Story Archives 2018

“I can’t move that fast,” Johnny X was ducking to avoid the 50 mile an hour rushing water coming his way from a Department of Public Works (DPW)  truck  at the corner of 90th and International boulevards…”DPW started power-washing the streets, our belongings and us when the construction workers began tearing this street to build the rail-line, now we have nowhere to stand, sit or be…”

Johnny, who was one of POOR Magazine’s reporters and WeSearchers (Poverty, Unhoused Skolaz telling our own stories, in our own words), had begun reporting out this situation in November of 2017. According to his WeSearch a rail-line which we later found out was called the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) was causing the unhoused residents of East Oakland to be power-washed, cited and even arrested if they didn’t move from their long-time corners on International boulevard.

“Who does this BRT transit benefit? Those with the connections, those with the protection and those with the complexion.. thats who…” called out poverty skola and POOR Magazine family Bilal Ali at the Transportation Gentrification press conference in Oakland on Tuesday, Jan 16th organized by youth and family poverty skolaz at POOR Magazine, all who have ourselves struggled with gentrification, homelessness and displacement at Oakland City hall. After our speak-out at Oscar Grant Plaza we all marched over to AC transit headquarters where we delivered our WeSearch to AC transit authorities and made a demand for Community Reparations to house the people facing removal threats due to the BRT.

So what's wrong with improving the broken transportation system ?

We all need better, faster, cheaper buses and transportation systems, right? Of course we do, but sadly, the multi-million dollar, benevolent-sounding transportation projects like the BRT system are never built for us . Actually what these 21st century systems are being built for are the people who would like to never see us, encounter or deal with poor and unhoused people and would actually like us to disappear. And the housing devil-opers and real estate snakkkes work closely with the poltricksters and transportation devil-opers like BRT as a covert tactic to remove, displace and criminalize poor and unhoused people in poor people neighborhoods like East Oakland, so they can attract more new hipster, white ( and even POC) Oakland residents. Whats sadder is how easy it is to trick people by using the "T" (T for transportation) word, once you say it, even progressives and conscious folks stay quiet and shut up.

“In other words, with all the money AC transit squandered and stole, which has never been returned to the people they could help poor and unhoused folks buy land so we can build our own self-determined poor people-led projects like Homefulness and help people stay in Oakland while you try to kick out Oakland.” I said at the press conference when we made a demand for community reparations to AC Transit.

“All the migrante Raza in our barrio are scared, our families are already facing removal threats, eviction and then those of who are not are expecting it - this kind of construction for the BRT usually always means one thing- rents get raised higher than what we can afford or we just get evicted because of illegal evictions for profit,” Adriana, one of POOR Magazine’s reporteras reported this violence to us about the BRT.” she concluded

“The biggest scandal to hit East Oakland is this BRT…its all bad, its cutting a huge swath into East Oakland, causing working class families and Black and Brown businesses to be forced out, and its connected to the Coliseum City and most of the non-profits are being bought off, I’m so scared for our communities, I’m hoping you can get this story out,” In September of 2017, POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE got this news tip from a long-time community member.

Because POOR Magazine is in fact Po’ we were unable to launch a full WeSearch investigation, but as soon as we could we began to speak with fellow unhoused, working class and poor skolaz who lived, worked, sat and stood in the International bl corridor to gather the street based truths.

After we did extensive WeSearch, our youth skola reporters, also unhoused and formerly unhoused Oakland residents at Deecolonize Academy/POOR Magazine who have learned in their journalism department about how to file Freedom of Information Act Requests, filed 14 requests with the County of Alameda and the City of Oakland in 14 different departments.

“There were so many scams related to BRT,” said elder community scholar, and activist with Manna from Heaven, Omowale Foweles, at the Transportation Gentrification press conference. “it began with the Van Hoole buses - where AC transit board members were flown to Europe to “check on the buses,” and ended up spending thousands of public dollars on private expense accounts or the scandal of Rick Fernandez and the buying of a house they couldnt sell, its been a mess, and all of the monies AC transit squandered were public, from the benches to the steering wheels.. 

“The BRT is part of Bay Area Plan 2040 - the huge gentrification plan which has openly stated will result in the reduction of Black residents from Oakland,” said POOR Magazine family Jeremy Miller, “so yea, you guys uncovered the belly of the beast,” concluded Jeremy

The first version of the story that the youth wrote for their school newspaper Deecolonewz was published in the SF Bay View and received all kinds of hater comments, which proved to me that we were touching a nerve and at the end of the day POOR Magazine is here to speak for us eviction and displacement victims who no-one speaks for, who are always forgotten and who are always talked about but never talked with..so get in line haters….

