Story Archives 2015

4 Mario Woods- Anutha Mamaz Sun stolen by Po'Lice Guns

by tiny

inching up to him
felt like lynching up to him
movin in
like this small framed man
wasn't human
assault rifles drawn
as he walked in obvious pain
from disability, from wite-supremacy from gentriFUKed T-Trains
confusion & broken windows theory that built
gang injunctions, stop & frisk, Sit-lie all for akademic/poltrickster gain
see beyond this moment & more little bits of just-US
into life without okkkupying armies protecting land-stealers from all of us

Here's the video of the shooting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij5TZuohoRg

RIP Mario

Editors Note: Mr. Jose Villarreal is one of several power-FUL PNNPlantation prison correspondents. As currently and formerly incarcerated poor and indigenous peoples in struggle and resistance with all plantation systems in Amerikkka, POOR Magazine stands in solidarity with all folks on the other side of the razor wire plantation.

The Ant trudged on with the tiny white speck in its hands, walking what appears at first glance to be aimlessly, but in all actuality is to a destination.

I once despised ants, as a child I would visit my grandmother in Central California. Me and my father riding in a Greyhound bus for hours to get down there. I would stand in my abuela’s yard mid summer when I would be bitten by Red ants. From this point on I would find ways to combat and rid my residences of ants.

Here in prison and particularly in SHU where one is housed in without a living roommate and ANY living things is sought and wished for one’s company, the ant takes on a new importance. I have actively sought the ant in prison and rarely see this hard worker, perhaps even the ant can’t stand the food! But on those rare occasions when I find the ant I find joy and relaxation in seeing her or him marching on.

A couple of weeks ago I saw this “pest”, it was a multitude of ants who were walking in front of my doors’ threshold. I kneeled down and peered out at this formation which was a well coordinated endeavor and no longer able to control myself I reached out and grabbed one of these ants and careful not to crush it’s tiny squirming black body, I looked closely at the ant and marveled at its energy and thought of the miles it must have traveled in its short life, and what it must do in order to survive and thrive. It is at this point where I realize that humans and ants at their core have so much in common.

Jose H. Villarreal

Pelican Bay SHU 10-27-13

Editors Note: Mr. Jose Villarreal is one of several power-FUL PNNPlantation prison correspondents. As currently and formerly incarcerated poor and indigenous peoples in struggle and resistance with all plantation systems in Amerikkka, POOR Magazine stands in solidarity with all folks on the other side of the razor wire plantation.

Mass incarceration in the U.S. is multi-faceted. Of course it results in poor people being locked in cages, sometimes for life. But often times our mutual oppressor uses an elaborate array of methods in order to accomplish having populations moored to oppression. As the saying goes there is more than one way to skin a cat, and the use of enhancements is one such way.

In my personal experience of being locked in these cages the state’s methods were ambiguous for the most part. Sure I knew that overbearing laws were enacted, the most infamous of which was the California Three strikes law. I have watched the Three-strikes-you’re-out law steal lives for decades. The reasons as absurd as the law itself: stealing a pair of pliers; giving someone a ride who had just stole a 12-pack of beer; being in possession of a single seed of Marijuana. If any other country gave people life for these actions they would be called “barbaric” and other critically descriptive words. Although California has now slightly reformed this oppressive law, it continues with other less known, but just as harsh legal methods.

One of the ways the injustice system keeps populations firmly planted in these cages is through the use of “enhancements”. There are many types of enhancements that arrive with a sentence handed out attached to whatever crime a court finds you guilty of. Here in California we have a lot of enhancements where we receive a number of years for the enhancements on top of the years for the actual crimes. People have grown accustomed to the institutional oppression meted out by the courts to the point where it is considered normal by so many today to get decades attached to one’s sentence just for enhancements alone.

There are enhancements for everything from prison prior sentences to theft. But many people here in SHU that I have been able to speak to have received Gang enhancements or gun enhancements which often meant receiving MORE time for the enhancements rather than the crime itself – even when the crime is Murder!

One prisoner I spoke to was convicted of Murder, but he received 25 to life for the Murder and then another 30 years for enhancements. So he actually received more time for gang and gun enhancements than for the actual Murder.

Most people do not know that the gun enhancements can get someone 10, 20 years or life. 10 years for being an ex- felon in possession of a gun, 20 years for shooting a gun and life for shooting someone but not killing a person. This is all on top of the time you will get for the theft or other aspect of the crime.

