“Some niggers got shot up!” Was the announcement made on one of the gentriFUKer’s blog, referring to this past weekend’s deadly shooting in the Fill-no-more community Saturday evening. One 25-year-old man lost his life and 4 others were injured when suspect(s) opened fire on the corner of Eddy and Fillmore streets. At the time of the incident, there was people attending the repass of businessman and alleged drug kingpin Ron Newt at the Fillmore Heritage Center but it has not been confirmed if the shooting is related to the homegoing celebration. There also have been no word verifying whether or not the authorities have any suspects in custody.

Regardless of the two events being connected or not- the lack of respect for those who have passed on, no matter the individual’s reputation is dishonorable to the very seed of our culture. Someone loved Adolph Hitler, Christopher Columbus and the slave massa that ran the plantation and by all means they are still being honored to this day- (MAGA). If there was any threat to the homegoing celebration of Mr. Newt then the respectful thing would have been for the “laws” to ensure the community and the mourners’ safety by making sure some kind of law enforcement was present because everyone has the right to a respectful, peaceful Ancestor gathering.

The doors of the Fillmore Heritage Center has been closed since the tragedy with future events being cancelled until further notice and some folks in the community have concerns that although the shooting did not take place inside the establishment, its fate (FHC) may be in jeopardy for permanent closure.

Emotionless, I scrolled through what I call “The GentriFUKers’ Blog” and read all of the comments from the Trumpaklan supporters that live in the hood. I was not moved, disappointed nor hurt in any way over the attitude of how we Black people somehow “had this (death and despair) coming to us because we ain’t nothing but nigger dopefiends and gangstas with baby-mama drama.” The majority of MAGA endorsers in the Fill-no-mo are comfortable with the conclusion that Black and Brown folks will just kill each other off and that we are all the same- less than human beings who deserve no compassion. MAGA folks have no care in the world for people struggling from poverty, addiction, homelessness, displacement, the colonizer mentality and for some reason they turn a blind eye to the fact that there are white addicts, gangstas, HIGH POWERED criminals and poor whites who also suffer under the rule of white (non) supremacy.

Completely numb from the hateful remarks,  the “niggers, this and niggers, that” rhetoric that spewed from the hearts of these folks left me with one crooked-smile response- Just like I get on you trumpaklan fools, I will also address the “nigger wanna be colonizer” mentality too!

……………….TO BE CONTINUED

Queennandi Xsheba, PNN KEXU,

“BLACKS KILLED BY WHITES- 2%

BLACKS KILLED BY POLICE- 1%

WHITES KILLED BY POLICE- 3%

WHITES KILLED BY WHITES- 16%

WHITES KILLED BY BLACKS-81%

BLACKS KILLED BY BLACKS- 97%”

This so-called “Crime Statistics” of 2015 was retweeted by then- presidential candidate Donald Trump to his followers prior to being elected president of the US in what looks more like he was endorsing a stereotype by retweeting false crime stats. Now while in office, he continues his rhetoric against Blacks along with other members of the Universal Majority and the poor by creating tougher biased immigration laws, supporting killer kkkops and cutting back on low-income services. The inhumane contempt that the MAGA crowd has towards the rest of us has always been out in the open- in our faces and discussed, however we cannot speak up on the MAGA folks and overlook the fact that there are those of color who perpetuate the sygma of the “violent criminals” jacket.

There is a high rate of Black on Black/ Brown on Brown crimes being committed and one of the reasons are that the “hood terrorist” persona is being glorified through music and social media and made to be accepted as normal- to ruthlessly murder someone’s child, husband, wife or elder is the “gangsta” thing to do. It has been made normal to worship the gun as if it were a God and to emulate old gangster movies that rarely depiced people of color, unless they were servants or bait. “Entertainers” are recieving significant paychecks to become posterboys and girls to push the propaganda of internalized racism through reality TV and the “Imma nigga and if I see a nigga Imma kill a nigga” lyrics that has contributed to the destruction of the minds of a generation.

The “indirect black employees” of amerikka’s gang, the ku klux klan fulfill the white (non)supremacy agenda when they terrorize their own communities- the only things that are missing is the burning crosses and white sheets. These crimes of ignorance is then used as a tool for the media to instill “fear” into the MAGA supporters who in turn blame the victims of poverty and violence through hateful blogs that spew racism, resulting in the push for more Trumpaklan dictaors to be elected into office.

The senseless murder of businessman, rapper, activist and philanthropist Nipsey Hussle, who was gunned down in front of his clothing store on March 31st was a hard blow to the community and the same question came to mind upon hearing of his death and that was why is that when a Black Man takes a step towards self- determination by empowering his community he is either railroaded or murdered? He is shot down on all levels because he’s a threat in this society when educated and put into a twisted competition with the one with the “nigga” mentality to determine who’s the most dangerous.

This tragic form of tricknology has caused for all of our hoods to suffer when individuals who care about our people’s destiny are taken away from us, especially by us. I think of Malcolm X, Huey P Newton and many other conscious community warriors past and currently that paid the ultimate price while racist white folks gloat over the fact that sometimes we can be our worse enemy.

Queennandi Xsheba PNN KEXU

415 Day at La Raza park. The faces are there, the faces, the minds, the bodies, the gestures that refuse to disappear. 415 and the temperature hovers between 415 degrees and 415 degrees below zero. The city sometimes feels like a freezer but as Al Robles said, "Soon the white snow will melt". All the young sisters and brothers flashin' Frisco badges of honor. Those tattoos, those scars, the letters SF in bold letters cut into the flesh, bruises of valor, bruises of honor, bruises of survival that no cop's badge can kill. It was a gathering, a remembrance. It was 415 Day, a day dedicated to our area code, our way, our story, our history, our blood, our pulse, our beat, our murals, our tongues of poetry dipped in wine and spitting up blood fire as the pain and love and heartbreak and the spirits of homegirls and homeboys who have passed on to the other side ferments in our lungs and on this day--415 Day--we release it into the air of La Raza Park and it spreads across the city in unified smoke, sweet cleansing smoke like the smouldering sage settling into the skin, giving the fog direction, moving slow like a lowrider procession reaching the highest peaks of consciousness as the speakers blare street symphonies, oldies that refuse to get old. And it rained, a light rain that got heavier like small talk that suddenly got deep. It rained last year on 415 Day at Crocker Amazon but that too was beautiful. We come together despite the gentrification and the ugly attitude that has settled in the city and has fermented in its lack of style and grace and class and its attempt to turn the park into "Cracker Amazon". We come together and share our laughter, our 415 laughter, our memories, our songs, our soul of Frisco--OURS.

(photo- The tile floor where folks sleep, if only for a few hours, in La Guardia Airport)

“Get up- you have to move along…did you hear me? - Its time to move along…’ The hard wood of the baton slammed against the soles of my already sore feet. It had been 2 hours since I tentatively laid my United Airlines issued paper-like blanket on the hard tile floor outside the Dunkin donuts in the closed La Guardia airport. I was leaning against a wall next to two other mamas and babies and a disabled elder. We were all houseless, me formerly, them currently. 