Stay tuned for more WeSearch on the BRT by youth and family poverty skolaz- to give a newz tip to POOR Magazine - come to Community Newsroom at the sacred liberated land us po folks call Homefulness on the 1st Tuesday of the Month at 6:30pm- 8032 BlackArthur Bl. Oakland- or email us at poormag@gmail.com.

‘It’s getting really wet, now’ I thought, wincing with every footstep from a screw in my ankle. ‘Soon, it’ll be coming down too hard to move this library.’ My shoulders aching from moving shelves, books, and boxes from Uncle Al’s and Mama Dee’s Living (Really) Public Library. I know however that Mama Dee sits there, watching me from the corner in her altar, occasionally giving me thoughts to keep moving forward. The spirit I feel in there is heavy. We had to get that done that day or the radio station wouldn’t get up in time.

Homefulness is a dream from a homeless, indigenous mama and daughter, Mama Dee and Tiny. It is realized through indigenous values, traditions and circles. It is a landless, indigenous peoples vision of a brighter future where money isn’t the motive behind it all. In order for you to understand what I see in Homefulness, I need to take you back a few centuries, where our people lived FOR each other. The Elder circles and councils always counted in the thoughts and feelings of the youth. The women would take care of the children and elderly and sickly. The braves would hunt for and defend his peoples, and the children? Well all they had to do was respect the voices of their elders and learn from their mistakes. The washicu or pale faces thought we were savage. However that's how we saw them. They walked over each other, leaving the elderly and sickly behind. They scold their children over simple mistakes without letting them learn their own ways. They only defended their village if the temptation of money was involved. The washicu was rude, talking loudly and without critical thought to whom it may affect. If you weren’t educated or couldn’t read, you were considered worthless. However the main thing that made us see the pale faces as savage, was their destruction of Mother Earth. The washicu dug up many tons of her veins to find gold and other precious metals, destroying any and everything in their paths. In their greed, the washicu never realized their destruction was leaving scars upon her beautiful face. Irreparable damage over the centuries have left her in shambles. Now we wonder why our resources are running low, we wonder why our water is poisoned, and wonder why our natural disasters are getting worse.

Homefulness works through all of that by honoring my peoples traditions and values. It truly is living in the ways of my people. We hold circles to decide what steps are needed for the future of Homefulness and its’ people. We honor the peoples who were here first through ceremony and respects. We take care of the ones who care and have love for us. We take care of our elderly and sickly and teach our youth to learn from their mistakes without scorn. Homefulness is really being built through what we call sweat equity, but my peoples called it responsibility. You had the responsibility to take care of your people. You had the responsibility to feed your peoples. You had the responsibility to defend your peoples. You had the responsibility to lead your peoples. You had the responsibility to provide every single aspect of life to your peoples. You had the responsibility to live for your people. Homefulness is all of that and more. Homefulness is the dream realized thru a landless homeless indigenous dream from seven generations passed. Homefulness is love and pain and sorrow manifested in a real state of being. In all actuality  

The Spirit of Homefulness is strong in everyone who works here, because it keeps them working for their folks, holding that responsibility in their hearts. Holding that love, pain and sorrow in the aching shoulders while we keep working to build this dream that is the Spirit of Homefulness.

Editors Note: Currently we are trying to raise the money to finish the 4 MamaHouse Townhouses and the building for the SLiding Scale Cafe- if you are able to support us please do at www.poormagazine.org/rev_donor

A Black Panther Party Liberation School classrooom

For many people, especially Black people, the month of February signifies the annual celebration of Black History Month/African-American Heritage Month.  February is designated as a time to recognize African American achievements and contributions to America. One notable consequence is the hero worship of a handful of prominent figures.  What’s more, this celebration of Black achievement particularly tends to be sanitized, and this selective representation is often at the expense of erasing a rich legacy of individuals, groups, and movements just as important in the legacy of Black struggle.

Every year since 1929, the month of February has been observed as Black History Month by scholars, students, churches, and the corporate world.  Many people feel that it is important that we honor those who faced with almost insurmountable challenges and barriers to “overcome.” Many believe that Black History should be celebrated year-round, not just one month of the year and the shortest month of the year at that, as it’s no different from American history. After all, Black History is amerikkklan his-story, in which, without Black people there would no American history.