A gang enhancement can and does get folks more time than a Murder in many cases. Most do not know this. So in many ways these enhancements are far worse than the oppressive laws for crimes in general.

I spoke to another prisoner in researching this story. This man received a sentence of 89 to life for attempted Murder on a prison guard, which he caught in prison. 25 to life was given for the actual assault and 63 years to life were given in enhancements. So once more the enhancements were much more than the actual crime. And the enhancements that he received for this non-Murder were more years than he would have received from an actual Murder. As this prisoner told the judge at sentencing “this shit makes no sense,” I agree.

When I began researching enhancements I saw that it is a crises and it is one which is often overlooked. People out in society who work for prisoners’ rights and prison reform would find a ready-made receptive audience to their work by addressing the issue of enhancements.

Fortunately, my current prison sentence does not have any enhancements, besides the enhancement for prison priors, but so many prisoners that I come across do have large enhancements, and for some they will not outlive these enhancements. Without having exact numbers in front of me I know that enhancements are a plague to todays’ prisoners. Most of my previous cellmates have had them, most of my neighbors as well.

There are many wonderful groups which focus on large segments of the prison population. Groups like Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity (PHSS), California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP), Families United for Prison Reform (FU4PR), California Families against Solitary Confinement (CFSC), Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), and Families Against California Three Strikes (FACTS) to name a few. These are grassroots organizations which work to struggle for reforming specific oppressive aspects of incarceration. But more importantly they work to mobilize prisoners and their families/communities to struggle for themselves to fight the oppression that they face.

There are of course many more such groups, but from my own experience in California prisons I have found these groups at the forefront in the prisoners’ rights movement. And yet when it comes to enhancements, the thousands who are affected, and who do not benefit from other reforms are left to the wayside.

It is time for a Families Against California Enhancements (FACE) or some such group which works to focus on a lesser known method of oppression which the kourts are using. Enhancements have sentenced as many prisoners to life in the can as perhaps the Three strikes law has. It has broken up as much family units and disenfranchised as many people as mandatory minimums. It is the silent killer, the neglected step child of the prisoners’ rights movements.

If there was such a group as FACE or some other such construct, I see it mobilizing much more prisoners and their families on the scene. It would inject new blood into veins of the prison reform arena and add to our momentum of bringing a small piece of justice to these cages.

It’s amazing, even to myself how enhancements are not even in the conversation when it comes to prison struggles. Especially when we take into account that we get more time for enhancements than for Murder! It is such an important issue that in any future hunger strike I would even suggest supplementing the 5 core demands with an end to California’s enhancements, along with an end to the Death penalty, end deportations of prisoners in the ICE detention kamps…These are forms of oppression which affect prisoners in California prisons, and in our struggles we should cast our net as wide as possible.

Even if our struggle today means being released from solitary confinement there is not going to be a straight away direct path to this victory. The trail to our destination is often a winding path which entails a whole slew of twists and turns. But tackling issues like enhancements should be seen as a piece to the larger puzzle in which we draw strength and which helps us move forward as prisoners of the state and more importantly as people.

We know that the small victories obtained in getting the three strikes revised recently only means that the state will tighten up its grip in other ways, but they will find a way to keep filling up these cages. This oppression will continue and we will continue to find ways to counter their ability to oppress.

STATEMENT: For Mario Woods and all crimes of displacement and police terror against our poor, Black, Brown and disabled bodies we, the most impacted, are calling for the resignations of the San Francisco Mayor and Police Chief

As a Black activist with a disability I have seen/read in 2015 alone three high-profile cases of police brutality against Black disabled men on the streets of San Francisco including the recent killing of Mario Woods,Today in 2015 we realize that more promises of training is not the only answer, it’s time for institutional changes in the police department and on the police commission board..” said Leroy Moore, Race and Disability writer for POOR Magazine and founder of Krip Hop Nation.

In response to San Francisco Police murders of Mario Woods, a disabled, African-American resident of the Bayview Hunters Point district of San Francisco, Amilcar Lopez earlier this year and Alex Nieto last year, a group of poor, disabled, Black, Brown, homeless and poor residents, advocates and youth who have personally dealt with eviction, displacement and police terror are demanding the immediate resignation of police chief Greg Suhr and his overseer SF Mayor, Ed Lee.  This latest tragedy involving a young man of color murdered by police is directly connected to Mayor Lee’s prioritization of wealthy development over people. As well, we are putting forth and demanding an urgent solution; to elect a community member to the Police Review Commission and the San Francisco Planning Commission.