Above us all on the wall was a poster stating “The Port Authority has provided “services” to 4000 homeless people in one year alone.” I wondered if the services they described included wake up and removal at 4am. 

Ironically, this poverty skola was in New York to join POOR Magazine family Leroy Moore to teach on our new book Poverty Scholarship- Poor People-led Theory , Art, Words and Tears Across Mama Earth at an elite private college in upstate New York. Sharing the medicine of radical redistribution of inherited/stolen /hoarded resources with academics who might have access to race/ class privilege so us poor and unhoused folks could manifest a homeless  peoples solution to homelessness, aka the project we call Homefulness - which is  housing for unhoused families, children and elders and is supported entirely by redistributed resources and among other things is an example of spiritually and legally taking Mama Earth off the commodities market, cause so-called “housing justice” must include un-selling Mama Earth.

The entire trip was disturbing, rife with realizations that under Trump the (FAA) Federal Aviation Administration that is supposed to oversee the giant airline industry has been reduced to Boeing officials playing golf with Donald Trump and Mike Pence. That many of the planes currently being used are not really safe and the mechanics are the ones who have to resolve all the systemic problems on the ground all the time, causing a rise in delays, mechanical failures and cancelations of flights. But as I was forced to see the underbelly of this airline violence, I was also drawn into the growing number of another form of violence  unhoused people, mostly families, taking shelter at the airports across Mama Earth. From Newark to New York, from Phoenix to Chicago, there are literally hundreds of unhoused people carefully hiding out at airports and the numbers are rising everyday while more and more people can’t  afford to live in the commodity called “Private Property” aka bought and sold Mama Earth.

I say carefully because unhoused people in airports don’t identify themselves as unhoused, they are constantly forced to keep moving from one bench, one bathroom, one outlet, one over-priced cafe, one rug, after another, so as not to be identified by the airport poLice, the janitors, the staff, homeland insecurity or the private security firms always watching. Like in life and everything, in every one of these groups there are always subtle differences, some people know and look the other way, some people endlessly harass and some actually help. Starbux workers give free coffee, Janitors allow temporary washing and personal clean-ups and security guards don’t always call in unhoused communities in the airport, like they are supposed to.

This silent movement is similar to public library homelessness, but the airport culture is slightly less violent to unhoused folks than the library system. In San Francisco public library I have witnessed and intervened on countless violent attacks from SFPD and private security to unhoused folks struggling with mental health crises’ who take refuge in the ostensibly “public” space of the library because urinating, hand-washing, dressing and resting outside in the cold elements is just too much, which has only gotten worse under the new mayoral administration of London Breed, who has begin a policy of seizing peoples tents.

Similar to cities across the US, each airport is slightly more or slightly less violent to poor folks, For example in Newark they have put a price and a CorpoRape afilliation on everything. Just to sit down and wait, you are encouraged to “buy” food and/or pay for a charging station for your phone, or only use a charging station if you are able to buy food, In La Guardia airport, they have pretty much taken all of the benches out of the accessible areas, and all of the carpets. 

And above all most of the airports close, no longer really “open” all night, closing bathrooms, front doors, public areas, shrinking their accessible and open cafes down to one and only if you purchase something can you sit there at all. 

After 24 hours of non-stop plane stoppages, mechanical failures and weather delays I ended up in La Guardia airport in New York, an airport which had obviously implemented anti-homeless people policies. ( yes thats a thing) La Guardia not only had these weird hypocritical posters all over about how much help they provided “homeless people” but they made it clearly impossible to rest anywhere. Like the violent architecture that PNN correspondents Lisa Ganser and Laure McElroy wrote about multiple times, they have implemented multiple examples of this inside the airport. 

“Me and my family have been homeless in this airport for 30 days,” Tasha, a single mother of two children, adjusted her inconsolable 3 year old in her lap as she reported for RoofLess radio airport report. 

“ I really don’t know where else to go, shelters are full, and unsafe, at least I know we won’t be violated here, but I can’t ever really sleep, if I want them to sleep,” she concluded looking at her 12 year old sun and her baby girl, defeated. 

Tasha and her babies were “sleeping” on a hard vinyl chair in the corner outside La Guardia, while I tried the impossible task of actually curling up the cold cement ground. 

“I play it safe and never leave my wheelchair, cause if I do, poLice will take my chair and kick me out of here, keep it cool and keep it moving, thats my motto, at least I’m a little less cold than when I am outside, but these Port Authority Mofo’s are not nice to us Po folks,” said Mr Sykes, a houseless, disabled elder who was also trying to rest next to me in La Guardia. 

“I been to San Francisco, they hella mean there, took my walker, my tent and my belongings so I came back home to live with distant family in New York, but they weren’t here so I ended up houseless out here, really no better, just colder, but sometimes the airport staff looks the other way, sometimes.” said Larry, who recycled and lived houselessly in La Guardia, when h wasn’t getting harassed for being houseless in La Guardia.

This collection of harassed, airport hiding poverty skolaz were all in La Guardia airport, an airport facing a bizarre and insane amount of devil-opment. Ironically, the man of the same name, La Guardia, was responsible for some of the worst forced removal and displacement efforts of the 20th century, causing fires and “code violations” in the tenements he owned so he could turn force the diaspora of poor immigrants out of Manhattan and build luxury housing. 

My 48 hours of airport hell was deep and sad and triggering me down a memory lane of my childhood between 11-18 when me and mama slept in doorways and bus shelters and our car when we were able to acquire one, and then again as an adult with my sun before we moved to Homefulness causing a lot of trauma, that I have trouble shaking, but at the end of it, I got to go home-fulness. Tasha and her babies, Mr Sykes and Larry said goodbye to me, with those defeated eyes me and my mama used to hold. The defeat of having nowhere to go and no idea what to do. And so as I told them and tried to teach “the haves”  at the college I was supposed to go to, Homefulness is possible for all of us unhoused folks, it just takes folks with resources understanding they are responsible for us too. That while we poor people revolutionaries fight to stop the criminalization of our unhoused bodies, the owning class can un-own and radically redistribute some of the resources they don’t use to house their families, so that us folks who have no resources can be housed.  

Additionally, these public spaces need to stop sliding towards privatization, as long as these cities and towns continue to build, legislate and enable rich people development, they need to liberate and implement policies to ensure that public spaces actually stay public. That people who have nowhere to go, can at least be somewhere without being hurt, harassed, hated and criminalized. That our bodies, if unhoused are not inherently criminal, we are just houseless, and still members of the public. 

