Words. What exactly are the purpose of words? do we need them there was a time when they're where no words only grunts moans the communication of body language the feeling of spirit interesting words who needs they transform from the form off your lips atmosphere misleading and multi meanings too many words to add to the confusion of this word gain and to think once they've hit the paper that transformation woohoo man I'm just saying ever heard the saying to be pencil whipped words on paper are powerful they can be damaging or accrediting however we seen that to be able to get away from them simple words words they're everywhere lurking and Luaring multiplying and dividing and subtracting themselves in and out weavings of conversations words again I asked what is the purpose of them especially when used improperly and what about intentional misplacement of the words... I don't know about you but I personally am starting to think that words have become more of a distraction then a road map two achievement of Harmony.

The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) is a movement that is based in Philadelphia and is run by formerly homeless, poor and currently homeless people like us here at Poor Magazine. They are fighting for equal rights for poor, homeless and disabled people like themselves because they know how it is to be in that situation. PPEHRC has roots dating back to Martin Luther King but was founded in 1998 when the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU) lead a bus tour to bring to the forefront the issues that poor and homeless people face. In October of that year, there was a summit lead by the KRWU that included all of the people involved with the tour. In that summit, PPEHRC was born.

The Poor People’s March on Washington is PPEHRC’s honoring of the Poor People’s Campaign led by Martin Luther King Jr. fifty years ago in 1986. It was a ten-day march starting in Philadelphia on June 2nd and ending in Washington D.C on June 12th. The march was extremely healing and passionate. We didn't sleep in Hotels or even houses along the way, no we slept in the basements of an assortment of different churches along Philadelphia, Maryland and Washington D.C. We ate what the churches provided us, sat on the street for breaks, and talked and laughed and sung and danced.

Marching all that way was an honestly amazing experience and I cannot stress that enough. We walked along highways, up hills, through suburbs, and through small towns. I was pushing my Uncle Leroy Moore co-founder of Krip-Hop Nation. He is one of my favorite people to hang out with and so we had fun talking and listening to music on my speaker. We got to know everyone marching with us, because going through an experience like that with someone creates a bond with that person, whether you just met them or knew them your entire life.  

One of the best parts of that march was interacting with the man who was directing the march, someone who was lovingly called Sarge by the group. He would order and boss me around and get frustrated with me but it wasn't stressful or irritating because I knew how he was feeling and that made it easier in a way to march all that way.

When we got to D.C, we set up Resurrection City, a homeless encampment/ place for us to say in a park by the name of Dupont Circle. The first day of arriving in Dupont Circle, was unsuccessful, due to the fact that the annual Pride Parade was being hosted by the actual park, so it was the epicenter of the parade. We drove to the church we were staying a mile from the park, and the next day we started setting up the city.

After we set up the city, we went over to the office of the Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) and requested a meeting with Dr. Ben Carson, the head man in charge of housing. We were asking that he would not completely get rid of Section 8, a program that made it possible for poor people to have access to housing. The reason we are asking him to not get rid of this is that he and HUD are already in the process of slowly kicking out everyone who lives in Section 8 in California, including most of our friends and family.

I don’t want to say that it went terribly because that would be an overstatement, but when we refused to leave until they gave us a meeting they arrested the leader of our group, Cheri Honkala. That experience was somewhat stressful, but she was let out within the next 2 hours. That day made a slight mark, it showed people that we were serious about what we were pledging for and not just doing this whole thing for attention. It showed that we were willing to put ourselves in actual danger for the homeless and poor community.

All in all, the Poor People’s March on Washington was something that I will never forget. The MArch really made me enjoy who I am and made me feel good about myself because in those moments, those days and weeks, I felt like I was apart of something bigger than myself, that I was apart of something that will change this world for the better.

“Wow, i didn’t even know that place was gone” New Orleans born and raised sisSTAR Ann, exclaimed as we rolled through the gentriFUKed and/or re-deviloped streets of the 9th ward, Algiers and Treme neighborhoods of New Orleans, to name a few.

Block after block our fearless, decolonized guide on her own self-described “resistance tour”  would shake her head as she took us through destroyed and currently redevil-oping streets of herstoric oppressed peoples.