…In the beginning of the year we saw Bo Frierson of the Filmore almost tipped over from his wheelchair by an officer, in August we have seen seventeen cops take down Musa Fudge, a  Black homeless man with a prosthetic leg in downtown and now a deadly shooting of Mario Woods, a Black man with a history of mental health disabilities in the Bayview district.  Back in 2001 the community fought for the police crisis training after the shooting of another Black man with mental health disabilities, Idriss Stelley however more than ten years later, less than half of the department has undergone the training,and the watered down version of the training and funding snatched away and the recent shooting, all points to the effectiveness of the training has always been questionable and now have been seen as a band-aide that has never been the purpose to heal it is the purpose to keep the public quiet as the institutional culture of police continues to be hidden from the community .  Leroy Moore.

“As the mother of a mentally disabled young African Sun who was murdered by San Francisco police department after a 911 call for help and who was involved in training police for years, iI don’t believe training can stop the police culture of murder against black, brown and disabled people," said Mesha Irizarry, mother of Po’Lice murder victim Idriss Stelley. She continued, “They should defund the police and give the money to mental health providers, expecting police to respond to a mental health crisis is like expecting a mortician to deliver your baby.”

“Mayor Lee and Chief Suhr have shown a lack of leadership in this crisis.  The Mayor in particular has shown no leadership at all levels and his reaction to the murder indicates how out of touch he is with the community.  Mayor Lee and Chief Suhr need to resign”, said Tony Robles, Board president of the Manilatown Heritage Foundation.

The brutality of San Francisco police and housing policies against San Francisco's low-income, African-American and communities of color are so flagrant that our collaboration of very grassroots, poor and impacted people-led organizations have no choice but to come forward with this demand before we are no longer here, said Lisa "Tiny" Gray-Garcia, Poverty Scholar and co-author of this statement and author of Criminal of Poverty, Growing Up Homeless in America. She continued, "Police policies put in place by Mayor Lee's administration have increased our homelessness, have increased our arrests and incarceration and have led to our eventual removal as poor people, as disabled people, as people of color."

The co-authors of this statement represent the most impacted residents of San Francisco, a city with less than 3% of its African-American population left,down from over 20%, a city with a police chief who enables the extra-judicial killing of its young Black , Brown and poor residents and a City run by a Mayor who because of his investment in luxury development and displacement, makes it impossible for its Black, Brown and Low-income elders and families to remain here.

This media release is co-authored by disabled, homeless, poor, Black and Brown leaders at  POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE, the Idriss Stelley Foundation, Krip Hop Nation and The Manilatown Heritage Foundation, Coalition on Homelessness #######

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All eyes are on San Francisco next Tuesday, December 15^th as the Board of Supervisors prepare to take a historic vote on whether or not to approve the construction of a new $240 million jail. They will vote on accepting the $80 million loan from the Board of State Community Corrections and an additional $215 million in bonds to fund the jail project.

For more than three years, the No New SF Jail Coalition has been organizing, building power, and explaining time and time again that San Francisco does not need a new jail. The No New SF Jail Coalition includes many different community organizations such as Critical Resistance, San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, Taxpayers for Public Safety, Transgender Gendervariant Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP), Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP), Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), and Communities United Against Violence (CUAV), and represents a wide range of community interests that have come together to build their collective strength to stop the SF jail.

This vote comes at a specific time in San Francisco’s history. As the boom in the tech industry has created immense amount wealth for some, the city is currently entrenched in an unprecedented housing crisis that is causing mass displacement of poor Brown and Black people, the extreme criminalization of homelessness and poverty, and incredible police violence including the recent murder of Mario Woods by SFPD (Rest in Power). We know that the push to build a new San Francisco jail has everything to do with this shifting political landscape, and that this fight is also a fight about who has the right to live in San Francisco. The city once vibrant in culture and opportunity for people who didn’t have opportunities elsewhere is now investing in jails for these same people.

The No New SF Jail Coalition’s position has been clear since day one – what San Francisco needs to keep its residents safe is housing, healthcare, mental health support, harm reductive substance use support, education, meaningful employment, community organizations, re-entry support and pre-trial diversion. NOT jails.

