to work in the fields and face abusive work conditions. At the same time the city and county arrests peoples for being homeless and criminalizes families for being poor. Except now it seems worse, Now we have gentrification and a new class of rich peoples who have been born and bred in killer kkkaptilaism to care for no-one but themselves and their own self-centered “success”. coupled with the intentional leeching of the few resources aka public housing and section 8 programs as WeSearched by Western Regional Advocacy Program (WRAP) over the last several years.

So many Settler-colonial lies, so little time….
The surrealist part is the people who clearly seem to understand the indecency against the Oakies” described so eloquently by Steinbeck in Grapes of Wrath don’t see the 21st century oakies, dont see them or perhaps don’t want to see them They are right there, right under their nose. two blocks away from the  john steinbeck museum.This is where the settler-colonial, racism comes in as well as the US style Scarcity models that the welfareQUEEN’s project of POOR Magazine uncovered over our 4 years of WeSearch and lived investigation. Who are the deserving versus undeserving poor?  Perhaps in their settler - colonial minds the “Oakies” were the “good” poor people, aka white, previous homeowners, workers,  and therefore somehow they were “different” poor people. But the reality is that generations of capitalist exploitation, white-supremacist laws, budget cuts, hate and greed has rendered people sick, destroyed,, isolated, abused, addicted and disabled. And then add in the extra-judicial killing of Brown men and you have the covert and overt racism of most of this stolen 1st Nations Costonoan Ohlone/Esslen/Salinian territory.

POOR Magazine was first introduced to our poor brothers and sisters of Salinas when author and poet Luis J Rodriguez who ran for Governor of California in 2014 launched the California Network of Revolutionary Change and held the first convening in Salinas, California focused on the police killing of that town. Last year alone there were almost 5 Po’Lice killings of brown men, fathers suns, hard-workers, killed for the sole act of being brown in this covertly racist town that pretends to be conscious.

“We have to do for ourselves, we can’t keep relying on others do “fix” our communities when they never do,”said a powerful African-American Pastor Carrie Silas,  who attended the press conference  summing up the revolution of self-determination that we live by at POOR Magazine. Its why we took back stolen indigenous land in Deep East Oakland and are working to build homefulness. Its what we hope we can help other poor communities across Mama Earth to begin building without the lie of philanthro-pimping and government infiltration.

“My home since i was a baby is gone, now we have nowhere to live,” Devonte spoke for his family, and all of the Black and Brown and Disabled families fighting for justice everyday in Amerikkka.Now we all need to fight for Devonte and his family.

POOR has been collecting donations for the Taylor family and has managed to help them stay in a motel for over a month. if you want to donate to the GoFUndMe campaign pls click here. We are also seeking an attorney to advocate for the family against the Housing Authority. and finally for a landlord willing to rent to the family who is still on Section 8.please contact POOR Magazine at poormag@gmail.com or call 510-435-7500   
 

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Funky chicken from the food pantry !

09/24/2021 - 07:46 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
Muteado
Original Body

It is no secret that San Francisco is the third most expensive city in the world to live in.

For poor folks we must come up with creative and sometimes tried and true methods of survival when often 2/3 or more of our monthly income goes to rent.

One such methods for many is relying on local soup kitchens or food pantries to get staples and components of meals if not entire meals.

Recently after standing in a long line at Jones memorial Church on Post st, where people often argue and attempt to cut others in line, I made a very awful discovery. I received many fresh fruits vegetables as well as several other odds and ends I also received a pack of frozen chicken.

I brought all of my groceries home immediately and refrigerated everything that needed to be including the chicken so it would thaw.

This occurred on a Saturday morning.

Monday afternoon after taking the now thawed chicken out of the refrigerator so I could wash and prepare it I noticed that the blood was not red but brown !

I thoroughly washed it and upon further inspection I noticed the awful odor of rotting flesh and noticed the odd color of the chicken and was so appalled I immediately threw it away.

I looked up the number of the food bank and attempted to contact the appropriate party or department.

As the pre-recorded message indicated and was not able to get through. After being so disgusted I did not bother attending the food pantry the following Saturday.

This is a serious issue especially during flu and cold season where somebody who’s sense of smell could be compromised especially a person with a otherwise compromised immune system as this could have literally killed them !

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Shigella

09/24/2021 - 07:46 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
Muteado
Original Body

In recent months The San Francisco health department has alerted many San Francisco free food service entities such as soup kitchens of a potentially lethal infectious disease known as Shigella.

Shigella is an oral fecal disease that is initially caused by ingesting human fecal matter, and is generally spread when the infected stool is spread to others who ingest it.

Generally there are 10 -20 cases of it per year, however as early as December of last year rates have shot up to 100.

Numbers have been cut in half since January and are hoped to continue to decline even more in the upcoming months. Symptoms of Shigella include vomiting and continuous painful diarrhea.