Join POOR Magazine poverty skolaz, unhoused, disabed, elder and youth poverty skolaz for the 2019 Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources Tour on April 23rd at 2pm in front of the Oakland /Berkeley Assoc of Realtors at 2855 Telegraph Av in Berkeley for a WeSearch release on the privately owned mama earth lots that we are asking folks to buy so poor folks can build their own solutions to poverty more info here

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica; min-height: 22.0px}

Hoarding Mama Earth

 A WeSearch Release & Demand for Radical Redistribution to build Homefulness #2  by Formerly homeless Youth & Family Poverty Skolaz at POOR Magazine/Deecolonize Academy

WeSearch def: Poor People-led Research- a POOR Magazine project

Introduction:

Vacant lots and empty buildings are being “hoarded”   i.e. not housing people who are in desperate need of housing , sometimes for years, and us homeless and formerly homeless youth and families  at Homefulness by doing extensive research can help take them back for the good of the people. This is happening at an increasing rate year by year, and us at Homefulness, Poor Magazine and Deecolonize Academy are making sure the word of the Houseless people who need to live on these lots to avoid criminalization from the police is heard, and that in the near future, the template of Homefulness can be utilized on some of this stolen land on Mama Earth, taking it off of the Real Esnake Market once and for all.

We as youth and family skolaz who have been homeless for much of our life launched this WeSearch project by walking in our own poor people of color neighborhoods where land and homes are hoarded, where race and racism causes the “blighting” and destroying of our hoods and towns and barrios so that land can be flipped and we can be evicted, not redistributed. And now our communites are facing eviction and displacement at an extreme rate. We learned in this process that  that the only way you can find out who the house flippers and snakes are is by going to the Tax Assesors office in Oakland. Which we did. After a long process of what we call poor people-led research aka WeSearch we created the following inter-generational, Poor people-led report:

The History of the Real Estate Industry in Oakland

The history of the real estate industry began within the wave of the first form of gentrification, colonization. California was one of the last states to be colonized in the U.S, first of all, because it was all the way to the west, and secondly, it was a part of Mexico. At the beginning of the 19th century began the brutal colonization and genocide of the people who were native to Oakland, Berkeley, and Emeryville, the Hiuchin tribe of the Ohlone. This is where the true founding of Oakland began. Luis Maria Peralta received the Rancho San Antonio that encompassed the entire East Bay region and called the area that Oakland now is its name because of its voluminous amount of oak trees.

Just stating that to show that the bloody history of Oakland didn’t begin with the crack epidemic. When the United States bought Oakland along with the entirety of California in the Mexican Cession, it was a completely white community. Until WW2, the black population of Oakland was only 3%. That completely changed however, when there was an onrushing when black and white but most importantly poor, workers migrated to California from the Deep South and brought the black population up to 12%. Since then, there have been numerous attempts to either get rid of the black community of Oakland entirely, as the government attempt of pushing cocaine and heroin into the streets of Oakland. The way they were able to do this so successfully is by a process known as “Redlining”.

Redlining is the process that was created when Oakland was still being laid out as a city, to completely separate, segregate and block off all of the black and brown people that lived in the city. They did this by specifically taking the neighborhoods that the black and brown people lived and made sure they sent fewer government funds than any other neighborhood. Redlining, as I said before, was also the primary way that the government was able to directly channel drugs into black and brown communities without them getting everywhere. Oakland isn’t the only city where redlining has happened and is still happening. All over the United States, there are redlined communities which have been used in various government experiments as well.

Now, after the redlined communities have been completely destroyed by the careful planning of the government, bringing guns into them for the residents to kill each other, drugs to become addicted to, liquor stores on every corner to encourage the decline of their health, the real current real estate market is seeing an opportunity in them. Because of the countless families that have fallen apart, and all of the other reasons that make the “hood” also known as redlined communities bad, are being used as propaganda by real estate agencies. For instance, the encouragement to “get out of the hood as soon as possible” will get the real estate industry an onrush of cheap houses that can be “flipped” to be made more expensive. Those houses are sold to unwitting “Gentrifiers” as we at Poor Magazine like to call them, for 2 to 3 times more than they are worth.

But see, most of the time, real estate agencies don't want to wait for a family to decide to move out of the hood. They need those houses, and that money, quickly, especially with the Bay Area being a popular place to move these days. So, they evict. They evict en masse. To get the already nervous and tired-of-life black and brown people out of their houses as quick as they can, the real estate agencies and landlords threaten us with all the prestige they have. The bigger the company, the easier it is. This is how I was kicked out of the city I was born and raised in, San Francisco. This is how many people have died, being kicked out of their house with nowhere to go. This is how 71% of that city’s houseless population is now on the street.

Poor Magazine Youth Skola Reporter

-Tiburcio Garcia

Parcel Map

This is a map of every Brownfield*, Vacant Lot, Parking Lot, and Housing Opportunity Site* in Alameda County. Just by seeing this, you can see how much land could be available to housless people. Because most houseless people lived in homes, and were evicted. Because of the eviction, they were not able to keep up with their job, or even if they were, they weren't able to afford to keep up with the rapidly rising rent in the Bay Area and were unable to get back the house that they were evicted from.

This Parcel Map is a cry of help, from every houseless citizen of the Bay Area, all of us who are on the brink of having no home, and those who never even considered that there was another option besides giving up and living on the street. This is a cry of help to all of the owners of those unused properties, which most of which have not been developed on in the last 5-10 years.

Poor Magazine Youth Skola Reporter

-Tiburcio Garcia

10 Vacant “Privately Owned” Parcels of Mama Earth on BlackArthur (MacArthur) in Deep East Huchuin (Oakland)

NOTE- Thru this study we literally have 10 pages of addresses of vacant property - available on request if someone wants to sit down and enact a liberation move - buy one or more of them for use/housing for unhoused families/yout/elders

1. 7600 MacArthur ( lot 5580).

2. 7951 Richie and MacArthur.

3. 5139 Macarthur Boulevard

4. 4550 International Boulevard

5. 5115 Macarthur Boulevard

6. 6620 Foothill Boulevard.

7. 5107 Macarthur Boulevard

8. 2625 San Pablo Ave.

9. 4760 International Boulevard.

10. 5216 International Boulevard

Youth Skola WeSearch on the destruction, lack and removal of Poor People from Housing & Why so many of us are Houseless in 2019

What are “H.U.D, R.A.D, and Hope VI”?

My name is Solomon Kealoha-Campbell a Youth Poverty skola at Deecolonize academy. I live in Fillmore, SF with my momma and sister. There we are surviving on food stamps and section 8. In my segment, I will be talking about HUD, RAD, Hope VI and what they mean and how these “plans” are how the government is gonna get rid of us po folks.

HUD “ Housing Urban Development” is a (US) government lead organization working on making housing for low-income families “ fair and affordable”.section 8 Housing Voucher Program is a rental program administered by this agency. The tenant's portion of the rent payable to the owner is based on 30% of the family's adjusted gross income. HUD and section 8 keep my family alive and housed along with many other low-income families.