The proposed new SF jail will create 23 years of debt for San Francisco taxpayers. The project is incredibly expensive and will cost over $240 million for construction alone. This comes at a time where other life affirming services and organizations are being evicted, displaced or shutting their doors due to a lack of funding.

The current argument for building the new SF jail is that the Hall of (in)Justice at 850 Bryant Street is seismically unsafe and in incredible disrepair. We absolutely agree and advocate that the Hall of Justice be closed immediately and that the people currently imprisoned inside be released back to the community. In fact, the current SF jail population is only at 50% capacity, and of that population 80% are being held pre-trial, meaning that they have not been convicted of any crime but are simply too poor to afford their bail. In fact, 56% of the jail population is African American though only 5% of San Francisco’s population is African American. In addition, 28% of the jail population is homeless and many more become homeless upon release. These numbers are outrageous and yet this is the reality in San Francisco.

The No New SF Jail Coalition has been writing op-eds, lobbying, attending Board of Supervisors hearings, giving presentations to community groups, passing resolutions in unions, telling all of our friends and raising hell to show that the proposed new jail is a wasteful, harmful and violent use of taxpayers money.

On Wednesday, December 2nd the No New SF Jail Coalition mobilized close to a hundred people to San Francisco City Hall, where the Budget and Finance Committee of the Board of Supervisors was attempting to approve the funding for the proposed new jail. When the jail items were heard, organizers in the back of the hearing began chanting immediately and unveiled a banner that read “NO SF JAIL” as five organizers in the front of the hearing deployed a lock down. The room erupted with chanting and shouting declaring “No new SF jail,” “House Keys not Hand Cuffs” and that people were shutting the hearing down. 

Organizers took over the hearing for more than two hours, turning City Hall over to the power of the people and letting the Board of Supervisors know “this hearing cannot continue; you must stop this jail project now.” After the police issued a dispersal order, the No New SF Jail 5 held their ground until they were physically cut out of their lock-down with power saws and bolt cutters, forcibly removed and arrested due to the hearing recess requested by Supervisor Mark Farrell. The hearing continued, after the No New SF Jail 5 were arrested, with a stacked public comment and a strong opposition. The hearing ended with a decision to move the issue forward without positive recommendation and delay a vote on the jail funding until December 15 before the full Board, including newly elected Supervisor Aaron Peskin.

This is where you come in.

We need you to call the Board of Supervisors, tell your friends and come out strong on December 15^th. We are seeing the Board of Supervisors waning on their support for the new jail. This means that our organizing is working! On Thursday, December 4^th an “Alternatives to Incarceration” hearing gave city officials a chance to show other viable options instead of incarceration. However, the city officials who presented largely provided reasons to support building the jail and lacked substantive evidence of alternatives, despite the fact that many exist. At the hearing Supervisor Jane Kim said it best when she stated, “I just don’t want us to go down the path of picking what is simplest and easiest for us, what we have always done, which is just to rebuild a jail. I think we should absolutely question it and try to do better.” Even Supervisor London Breed, who has not yet taken a stance against the SF jail, stated, “Is this the only option? What I asked for when I supported moving forward with the grant [for the jail] was to give us a better alternative, not just to move this particular plan forward…this hearing has done nothing to really make me feel overwhelmingly compelled to support a project that doesn’t do enough.”

Our organizing is shifting power and we can’t slow down now. We know that what happens on December 15^th in San Francisco does not happen in a vacuum. What happens San Francisco will affect what happens in Oakland, and what happens in Los Angeles, and what happens in Fresno, and what happens in Ferguson, and what happens in Baltimore, and what happens in Chicago. We have a chance to change the tide of this country and say NO to mass incarceration, say NO to police terror, say NO to prison and jail expansion and YES to alternatives that keep us all safe and support our livelihood and well-being.

The time is now to change this conversation locally, statewide and nationally. Jails are violent, unsafe and exasperate the problems they are set up to purportedly fix. This is the time to invest in the future of San Francisco, to stand together and demand that there be NO NEW SF JAIL.

Another San Francisco is possible.

To learn more go to www.nonewsfjail.wordpress.com

Coral Feigin is an organizer with Critical Resistance Oakland and the Western Regional Advocacy Project. She can be reached at coral@wraphome.org.

