Story Archives 2016

p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"span style="font-size: 12.8px;"ldquo;The fibroid shrunk one centimeter,rdquo; my gynecologist said. I stopped at Clinica de la Raza, because I had an appointment that day for a follow up on an ultrasound that was performed prior to my surgery. My gynecologist told me I had a cyst in my left ovary, we just donrsquo;t know where or what size. /span/p p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"span style="font-size: 12.8px;"ldquo;We might have to remove it.rdquo; The news felt like a bombshell. The gynecologist sounded like he was 15 million miles away. My mind set to pausehellip;My ovary??? My feminist side??? The last and only ovary I have./span/p p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"I felt an ocean of raging waters through my head. I went back to the Clinica to make sure the last thing I did was ask for some kind of medical records. I felt like I was pregnant and having twins the size and length of the above./p p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"The people who work at the Clinica think that because I donrsquo;t have a degree I wonrsquo;t do my research. After all I did not have time since my surgery was coming up. It felt urgent like cruising in an ambulance every random day./p p style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"Yet I am totally satisfied with my surgery ndash; I am already feeling the difference. Thank you for reading this.nbsp;/p

h1 class="with-tabs" strongnbsp;/strongspanThis is Leroy Moore and I#39;m interviewing today a couple of activists, disabled activists from Chicago. We#39;re gonna talk about the recent DOJ hearing in Chicago on police brutality. So you guys, introduce yourself and introduce your work./span/h1 div class="node" div class="content" pspanstrongCANDACE Coleman:/strongnbsp;My name is Candace Coleman. I am the Community Development Organizer for the youth at Access Living in Chicago. I have the pleasure of coordinating our youth advocacy group, youth and young adult advocacy group called Advance Youth Leadership Power. Lately this year, we#39;ve been focused on the impact of identities of being Black and being people with disabilities./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Great. Who#39;s next?/span/p pspanstrongTimotheus Gordon aka TJ:/strongnbsp;Hello, everyone. My name is Timotheus Gordon, also known as TJ for short, and I am not only an Autistic self advocate, but I#39;m also one of the youth leaders of the AYLP or Advance Youth Leadership Power here in Chicago./span/p pspanstrongLEROY/strong: Thank you. And last?/span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER HUFF:/strongnbsp;Yes, hello. My name is Christopher Huff. I#39;m a juvenile advocate, and my work focuses on empowering people with mental illnesses as well as formerly incarcerated youth./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;All right. So thank you all, you three for agreeing to talk about this. Let#39;s get back to what happened at the DOJ hearing, who talked, and what was the subjects, and what do you think that will come from that hearing?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;Well, just to start off, for the last couple of months, the Department of Justice has been in Chicago really investigating the Chicago police department in light of situations such as the Laquan McDonald event. One of the things that we#39;ve been noticing in our youth groups was that the voices of people with disabilities haven#39;t really been heard. Later on, during the investigation and the release of Laquan McDonald#39;s video, it came out that he was a person with a disability, and he went through Special Education. That really kinda drove AYLP into looking into organizing groups like Black Lives Matter and other organizing groups that really have been loud about police brutality in the country. But we just felt like there was just a disconnect of disability voice, and we wanted to use the Department of Justice hearing to honor victims of police brutality through a balloon release vigil, but also give people in the disability community--regardless of race--opportunities to kind of tell their stories at the DOJ hearing./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;I know that one of you talked at the hearing. Was that you, Chris?/span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER:/strongnbsp;I#39;m sorry?/span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;I heard that you spoke at the hearing./span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER:/strongnbsp;Yes, I did. I spoke at the hearing. One of the main reasons behind me speaking at the DOJ event was based upon the idea of believing that the police corruption goes beyond just torture victims, but it also goes into the displacement of people with disabilities. Meaning, I wanted to shed light on my story coming in contact with the Chicago Police Department a couple of months after being diagnosed with a mental illness. And instead of being sent to treatment, I was incarcerated, and I see that tendency for the Chicago Police Department to incarcerate folks with mental illnesses rather than give them actual treatment and services is a by-product of a dysfunctional system./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:nbsp;/strongMm. And TJ, as a person with Autism, I know about the case in Chicago that the police just got off of killing a teenager with Autism. Tell me your experience with police and with the DOJ./span/p pspanstrongTJ:/strongnbsp;Beyondnbsp; hearing, even though personally I#39;ve been stopped by the police before because I was just walking around alone at night. But luckily, nothing else happened, but still I#39;ve been profiled before. But I was mainly speaking on you mentioned Stephen Watts where two police officers pretty much got away with murder along with another person where other police officers where the police also killed the person, but the community essentially actually found them and stopped the officers for killing him. And then later on, I found out that in a Chicago suburb, the police tasered an Autistic person. So it#39;s kinda like my message was that there#39;s a disconnect between the police and their understanding of Autism. It#39;s like they fear Autism so much that instead of getting to know what Autism really is, they quick to shoot, arrest, profile. And it#39;s scaring me also because not only am I Autistic, but I also fit the profile of a thug because of my race, size and my locks ./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;So beyond the DOJ hearing, what else are you guys working on in the police brutality kind of field?