Negro History Week (1926), the precursor to Black History Month, was created in 1926 in the United States, when historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History announced the second week of February to be "Negro History Week.”  Woodson was bothered by the fact that many textbooks and other historical reviews minimized or ignored the contributions of black figures.  When Carter G Woodson proposed Negro History Week, he explained, "If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated."  Woodson earmarked the second week in February to raise awareness of our stories.  Woodson chose that week because it specifically covered the birthdays of Frederick Douglass (February 14) and Abraham Lincoln (February 12).

There is no shortage of ways to celebrate Black History Month. Teachers give lessons to students about important African American historical figures such as Harriet Tubman and the Tuskegee Airmen.  Bookstores highlight the works of black poets and writers. Meanwhile, galleries display the work of black artists.  Museums feature exhibitions with African-American themes, and theaters present plays with an African American subject matter.  At the same time Black History Month is being celebrated with all its pageantry, it fails to acknowledge the historic ongoing struggles for  Black people’s self-determination and liberation.  Is this because Black History Month has been successfully co-opted by corporate America and the petty black bourgeois?  KKKapitalism co-opts the post-holiday sales slump that usually follows New Year’s Day, when retailers honor holidays in hopes of boosting revenue while adjusting their products and services to commemorate Black History Month.  Target , Verizon, Google, Netflix, along with alcoholic beverage companies, display Great African Kings such as Budweiser's advertisement.  Ironically, many of these corporations have derived their great wealth from that “peculiar institution” known as slavery.  This involvement by these corporations has had the effect of rendering Black History Month a token gesture.

“We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society - Point 5 of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense Platform.”

Black history is amerikkklan history.  A history of kidnapping, a history of genocidal practices, a history of suffering, murder, brutality, marginalization, containment, control, and the exploitation and oppression of Black people in amerikkkca.  Black History Month has never been about black folks understanding their oppressive conditions in this kkkountry.  Black History Month has become the month of the “good negro,”  totally erasing the history and contributions of Black freedom fighters such as Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Robert Williams, Ella Baker, Queen Mother Moore and others who waged militant opposition against the U.S. empire. Black History Month has become a white washing of the historical relationship between people of Afrikan descent and white supremacist America.

“Often black history is not recorded, it’s forgotten about, this keeps us from knowing what direction to go in the future” – Huey P. Newton.

Black History is white domination of Black people and white people being entitled to rape, murder, exploitation and oppression of Black people as a divine right.

Black History is the denial of  Black people’s right to self-determination.

Black History is the criminalization of being black.

Black History is Black Lives have never mattered.

Black History is whites being able to escape into their whiteness, while making impossible for blacks to escape into their blackness.

Black History Month is about the Commercialization and Commodification of OurStory

REAL BLACK HISTORY MATTERS!!!

1.    Repeal the criminal ordinances that ban life-sustaining activities for people experiencing homelessness.

-          Repeal the criminal ordinances that discriminatorily target people experiencing homelessness. These criminal ordinances are purportedly implemented to improve the quality of life for citizens.  However, these ordinances actually function to remove visibly poor people from public spaces. Consequently, the purpose of these laws has been criticized as being one of exclusion and marginalization. These criminalizing ordinances are bad policy and must be repealed because they serve no legitimate purpose and instead only exacerbate the cycle and problems of homelessness.  Society has already rejected laws that discriminatorily target many of these same marginalized groups.  

2.    Increase “LOSP” Affordable Housing Subsidies Low-Income Operating Subsidy Program subsidies - (LOSPs) have been used in non-profit housing for a number of years to allow extremely low-income people to move into buildings with affordable rents. These subsidies are typically attached to newly constructed units. Currently, 199 such future units are allocated to all homeless people. We are calling for an additional 375 units to be allocated specifically to homeless families. ($6,484,594)

3.    Changes in Shelter Access Needed to Eliminate Barriers

-          Shelter reservations are to be no less than seven days at all city funded shelters.* 2. Shelter reservations are to be arranged by any of the following; a resource center, service provider or the shelter itself.* 3. All night emergency access to empty beds should be available. 4. The city must fund a central city 24-hour emergency drop-in center for homeless people in the next fiscal year. * (Funding is set to end June, 2007, and the current program will soon shut down) 5. Bus tokens should be given to each homeless person automatically when reservation for shelter bed is made. 6. Fix CHANGES bed reservation system to rectify data discrepancies and ensure an accurate empty bed inventory.* 7. Fully train staff on the CHANGES bed reservation system. Training should be frequent, regular and include performance testing.*

4.    End the Constant Policing and Continual Displacement  

-          Prohibit the enforcement of laws that allow SFPD to remove a homeless person from their area when they are not obstructing pathways or breaking any other laws. This would greatly reduce the 192 hours of officer time dedicated to 911 calls about homeless people in public space every day (see conclusion for details). It would also allow officers to avoid issuing citations to those sitting, sleeping, and camping simply because they have nowhere else to go.