Editors Note: Mr. Jose Villarreal is one of several power-FUL PNNPlantation prison correspondents. As currently and formerly incarcerated poor and indigenous peoples in struggle and resistance with all plantation systems in Amerikkka, POOR Magazine stands in solidarity with all folks on the other side of the razor wire plantation.

I was watching the Bay Area news, because we get it up here in Pelican Bay SHU, and I saw a short mention of the mural depicting Queer people that was on the Galeria de la Raza vandalized. Shortly thereafter a friend sent me some newspaper clippings which included two on this vandalism. After reading them and deciding to write something on this incident the one thing that kept coming to my mind was the words that I heard Galeria de la Raza’s executive director Ani Rivera say on the news, that we should “call it what it is…Homophobia”.

This mural that was done by a Chicano artist was vandalized four times, with the fourth time being burned. The person or persons who destroyed the mural also damaged the Galeria itself, not to mention what damage was done in the process to the barrio itself. The KKK hystorically used fire to inflict fear in the oppressed communities, so this really took a page from the oppressor’s playbook.

I was surprised that the Galeria was targeted in this way. I have been reading about the Galeria for decades. It has served the Chican@ nation since 1970 in the San Francisco barrio know as the Mission as a cultural center for all Raza in the area. The Galeria has always promoted social issues via their art and work hard about oppression of all sorts. When the state of Arizona created the law SB1070 the Galeria addressed it through art and racistas vandalized that mural as well. They continue their tradition at the Galeria of using Art in la lucha against oppression.

Homophobia is not just about someone who is uncertain about their own sexuality; it is also a component of gender oppression. Gender oppression along with class and nation are the three forms of oppression which keep the people thoroughly cut off from attaining liberation within U.S. borders today.

Of course it’s important to struggle over gender oppression, but we should understand that gender oppression will not be totally uprooted in a capitalist society. This is because the three forms of oppression noted above work to uphold capitalist society. The colonized mind plays a role in gender oppression as well. White supremacy and gender oppression will not end until capitalism is toppled. National liberation is what will bring socialism to the Chican@ nation and as a result people will no longer be oppressed or terrorized because of their gender.

Patriarchy exists within the Chican@ nation and it expresses itself in many ways. But much of this learned behavior of the dominant male or machismo is a colonized behavior. The settler has left an imprint on the minds of many Raza and it will take time to heal the nation of these affects. But a revolution will take more than simply hetero-sexual bio-males. National liberation will need to include more people than just those over five-foot nine, or just those with a brocha and clack hair. The liberation of Aztlan will need to include more than those over 30 named Pancho. Freedom will have to include the whole nation.

Male supremacy works twofold on the gender oppressed because they face white supremacy within their national oppression and this is mainly deriving from white males, but then they face hetero-male supremacy within their own oppressed nation.

The future of the Chican@ nation will depend on how we decide the gender issue. It will depend on how we understand the inequality in sexual relations in this society and study its impact on our nation. If our perceptual knowledge cannot develop into something more conceptual it will adversely affect our mobilization as a nation. Perhaps we need a cultural revolution to address gender oppression in the ideological realm within Aztlan. To those who vandalize the Galeria, I would say stop doing the oppressor’s jalé.

The cry for tolerance in speech has become echoing for sometime now, especially when that speech is aimed at those already marginalized in society. What some refer to as “minority” people or social issues have continued to take on an onslaught of attacks from right wing conservatives - as well as some pseudo-leftists who now plead for “diversity” in the guise of “speech”. Often this “speech” is nothing more than oppressor speech which is a continuous attack by other means on THOSE HISTORICALLY OPPRESSED IN U.S. BORDERS. Jonathan Rauch’s article “in Defense of Prejudice: Why incendiary speech must be protected” (Harpers 1995) attempts to show why we should allow or “protect” oppressive speech, I of course strongly disagree.

In his article Rauch gives a few examples of how opposing “hate speech” has come to be used by the other side and lists Ralph Reed, executive director of a conservative Christian coalition having cried about “religious bigotry” having been used against him or a christian student at a California State University who filed a sexual harassment suit in the millions on his Lesbian Teacher. And he lists this as if to say “gosh people look what happens when we don’t protect any hate speech”. So we should back off of “oppressor” speech because someone on the right holds a press conference or files a lawsuit?