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:nbsp;/strongSo our group has been in discussions over the last couple of months in the spring, because we really were trying to figure out where can we I guess make change. One of the things is--and I know, well Leroy, we talked about this a lot, which is--the role that the police play in how we can more so give more power back to the community versus the police. But we live in a city that#39;s very police, we#39;re a police state./span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER:/strongnbsp;Yes, anbsp; police state./span/p pspanCANDACE: And what is happening is that the police officers-- So in support of the Watts family, the Watts family wanted to put a law in place that required all police officers to get CIT training. Cuz currently right now, only 14% of the police force in this city has CIT training. But as we look at that training, that training is 40 hours, and it#39;s not very disability-inclusive. They#39;re not hearing from the people who have disabilities. It#39;s more based off of a medical model language that doesn#39;t really put a realness to how people actually are when they#39;re in a situation. So currently right now, we#39;re having conversations with what the training entails, who trains, and also, we#39;re trying to figure out how to educate communities of color about disability identity and how to be a part of a community that supports instead of calls the police. So in the fall, we#39;re looking for locations in various parts of the city to have our meetings in the community so we could start to do a community fair. So that#39;s just some things we#39;re working on. And then, we#39;re doing research to possibly do a report about disability identity and police encounters./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;So is this report statewide or mainly the city?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;We haven#39;t made that decision yet, but we#39;re doing research about that./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Who is the partners for this report? Is it only your agency?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:nbsp;/strongAgain, we#39;re at the beginning stages. We#39;re doing a lot of research on that./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Oh, OK. Wow. It#39;s interesting. So coming out of this interview, what kind of advice would you give to Black, disabled activists that#39;s trying to get into the activism around police brutality? Because I know for me in going to rallies, I rarely see Black, disabled people at rallies. So what#39;s your advice to Black, disabled people on how they can get involved?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;Chris, you wanna start off?/span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER:/strongnbsp;Absolutely. I would say don#39;t settle for anything less than what#39;s needed to be done. I think at this stage, as it relates to the police brutality in Chicago, there needs to be a system wide restructuring, a complete restructuring of the entire police system in order to focus on empowering communities and providing communities with the skills and the knowledge and the resources necessary to secure and protect their communities. I think policing less and a full restructuring or the development of a fundamentally new system of policing here in Chicago, I believe that disabled community should not settle for anything less./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;OK./span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;I think that one of the things that I saw at the DOJ hearing, we have been in community with various people who have been victims of police brutality and didn#39;t even know it until they showed up at the hearing. I think I would say that I wouldn#39;t want a hearing to be the point of contact to find out information like that./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Yeah./span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;And I think it speaks to us really having a space to have that conversation, open and not in a hidden space. So I think I would give the advice to just always stay true to your story, and if you can or are open to it, to tell it. Because even like outside of this building community, people who probably don#39;t even wanna reveal themselves as having a disability. There#39;s still this shame and this stigma and this idea that I don#39;t want people to know. And people are suffering for it./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Yeah, yeah./span/p pspanstrongTJ:/strongnbsp;I would also like to add, not only and if you want to be encouraged to share your stories on how the police affects you as a person of color with a disability, not just share it with it with mainstream media either. We in the age where we can share our stories through almost any form of information blogs and other medias sources outside of NBC, ABC, stuff like that because you get to notice that while there are some forms of media that get our stories out there, mainstream still taking its time to get it. So the more that we tell our stories, the more that the mainstream media will eventually get the connections between what#39;s happening to us as disability community and the police brutality phenomenon, period. And just like I said, to tell our stories through all available media, even like media outside the mainstream. That was very helpful, like blogs, websites, things of that nature./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:nbsp;/strongYeah, you brought up a good point. What do y#39;all think about how cultural work plays in this movement of police brutality? What does cultural work plays into that, especially for Black, disabled artists?