HUD was developed in the 1900s, helped by President Roosevelt to first help widows of white war veterans. HUD was thought of because starvation and homelessness were the worse it’s been. From the shallow beginnings of trying to segregate poverty and keeping the brown poor, HUD branched out welfare, food stamps, section 8 and more that help us brown poor people survive.

From the good, there is also evil. Hope VI is a plan by the government and HUD to “restore” the worst public housing neighborhoods and turn it into mixed-income developments. Their plan is to get rid of most of the poor people and replace them with the middle class and a few working class people to “ better the community and cleanse the violence”.

The Government is trying to erase poor people housing or any housing dedicated to low-income families by making this plan called RAD “ Rental Assistance Demonstration” but they aren't assisting anybody but the people who don't need help. They plan on making any public housing to private housing and wiping the poor people out.  

In conclusion of “ What is HUD, RAD and Hope VI ?” we know that HUD was never made for us poor people of color. Since it was never designed for us, they are trying to erase it entirely. That's where RAD and Hope VI come knocking on your door. And by 2020 their plan is to have HUD and Welfare be a myth.

This subject on HUD, RAD and Hope VI relate with the vacant lots that are being held because these vacant lands can be turned into houses and more specifically Homefulness or even just more space for the poor people of the bay area. Let us create our own public housing.

Student of Deecolonize Academy

-Solomon Campbell

The Legacy of Redlining

I'm a 16-year-old youth poverty skola and I live in a blighted and gentrified area and this work here is my life. The past problems are still present today. Just like the people before me I will have to face these same problems of segregation and separation.    

Segregation, Separation, and Racism of Poor people and our neighborhoods.

Redlining is: The separation of black and brown communities by district or neighborhood is called red-lining, this was a law enforced by the U.S  government to enforce rase based separation policies causing communities of color to be criminalized and predated on by the real estate and banking industry.

One of the most heinous of these policies was introduced by the creation of the Federal Housing Administration in 1934 and lasted until 1968. Otherwise celebrated for making homeownership accessible to white people by guaranteeing their loans, the FHA explicitly refused to back loans to black people or even other people who lived near black people. As TNC puts it, "Redlining destroyed the possibility of investment wherever black people lived." (A Racist Housing)

In the late 1930s, as Detroit grew outward, white families began to settle near a black enclave adjacent to Eight Mile Road. By 1940, the blacks were surrounded, but neither they nor the whites could get FHA insurance because of the proximity of an inharmonious racial group. So, in 1941, an enterprising white developer built a concrete wall between the white and black areas. The FHA appraisers then took another look and approved the mortgages on the white properties. (The Fair Housing Center)

20th-century Realities:

In the early 1980s and 1990s in the ghettos of AmeriKlann an epidemic of crack cocaine swept the nation off its feet. In my own backyard of Mcarthur Ave of Oakland California, had become inflicted by this drug. In 1986 us congress passed laws that created a 100 to 1 sentencing disparity for the progression or trafficking of crack when compared to penalties for trafficking of powder cocaine which Macarthur Blvd became a red line for black people 18 to 24 for search and use of the cocaine.

Gary Webb an investigative journalist had researched extensively of the flood of cocaine selling in the United States. Garry Webb had claimed the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A) was actually the one responsible for the enormous influx of cocaine, Gary claimed that there were documents that proved that this reality was nightmarishly true.

What is ‘’Sell Your ugly house’’ ?,

A group of a real estate agent’s that purchase your home, and then flip(Resale) your house at a higher price than the original price’’ you the owner bought it for’’. This type of work is targeting red-lined areas like Macarthur Blvd where billboards are as common as your local liquor store’s and blights are distributed like tickets.

The reason I wanted to go and research this in the first place, was because I wanted to be aware and make light of the situation to reflect on the many cases the U.S government made almost impossible for families of low income or no income to capitalist society. I also felt that it was very important to also understand the many obstacles poor people and people have to struggle to stay housed.

Also, I have had my experience with living in a red-lined community, in San Francisco called Hunters Point. Hunter’s point is decommissioned navy shipyard in the 1950s. This area is a place for low-income affordable housing. I know the red-lined area because of all of the police that constantly patrol the area.

Student of Deecolonize Academy

-Kimo Umu

What Are Ugly Laws?

San Francisco Ugly Laws were passed in 1867, significantly earlier than the1890s. Also,20 first century Ugly Laws were created to target unhoused people to arrest them for being homeless in the streets. Berkeley is especially harsh toward unhoused people, that’s why they have Ugly Laws in Berkeley, you can’t sleep in your car, or you can’t sleep in a public park,and some other Ugly Laws but if the police officer sees you do any one of these things you will get arrested right away.

Leroy Moore is a black male and co-founder of the international music company and organization Krip-Hop Nation. He was riding his bike on University Ave in Berkeley and a police officer pulled him over because the officer thought Leroy Moore was drunk but really Leroy Moore has a disability But the officer didn't know that but still pull over him over. I was criminalized by the police for being black and brown in Oakland too.

Ugly Laws that criminalize disabled people like Leroy and unhoused people like in Berkeley every day are criminalizing the people that are directly affected by the Hoarding and stealing of Mama Earth by these real Esnake agencies. All of the agencies that we are talking about here are the ones that are responsible for these Ugly Laws in the first place.

Student of Deecolonize Academy

-Amir Cornish

Business Improvement District

BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTS, or b.i.d is a district dealing with gentrification and homeowners kicking people out that are poor and colored, putting them in the ghetto, making it only business property, and saying it will improve the place.

Twitter in San Francisco is an example of a corporation that is in San Francisco located in a BID zone, which if its in place in addition to the already existent race and class profiling of poor people, youth of color adds another layer to the criminalization.  An example of this playing out was one of my friends got pulled over by the poLice for being Black and young and riding a bike in SF - and they crushed his bike. Why is that? That's because he is colored and has no race and class privilege.

It doesn't just happen in San Francisco it happens all through California. “October 2015 Sacramento PID Executives high-ranking members of the Sacramento Police Department STD and other City officials exchanged almost 2,000 pages of emails regarding homeless people 62 of 72 homeless people we surveyed who were the living within b I d  boundary in Chico Sacramento and San Francisco Reported being approached San Francisco Union Square Biv Lobby for more police officers to enforce anti-homeless lost and received a 3 million Grant from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation to increase police patrol during the holidays and crew install security cameras “ (UC Berkeley law University of California)  also bid Was the solution to the economically Klein of the mid-twentieth century US government to prevent itself from collapsing bankrolled urban renewal project leaving Urban small businesses to compete desperately with their massive department store counterparts

I am a poverty skolar I currently live in public property.

Student of Deecolonize Academy

-Ziair Hughes

Definitions

Parcel Number = A number assigned to parcels of real property by the tax assessor of a particular jurisdiction for purposes of identification and record-keeping.

Situs = The place to which, for purposes of legal jurisdiction or taxation, a property belongs.