The number of cases of Shigella are believed to have dropped due to the diligence of soup kitchen volunteers and workers at various locations throughout the city such as Martin De Porres house of hospitality, taking the following proactive steps.

Such measures as not allowing clients self service for such items as bread and water by handing each client bread with tongs, pre pouring water in individual cups and providing individual packets of salt and pepper as well as prepackaged plastic eating utensils, providing clients with information about Shigella and encouraging them to wash their hands with warm soapy water, which has always been a policy and proves to be one of the most effective ways of combating this dreaded illness.

Other San Francisco soup kitchens such as Mother Brown’s in Bayview Hunter point area require clients to wash and dry their hands before participating in a meal.

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Help Black Ourstory Last Longer Than a Minute

09/24/2021 - 07:46 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
Muteado
Original Body

The movie Selma was a somewhat educational, bittersweet movie about Martin Luther King Jr. and other advocates bravely organizing the poor, oppressed and bitterly hated black people to march on Selma, Alabama and declare in one voice that we, the African descended sons and daughters of great Kings and Queens, Gods and Goddesses have the right to be treated as human beings, have the right to equality, the right to vote- the right to exist without living in constant fear of being murdered/lynched by racist whites HERE in what we call, Amerikkka.

The movie allowed for the viewers to get a small glimpse into the King family, of course putting light on the relationship of Martin and Malcolm X, overall painting the pictures of our Martyrs not getting along too much with a bit of that hollywood flair and the bone-chilling fact that white citizens were pardoned in the murders of Black people and of those few who dared to stand up and do the right thing. The movie was hurtful because it touched on a lot of truth on how Amerikkka treated its stolen black citizens and continues to do so to this day with impunity and we damn sure didn't receive reparations for making this one of the most wealthiest countries with nothing to show for it but unmarked graves. The OMG response to the movie "Selma" being snubbed at the awards had one less surprised person in the audience, myself. I had gotten a few snubs also whenever I was asked did I think the movie "Selma" would win in the first place because I knew that in this unjust, quick to pacify the oppressed society,  "Selma" would not win. Making amerikkkan movies about amerikkkans killing so-called "rebellious" "Educated" or "militant"  amerikkkan slaves here just to turn around and reward the so-called slave descendant for rebelling in the first place against the amerikkkan white man who still, in 2015 murder people of color (and others) for continuing to defy his racist genocidal tactics of white "non-supremacy" and global domination is like taking sand to the beach, it makes no sense no matter how you slice it.

After the movie, as the credits were rolling POOR magazine had invited others who just saw  "Selma" to join us in a "die in" outside in front of the theatre and only two or three of the moviegoers out of a full house showed up with love and support. I remember some of the looks on the other folks' faces were of mixed reactions to me, like we were stirring up trouble for the injustices that happened then and now, and the following look was as if we weren't of race and class privilege enough to lead part of a movement of great importance. Whether it is 1965 or 2015, the struggle continues.

There have always been limitations on how far the African in Amerikkka can go in the quest for knowledge of self, without some white (non) supremacist crying foul thus creating more lies and punishment as obstacles to ensure the darker nations remain under European oppressor rule. Teachers like Shannon Gibney and even Alan Barron working in these institutions can only say so much pertaining to the true history/ourstory of the world without being penalized for being "disrespectful" or "insensitive" to Caucasian students in general for revealing one way or another that they are indeed not the "master race". The truth may hurt the whites, but the racists' lies kill us everyday and globally. 

Earlier this week, an African Descended, female teacher and according to earlier reports, the only black teacher in this particular school district in Benicia, California was called out and reprimanded for limiting a presentation pertaining to Black Ourstory to only Black students. In this society, only those with this stolen race and class advantages can keep things amongst themselves no matter who complains, there are restricted neighborhoods that exist even and if anyone opposes the will of the colonizer is in for a helluva battle. Along with an apology, school officials in Benicia had mentioned in a statement that the school "Wants every student to feel valued and respected", but my response is that African Descendant children who attend majority of these schools in this country are shortchanged from the start because the WHOLE educational institution is "owned" by white scholars who have deliberately erased the Histories/Ourstories of people of color to acquire and maintain white supremacy in the first place. There have always been discriminating laws in place against Blacks, especially those in captivity that prohibited any form of "Blacks only" congregations without the presence of the white overseer, or his house negro to make sure we "stayed in our place", to ensure that there were no discussions on so-called "slave" rebellions, uprisings or any negro truth-telling whatsoever. White students may have many advantages when we speak of skin privilege but they too have been given a small dose of injustice because they have been lied to also about their history. The truth has been layered with lies of heroism and honorable conquests when honestly it was rape, genocide, colonization, land/ culture theft and barbarism and the lessons our sons are left with is that murder makes the man. Mother Nature who? No virtue. Self Determination or the struggle will forever continue.                             

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