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;I think we have a lot of work to do within the disability movement and outside of the disability movement. For example, this weekend it#39;s the Disability Pride Parade in Chicago. People don#39;t know. People mix it up with other identities, thinking that it#39;s related to Gay Pride or something. It seems like we still have to reveal our identities to the world. That#39;s how I feel. So I think truly, within the disability rights community, we still need to do a lot of cultural competency work because there#39;s still a lot of white privilege that is keeping the issue of police brutality and disability quiet. But then also, in the non-disabled community, the idea that people don#39;t care about people with disabilities is also on their side. So we just got a lot of cross-cultural work to do./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Mmhmm./span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER:/strongnbsp;There. And I think in addition to that cross-cultural work, I think that there has to be a fundamental change in the way that we interact with people that are across disabilities, whether it be the way people with mental disabilities interact with or work with people with physical disabilities and begin to build that rapport within the current organizing activities and kinda really begin to build those relationships. Cuz right now, I think the biggest thing that#39;s hurting a big part of the movement is the kind of stigma and fear that Candace talks about within the disabled community. It#39;s almost like we#39;ve kinda learned that our voices don#39;t matter. We kinda learn to a large extent that our stories don#39;t matter cuz nobody cares. I think the only way that we can break that mold and break that culture of silence and not talking about the issues and the things that we care about, I think that in order to do that, we have to fundamentally come together, begin to share our stories across different lines./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Totally agree, totally agree. One more question. How is the Black Lives Matter chapter in Chicago? Have they embraced people with disabilities, and have they collaborated with you guys?/span/p pspanstrongTJ:nbsp;/strongAs far as collaborating with AYLP, not yet. We would like to, though, it being the beginning phases of that. But as far as at least the citywide level, they recently put out a statement about the story that I mentioned earlier where a police officer almost killed a Autistic young man. But the whole community saved him, basically, from it. While I commend Chicago chapter of BLM for at least putting the idea out there that police brutality affects disabled people in the Black and Brown communities and just under-represented communities in general; however, they#39;re still some language that would still kinda get me. Like for instance, when they mentioned about 80% of police brutality happens to people with mental health, the issue with that is people come up thinking of Autism with mental health. When actually, Autism is a developmental disability, not mental health. So it still needs to be education on what disability really is between the disability community and groups that are acivists like BLM. And also, we need to figure out how can we participate with BLM, because it#39;s inaccessible as of right now. I#39;m sure the other two could chime in on that./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Yeah, anybody wanna chime in on that?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;No, I think TJ summed it up./span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER/strong: Yeah./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:nbsp;/strongOK. Any last words that you guys wanna talk about around this issue or any upcoming campaigns or events?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;I just wanna say that everything that we do is tied to the system, whether we in education or whether we#39;re not. The services we need, whether mental health is crucial schools/institutionsnbsp; are closing. Unfortunately, every arrow is leading to the prison system, and as a organizer, I know it#39;s important for me to figure out ways to block that path. Which is one of the reasons why we work on the school-to-prison pipeline. But in adulthood, when you#39;re just at home in your community, trying to skate or trying to hang out with your friends or being out and about and something happens, and the police is called, we need to switch from institutional, heavy base support for more community support. And I really wanna work on that./span/p pspanstrongTJ:nbsp;/strongYes, I second that!/span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER:/strongnbsp;Yeah, and I guess the last thing I would like to say is just thank you for having this conversation, and thank you for utilizing your media/column as a platform to really look at these issues. I think the more opportunities that we have to engage in dialog like this, discussing movements, discussing our vision or the impact we would like to make on the system as people with disabilities, I think the more opportunities we have to do this, the more opportunities we have for the movement to grow and develop over time./span/p pspanstrongLEROY/strong: Well, with that, thank you so much./span/p pspanALL LEROY: Thank you./span/p /div /div