Rauch calls those peace loving people who want an end to racism “crusaders for sweetness and light” and he says this in the second paragraph of his article, he wastes no time in revealing where he stands in the battle of the oppressors and oppressed. In this very same paragraph he states “the very last thing society should do is seek to utterly eradicate racism and other forms of prejudice”. And in the very next paragraph he states “I am not a racist and that is not an article favoring racism”. Okay which one is it, he wants racism to continue in the ideological realm but then he’s not favoring racism in the next sentence.

Flip flopping is a common trait of those not being truthful of their beliefs. You cannot fill the stray cat’s milk bowl every morning and then say that you really don’t want the stray cat to stay hanging out around the house. What does Rauch think will happen to “racism” or to be specific to national oppression if he “protects” it? The word “protect” implies to safeguard something, his arguments are really bizarre.

What Rauch refers to as “intellectual pluralism” is a poor attempt to gloss over sympathy for oppressors. Perhaps we should not expect more from a racist apologist, after all he IS speaking from a place of privilege in U.S. society.

Rauch again attempts to distort history - as racists or Amerikkkan chauvinists often do - in order to pigeon hole or make his “logic” fit. At one point in his article he describes how he feels racism will always exist because according to him “Homo sapiens is a tribal species for whom ‘us versus them’ comes naturally”. He says this as if this is the explanation of why racism exists. He is wrong and here’s why…

First Rauch’s distorted view of “Tribal” does not match up to material reality. If one were to cast even a casual eye to history one would learn that tribes never believed in racism, on the contrary they regularly adopted and accepted peoples of other nationalities into their tribes i.e. the white squaw, or the escaped slaves - which Mardi Gras in New Orleans still commemorates.

Tribal societies have often allowed non-native peoples to enter their lands i.e. the Aztecs, the Mohawk etc, and this openness has often led to devastation to the tribal peoples. Rauch like so many others before him attempts to blame a long legacy of oppression on Tribal cultures, blaming anyone but the people who physically commit this racism - but oh, wait a minute we can’t blame them according to Rauch because we have to “protect” them.

In case Rauch did not know the tribal society of the Taino welcomed Columbus in 1492 to their Island and they were repaid - as in Veracruz, Mexico or the Andes - with genocide and colonization.

Rauch writes his article in the 1990’s Amerikkka where whether Jewish or homosexual he is still seen and treated in many ways as Euro-Amerikkkan thus he was born into a privileged caste compared to most Brown, Black or Native folks. His experience with oppressor speech is thus likewise tainted and watered down, it thus is no surprise that he would be nonchalant with oppressor speech.

I think to allow or “protect” as Rauch described it - oppressor speech allows it to concentrate and anytime we facilitate racists and protect their distorted views only strengthens them and allows casual thoughts to become organized distilleries of hate. The freedom to speak and think in certain ways is something we all strive for but when it comes to such foulness as preying on children or rape, these beliefs or erroneous thoughts should not be “protected” and neither should racism in any form. National oppression is in the same category to me as a rapist speech or a child molestation ideas, it should be challenged and combated by all means wherever we find it.

Editor's Note: Original Artwork, "Los Muertos" by Jose H. Villarreal, 2013. Pen & pastel on paper.

Many Chican@s understand the concept of Aztlan in a variety of ways, some for its indigenous historical root and others for its contemporary symbolic meaning of unity and our national territory. Either way Aztlan draws the line of demarcation between Chican@s and our oppressor and provides an anti-imperialist thrust. To abandon Aztlan ultimately declaws Chican@s and attempts to assimilate the nation into Amerikkka which results in weakening Chican@s and strengthening our oppressor.

When it comes to the Left in U.S. borders, many within the non-Raza strain work hard at attempting to lump together all Brown people, just like Amerikkka did in the days of the old “Greaser Laws”, only today it is in the name of “progress”. The idea is to better control Brown people and get Raza to attempt to assimilate under a mostly white Left-wing leadership. These “Progressives” work hard to co-opt Raza struggles and are quick to downplay the Chican@ nation and its distinct leadership. Some of them even capture the minds of Raza who unwittingly push their agenda, but real anti-imperialism understands that nationalism of the oppressed is a positive thing.