5.    Aggressively Re-Invest In San Francisco’s Mental Health Services

-          Supportive and affirming treatment for those homeless people struggling with acute mental health issues is necessary for recovery. San Francisco has drastically cut the funding for mental health services. Increase and expand capacity of outpatient and mental health treatment which will have a dramatic effects in decreasing the number of homeless people in SF County Jails for mental health and homelessness-related issues.

6.    End Police Profiling

-          2014–2015 court documentation of racist and homophobic text messages as well as video documentation of police abusing a homeless person on a MUNI bus, are just two recent examples of what homeless people may face in their daily lives.138 Officers should be disciplined including termination, when they demonstrate patterns of discriminatory profiling

"Don't turn left, because that area is full of "bums" and it doesn’t reflect on the real "San Francisco“, the cab driver clicked his teeth together as he rattled on about which sights to see in his beautiful San Francisco (which ironically, due to a gentrification inspired eviction, he no longer lived in)

 "Wow, I guess you are talking bout me, I’m one of those “bums” you speak of, I was homeless with my mama and then later with my Sun for over 10 years of my life,” I shot over the seat in his direction.  Cab driver sputtered a sorry under his breath and we all kept driving in silence.

For my entire life I have heard people talk about me as the "other". From "You people"  to "Why don't you just get a job,?" or slip into third person while talking to the supposedly housed me about me, “Try to avoid  those bums over there," and my all time favorite, “What are we going to do.. or how can we clean up/get rid of /eradicate/end… the homeless problem,"  said by politrickster and housed resident alike.

The last group of hater-ations has always irked me in a special kind of way because it objectifies our homeless and formerly houseless, broken and to-up lives and bodies into things, equates our mere existence with dirt and trash, and groups all of us different aged, gendered, colored and spirited humans into one gigantic class or thing, like a lot of flat tires or a pile of dirty towels. 

As I have written about so many times before, this is for many racist, classist and violent reasons, not the least of which is that most US residents have all collectively bought into the concept that the lack of humans and things in a landscape means cleanliness, when in fact that is just a corporate aesthetic that we all now collectively buy into. And the mere vision of us, in (not really) public spaces with all of our now exposed belongings, is automatically equated with criminality.

In most cities across stolen, occupied Turtle Island (aka Amerikkklan) newer, meaner and more violent anti-poor people laws, actions and moves are implemented  everyday to criminalized incarcerate, hate and violate unhoused peoples for the acts of dwelling, sitting, standing, parking and sleeping. From violent architecture, such as spiked window sills and metal bars installed on park benches, light fixtures that spray water with chemicals in it to the most recent sick move by San Francisco to “arrest” service resistant San Franciscans. This last one has a terrifying twist to it, rooted in the original 19th century settler colonizer pauper laws/ugly laws, where the “service provider” works in tandem with the plantation prison system to incarcerate people who “refuse” service, i.e., humans who for many different reasons, always stemming from trauma, mental and/or physical divergent personalities or poLice terror, don’t trust or want to receive forced services. 

In the era of the Ugly Laws (powerful book of the same name by Susan Schweik) of the 19th century, settlement house workers who were the early social workers or anti-social workers as I call them, would “offer” services to houseless and poor people and if they didn’t accept the services they would tell the police who would arrest, incarcerate, or seize unhoused disabled people and offer them (read “force”) them into living as in-patients in the settlement houses where the settlement houses would receive government funding to provide “services” to the inmates.

There are all kinds of folks living houselessly for all kinds of reasons. From the severe PTSD associated with survival from 21st century colonization, white supremacy/racism, ablism, sexism, etc. to the struggle of the working poor, very poor families, children and elders to even pay rent, which was my mama and mine’s struggle, we just couldn’t make enough money in our very small, poor people vending business to afford rent, to the very specific struggle of eviction of elders and disabled peoples from their long-time homes and then the inability to get “back inside”, which demands an endless amount of money, credit, resources, strength, etc. 