pspan class="_4n-j fsl"In the name of 100 year old, lifelong Fillmore resident Iris Canada, who has suffered financial, emotional and physical abuse under California elder abuse law from her landlord, who has been continually harassing her with eviction attempts since early March 2016, a group of advocates will be demanding that the District Attorney, George Gascon press charges of elder abuse under penal code 368./span/p p This demand to the DA follows yet another attempt by the landlord to evict in court today, BlackAugust 10th when the attorney for landlords Peter Owens, Carolyn Radische and Stephen Owens brought yet another filing, notwithstanding the fact that a powerful group of advocates and community showed up to support and resispan class="text_exposed_show"st yet another attempt to evict a 100 year old Black elder from the increasingly white and rich San Francisco, the judge allowed todays appeal to go through putting Iris in the dangerous position of being homeless in her lifelong home,/span/p p Iris, a beautiful and strong grandmother, auntie and lifelong resident of the Fillmore has been fighting an eviction since early March. Though the court granted her a relief from forfeiture, allowing her to stay despite the eviction, it also granted the ownerrsquo;s legal and other fees of $164,000. Ms. Canadarsquo;s attorney, Dennis Zaragoza, has filed an appeal because he believes the court had no right to impose the fees./p p Friday#39;s visit to the DA follows a 2014 series of cases brought by disabled, evicted and displaced elders, family and youth leaders from a data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=39770831995extragetparams=%7B%22directed_target_id%22%3A604116713081627%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/PoorNewsNetwork/"POOR Magazine/a, a data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/group.php?id=19660954620extragetparams=%7B%22directed_target_id%22%3A604116713081627%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/19660954620/"Krip Hop Nation/a, the a data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=117617488280955extragetparams=%7B%22directed_target_id%22%3A604116713081627%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/San-Francisco-Bay-View-Newspaper-117617488280955/"San Francisco Bay View Newspaper/a, Idirss Stelley Foundation and Manilatown Heritage Foundation and many more advocates in San Francisco that were never followed up by the District attorney, who consistently rules and acts in favor of the rich and powerful in San Francisco/p p This action is organized by homeless, displaced, disabled and formerly unhoused youth, adults and elders from Krip Hop Nation, POOR Magazine and (inbox us if you want to sign on)/p

pem style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Lucida Grande, Lucida Sans Unicode, helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"Editors Note: Jose H. 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./span/em/p p*Artwork by David Velasquez/p pFive traits that are commonly associated with creative people are: Sensitivity, Flexibility, Originality, Playfulness and Productivity./p pI must say that in my own experience, I have seen all of these traits in the artists that I have come across, including myself. I once had a cellmate who totally displayed these traits. His sensitivity was sharp. We would be watching TV and he would point out how the shadows from a tree showed where the sun was./p pHe needed shaders for his pastels and quickly improvised with pages out of a magazine (while I used toilet paper twisted up). Being in prison without proper tools was no obstacle./p pMy old cellmate had originality. He would create art on bars of soap that he carved into flowers. Sometimes he would fold old chip wrappers into picture frames./p pWe joked around in the cell. Sometimes we would see commercials and find out who the people in them looked like. Playfulness was always part of our day./p pMy old cellmate was very productive. He would constantly barter for canteen items and talk about ways to have his art supplement his income once he was released from prison./p pReading about creativity surprised me. I saw so much of this to be true. As an artist I see these traits in almost all artists that I know./p pCreativity is such a universal character with artists, not just when their at their work station but in everyday life./p pJose H. Villarreal/p pnbsp;/p p1-1-16/p

pemspanEditors Note: Jose H. 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./span/em/p p*Migra Terror/p p*Original Artwork by Jose H. Villarreal/p pI sent a pen pal of mine, who is also an artist, a drawing of a young girl. I drew the girl holding a rose in her hand. My pen pal wrote back thanking me for the ldquo;folk artrdquo;. This was the first time that I heard this term. The classification between ldquo;insider/outsiderrdquo; art has roots in the contradictions which exist in our society. It is a way to segregate artists along class lines for the most part./p pThe ldquo;elf-taughtrdquo; artist is often the poor artist, the working class artist and the artist from the underclass (Lumpen). In the U.$. the ldquo;insider artistrdquo; often translates to the bourgeois artist./p pChican@ Art is thought of to many as outsider Art. To the Chican@ it is simply Art. For Chican@s and our Art, there is no ldquo;insider/outsiderrdquo; Art. We simply have Art, although we have different genres of Art such as AZTLAN REALISM and other less revolutionary art styles./p pIn my opinion, those who divide art between insider/outsider Art do so because so-called ldquo;professional artistsrdquo; have been formally trained. They create art according to the institutional ldquo;art rulesrdquo;. The shading is done according to the ldquo;properrdquo; way, the traditional form which takes its cues from capitalist culture and the ruling class. Whereas the so-called ldquo;outsiderrdquo; creates and shades in their own way, they break rules, they put what some say is too much paint on the brush and they create genres which have not yet been classified./p pI believe that at its core, art is or has historically been created for the people. Long before classes were created, art was created, despite the moneyed class having expropriated art. We should not accept this. So-called ldquo;outsiderrdquo; art is peoplersquo;s art and should be accepted more in museums and galleries or, better yet, those who create this Art should band together and create our own galleries and museums./p pJose H. Villarreal/p p1-4-16/p