Documentary Transfer Tax (DTT) = Any kind of tax that is levied on the transfer of ownership or title to property from one entity to another. Transfer taxes are usually non-deductible, although they may be added to basis on the sale of securities and/or investment property.

Conclusion

Every single one of these topics, from the history of redlining to the Ugly Laws that once were and still exist, we wrote for a reason. We wrote on all of these specific topics to show to you, our readers, a connection between each and every one of the struggles that we face, the connection to the wealthy stealing and profiting off of Mama Earth. If it weren’t for the redlining techniques all those years ago, real esnake agencies wouldn't be able to make so much money on the flipping of houses in low-income neighborhoods, the same neighborhoods, or “hoods” as they are known which were redlined.  

Without the Ugly Laws that were up in place in the late 19th century, and like I said, still exist today, there would be the means to criminalize the very people they are trying to kick out to make money off of. Without B.I.D’s, there wouldn’t be any reason for the customers of the real esnake agencies, the homeowners, to stay in the cities that they would figure out were not actually as pretty as they were made out to be.

We need liberated Ohlone Lisjen land to the unhoused people because they are tired of sleeping on the streets moving around to find a place to sleep and also find some food.

Lberated  to homeless, that means let us unhoused people build our own houses rather than sleeping on the streets. We don't have to cover the sidewalk anymore we just need resources to build our own.

We need help, not for us, not for the popularity of Poor Magazine or for the good of Homefulness, but simply for all of us folks who are still on the street us unhoused people, who aren't able to go back home, to lay in a warm bed and not be rained on at night. We need help for the people who are being criminalized and brutalized by the police and the government simply for not having a home, because those people, are us. Those "homeless" people that the media alienates so passionately, are our brothers, mothers, sisters, cousins, friends, and acquaintances.

They are also poets, artists, and most importantly humans. Humans who should have the right to housing, because being in a house is a privilege that most don’t even realized they are blessed with.

Recommendations

As Unhoused and formerly unhoused youth and family poverty skolaz who are currently housed and educated on a small piece of liberated Mama Earth we poor folks call Homefulness- we know that the “answer” to our homelessness does not exist in more grants, lygislations and politricks- we know that liberation of Mama Earth is possible and one of the ways to end homelessness is through building more Homefulness projects - through the launching and supporting of the Bank of Community Reparations which supports poor and unhoused families to build their own solutions to homelessness and to stop buying, selling and profiting off of Mama Earth

1. Liberate ( Buy & then Un-sell- spiritually and legally) vacant privately or publicly “owned” parcels of Occupied Huchuin Ohlone Lisjan land on BlackArthur, in Berkeley, San Francisco and Oakland) for the building of Homefulness and/or other poor and unhoused people-led projects with the leadership of 1st Nations communities llike the Sogorea Te Land Trust  

2. Take 20% of publicly and privately “owned” Mama Earth off of the “commodities” market (real estate) for the building of landless peoples self-determined land movements like First they came for the homeless and Homefulness to communities like “Friends on Wheels in Berkeley - Unhoused RV dwellers and RoofLESS radio in San Francisco

3. Support/ Donate/ Radically Redistribute/Community Reparate resources, trust funds , 2nd or 3rd homes, stocks or assets you dont live in to the Bank of Come-Unity Reparations so unhoused elders, youth, families and adults can rent apartments, buy cars, stabilize their lives and income

4. Come to a DegentriFUkation/Decolonization Seminar at PeopleSkool to learn about #RadicalRedistribution and Community Reparations

5. Real Estate Industry pay a mandatory 20% Homefulness Fee to  the Bank of Community Reparations whenever a sale is made of Mama Earth for profit and donate to the Shumi Tax

Sources:

-Poverty Scholarship - Poor People-led Theory, Art, Words and Tears Across Mama Earth published by POOR Press

-WrapHome.org reports on Criminalization

-POOR Magazine WeSearch reports 2015-2019

-UC Berkeley report on the Business Improvement Districts

WeSearchers/Poverty Skolaz: Youth and Family Skolaz: Tiburcio Garcia, Amir Cornish, Ziair Hughes, Solomon Kealoha-Campbell, Kimo Umu, Zion Angeles, Tiny Gray-Garcia, Jasmine Hain, Muteado SIlencio, Aunti Frances Moore, Leroy Moore, Dee Allen,Queennandi, Jewnbug, Corrina Gould, Mama Dee Support Team: Yael & Paige - Ancestors, Creator and Mama Earth

What is the Stolen Land /Hoarded Resources Decolonization, Redistribution and Community Reparations Tour and the Bank of Reparations?

Herstory:

The Stolen Land/Hoarded Resources tour launched on Mama Earth Day 2016 in the stolen Lisjen/Ohlone Village of Yelamu (SF) in CalifAztlan, with poor & indigenous peoples touring “rich” neighborhoods across the US and knocking on doors humbly asking that wealth hoarders redistribute their surplus money, resources and assets to poor and indigenous led land liberation movements. The tour has so far toured 8 wealth-hoarding cities across the US including Beverly Hills, San Francisco, Oakland, Manhattan, Conn and Philadelphia   Poor & indigenous Tour Guides are joined by conscious folks with race and class privilege walking in solidarity and change.

The tour is loosely based on the Bhoodan Movement of India launched by Vinoba Bhave who walked through India asking wealthy "land-owners" to gift their land to landless peoples. With a similar vision, this small group of landless and indigenous peoples being hit the hardest by displacement and gentrification will be intentionally crossing the invisible and visible lines between the land and resource hoarders aka the very rich and the victims of generations of white supremacy, theft, colonization, criminalization, racism, eugenics and silencing, aka the very poor.  

Two action models/solutions that Homeless and 1st Nations folks are presenting is the poor people-led self-determined movement called Homefulness in Deep East Oakland (Huchuin Ohlone Land) as well as Sogorea Te Land Trust which is a Native Woman run land trust based in the land of the 1st peoples who lead it.

The Bank of Community Reparations

This tour officially launches the Bank of Community Reparations - a national fund of redistributed and stolen wealth that is distributed equally among poor and indigenous people-led land use projects - the 1st four of which are the following:

1)Homefulness in Deep East Huchuin(Oakland),  a poor and indigenous-led landless peoples movement working to build 9 units of housing for unhoused families and elders, a liberation school, radio station, garden and healing center in Deep east Oakland

2)Sogorea Te Land Trust (Huchuin/Oakland) the first Native woman-run land trust working to reclaim stolen Ohlone/Lisjen land (Oakland)

3) Frohms Martial Arts- a Black-led Martial Arts studio displaced/gentrified from their East Oakland studio

4) Homefulness#2 in North Oakland, Berkeley or San Francisco ( Launched by fellow poverty skolaz from Friends on Wheels in Berkeley, (Unhoused RV dwellers and Manna From Heaven- a Black elder-led breakfast program being gentrified from their long-time North Oakland location)

Community Reparations is a concept launched by Lisa tiny Gray-Garcia and is rooted in Poverty Scholarship and the notion of Interdependence - Meant to be a healing medicine of  resistance to the lie of independence and the separation nation that encourages the violent act of looking away. Instructing us all to recognize our humanity, and resist the normalizing of capitalist separateness, “success” through land-stealing and wealth-hoarding.  