In so many ways this place looked to me like the worlds of POC/indigenous poverty skolaz from San Juan (Puerto Rico) to the mission district of San Francisco, and like them both was under attack from gentriFUKing forces. Not small or discreet move-ins, but wide, sweeping arrogant reductions of poor people housing, small and Black or POC owned businesses and even working class, thriving communities.

"This is one of the most famous graveyards in New Orleans, and now it charges $25-30.00 just to get in,” Anna murmured with disgust.  

The reduction in poor people housing and poor people communities and even our ancestors graveyards isn’t just due to a confusing mess of “market forces” or gentriFUKing new populations ready to pay more and more to live in urban settings, its also due to a focused and targeted removal of housing under the Dept of Housing Urban Devil-Opment(HUD)’s RAD program which POOR Magazine has re-ported and sup-ported multiple times. It is also due to a targeted move by global real estate snakkkes and speculators moving into urban cities with the goal of “development” always important to keep the global empire of Capitalism strong and profiting.

In two different situations i have overheard wealth-hoarders be pitched by real estate snakkkes about the “new market” of Puerto Rico. This in addition to the fact that a lot of these urban settings are tourist attractions, makes for an evil cocktail of removal and displacement, post disasters like Hurricane Maria and Katrina for any poor or working class person who is still holding on to their homes. By any means necessary.

“I’m B-Mike and I’m trying to create, produce and lift up art in our neighborhoods as a form of survival and thrival,” graffiti artist and revolutionary from New Orleans BMike stated to PoorNewsNetwork reporters Leroy Moore and me.

We had the unbelievable blessing of meeting B-Mike and viewing his new community gallery which was in the impacted neighborhoods and even if it meant that real east snakes and devil-opers would try to capitlalize on his default “improvement” he was so on point and down for the people that I’m not sure if the people would prevail or the snakkkes - kinda how we moving at Homefulness in Deep east Oakland.

“Alf of homeless people be staying under that bridge,” Ana whispered. Sadly the other rarely spoken about result of intense 21st century removal /displacement projects, with or without disastrous hurricanes, is the impact of folks who just can’t keep fighting to hold on to their hamster wheels - who, like my mama and me,end up on the streets, “living in the cardboard motels” once we are evicted cause like mama always used to say , just cause we evicted doesn’t mean we leave our neighborhoods..” and then her voice would trail off while we tried to get warm on that nights designated park bench.

From Frisco to the French quarter unhoused folks by the hundreds, post -gentriFUKation are ending up living in the cardboard motels and then are harassed and criminalized for living without access to a roof cause once we are outside we are equated with trash. In new Orleans as you can see in one of the embedded images literally hundreds of people were living under a bridge that straddled the outskirts of downtown. This was just the unhoused people we saw. Meanwhile, thousands of other families were just pushed out to outskirts like the place our ghetto - Motel 6 was located in, with no sidewalks, or transportation systems or stores with fresh food, or much of anything. This is the same in so many places - with Sacramento, which used to be just another destination of the newly pushed out/gentriFUKed Bay area residents, now being one of the highest populations of unhoused children in the state of California.

“They just cut off food stamps in the state of New Orleans,” Ana told us the first day we arrived. Ana went on to tell us that people would fight it tooth and nail but it just left me weak, especially after we had already heard that New Orleans already was planning to close and evict literally thousands of elders from elder homes (elder ghettos, i call them but the reality is these are poor elders with nowhere else to go, many of whom have been ripped from their families in the cult of separation nation i often teach about at POOR Magazine’s PeopleSkool).

“All these gentrifiers built all these “homes” but then left folks here with mortgages they can’t afford to keep up with, so now you have hella folks losing their homes after all rebuilding flurry that hit this town after Katrina,”Ana explained as we drove through the 9th ward. It was so sad and surreal, miles and miles of manufactured homes with the different devil-opers signatures on every one. Several blocks looking just like some weird mini version of a designer home the kind they have all over post-gentriFUKed Venice beach in LA, apparently built/supported by Brad Pitt and still not paid in full so people weren’t even “safe” there. Hundreds more just sat there, boarded up and destroyed, mold infested and unusable.