p(Photo by Christopher Cook)/p pThis is racism, this is ageism, Iris Merrioums spoke to the small crowd of media, advocates and POOR Magazine family gathered outside the San Francisco District attorney#39;s office on Friday, BlackAugust 12th. POOR Magazine had organized this press conference to demand a meeting with DA George Gascon for Iris#39;s 100 year old grand-auntie, life-long Fillmore resident Iris Canada, who has been fighting for the right to stay in her home of 50 years since last year.nbsp;br / nbsp;/p div pIris is an owner, she has a life estate, and they have been harassing her because they want her out, Iris added./p p Friday#39;s visit to the DA follows yet another attempt by the landlord to evict Iris in kkkort on Wednesday BlackAugust 10th when the attorney for landlords Peter Owens, Carolyn Radische and Stephen Owens brought yet another filing against Iris to get her out.nbsp;/p p And notwithstanding the fact that a powerful group of advocates from Housing Rights Committee, Senior disability Advocates, POOR Magazine and community showed up to support and resist yet another attempt to evict a 100 year old Black elder from the increasingly white and rich San Francisco, the judge allowed Wednesay#39;s appeal to go through putting Iris in the dangerous position of being homeless in her lifelong home,nbsp;/p p Though the court granted Iris a relief from forfeiture, allowing her to stay despite the eviction, it also granted the ownerrsquo;s legal and other fees of $164,000. Ms. Canadarsquo;s attorney, Dennis Zaragoza, has filed an appeal because he believes the court had no right to impose the fees./p p Friday#39;s visit to the DA follows a 2014 series of elder abuse cases brought by disabled, evicted and displaced elders, family and youth leaders fromnbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=https://www.facebook.com/PoorNewsNetwork/source=gmailust=1471460587854000usg=AFQjCNHyRhMwyivTCgS1heUKWYpLQmKQpQ" href="https://www.facebook.com/PoorNewsNetwork/" target="_blank"POOR Magazine/a,nbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=https://www.facebook.com/groups/19660954620/source=gmailust=1471460587854000usg=AFQjCNFNL_G-xkVFRktkyf7LahDo3vD2fA" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/19660954620/" target="_blank"Krip Hop Nation/a, thenbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=https://www.facebook.com/San-Francisco-Bay-View-Newspaper-117617488280955/source=gmailust=1471460587854000usg=AFQjCNGAEUMxt72kapN-rV0xFuLABKaUYA" href="https://www.facebook.com/San-Francisco-Bay-View-Newspaper-117617488280955/" target="_blank"San Francisco Bay View Newspaper/a, Idirss Stelley Foundation and Manilatown Heritage Foundationnbsp;because we were able to prove the clear cases of elder abuse under 368 of the elder abuse code that dictates the standards for Adult Protective Services and Child Protection Servicesnbsp; by landlords for the acts of eviction and pre-eviction harassment of elders and children. In all of the cases we brought, the DA#39;s assistant Sharon Woo went to great pains to show us how the Ellis Act and other land-stealer, settler colonizer born laws protect the landords, even when their falacious evictions for profit resulted in the deaths of Elaine Turner and Ron Likkers and many more elders. After two visits we never heard anymore from the District attorney, who consistently rules and acts in favor of the rich and powerful in San Francisco./p p After Iris explained the complex history of harassment by Peter Owens and other co-owners of the buildingnbsp; which included putting camera#39;s up to spy on Iris, accusations of Iris living somewhere else and an endless list of court filings, that has been happening since this case began we walked into the DA to demand the meeting.nbsp;/p p When we arrived at Gascon#39;s office we were met by a disinterested and patronizing Public Relations person who was there to spin a story but not answer any of our questions. The communications person is coming out to meet with you. said the woman sitting behind the glass at the DA#39;s office.nbsp;/p pWe didn#39;t ask to meet with the communications person, Iris and I shot back in unison, Where is George Gascon?, we opened the elder abuse case in 2015 and there has been no movement since then, Iris concluded.br / nbsp;/p pWhy are you sending a PR person to meet with us?, Leroy Moore from Krip Hop Nation who along with Queenandi XSheba, Vivian Thorp and Laure Mcelroy from POOR Magazine, Tony Robles from Manilatown Heritage Foundation, HRC andnbsp; and so many powerful community members showed up to support Ms Canada and her family.br / nbsp;/p pMr Gascon is not available right now, After almost an hour of patronizing excuses from the Public Relations officer for the DA, the room began to fill up with armed sheriffs.nbsp;br / nbsp;/p pYou need to leave this office right now, another assistant District Attorney who knew me from the last time we came in in 2014 and tried to silence us with a promise of yet another meeting time and then resorted to just calling in the weapon filled sheriffs, who fingered their guns nervously. At one point they blocked the doorway and said Iris couldn#39;t even help her auntie leave the office.nbsp;/p /div pThe story of Iris Canada isn#39;t just about eviction, its about African peoples who were stolen to build this stolen Turtle Island#39; Its about Iris#39;s equity being stolen by settler colonizer paper trails and lying lawyers who have been stealing