For more information on the Tour and/or Revolutionary Giving to the Bank of Reparations call (510) 435-7500 or email poormag@gmail.com. To register for the next PeopleSkool Seminar in Black August for Folks with Race/Class Privilege email deeandtiny@gmail.com or go on-line to www.racepovertymediajustice.org or www.poormagazine.org

We’re honoring you! This is our tradition. If we didn’t do this, you wouldn’t be remembered. Why are you being so P.C.? Don’t you have better things to do? You don’t pay taxes here!!! These are but a few statements Indigenous Peoples hear when we use our voices to say, “We don’t feel honored, remove us as your Indian mascot.”  All the while, these same folks are standing on Indian Land defending a stereotypical image as they willfully ignore the pleas and requests of actual First Nations Peoples. Why do non-natives think it is okay to tell First Nations Peoples how we should feel? We’re telling you we don’t feel honored. 

For over 100 years Arnijo High School has perpetuated institutionalized racism by using an Indian as their school mascot. As presented in an online poll, by Fairfield Suisun Unified School District (FSUSD) earlier this year, FSUSD asked the community if they believed using the term Indian as a mascot was/is offensive.  SSPRIT’s Executive Director Kim DeOcampo iterates, First Nations Peoples, Indigenous Peoples, Native Americans, Indians…”We ARE NOT terms!! We are living-breathing cultures of peoples with contemporary relevance and we have a voice of our own!” Racist mascots like Armijo’s Indian mascot keeps us as a peoples of the past. How can our voices be heard if we are continually dehumanized and seen as relics?

In late 2018, Sacred Sites Protection and Rights of Indigenous Tribes (SSPRIT), an Indigenous led organization based in Solano County, formally addressed FSUSD requesting the removal of the Indian Mascot at Armijo High School. After several meetings and addresses to the board, FSUSD’s Superintendent Kris Corey, directed the board to create a mascot advisory committee, with the goal of creating a recommendation. The mascot advisory committee comprised of district educators, administrators, students, parents, and alumni, met for several months. SSPRIT provided a presentation in which information was provided regarding civil rights and the use of First Nations Peoples as mascots. The use of Native American mascots is not about being politically correct; it’s a civil rights issue. In fact, the removal of Indian mascots in public schools is not a new one. Mascot removals date back to 1968 when The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) first began the work of addressing Indian mascots in schools, sports and media. NCAI, civil rights, and many other organizations, such as The ACLU, NAACP, The National Education Association, The American Psychological Association, The American Counseling Association, The American Sociological Association, The American Indian Movement and numerous Tribal Nations and Tribal Governments, advise against the use of Native American mascots and have resolutions in place stating, “Native American images, symbols and Native American cultural and religious traditions - as sports names, logos and mascots perpetuates racist stereotypes and undermines the self-determination and dignity of Indian People.”

Yet, each time we address school boards requesting the removal of Native American mascots, we are met with hostility and backlash; mostly from alumni who can’t seem to move past their high school years. Sometimes, we’re verbally threatened and at other times, we’ve been physically attacked….All while being told to “Get over it” and that “It’s just a mascot.”  If it’s just a mascot, then why can’t you JUST remove it?  And On Thursday, May 9, 2019 the FSUSD Governing School Board may vote to do JUST that! On April 25, 2019, FSUSD will hear the recommendation from the mascot committee; the recommendation will be given at the districts’ board meeting located at 2490 Hilborn Road in Fairfield, CA at 6 pm. The board will subsequently place the mascot on the agenda as an action item and will vote to either keep or remove the mascot on May 9, 2019.

Maintaining the Indian mascot at Armijo high school goes against district policy. According to FSUSD’s policy 7310, “The school mascot is defined as a symbol, character, name or logo. The school mascot shall demonstrate principles of justice, democracy, equality, non-discrimination, good governance, good faith, and respect for human rights.”  Civil Rights are Human Rights and The United States Commission on Civil Rights states, “The stereotyping of any racial, ethnic, religious or other groups when promoted by our public educational institutions, teaches all students that stereotyping is acceptable, a dangerous lesson in a diverse society. Schools have a responsibility to educate their students; they should not use their influence to perpetuate misrepresentations of any culture or peoples.”

Furthermore, The California Racial Mascot act states, “The use of racially derogatory or discriminatory school or athletic team names, mascots, or nicknames in California public schools is antithetical to the California school mission of providing an equal education to all.

Many individuals and organizations interested and experienced in human relations, including the United States Commission on Civil Rights, have concluded that the use of Native American images and names in school sports is a barrier to equality and understanding, and that all residents of the United States would benefit from the discontinuance of their use. No individual or school has a cognizable interest in retaining a racially derogatory or discriminatory school-athletic team name, mascot, or nickname.”

I heard a non-native say at an FSUSD school board meeting, “Why don’t we ask the Indians of THIS land what they think?” After which he and an Armijo High School alumni immediately told the board it would cost too much money to remove the Indian mascot. Did they not take in to account how much it would cost to keep it?! What is the true price of perpetuating institutionalized racism? What is the cost of teaching young people for 100 more years that it’s okay to uphold racist stereotypes? What is the true price of First Nations youth seeing their culture being used as a mockery by their entire school? And last but definitely not least, what about the voices of the original inhabitants of the land on which we are standing, The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation? What do they think about being, so-called, “Honored”? 

In a letter of support provided to SSPRIT, FSUSD’s Governing School Board and The Mascot Advisory Committee, The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nations states, “Changing public perception of offensive Native American mascots and imagery has long been a focus of our Tribe. We understand this is a complicated and sensitive matter. For several years, our Tribe has been a leader in local, state and national efforts to end the use of offensive Native American mascots and imagery in sports and entertainment culture. These images promote racist, derogatory stereotypes and fail to honor the culture, religion and legacy of Native Americans in this country.”  

FSUSD has the opportunity to be on the right side of history. FSUSD has an opportunity to provide an educational moment. SSPRIT asks FSUSD to truly HONOR First Nations Peoples. The removal is long overdue. Remove the Indian mascot at Armijo High School! The time is here! The time is now!

To learn more about SSPRIT please visit: ssprit.wordpress.com or contact SSPRIT at: sspandrit@gmail.com

Sacred Sites Protection and Rights of Indigenous Tribes (SSPRIT) is an Indigenous led organization dedicated to protecting Native American sacred sites and to preserving the cultural and spiritual freedom of First Nations Peoples. SSPRIT advocates for the removal of Native American mascots in public schools and educates the community about Native American cultural appropriation and decolonization. 