These reasons are varied and nuanced, because unhoused people, are in fact, people, with multiple issues, struggles, beauty, talents, love and trauma. Peoples whose existence isn’t “solved” by creating more laws, launching more academic over-funded “studies”, launching more non-profit organizations, writing more stories, media, photo essays about us without us, citing, arresting, profiling, incarcerating us or building more corporate devil-oper (not really) affordable housing on more stolen indigenous land.  

“No Matter how many times you arrest, research or study me, it doesn’t get me a home,” tiny…2017

Its because of this ongoing and increasing hate, othering, criminalizing and politricking that I and other poverty skolaz at POOR Magazine work so hard every day to manifest a homeless peoples solution to homelessness aka Homefulness. Which is extremely hard precisely because we are folks coming out of struggle  and hold all this collective pain, herstory, colonization and trauma in our hearts and are still trying to so hard to heal each other.

This hate and increased pimping/politricking is also why myself and other unhoused and formerly unhoused poverty skolaz are working on the Homeless 4 Mayor Campaign in San Francisco 2018

To Put The Economic And Political Leadership On Notice That Those Experience Poverty And Homelessness Due To Neglect And Social And Economic Apartheid Policies Perpetuated By City Hall And The Elite Class Of San Francisco, Our Voices Will Not Be Left Out Of The Mayoral Contest. We Will Not Just Demand A Presence, We Will Be A Presence, We Will Be A Competitor, We Will Claim Our Human Right To Self-Determination And Occupy Political Space In San Francisco  … excerpt from the draft description of The Homeless4MayorCampaign

Like any “mayoral” campaign we have a campaign platform and proposed solutions to all the problems we as humans face in 21st century stolen Turtle Island, Unlike other mayoral campaigns, our candidate is not a popularity contest or based on someone who has raised insane amounts of hoarded blood-stained dollars. In fact, its not about one person “running” at all, it’s a collective candidacy, where a collective of unhoused, formerly unhoused Black, Brown, poor white and indigenous people who have the shared experience of the trauma of houselessness, poverty and criminalization in this stolen land are “running” together to make sure our lives and bodies are no longer pimped for more philanthro-pimped, politricked, non-profiteered agendas, leaving us not only the same but worse off than we were before each new mayor takes office. 

Our campaign outreach, headquarters and leadership is rooted in our unhoused communities, encampments,  across the Bay Area. Our platform is crafted from our struggle, resistance and our own self-determined poor people-led solutions and something we call WeSearch at POOR Magazine. 

We aren’t asking for campaign contributions or trying to raise millions of wasted, hoarded wealth to promote a corporate agenda, or prop up a sexy personality. What we do have are actual solutions not rooted in our destruction, criminalization and silencing. Our tag-line is one we Po’ folks at POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE have been saying for years which we collectively voted in, No More About Us Without Us… 

Please join us by writing in Homeless 4 Mayor on the June Mayoral ballot We are in an emergency and we have no more time for lies, laws or politricks. 

For more information hit us up on Facebook at Homeless4Mayor Campaign or email poormag@gmail.com. 

What did it mean when non-disabled slaves were set free?

Slavery ended in the US after the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865, however, disabled slaves were kept on plantations because slavery was connected to the ability to work.  Jim Downs, among other scholars, wrote an essay entitled, The Continuation of Slavery: The Experience of Disabled Slaves during Emancipation which lays out that disabled slaves were seen as non-workers, could not work therefore were kept on plantations to be "taking care of" but continue to work for their “masters”.

Did this separation of freedom of non-disabled compare to disabled set a standard or practice on how to treat disabled African Americans within and out of the Black community? How does this continued oppression of disabled African Americans show itself from the civil rights movement to the cultural art movements?

On February 6, 2017 the National Black Disability Coalition published my article on the 13th Amendment, the exclusion of people with developmental disabilities and its impact on today’s Black scholars when writing about Jim Crow, prisons, and the film industry to name a few topics.  I found that the 13th Amendment didn't apply and to me as a Black man with a developmental disability, as I read the below statement on http://disabilityjustice.org/ that came from the article entitled: The Right to Self-Determination: Freedom from Involuntary Servitude (Employment).