,

“Boom boom, boom,” As we were making our way through the beautiful crazy thick air that is New Orleans, we were also met with the deep sounds and sights of a marching band that represented a family lineage marching down the middle of a main street, no PoLice escort, no permits, no Bullshit, just music and rhythm and dance and love. This was the depth of strong Black and Indigenous culture that informed everything in that town. Even the post-gentriFUKEd, Post Katrina New Orleans is rich with deep and beautiful and strong African cultural deep structural norms.

The town is full with Black owned businesses and the knowledge that we need black owned businesses. The air is heavy with ancestors and the trees and clouds and land sings with the power of who used to be there and who is still there.

“I was one of the only people who was here in the disaster of Katrina, who was truly there for the people, for this i never got any credit or love, just lies,” Me and Leroy had the amazing blessing of meeting with Malik Raheim, the founder of Common Ground, a very grassroots, poor people-led movement in New Orleans based in his family home in Algiers.

“I helped over 1.5 million people stay here and stay alive, “ Malik concluded. He went on to explain the rich herstory of his Algiers neighborhood including the powerFULL resistance of the “runaway” enslaved and indigenous Maroon peoples and the fact that his family were an extremely important part of that community. As well as his involvement, support and story-telling of the powerFUL revolutionaries known as the Angola 3 - who were/are political prisoners of deeply racist amerikkklan.

Malik, an amazing teacher, revolutionary and Black Panther should have no issues with his home but like most of New Orleans is unstable in his housing, currently owing $40,000 in unpaid taxes and facing eviction, because he doesn’t have any money and is now an elder revolutionary with no support. I left Malik determined to include him in the Bank of Community Reparations, a completely pimp-free “fund” that supports poor/indigenous peoples to stay in their homes and communities and build/reclaim sacred land and sites. The exact same thing Homefulness and Sogorea Te Land Trust are dealing with and trying to resist with different models of land use and redistribution here in Huchuin (Oakland).

Malik’s friend took us to his house and on the way he talked about the tight Black community and how they work with Black politicians to restore Black businesses an Black arts.  Malik’s friend had roots in California so he was sad as we told him how gentrification has destroyed the Black community in the Bay Area. We had a chance to meet his wife and beautiful children.  He also informed us that landlords can increase your rent with no notice!

Me and Leroy (who don’t know how to take a break- LOL) were ostensibly there to “take a break”  and ended up doing a beautiful reading of our revolutionary children’s books (The Hard Worker and Black Disabled Art History 101) at the New Orleans Main Branch library, and also did an interview at the amazing Community Bookstore, which is truly the model of an actual “Community Bookstore”.   The Black owned, Community Book Center blew us away especially their huge children section. The owner was a media person, she pulled out her cell phone and plugged in a microphone then proceeded to interview us right there in her bookstore. She was warm and spanky. There were three other people in the store playing cards.

Although Leroy fell in love with New Orleans, he also knew that New Orleans ranks very low on disability services and we experience that with the inaccessible sidewalks and a Black elder came to us while we were sitting in a cafe and asked if we knew any adult services for her adult autistic sun.

Our final blessing was to our taste buds honored with the succulent food of Caribbean restaurant Coco Hut  As we sat in the 100 degree New Orleans heat and humidity ( which both me and Leroy loved) eating our gourmet Caribbean meal, the thick air full of so many ancestors, so much resistance and deep indigenous herstory surrounded us like a silk blanket. New Orleans is and was like nothing else in the world and its spirit and ancestors need our revolutionary love.

Ziar Hughes

Eviction killed 100-year-old Iris Canada for a house she called home for 60 years. She was a black elder who raised children in the home, Peter Owens, the landlord was trying to flip it into a condo Ms. Canada tried to fight her hardest to keep that

House.

The planning commission rejected Peter Owens (the owner who kicked out Iris

Canada) when he attempted to turn her house into a Condo this is wrong that they're kicking out elder if this was my granny I would have a problem too if my granny got treated that way.