The truth is Raza have lots in common and will always have that strong bond and close collaboration. Our common hystories on this continent ensure this. However the fact remains that we come from distinct nations and for Chican@s our national territory (commonly referred to as Aztlan) defines the Chican@ nation. Many different Raza have come to identify as Chican@ and thus Aztlan has continued the tradition of being inclusive of many diverse peoples. Raza have arrived from various nations and moved into Chican@ barrios and made them their home. Acknowledging the concept of Aztlan does not turn anyone away. But what denying Aztlan’s existence DOES do is it denies the existence of the Chican@ nation because without a land base, a national territory, there is no nation. This is what these “Progressives” do not explain.

Undermining an oppressed nation is done in many ways. One more obvious way is of course implanting the idea that their nation does not exist or that they should attempt to assimilate with Amerikkka. But another more subtle way of doing this is how those pushing the Prisons imprisoning prisoners simply for profit. They say that the only reason that people are imprisoned is for corporate profits from prison labor that is mostly free to them. On the surface this may sound cool. Even many well intentioned revolutionaries may promote this. The problem is that if prison booms are profit driven it alludes to there being no national oppression within the use of prisons and thus no need for national liberation struggles.

The prison boom is about social control and it is a form of NATIONAL OPPRESSION first and foremost. Profit is a secondary result. Mass imprisonment proves that national liberation struggles within U.S. borders are still very much relevant.

As Chican@s our LAND IS OCCUPIED as you read this, so why would we ever seek to negate our existence as an oppressed nation? Can one be any more oppressed than having one’s land stolen? And should we react by refusing to call our national territory by its hystorical name? I say NO.

We are anti-imperialists because we are against land grabs and the exportation of oppression. We are not stuck on just our nation, we know that we are inter-connected to the world’s people and we fight oppression everywhere. At the same time we know that we can’t free the world’s people until we free our own people both physically and psychologically.

Imperialism is strengthened when large swaths of oppressed people are hoodwinked into not taking the right path to free themselves. By attempting to bury the concept of Aztlan, it not only sets back the Chican@ Movement, but it also sets back the anti-imperialist movement. Rather than attempting to smother what may be the most essential social forces in the U.S. borders, real progressives need to find ways to support and help unleash them. Such actions would be real anti-imperialism.

Editor's Note: Original artwork by Jose H. Villarreal, 2015.

The rays of light splash across the upper concrete walls of my prison “yard”. The sun so bright that the wire screen roof almost disappears from its brilliance. A swath of blue sky is stretched across its small patch like a tarp over the back of a pick up truck.

I raise my hands in an attempt to feel the warmth of the sun, so close yet out of reach. I stare up hoping for a glimpse of the all powerful Sun only to be treated with the periphery of its glow. As I peer through the caged roof I hear the chirp of a bird that has landed on the cámara that watches me. The bird seemed to look down to me, perhaps bewildered why this humyn being is in a bird cage. It chirps and ruffles its brown feathers that have specs of red around the collar. I see black feathers around its ankles and see its sharp beak.

This bird would fit into my hand, I guess, a melody from a living breathing thing. The bird moves its head and takes flight into the sky, but as it leaves it chirps two times, perhaps sending some sort of greeting to the big bird cage.

I watch it soar through the sky remembering the tail feathers and attempt to recall the designs on it. I peer up, my neck craned hoping to see another bird, instead I see the warmth of the sunrays.

This story all started on December 2, 2015. A man named Mario Woods was killed at the age of 26. He was killed in a cold blooded murder. They said that Woods had a weapon in his hand but really he did not. So that is why Deecolonize Academy went to the march down in the Mission in San Francisco, a place that is ugly and beautiful all in the same. You can smell all the markets selling items and you can see they people in struggle all around.

There were three Deecolonize Studies who went. They were Kimo,Tyray and Tibu.There were about 80 people at the start of the the march, ages 12 to 16. More high school students arrived, and there were about 300 students all together. Chants were said all around like ''No Justice no peace the racist police!"

The students walked from the 16th and Mission bart to City Hall to let the city know that it is wrong for the black and brown people to get killed for reasons unknown most of the time. Deecolonize were at the march because they were invited and they knew that it was not right that another innocent person was killed by another trigger happy officer or shall I say trigger happy officers.

The Deecolonize students were there and Kimo and Tibu went up to say a few words That was the reason Decolonize went out there with the students because they knew it was wrong and they knew some day there will be no more police brutality.