     “Involuntary servitude,” or “peonage,” occurs when a person is forced to work against his or her will, with little or no control over working conditions. This work might be paid or unpaid.  The Thirteenth Amendment, (link is external) prohibiting slavery and outlawing involuntary servitude, was passed in 1865 shortly before the end of the Civil War. Unfortunately, this protection was not extended to people with developmental disabilities until nearly a century after the passage of the 13th Amendment."

Ref: http://disabilityjustice.org/right-to-self-determination-freedom-from-involuntary-servitude/ (link is external)

I return to the original question: What does it mean when non-disabled slaves were set free, disabled slaves were kept on plantations after the ending of slavery after the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865. 

As we all know the forefathers who wrote the original constitution wasn’t thinking about Africans as equals and it showed in their writings so that is not surprising but what is surprising and produced a separation between African Americans with and without disabilities is how the mainstream perspective (mainly White) toward people with disabilities.  And how this early perspective on disabled people especially Black disabled people set the future experiences of Black disabled people in America.  This history has not only separated Black disabled people from their Black community as they moved from slavery, to Jim Crow, to Black Reconstruction, to the Blues era, to Black arts movement, to the Black civil rights movement, to police brutality, and to Hip-Hop but I argue this separation also created a subsection of the Black life experience in America that has only recently been uncovered and written about.

Although Black disabled people experience some of the same treatment of Black non-disabled people in many ways like lynching Emmitt Till (who had a speech impairment/stuttering) and Jessie Washington (who had a devolpmental disability) but in other ways their disability disappeared in history as we tell these stories. It was writtene that Emmitt Till’s mother taugh her son to whistle to deal with his stuttering and in Patricia Bernstein’s book, The First Waco Horror: The Lynching of Jesse Washington and the Rise of the NAACP (Centennial Series of the Association of Former Students Texas A & M University) taught me that Jesse Washington had a devolmental disability what was called back then mental retardation.  

Also, Black disabled people were separated from non-disabled Blacks like the segregated schools in the Jim Crow South. How many Black disabled people lived and worked in freak shows and circus separating them from family and the Black community.?  In this history of separation came ways of surviving however, many times that meant exploiting or using their disability to make money or learning an art like singing, playing an instrument or even making things by hand and displaying their art, music and even body for public for donations.

I’m not arguing that this separation was a good thing and helped produced art and music but connecting how Black disabled people had to live and the deeper question for today is; are Black disabled and non-disabled people still separated? Does the commonality in experiencing almost the same oppression from police brutality to the school to prison pipeline impact us?  My answer is yes and no.  Yes, Black disabled people experience almost the same racist injustices as our fellow Black non-disabled brothers and sisters however, because of our disability the injustices are compounded.

We share these experiences bad and good in isolation or with other Black disabled people but not inside the Black community as a whole.

Although we have seen great strides in the disability rights movement and in the disability culture movement, yet there is still a lack of Black disabled programs within the Black community.  Even today Black parents must leave their community to receive services.  This continues the separation from the larger Black community resulting in the lack of knowledge and the involvement in the disability movements from rights to policies to arts and culture to creation of non-profits organizations to disability studies.  At the end of the day it leaves nondisabled Black folks always playing catchup and not enjoying empowering ways of viewing disability.  We are you and you are us, let’s do Black History together.

Leroy F. Moore Jr.

Founding member of National Black Disability Coalition

Pic:  Painting Concept by Leroy F. Moore Jr.
Painter/Artist: Alillia Johnson
Year: 2017
Title: Blues/Activist Elders Looking Out Of Windows!

Painting Concept: As Blues/activist elders look out of nursing home's windows, they see history repeats it's self with Hip-Hop children. These elders have witness the whiteness of the Blues looking out these windows all they can do is shake their heads knowing that many of them have been locked up by the Hip-Hop generation who have no time for their elders. So Blues/activist elders bang on these windows but because these nursing homes like everything else have become private no one can visit or can hear their warnings.

All they can do is sit at the windows watching their Hip-Hop children walk in pit wholes like they did back in the day from small print on contracts, institutionalizing street culture and loosing control and trading the art and culture for promises as another generation work until they too will be in nursing homes looking out windows seeing history repeats itself.

Both characters in the painting were real people, the man with a shotgun in his lap is suppose to be the late Rev. Cecil Ivory in June of 1960 who was a wheelchair user and director of the NAACP in Rock Hill, South Carolina and led a counter sit-in at McCrory lunch counter. He told the cops that he wasn't breaking the law because he was sitting in his wheelchair not a chair at the counter. Ivory went home and waited for the KKK with a riffle-gun in his lap.