Angel Heart, Quechua-Puna, is SSPRIT’s Volunteer Secretary and Public Relations Officer and has been with the organization since 2013. She has led & assisted in the removal of 5 Native American mascots to date. If successful, removal of the Armijo Indian mascot will be her 6^th. Angel Heart is a Suisun City resident and has two grandchildren who attend school in the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District.  

“Put that fruit back,” says Mahershala Ali as the pianist Don Shirley to Viggo Mortensen as Frank "Tony the Lip" Vallelonga in the movie Green Book, with controlled disdain for Tony. Tony’s casual theft of an apple from an outdoor fruit stand could either be seen as the privilege of a “wite” man who isn’t constantly predated, watched and poLiced, like all melenated/african peoples are every ]day in amerikkka- or an “act” of food liberation common among urban poor folks of all colors, who have had to liberate, abscond or steal food all of our lives just to eat. The gaze of Don Shirley who as the movie shows had overt disdain for many of Tony’s obviously working class (read:ghetto) behavior was a constant theme in the movie, causing fights between the characters and culminating in series of dangerous encounters with racists, classist and poLice across the Deep South tour they were on.

These moments of race and class consciousness and conflict were threaded through the entire production of Green Book. Which is one of the many reasons I don’t agree with Spike Lee and others that critique Green Book as only a feel good Wite Man/Black Man story. Driving Miss Daisy 2019….. (LOL tho) 

But that said, both Green Book, Blindspotting earlier this year and another recent release The Best of Enemies are actually incisive illustrations of the ways us Po folks understand and overstand one another way beyond our melanin count and the very specific way that in amerikkklan race and poverty are intrinsically linked and the fact that poverty scholarship, ( poor folks leading our own movements, telling our own unfiltered stories, art, etc) is rarely if ever shown in almost all Hollywood depictions, maybe because the writers, and producers have , as my Mama Dee would always say, never missed a meal themselves, the same way that so many of the art, education and media forms rarely if ever include our voices as leaders, writers and producers. 

And oddly in contrast to some movies repping purely race/identity politic such as US and the newest sloppy production called The Intruder, a Black krapitalism image of success is viewed as natural “cues” that the Black protagonists are like everyone else . That they all “made it” cause they have country homes, high paid jobs, wite friends and condominiums in deeply gentrifUKEd neighborhoods like San Francisco where the Intruder was set  

Whereas Green Book and The Best of Enemies culminated with examples of post-colonial culture, art and inter-dependence . In Green Book its seen as Tony’s  indigenous interdependent, multi-generational, Italian culture of connected-ness versus the isolation of accumulation- depicted in Don Shirley’s huge, empty New York penthouse filled with African Iconography and art but no people. And in Best of Enemies, poverty skolaz join forces to fight the over-arching wealth-hoarding “wite Citizen’s council.” Showing the real “power/force/hate was the wealthy, more “civilized” wite people who didn’t need to wear hoods to destroy Black peoples lives

Green Book is about  race and class and the ways they are intimately connected, about Black culture, Italian culture and the cross- race culture of poverty, which believe it or not is, as my sister. Po poet and welfareQUEEN and educator, poverty skola jewnbug says, is a culture too ! And the reason a lot of Black Scholars can’t see that aspect is they are middle-class themselves, perhaps having a poverty skola in their past but really working hard as possible to distance themselves from all that  is “ghetto”

The relationship conflicts at their most superfificial reading is the fact that Don Shirley is black and Tony is Wite, and Ann Atwater is Black and CP Ellis is wite. But what is revealed is their connectedness over struggle, oppression, and forced treatment, in many ways completely trumps the purity of race and racism and actually lifts up interdependence and community and consciousness.

In The Best of Enemies the thing Badass organizer and revolutionary poverty skola Ann Atwater, played with smooth precision by Taraji and Klan member C.P Ellis, played beautifully by Sam Rockwell,  bond over is class, poverty and disability, in fact, not only do they reluctantly realize that they understand each other, they have very similar problems and concerns.

Whereas in the Intruder, the “past” which could be one of poverty of one of the main characters of witnessing his brother shot at 12 years old is completely subverted as only a tale of why he is afraid of guns and in fact his character wants nothing to do with his past and is constantly tryin to become as “rich” as possible.

As a formerly houseless poverty skola from LA who with mama were movie junkies ( bad, good or indifferent) I can’t even watch un-critiqued wealth-hoarders/fake veneer of middle class lyfe in film and I would suggest all poverty skolaz see Green Book and Best of Enemies and challenge Hollywood to actually create a story about poor people creating their own solutions outside of krapitalism and poLice and the cult of independence…. ummm that sounds oddly like the POOR Magazine/Homefulness/Deecolonize Academy movie, which I guess we Po folks might have to do ourselves to get it right…

In the mean-time run don't walk to the screening of local poverty skolaz and POOR magazine family Audrey Candy Corn, Peter Menchini, Amir and Ziair's new film Soar Torian Soar which will show on June 9th at the Roxie Theatre at 2:30pm as part of the Indie FIlm Fest.- Stay Tuned for this poverty skolaz reviewforTHeReVoLution on this beautiful film

May 21, 2019 marks the four year anniversary of the police shooting of two Black brothers, André Thompson and Bryson Chaplin. Ryan Donald is the white police officer that tried to kill both André and Bryson, who survived. Anniversaries of police terror incidents are always difficult for families and communities directly impacted by the trauma. For the Chaplin-Thompson family, that means both surviving and struggling. André and Bryson have become permanently disabled as a result of the shooting, both with PTSD, other health complications, and Bryson is now a wheelchair user, since a bullet Donald shot is still lodged in his back. Officer Ryan Donald was never held accountable for his abuse of force, and it was André and Bryson who had to spend time in jail.

[image: a wheat pasted poster on a light post in downtown Olympia is of poLice officer Ryan Donald, who is portrayed as pinocchio with a long nose and the word LIAR across his chest. Donald is wearing a tie and has the courtroom microphone in front of his face.] #ryandonald

During the trial that led to the incarceration of André and Bryson, Ryan Donald was caught lying many times which is referred to as testilying (instead of testifying) in police accountability community. One of the most obvious fallacies was his claim that skateboards were used as weapons during the incident. Donald could not even get the length of the skateboards correct, while holding one dramatically over his head, claiming the skateboard to be four feet long. The people in the courtroom audibly laughed at that, as the skateboard was clearly closer to two feet long. During the trial, one of many racist memes that had been posted to Ryan Donald’s facebook page was submitted as evidence of his anti-Black racism.  The meme was of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, during his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, only this image had an ice cream photoshopped into King’s hand, and the caption said “I have a dreamsicle.” In court, Donald claimed that image was funny and said it was a “play on words,” and not racist. “I just like ice cream,” he said, playing up his charade of innocence.

[poLice officer Ryan Donald on the stand with microphones in front of him, testilying, in his red tie with his notes of his “statement” in front of him, so he knew what to say.]