Kimo Umu

Eviction is elder abuse – POOR Magazine did precedent-setting work naming that Ellis Act evictions of elders are elder abuse under 368 code

Zion

the growth of America's homeless encampments and how communities are responding:

In the past decade, homeless encampments have been across the country. The reason why people put tents under bridges and stuff, then on the streets is to avoid police harassment. Police will constantly hear complaints even though the homeless person didn't do anything, but they would ask them to leave in a certain time or just kill them.

When the city evicts an encampment by clearing all their belongings and its often called a “sweep”.

These are ways how police and politicians  are harassing homeless people:

• 33 percent of cities prohibit camping-wide and 50 percent prohibit camping particular public places, increases of 69 percent and 48 percent from 2006-16, respectively.

• 50 percent have either a formal or informal procedure for clearing or allowing encampments. (Much more use trespass or disorderly conduct statutes in order to evict residents of encampments).

• Only five cities (2.7 percent) have some requirement that alternative housing or shelter be offered when a sweep of an encampment is conducted.

• Only 20 (11 percent) had ordinances or formal policies requiring notice prior to clearing encampments. Of those, five can require as little as 24 hours’ notice before encampments are evicted, though five require at least a week, and three provide for two weeks or more. An additional 26 cities providing more than a month.

• Only 20 cities (11 percent) require storage to be provided

The most current reason why there's homelessness because of eviction because of rich privileged people who come to the neighborhood because they like the neighborhood, etc. The rich people is willing to give more money than the tenant that's been living there,  the house owner would usually take the higher amount. So sometimes the tenant that has been kicked out doesn’t have enough money live anywhere else so now there choice is to be houseless. So they will end up sleeping on the streets, but then that's when police start harassing them and keep telling them to leave, or they will make an excuse to kill them (for being home

In America, there is a subtle culture that has been going on since our “great nation’ has been founded. As soon as the original immigrants formed this government there have been laws against poor people, homeless people, and disabled people. Many of those laws have been meant to degrade us, silence us and humiliate us.

Tibu

Our corporate entertainment system is designed to make us hate ourselves for being poor. It sells us extremely expensive products very casually, which in turn makes us feel like it is only natural that we should have the amount of money that they are expecting us to. Yet we do not. Because most of our time as low-income citizens are spent holding up the richest of our society. And our government approves of this since it was built by the richest.

As our nation has progressed, there have been many laws to keep us down. In the early 1880’s to as recently as the 1970’s one of those laws were called the Ugly Laws. These laws deemed it illegal for “any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself to public view” This basically made it legal for the cops to arrest or ticket anyone who looked ugly, dirty, who were disabled, or maybe just didn't have nice clothes.

The thing about the Ugly Laws is, as any poor person or homeless person we know that we are the people who have the less-than-nice clothes or are sometimes dirty because our water was shut off, or disabled because we can’t afford good health care. The government back then knew that and that was the main reason that they created those laws.

Something that I have come to realize is that the Ugly Laws of the United States didn’t end in the 1970’s, they just got quieter, more subtle. Instead of using the Ugly Laws to justify arresting and brutalizing homeless and poor people, they now call us a “risk to society” and say that because of our poverty, we are more likely to steal and cause harm to the wealthier class.

The reason why I brought up the Ugly Laws because it shows the United States true nature. No matter how many Presidents, Mayors, Senators and government officials say how much they want to stop homelessness and how much they want to prevent it and “get people off the streets” they represent a country that is based on a foundation of causing homelessness and criminalizing homeless people instead or preventing it.

Amir

Ziair

On July the 9th 2018 we went to SF (San Francisco) where we participated in a demonstration in front of Salesforce.

We interviewed several protesters who also worked there, “What was this demonstration about and who is the organizer “, asked Tibu. 

Sasha

Tibu

Solomon

Kimo

Emilio

Mordechai

As a kid, I found difficulty finding logic in why people committed brutal acts of violence and the motivation behind the crimes. From ordinary citizens to law enforcement the “jones” for violence and death has become the frightening norm for today’s way of life in our “sodom and gomorrah” -like country. Community conflict, gentrifukation, police brutality, racism, school violence and gender oppression all contribute to humanity’s abuse to sum it all together. And a lot of the masses would rather entertain their brains in order to turn a blind eye to the declining consciousness and morality of people.