Black , Brown and 1st Peoples lives and land since the beginning of this capitalist project called Amerikkklan. Its about the pattern of intentional displacement of the Black, Brown and working class communities of San Francisco. Its about disrespect and endless pushing out of poor and working class peoples from their rightful claim to the City they worked to build and yet get no respect from.Its about the disrespect, killing , profiling and genocide of Black and indigenous peoples. Iris story is the collective story of Marcus Books, Mario Woods, Luis Demetrio Gongora Pat, Alex Nieto, Ron Likkers and Elaine Turner.nbsp;br / nbsp;/p pIts called Karma, and God and Mother Nature will be your final judge, Four generations lived poverty skola, teacher and POOR Magazine staff writer Queenandi XSheba called out to the DA#39;s office after the whole community was evicted from the DA#39;s office We will be back, she concluded./p pYes we will. all of us gentrified, displaced, poLice terrorized and never thought about peoples. We will be back. For Iris, for Ron, for Elaine, for Mario, Luis, Alex, Amilcar and so many more.../p pstrongEMERGENCY ACTION REQUIRED/strong:span class="_4n-j fsl"100 Year old Iris Canada has fought eviction from her Western Addition home of more than 40 years. She was evicted by her landlord Peter Owens via the Ellis Act. She won her court case to stay in her home. Her landlord sued for court costs and won. Now she faces eviction. This has caused stress to Iris, which has included a stroke. Judge James A Robertson ruled in favor of the landlord. Let him know that it is wrong to evict an elder. Please call his office and let your voice be heard. His office at SF Superior Court is 415-551-3768./spanbr / nbsp;/p

div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" b style="font-size: large;"Getting justice for our African Sunsnbsp;/b/div div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" div class="gmail_quote" An arrest is made in the quadruple homicide of young African-American suns in the Fillmore div dir="ltr" div class="gmail_quote" div dir="ltr" By Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia/PoorNewsNetwork-wbrPOOR Magazine div div class="gmail_quote" nbsp;/div div class="gmail_quote" We are determined to get justice for our children, said Sala-haquekyah chandlernbsp; as she and other mothers stood outside the SF courthouse where the alleged murderer of her Sun and three other young African Suns in a quadruple homicide January 9th 2015 was being tried. Little is known yet about all of the facts surrounding thea data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=http://kron4.com/2016/07/29/san-francisco-police-make-arrest-in-quadruple-homicide/source=gmailust=1471462996919000usg=AFQjCNE4IxtnugZA45YmrFhKzD_xxRYG_A" href="http://kron4.com/2016/07/29/san-francisco-police-make-arrest-in-quadruple-homicide/" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" target="_blank"nbsp;arrest of the alleged perpetrators/a, who are being charged with code 187 for homicide of the four boys, but one thing is known for sure, had it not been for the endless resistance, marching, speaking, praying and fighting on the part of the mothers and families of the four murdered boys this case would not have gotten this far.nbsp;/div div class="gmail_quote" br / nbsp;/div div class="gmail_quote" Bback to the beginning/b/div div class="gmail_quote" div dir="ltr" div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" div div div div div They are killing our indigenous children, said Sala-haquekyah chandler r as she stood on the corner of Laguna and Page streets. It had been a few weeks since the execution of 4 young African Suns from the Fillmore District of San Francisco and thenbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D6ZFBRnwd9xIsource=gmailust=1471462996919000usg=AFQjCNH4en2wtg3rmXRErqQrBVrnTWosbA" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZFBRnwd9xI" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" target="_blank"mothers and their supporters gathered/anbsp;near the scene of the quadruple murder to demand justice. All the mothers held a beautiful banner at the murder site with the faces and names of the four young suns,Manuel Orsquo;Neal, David Saucier II, Harith Atchan, and Yalani Chinyamurindi, who is Sala#39;s sun./div /div p PowerFul sister-mama- community leader Sala has been family with POOR Magazine since my mama Dee and I first started in 1996 doing journalism workshops for other poor mamaz and daddys like us. Sala, like many low-income, Black, Brown and poor mamas including my mama Dee, was struggling to raise her children on the crums of welfare and also were determined to tell our truths and make our own poor and indigenous people-led media./p p Fast foreward to 2001 Sala launched the effort to stop the senseless violence perpetrated by us killing us, i.e, the guns so easily attained by our young peoples of color in our own hoods, towns and barrios. this became the powerFUL march she called thenbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=http://www.poormagazine.org/node/2726source=gmailust=1471462996919000usg=AFQjCNFDCoZBkD0mk78iMRdS3u4VmH2jtw" href="http://www.poormagazine.org/node/2726" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" target="_blank"One Life Walk-/abr / nbsp;/p/div p Then in January of 2015 I received a horrific call that brought me to my knees. Four young African Suns murdered execution- style while driving in a van in the Fillmore district ofnbsp; San Francisco. A neighborhood violated by an onslaught of displacement led by one modern day colonizer devil-oper and poltrickster legislation after another and most recently an influx of what i call thenbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=http://www.poormagazine.org/node/4999source=gmailust=1471462996919000usg=AFQjCNHAVmWNSvewPm-ExkQlKDg4oI-bYQ" href="http://www.poormagazine.org/node/4999" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" target="_blank"gentryTechNation/anbsp;pushing