During the jury selection process leading up to André and Bryson’s trial, one of the potential jurors shared a story about Ryan Donald’s racist behavior, having been asked to elaborate on a question from his written questionnaire. The elder white man said he had been having a problem with mail getting stolen from his mailbox. He called the Olympia police to report it. It took a long time for the police to show up, and when they did, it was Ryan Donald. Donald immediately started questioning the potential juror’s roommate, who is an Indigenous Woman, as if she were a “suspect,” when she was actually a crime victim. The potential juror said involving the police and Officer Donald was more harmful than helpful. He, of course, did not make the final cut to get onto the jury.

Other examples of Ryan Donald’s racist violence were suppressed in the courtroom. One year before the shooting of André and Bryson, in the early hours of May 28, 2014, officer Ryan Donald assaulted CenturyLink employee Tyrone Johnson. Tyrone had been called in to tend to a power outage. He was in his CenturyLink uniform, returning a CenturyLink work vehicle. Donald drove past the CenturyLink building on Martin Way, “noticed an open garage door and a dim light,” and saw Tyrone. He quickly asserted that “burglars were inside” and called for back-up. Tyrone Johnson filed a million dollar civil suit against the City of Olympia naming officers Ryan Donald, George Clark, Jonathan Hazen, Eric Henrichsen and Matthew Henschler, for assault, battery and unlawful imprisonment. Tyrone now has PTSD from being thrown to the ground, and having five police officers pointing guns, including AR-15 assault rifles, at him while merely being Black and at work.

Another deadly “use of force incident” occurred in the ramp-up to André and Bryson’s trial, which actually delayed the court proceedings because Donald was put on paid administrative leave. On February 28, 2016, white, 44-year-old, father of two and loved one, Jeffrey McGaugh, was in a mental health crisis in downtown Olympia at the transit center, and needed de-escalating. Instead of helping, police officers Sgt. Dan Duncan, Rob Beckwell, Jonathan Leavitt, Javier Sola Del Vigo and Ryan Donald intervened, and Jeff McGaugh died. The police investigated themselves after Jeffrey’s violent death, supported by their co-workers at the coroner’s office, and unsurprisingly found the cause of death to be “inconclusive,” and not caused by police use of force.    

[image: make sure you are able to recognize your local killer cop.  photo of Olympia police officer Ryan Donald provided by Olympia Copwatch, a white man in street clothes, he has short brown hair.]

Jeffrey McGaugh is not the only “inconclusive” Olympia death at which Ryan Donald was present. On February 7, 2018, white loved one and trauma survivor Vaneesa Hopson was in a mental health crisis in a West Olympia apartment building, where she lived with her young son. The fire alarm was pulled, a neighbor called 911, and fire fighters, EMTs and police were dispatched. Bystander videos show Vaneesa outside her apartment being wrestled to the pavement, with three police officers on top of her, while she screamed in terror. Vaneesa pleaded for help saying “don’t drug me,” and “they’re going to kill me!” as she was given a “chemical restraint,” an injected dose of Versed, which killed her. When her family came to the hospital to say goodbye to Vaneesa, her face and body were covered with wounds, evidence of the violence that led to her death. Documentation from that night has recently surfaced that names Ryan Donald as one of those three police officers who terrorized Vaneesa Hopson.    

[A heart is drawn in pink chalk on the sidewalk outside the Olympia Police Department and city hall on the one year anniversary of Vaneesa Hopson’s death on February 7, 2019.  It is dark outside and there are candles inside the heart with Vaneesa’s name. Next to that are the words written by Vaneesa’s 9 year old Son, Q, “LOVE YOU.” It has not been acknowledged publicly that Ryan Donald was one of Vaneesa’s killers.]

Ryan Donald is a menace, and has no place on the public payroll. His behavior, along with that of his enabling co-workers, constitutes gang violence. Police officer Ryan Donald makes Olympia a more dangerous place, especially for Black, Indigenous and People of Color, Poor people, Disabled people and UNhoused people.

As the anniversary of the shooting of André Thompson and Bryson Chaplin comes around again, closeby as always to Mother’s Day, the Chaplin-Thompson family plans to spend both days together, out of the public eye, and in celebration of life. They are currently engaged in a retraumatizing civil suit which stipulates “no public comment at this time.” The local chapter of SURJ, Showing Up for Racial Justice, is doing direct support of the Chaplin-Thompson family, and donations can be made at paypal.me/OlympiaSURJ.    

[image: yellow chalk on a curb outside a building called The Martin in downtown Olympia reads FIRE OFFICER RYAN DONALD.]

___________________________________________________________________

Lisa Ganser is a white, Poor, Disabled, Non Binary, artist and organizer living in Olympia on stolen Squaxin, Chehalis and Nisqually land. They are a sidewalk chalker, a copwatcher, a dog walker and the Daughter of a Momma named Sam.

Mount Vernon, NY Mayor Richard Thomas has filed a formal complaint against JP Morgan Chase citing that he was racially profiled when he visited the branch in White Plains, NY. Mayor Thomas was at the Chase bank accompanied by his chief of staff and a Mount Vernon detective to review the city’s financial records when the police was called by an employee stating that at least one person “had a gun.”

Although the bank branch was given prior notice of the Mayor’s arrival and his security staff, he still faced difficulty in obtaining the financial information after being granted access to the records by a judge. The police was called on the trio, whose cultural backgrounds were of African and Latino descent, and who did not cause a disturbance whatsoever. But one of the responding officers on the scene recognized the detective, possibly preventing another profiling tragedy.

A judge had ruled in Mayor Thomas’ favor for the city controller Deborah Reynolds to disclose financial records.

Thomas insisted that neither himself nor staff ever brandished a weapon nor caused any scene and while one JP Morgan representative denies that the mayor was racially profiled at all, Mayor Thomas has filed a complaint against Chase.

The mayor stated in a letter:

“As a mayor and as a young, well educated black man living during this turbulent time in society where police are being called on black people for going about everyday life, this is unacceptable. We’ve seen this happen to two black men at a Starbucks in Philadelphia. We’ve also seen this happen to Oregon Rep. Janelle Bynum while she was campaigning. Now it happened to me.”  

While expressing his disgust over the way-too common incident that has claimed lives in many cases, The Mayor was very fortunate that things did not escalate from bad to worse. The label, “profiling” is just another word for the deeply-rooted racism that allows for prejudiced folks to smokescreen their hatred. It does not matter what “class” black people come from in this society, in the mind of a true-blue bigot the “you are still a nigger” mentality is still in full effect.

This is 2019 and though some things have changed, the rule of white (non) supremacy and the spirits spawned from those roots will not “turn over a new leaf’ no time soon and with that said, I will not personally patronize a business that tolerates biased practices that put lives in jeopardy. Therefore it is time to be more mindful and aware of where and who our community dollars go to and support.

A rep for JP Morgan, Joseph Evangelisti, stated that  “our staff acted appropriately”

…….Right, and that just proved my point!

Queennandi Xsheba, PNN KEXU