You can’t even help someone get on a train without having to use caution because of the lie of diagnosis that can be “wrist slapping” for an individual who just don’t want to take the ribbon of being a messed up person that’s unable to heal and focus properly as a positive contributor to society.  Everything has to be diagnosed with some ailment and of course if someone is sick in any way they are entitled to the very best of care but there are those who choose to take the cowardly way out. And those who seek to write their histories in blood for social media fame needs a mirror of reality cuz like Mama used to say: “You know what you be doing”

Violence against women, children and elders has been escalating with elders becoming more subjected to violence because of the coward’s “easy mark” way of thinking. The elderly victims have not been surviving some of the attacks they endured as a simple fall or head injury could be deadly. One 80 year-old elder from the bay area died after she was beaten in a home invasion. Another elder was also attacked and after striking his head on the ground, he also died.

Women and children are vulnerable to trafficking and sexploitation for profit, family separations and neglect. Abuse also rears its head in the form of the systematic spirit-breaking of an individual in a way so cruel that would make a person who’s hurting hurt others without any more regards to life. Young girls are not safe at all because the value of females is being portrayed in a negative light while the parents are being criminalized for liberating a child from the hands of a gorilla-pimp!

Television (tellin lies on our vision) and video games has always had some level of violent content to it, but today’s message especially to our youth is that anything goes, defy your village, go shoot people and make music about it and you will have your 5 minutes of instagram fame- if the police don’t shoot you! Let’s not forget the loud mouthed extra-tweeting prez that did not hesitate to make it know that Amerikkka has always been ready to get “down and dirty” with anyone who don’t want to be down with the program of destruction. There is violence for control, especially political and there are those willing to fight violently for peace but does violence beget peace? My point is, there is so much violence all around and in EVERY aspect.

As a survivor of atrocities I was grateful for POOR Magazine’s heal group, there I was able to be honest with myself and identify the heartbreak and what other crimes that have been committed against me, systematically or not. When hurt people have the correct outlets and support then it makes it less complicated to plug in and tap into that healing honestly and without judgement so I tapped into my writing.

I have met a few folks in my life who lived in a perfect bubble without having experienced death of a parent, grandparent, sibling, never went through poverty and violence, not even so much as one friend or family member falling to a gun crime and kudos to them, but I couldn’t help but think about what that kind of world would that be, here in “Amerikkka”.

Queennandi X PNN KEXU

“Bart needs to step it up!”- Mother of Nia Wilson

At a candlelight vigil at MacArthur BART held for 18 year old Nia, she was remembered as a beautiful, kind soul who had a passion for music and helping people.

In less than a week local news have reported 3 fatalities from attacks on BART passengers with the recent victim being 18 year old Nia Wilson who along with her sister Lahtifa was stabbed in an unprovoked incident at MacArthur station this past weekend by John Lee Cowell who managed to change clothes and flee the scene before police arrived. Whether or not it was a hate crime? In my PO opinion yes and when did racially motivated murders actually STOP for Black people here in this country? We have been purged for centuries under wite (non) supremacy rule even to this very day.

The security for BART passengers has come up short and the bandage of fake cameras puts people at risk, stalls investigators in an event that something happens and does nothing to deter crime in any way. Earlier in the year 10 youth boarded a train and robbed a female passenger of her phone and in April as many as 40 youth roughed up and robbed passengers on a BART train- only two suspects were arrested at the time.

The two other BART fatalities was that of a 47 year-old man injured at Bayfair BART station. Don Stevens was punched in the head and was declared brain dead due to the blow.

51 year-old Gerald Bisbee was assaulted at Pleasant Hill station and died due to an infection from a cut he sustained in the attack.