low and no-income communities of color into smaller and smaller pieces of what used to a thriving Black and Brown neighborhood transforming it into the FillNoMo as coined bynbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=http://www.poormagazine.org/node/1650source=gmailust=1471462996919000usg=AFQjCNFPY7wdX6l9P3ANW-LR7iym3TUL5w" href="http://www.poormagazine.org/node/1650" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" target="_blank"A. Faye Hicks, Po Poet Laureate/anbsp;of POOR Magazine.br / nbsp;/p/div p It was in the FillNoMo, struggling with this insane climate of removal,nbsp; that these young men were executed. As i prayed, wept and reflected on this horrible murder and because of my own experience through the violence of displacementnbsp; this formerly unhoused, evicted and displaced mama#39;s first mind went to a gentrification motive for these murders or what author and LA poet laureatenbsp; Luis Rodriguez refers to as poLice fueled gentrification.nbsp;nbsp;br / nbsp;/p/div div They came into our communities offering money and guns to young people, sadly, some of them took the bait, they became informants for the poLice. Luis went on to describe how in LA in the 1970#39;s the police were buying off young xicano members of the community to help fuel the dismantling of a strong Brown community. We focused on this important and frightening connection in an interview with Luis for one of our PoorNewsNetwork radio shows on KPFA#39;s Hard knock radio, focused on the rise in gun violence when a community is undergoing gentrification.nbsp;br / nbsp;/div div We will not stop fighting for our Suns, said Sala atnbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DBi2g3wJRNrwsource=gmailust=1471462996919000usg=AFQjCNHTZGtw_8Acr5YkiEDdsC7Sx2MPDg" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi2g3wJRNrw" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" target="_blank"POOR#39;s Community Newsroom/anbsp;circle last year who along with other mamaz and community leaders like Yolanda Banks Reed with the Hebrew Cultural Community, refused to let up on the poltricksters, the police or each other.nbsp; p No matter what the motivation of this horrible murder of our children, Sala and the other fierce mamas will not give up until the truth comes to light. As a parent of a 12 year old Sun my heart cries every day for Sala and so many mothers who have lost their suns and daughters to community violence and po#39;Lice violence, whonbsp; like Sala says, will never give up fighting for justice for their babies.nbsp;/p/div /div /div /div /div p /p/wbr/div /div /div /div /div

div Dear Leroy and Poor Magazine,/div div nbsp;/div div Greeting from Kaduna State Nigeria./div div nbsp;/div div This is to share with you some pictures of the newly inaugurated Board Members of the Kaduna State Rehabilitation Board headquarter on the 5th August 2016./div div nbsp;/div div I was opted into the Board as Member. This, I believe will be another platform for us to further press home our demand for the passage of the disability bill with commission./div div nbsp;/div div Already, I have appealed to Members on board to act urgently to salvage the situation of beggars because of the anti begging law passed and which come in effect on September 1st without provision. Chairperson of the board is set to see the Governor accordingly./div div nbsp;/div div Again,our planned rally couldn#39;t have in June and July for lack of funds. We are still nursing the hope that some day it will come to pass./div div nbsp;/div div Julius./div

p(photo by Sarah Menefee)/p pspanldquo;A 90-day moratorium on use of force is actually the norm in certain places,rdquo; said Lisa Marie Alatorre, of the Coalition on Homelessness. ldquo;Even asking SFPD and the city to take this seriously is a way for us of asking everyone to take seriously a paradigm shift in [policing],rdquo; Lisa concluded./span/p pspanWhile two heavily armed poLice officers stood directly across the street watching us, a group of the most impacted, unhoused, criminalized, injured/disabled, Black, Brown, Trans and indigenous peoples gathered to demand a 90 day moratorium to the killing of our Black, Brown, Disabled and Unhoused residents of this City and all cities struggling with the ongoing murder of our children, youth, elders and families.nbsp;/span/p pspanBeginning with a powerful prayer and words from Ohlone prayer bringer and warrior Luta Candelaria, the peoples gathered in front of the Mission PoLice station in Yelamu, Ohlone Land ( San Francisco),nbsp; a city known for the poLice murder of indigenous Mayan unhoused father, brother husband Luis Demetrio Gongora Pat, unhoused pregnant mother, sister, daughter Jessica Nelson Williams, hard-working indigenous migrant Amilcar Perez Lopez and hard-working brothers, Suns, Alex Nieto and Orsquo;Shaine Evans and so many more, not to mention the eviction of 100 year old Black elder Iris Canada./span/p pspanIn 1989 CRISIS training went into effect in Memphis,nbsp; today this training has gone nation wide but the number of police shootings of people with disabilities has exploded and not only people with mental health disability but people who are autistic, Deaf and even Blind., said Leroy Moore disabled poverty skola and Po Poet from POOR Magazine and founder of Krip Hop Nation who co-signed onto this moratorium./span/p pspanldquo;Every 28 hours someone who looks like me is murdered in this country by law enforcement, security guards, and vigilantes ndash; thatrsquo;s an emergency,rdquo; said Bilal Ali, revolutionary Black Panther and founder of the Peoples Commission for Justice, who co-signed onto the Moratorium and is a revolutionary alternative to thenbsp; with the ldquo;selectedrdquo;, pimped and played poLice commission. ldquo;Brown, poor and disabled people are also continually targeted by these slavecatchers./span/p pspanldquo;This is an emergency, our children are being murdered,rdquo; said