Second person in the painting is suppose to be the late Johnnie Ma. Dunson, a Blues singer and a drummer of the 1960's-2010 in Chicago who played on Maxwell Street and advocated for housing for Blues elders on Maxwell Street back in the late 80's-the early 2000's. She was evicted from her home. In the painting Ms. Dunson is looking out a nursing home's window with drum sticks in her lap.

Both are looking out of windows looking what is going on outside but can't communicate to the youth outside because they have been locked away by their own people. Mr. Ivory is at home after a counter sit-in knowing that the KKK is coming and Ms. Dunson is in a nursing home looking at a Hip-Hop cypher outside her window.

Movie Review: Black Panther

Action- This movie did not let me down with all the kick-azz scenes that kept me squealing with excitement and wanting more. The star-filled cast was amazing and perfected and the storyline tapped into my genetic memory bank.

The only thing that this movie differs from the other superhero movies is that I was able to relate to The Black Panther and his cause that included “myself” for once surviving til the end of the movie and that we can live happily ever unified.

“Do you remember the time” by Michael Jackson played constantly in my head as the ‘Black Love” scenes played throughout the movie, something that is becoming almost extinct in Hollywood and today’s “pop culture”. Television programming and the kardashian propaganda

Does not encourage Black Love. Rather it teaches us to love everyone else but ourselves and that the Black man is nothing but a rich, rappin, ball slappin brute who salivates over caucasian women and that Black women are nothing more than “thots” whose destiny is nothing more than flopping on the floor like a fish on the “Maury” show because she doesn’t know who’s the father of her children.

Enough of colonizing people painting negative pictures of us Africans who are still in America’s bondage. We are always depicted as the whores, rapists, pimps, druggies, abusive parents and prisoners of hollywood and the best Black movie in the world would still be only worthy of a wite oscar nod. (Look at the Color Purple!)

The Black Woman

The General would have taken the head off the fool who dare thought to categorize her as a modern day t.h.o.t. She was the amazon warrior possessed with Grace Jones -like beauty and strength who was loyal to the King and the Wakanda nation. And she hated wigs!

The rightful image of the Black Woman was displayed beautifully and not in a weak, submissive watered down way. Such in a way that her beloved brotha bowed down to her, not because of vanity, but because he knew her worth as his true Queen and The Black Man loved The Black Woman in this movie and that their cultural preservation was worth fighting and dying for.

The Cousin

Yes, I teased the so-called bad guy in the movie calling him “Nick Cannon’s cousin”, but let’s take a moment to try to understand his pain of not knowing who he truly was. Bloodshed cut him off from his umbilical cord of knowledge so he grew up bitter, hateful and unremorseful towards his blood whom had left him in Oakland. Not having knowledge of self by theft of the people and their rich herstory carries the same side effects as he suffered while all he wanted to be a part of something beautiful and important which he did have a right to. The only thing is that he allowed for his bitterness to destroy the sacred part of himself and his history before his fall to the Black Panther.

The Black Panther

The strong and just King who is capable of ruling a Black Nation without ego or oppressing his citizens was profound and very powerful. He represented a flawless robust African man with a love for his people and country. The Matriarch, elders and the ancestors were well acknowledged and connected to the whole functioning of the African civilization as one unified front.            

Also I know what it looks like to have all of our heroes and sheroes wrapped up all in one! His Panther suit!

But this is a Marvel Comics movie and in the quote of King Shaka Zulu- “Nothing will be as it was, ever again”

Until we awaken.

Grieving Mother AudreyCandyCorn Sister Save A Soul … 2 Years 21 Days and the time is 1:03,3hours Hours to the EXACT MOMENT of My BELOVED … Now DESEASED ,My 1^st Born My TRUE LOVE,MY EVERYTHING , MY HEART BEAT... No Longer BEATS .This is A Heart ATTACK . My Son is DEAD !!!!!!!!!!!!! ( Who Fucks Wit It ) Ebonicly speaking ( REVENGE ,REVENGE ) only time will tell … 2 Years 21 Days 3hours 365 days .x.times Infinity …. Theres A Pulse but noooo Heart beat … No Resume , No Job ,No Money to purchase food , No Vehicle to get around due to the police HARRASING me D/W/B driving while Black !!!!!!!!! May GOD Bless The Child Who's Got their OWN and Although I'm Not on Welfare , I'm Referred to As A Welfare Queen- Mentaly I;m FRAGILE … Spirtitualy I'm AWAKENED – Physically I'm DIEING … While trying to THRIVE …................................................................ And being Forced OUT..................................................With 2 Babies Totaly Dependent on She …............................................................ WELCOME GENTRIFICATION Hello OAKLAND …...Receiving My 14 day Notice Pay Or Quit ..... My HEART IS Pounding Good Buy AudreyCandyCorn – Dead Women Walking ...