The last time I checked the BART police were in full effect for the incident that costed Oscar Grant his life but BART police have been dragging their feet when it comes down to the security of the passengers. If a person’s safety or life’s in danger do you really put them on hold? What  person doesn’t mind being on hold while their blood is being spilled? If BART has the money to pay employees an abundance of overtime then BART can spread that revenue to invest in the safety of its passengers because it is direly needed. How many people have to get hurt, robbed or killed at a BART station before someone gets a clue!? You raise the fares, be fair and put the people’s money to use and protect public transportation passengers!

I have reduced my BART usage by at least 50% because it is not 100% safe at all. I have been accosted as a BART passenger and though I am aware that we are running out of safe places everywhere we go. How do we maintain safety without police? I have seen people from the community protect the community effectively when the police couldn’t or wouldn’t and BART the folks are calling you out: More efficient protection and now!

Queennandi Xsheba, PNN KEXU

Politricks and poverty - go together like milk and sour honey

Po folks used and abused for this politricks shell game -  

“We just want to help them (by getting rid of them…

“We just want people to see there is still hope

“We have to get rid of the homeless problem-

“We have to build affordable housing

Whose the sweetest talking pimp on the street?

People been selling poverty to get votes since politricks started

Easing the fascist itch of wanting to not see

Poverty - kinda like the kyrapitlaist game of monoploy

Means about as much as the pink 10 dollar bills

So much bullshit - makes it hard to see

Yea its a wrap- just give me yo vote and ill give u a house- or give  them a house

or at least get them out of your town

Why didn’t u do what you said politrickster ted

oh thats right it was a lie-

but hey it made u feel good at the time….

This message from a poverty skola is written in honor of my fellow poverty disabled unhoused and abused skolaz- my fellow folks who are no longer considered human cuz we outside - now just called the Homeless problem.

From the Boricua sister Ocasio Cortez who just won in New York to London Breed in San Francisco- Poor folks- our stories, our problems -are always spoken about us without us- are touted about, used for street cred and realness. In the case of Ocasio Cortez- she walked with the veneer of a working class back ground - giving her street cred- but as is often the case with politricksters - some of the biography wasn’t based in truth- as my poverty disability skola in poor magazine, Leroy Moore informed me- her daddy bought her a condo in New york - so don’t let the working class narrative fool you- similarily we also know that coming from struggle doesnt always mean you dealing with consciousness when you dealing with poltricksters.

In the case of Ed Lee - one of the worst SF mayors on homelessness and poverty, he locked the doors when we POOR Magazine unhoused families would visit with him- surrounding us Po folks with armed guard and telling us not to sing one more note of spirituals or we would end up in the plantation jail for the day. Conversely Ed Lee loved him some rich techies anyday- giving them massive tax giveaways, wealth-hoarders like Ron Conway- and with his policies helping to launch the devil-oper lie of “affordable housing”- which no longer means affordable to anyone who doesn’t make 120,000 a year-

And don’t get it twisted - across the country you got politricksters using poverty as the shell game to get ahead - which always means we Po’ folks lose more of what we barely had- From Newsom who put in Care not Cash locally - which was code for we are getting rid of your poor people cash grants, to Clinton, creating welfare deform - code for getting rid of welfare- which further criminalized us poor mamas barely surviving on hellfare crumbs-to city council person- Cris Worthington in Berkeley who literally turned on unhoused vehicle dwellers and sided with the city manager to have them evicted from public — not really land-  to politrickster mayor Guiliani out of New York who instituted the broken window theory permanently criminalizing underground economic strategists, street vendors, sex workers, street newspaper sellers and houseless folks - for the sole act of being unhoused.

To beloved Obama and his HUD man Julian Castro who locked in the RAD program -a  benign acronym for the selling of all the public housing buildings across the US on the private stock market so in the 21st century there is no more really real poor people housing-helping to lead to the state of emergency of homelessness we have now.

And now we have Mayor Breed who claims her working class roots- in the fill-No-mo district of SF as well she should, only to turn around and use more hygienic metaphors about cleaning up the homeless problem in SF, taking people's tents- and advocates for the lie of conservatorship of unhoused disabled elders - which is basically homeless jail - back to forced treatment which POOR magazine, Krip Hop nation and so many other disability skolaz  have been fighting against for years- now re-done and sold as the "Answer” to the long held bullshit question - what can we do about the homeless problem- Like i always say - i am Your homeless problem….