La Mesha Irizarry mother of Idriss Stelley who was shot by SF PoLice and was also one of the co-signers of the Emergency moratorium./span/p pstrongspanMoratorium:/span/strongbr / emspanDue to the extreme danger, murder, and ongoing targeting of young peoples of color, Trans peoples, disabled and unhoused peoples by police forces in the US, We the targeted, criminalized, injured, unhoused Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples hereby call for a State of Emergency - Moratorium on the use of any firearms or weaponry by all police forces in the US. Specifically weaponry, tasers, guns, AR15 rifles, UZI#39;s, etc while on duty as police officers in any line of duty for the 90 day period following the call for the Moratoriumhellip;. /span/emspanExcerpt of the Moratorium on PoLice Use of Forcenbsp;/span/p pspanAs a formerly unhoused, low-income single mother my heart hurts beyond words for Suns, fathers, sisters, mamas, daughters and caregivers Jessica Nelson-Williams, Korryn Gaines, Luis Demetrio Gongora Pat, Charles Kinsey, Kayla Moore, Antonio Guzman, Mario Woods and so many more, this is a State of Emergency for our babies and our families, said Tiny Gray-Garcia, formerly unhoused single mother, co-founder of POOR Magazine, who were co-signers and co-writers of this Moratorium,poet with the welfareQUEENrsquo;s and author of Criminal of Poverty, Growing Up Homeless in America.nbsp;/span/p pspanemIn this 90 day period, it is our goal to explore the option of complete disarmament of police forces as well as the multitude of community based solutions that have been discussed, explored and conceived by movements of impacted peoples, including Black Lives Matter, the Brown Berets,nbsp; across the US and in other countries whose police forces do not use weaponry at all/emhellip;excerpt from the Moratorium on PoLice Use of Force./span/p pspanThe Brown Berets stand with you all, said anti-racism, anti-poLice warrior and Brown Beret member Al Osorio.nbsp; Other Co-signers to this powerful moratorium who were standing in attendance for their lost brothers, sisters, uncles, fathers, sisters and mothers was the Justice 4 Luis Gongora Coalition, Anti-PoLice Terror Project, Justice for Josiah Campaign, Justice4Josiah, The Anti-Police Terror Project, California Coalition For Women Prisoners.The Center for Convivial Research and Autonomy (CCRA), Answer Coalition, Western Regional Advocacy Project ( WRAP), Coalition on Homelessness, Brown Berets, San Francisco Bay View Newspaper and Olympia Copwatch who also held a press conference in front of the Olympia, Washington PoLice station./span/p pemspanThe money that will be saved from the continued purchase of high grade, murderous war weaponry which costs millions of dollars in tax -payer dollars can be redistributed to impacted, injured, unhoused,targeted, and po#39;Lice terrorized Black, Brown, injured, colonized, incarcerated and criminalized famlies, elders, youth and community./span/em/p pspanldquo;If you are taking a crumb from the man, step to the side, people are dying, ldquo; Quennandi Sheba, POOR Magazine staff writer, poet , teacher and member of the welfareQUEENrsquo;s made the connections between the ways that non-profiteers consistently enable the government-funded and evicting of the poorest among us. Programs like RAD which POOR and the Bayview reported on and non-profits have fed off of for funding and causes the serious rise in evictions and homelessness of poor , Black and Brown peoples.nbsp;/span/p pspanldquo;On this day when the already decided on fake-ass ldquo;selectionrdquo; process of new poLice chief begins we poor mama, uncles, fathers and brothers ask that the job of PoLice chief be re-named Conscious Community Care-giver who actually protects the peoples and serves the community. This new job has new job duties and new qualifications and i nominate, Mama Mesha, Bilal, Leroy, Muteado, Queenandi and Vivi T among a few of the nominees that actually have a track record of caring for the community, ldquo;concluded Lisa Tiny Gray-Garcia./span/p pspanThis call is being made in honor of so many of our Black, Brown, Indigenous, Disabled, Trans Children who have been abused, murdered and/or shot as of July 2016. We stand with, support all other efforts by groups such as BlackLivesMatter and the Brown Berets to abolish, reduce or end the militarization of policing. To sign onto the moratorium and lead a press conference in your city or town please emailnbsp;/spana href="mailto:deeandtiny@poormagazine.org" target="_blank"deeandtiny@poormagazine.org/a./p

pem style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Lucida Grande, Lucida Sans Unicode, helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"Editors Note: Jose H. 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./span/em/p pComposition is a very important part of an artpiece. For the artist the whole point in one creating art is to highlight the beauty in something or call attention to something that the artist feels is important. The use of composition does this./p pThe term ldquo;compositionrdquo; is mostly used to define a two dimensional art piece. ldquo;Deisingrdquo; is used to describe a three dimensional art piece./p pIn her piece ldquo;The Two Fridasrdquo;, Frida Kahlo creates two figures of herself in the center of the page. Here she creates symmetrical balance with not just putting herself side by side in perfect proportion, but she also links the two figures holding hands to lend a psychological emphasis on her intent, which is her two selves are in harmony. These two selves are dressed in two cultures ndash; colonial/ indigenous, or Mexican@./p pThe way in which Frida places the two figures in the center of the drawing are composed in a way that draw your eyes to the center of the painting. The fact that there is no background pictures, only clouds and sky ensure that there will be no distractions to the focused center which is the two Fridas./p pJose H. Villarreal/p p1-18-15/p