….............................. Caged Bird Singing …....................................

Grieving Mother Mourning Trapped in the Peralta Village Ghetto Subsidized housing / Projects …. Red Line …. I am Scared For MY CHILDRENS lives AS Well As Mine Amir is 14 Ziair is 9 and Torian WAS age 17 … Rest In Promise My Brown Angel Baby Boy... I am Greatful for this Poverty Skolar Revelutionary Blog . This Is My 1^st ONE … I'm Hoping This Will Be A Positive Healing Tool For Myself and any one whom may STUMBLE upon My Article Of A Grieveing Mourning Mother In Need Of Much Healing Medicine How Ever It May Appear And So as I attempt to be Gentle With Myself. I do Often WONDER will I ever Get My HEART beat back,Will I Ever feel my Pulse Again ….I dont Know … In The Mean While There's No Where To GOOOO …. Is There Any Where Safe For Me And MY Children To Thrive , Not Having To Fight To Stay Alive as for now I Write ….. To Document our Foot PRINTS

#T.A.Z. Foundation

#Soar Torian Soar

# Ishy-Me Stranger Danger Anti-Bullying Campaign …....

audreycandycorn 2/15/18

On Saturday, the mayor of Oakland, Libby Schaaf warned the community of possible ICE operations in the Bay Area. That following Sunday, the federal agency detained people across Northern California and including the Bay Area. Her warning to the immigrant community brought large contervesery throughout the government, including some accusing her of obstruction of justice and treason. What Schaaf did was so deranged in the eyes of the government, even Donald Trump spoke upon her act. “What the mayor of Oakland did the other day was a disgrace," Trump said Thursday (Wootson, 2018).

My name is Alma Rodriguez, a young Latina resident of Oakland, CA who has seen her community evolved greatly over the past couple of years. As a daughter of immigrant parents from Mexico, I respect Mayor Schaaf’s actions of speaking our and warning the entire immigrant community. She put herself at risk by warning the immigrant community about ICE raids knowing she would receive backlash from many. She and her family have received numerous threats because of the warning and she still stands by her actions like a true, strong bay area woman.

However, why hasn't Schaaf come out and spoken about other issues that have been affecting our community before like po’lice brutality, poverty and homelessness. It's Interesting how she is willing to face consequences for speaking out on immigrant rights, but not other issues that mainly affects the lives of black folks in Oakland. A mayor's job is to connect with her community, to communicate any issue that could possibly harm all the residents and keep peace throughout the city, and she is not doing that entirely. Unlike other politicians who grew up with tons of resources around them, Schaaf understands what we poor people of color go through. She has personally seen the oppression and issues that happen in Oakland and have developed in her own neighborhood, but isn't willing to speak upon them. Yes, immigration an important issue in our community, but so is gentrification which is causing poor people of color to become homeless. My own uncle is being kicked out of his home because the rent is too high and he isn't capable of paying it. Hard working people like my uncle deserve better, but change won't be made sadly until people with power like Schaaf speaks on it and brings awareness to the issue.

The Trump Administration also argued that Sanctuary cities are dangerous for Americans because it protects and houses criminal immigrants and that they will sue the Golden State for shielding the undocumented from federal agents. At a conference she held on February 25th she stated, “I am sharing this information publicly not to panic our residents but to protect them. My priority is for the well-being and safety of all residents -- particularly our most vulnerable” (Hamedy, 2018). She warned her citizens about a possible treat that was planning to strike a large portion of the California population and that is not illegal. "Regardless of what happens, I felt it was my duty to share the information I had, particularly because I was sharing information that was legal and was not obstructing justice," Schaaf said. (Hernandez, 2018). With all that said, Schaafs attitude continues unchanged. Hopefully, young leaders like myself speakin out on community issues will change Schaaf’s attitude and make her speak and put importance on other problems in Oakland like gentrification and homelessness.