And the answer is ….NOTHING -thats what - admit it poltricksters-you use the cult of rehabilitation of us po folks us like this settler colonizer stolen govt always has- from the settlement houses and the ugly laws, who’s launched the Savior industrial complex to profit off of our poverty while incarcerating every poor person it got- to the paupers prisons and the poLICE.

Unless you are wiling to stop seeing this politicks gig as a paid job where u settlling in for a lifetime salary- follow the lead of actual conscious folks who have really been there for change- - Senator Wellstone- who actually fought for poor mamas on hellfiare- in the Bay Area- conscious folks making real moves for poor folks like city council persons Cheryl Devila in Berkeley, Jovanka Beckles in Richmond and their revolutionary mayor Gayle Mclaughlin and the whole city of Richmond’s resistance to Chevron kkkorporation. To Rebecca Kaplan in Oakland- Cynthia Mckinny for president and Luis J Rodriguez- author and poet who ran as the peoples candidate for governor of CalifAztlan and now Cat Brooks running for mayor of Oakland who actually spoke with , listened to unhoused folks - - I’m praying for all of you- cuz yes it seems like if you are not kissing the ass of the ruling class u don’t last- but stay strong and actually listen to us poverty, disability skolaz - to the really real poor peoples campaign platform which we marched for in June from Philly to Washington. Consider coming to the next Peopleskool - and learn /listen to poverty skolaz on the issues that impact us most.

And finally to my fellow poverty skolaz - pls don’t spend all your time worrying and working on politrickster campaigns- thats not organizing- learn how to build your own self-determined movements - like Homefulness in deep east Oakland. Get involved in the Bank of Community Reparations for actual redistribution of stolen and hoarded wealth like we teach in the Stolen land hoarded resources tour, join our next one which will be in Oakland Oct 19th and sign up for a 10 point plan/ Theatre of the POOR Poverty/indigenous skolaz only workshop on the Poverty Scholarship PeoplesText book- which will be launching February of 2019 with a curriculum and book tour across the US to make sure that as many fellow poverty and indigenous skolaz learn how to build their own homefulness projects across this stolen land as possible, cuz like I always say - Change won’t come from a savior a pimp or an institution - change will only come from a poor peoples led revolution

For more information on the upcoming BlackAugust 25th & 26th peopleskool seminars, the upcoming Poverty scholarship Book and curriculum tour or how to redistribute to the bank of Community reparations or collaborate with the Stolen land /hoarded Resources Tours email poormag@gmail.com

IT’S GOING DOWN!  NATIONAL PRISON STRIKE AUGUST 21ST THROUGH SEPTEMBER 9TH.

”Let this nationwide strike be a wake-up, prisoners will destroy the crops, we will not comply, we will not allow you to exploit our families' hard-earned dollars anymore. Striking the match, let it go up in a blaze. We are humans! On behalf of the prisoners nationwide, we thank every supporter out there that's making our voices heard through their actions of solidarity. Stay vigilant, we will need you more than ever during the strike.” -  Jailhouse Lawyers Speak.

Men and women incarcerated in prisons across the nation declare a nationwide strike beginning on August 21st and extending through September 9th, in response to the riot in Lee Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison in South Carolina, this riot is being called the most deadly in decades.  Seven male inmates lost their lives during a senseless uprising that could have been avoided had the prison not been so overcrowded from the greed wrought by mass incarceration and a lack of respect for human life that is embedded in our nation’s penal ideology. These men and women are demanding humane living conditions, access to rehabilitation, sentencing reform and the end of modern day slavery.

In a salute to Black August Month, the strikes begins on August 21st (This date commemorates the assassination of Black Panther Party, Field Marshall, and prison activist, George Jackson, by San Quentin prison guards)

Over the past decade, a wave of prison rebellions has swept the country, increasing in both frequency and intensity. In September 2016 the largest coordinated national prisoner strike occurred in facilities around the country. These rebellions prove time and time again that caging and torturing humans is violence and will be resisted by those locked up by the system. Prisoner resistance demonstrates that instead of solving the crisis of capitalism, prisons themselves are the crisis.

Retaliation of the state - Federal and state authorities are on high alert across the nation. Pre-emptive repression tactics have already been initiated to silence visible prisoners that have influence who have vocally supported the August 21st call. This includes those less-known figures to the public. Prisoners are reporting in a few states that wardens are openly making threats to prisoners of consequences if they participate in the nationwide strike. Even with the authorities threatening, prisoners are ready for action.

It’s important to be very clear about why our sisters and brothers behind enemy lines have decided to wage resistance against an institution born out of slavery that this nation must come to grips with and address. South Carolina is only a reflection of the issues facing other states and governmental buildings of confinement.   Prisoners aren’t striking simply because the circumstances that their living in are mildly uncomfortable. They’re striking because the circumstances that they’re forced to live in are unbearably and innately abusive and no human being should live in a state of constant repression or abuse:

THE FOLLOWING DEMANDS HAVE BEEN FORTH BY PRISONERS WHO ARE LEADING AND ORGANIZING THE NATION PRISON STRIKE AND THE MANNER THEY’LL CONDUCT THE STRIKE

Immediate improvements to the conditions of prisons and prison policies that recognize the humanity of imprisoned men and women.

An immediate end to prison slavery. All persons imprisoned in any place of detention under United States jurisdiction must be paid the prevailing wage in their state or territory for their labor.

The Prison Litigation Reform Act must be rescinded, allowing imprisoned humans a proper channel to address grievances and violations of their rights.

The Truth in Sentencing Act and the Sentencing Reform Act must be rescinded so that imprisoned humans have a possibility of rehabilitation and parole. No human
shall be sentenced to Death by Incarceration or serve any sentence without the possibility of parole.

An immediate end to the racial overcharging, over-sentencing, and parole denials of Black and brown humans. Black humans shall no longer be denied parole because the victim of the crime was white, which is a particular problem in southern states.

An immediate end to racist gang enhancement laws targeting Black and brown humans.

No imprisoned human shall be denied access to rehabilitation programs at their place of detention because of their label as a violent offender.

State prisons must be funded specifically to offer more rehabilitation services.

Pell grants must be reinstated in all US states and territories.

The voting rights of all confined citizens serving prison sentences, pretrial detainees, and so-called “ex-felons” must be counted. Representation is demanded. All voices count.

OUR SISTERS AND BROTHERS IN PRISONS ACROSS THE NATION WILL STRIKE IN THE FOLLOWING MANNER:

WORK STRIKES: Prisoners will not report to assigned jobs. Each place of detention will determine how long its strike will last. Some of these strikes may translate
into a local list of demands designed to improve conditions and reduce harm within the prison.

SIT-INS: In certain prisons, men and women will engage in peaceful sit – in protests.

BOYCOTTS: All spending should be halted. We ask those outside the walls not to make financial judgments for those inside. Men and women on the in side will inform you if they are participating in this boycott.

HUNGER STRIKES: Men and women shall refuse to eat.

No individual on this planet should be placed into an environment that’s violent, deadly, abusive or oppressive regardless of the behaviors that they engaged in in the past. Prisoners are striking because this is their daily reality and it has been for centuries and they want to see this change for the better of, not only themselves, for the benefit all the communities that they belong to. Inmates are striking because not only are the environments that their forced to live in are innately oppressive and violent but because their conditions repress rehabilitation and evoke violence. They want to be in an environment that praises their social, educational and emotional development and we should support them out of love.

The Bay Area National Prison Strike Solidarity Committee is organizing a Mobilization and Call to Action on August 25, 2018, at San Quentin State Prison, with the objective of raising awareness of the inhumane conditions, treatment and policies that afflict those held in these gulags throughout amerikkka.  We are also mobilizing to let these sisters and brothers being held behind enemy lines know that we on the outside have their backs and that we support their Demands and the ongoing historic prison movement for human rights, led and organized by those being held captive in amerikkka’s gulags.