Story Archives

by Marlon Crump/PNN

"I'm scared, I don't know what else to do, or who to talk to!"

"Why me, what have I done? What do these people want from ME?!"

"Can somebody do something about this?!"

"All of this because I submitted a piece of paper, in telling the truth of what's been going on?!"

"When will it stop? My body is in so much unexplainable pain........ALL BECAUSE I SPOKE OUT!"

Before 2008 ended, I wrote a story called "Digital Apartheid" which presented a detailed summary of the impact that the D.T.V (Digital Television) transition would have on people particularly in poverty, seniors, and people with disabilities now that U.S Congress were forcing everyone to watch their television sets by the means of digital broadcast after purchasing a digital converter box. (Which is similar to a cable television box.)

I started off the story, stating that "Technology has arrived to a new age: The Age of D.T.V. I also stated in "Digital Apartheid" that "the digital divide and conquest is literally just around the corner."

Unfortunately, I have to start this particular story off by stating that technology has arrived to another age in an era of terror, through the voices of its victims: The Age of Technology Terror!

And this has apparently been happening for quite sometime, by person or persons, unknown.

The above outcries and pleas are from victims who've experienced multiple harassments/stalkers and unexplained physical technological trauma as a result. Shockingly, these problems are seemingly invisible to doctors, law enforcement officials and members of the public.

These victim's voices are seldom taken seriously due to the ignorance, disbelieving, scrutiny, and even ridicule resulting from such acts actually taking place, leading many governmental authorities and their counterparts to conclude that such mysterious acts are "absurd" or "preposterous."

(Much to the delight of those responsible, as denial, ignorance, and disinterest are their greatest covert cover from exposure.)

Through my own extensive research, credited to an anonymous source who wishes to raise universal awareness about this terrifying, untold issue in media by sharing her own ongoing experience, I've discovered that this technological terror is not a myth, a lie, a fairy tale, or a script from a modern day science fiction movie. It is very real............

And it is called Electronic Harassment via Organized Stalking!

Imagine the terrifying thought of your own body organs burning, the breaches of unseen rays to your human nervous system disrupted for no explained reason(s), leading to dirahea, chronic fatigue, and other mysterious life-threatening symptoms as a result for either speaking out against a certain injustice, making someone very angry, or just simply being yourself.

Even worse, just imagine experiencing such bizarre incidents, yet no one is willing to believe you and they immediately conclude that you're crazy. This falls alongside of the "Why are they targeting me?" and "Why no one will listen to me?" question............ bearing little or no answer.

Just think of people purposely playing their television or stereo a little too loud, constant phone calls just to annoy someone they despise, disrupting a person's human nervous system, preventing them from functioning properly. An old trick to attack someone in the jungle is drumbeating: an old fashioned tactic used to confuse and intimidate the enemy, to throw them off their concentration.

by Bruce Allison/PNN

To the general public May 19th may not mean anything--but our governor pulled a fast one on us. Houseless parents, Medi-Cal, Food Stamp administration, IHSS, CalWORKS, CAPI and general low income families have a deduction in their aid. Prop 1D which goes to the ballot May 19, will be re-directing a large amount of funds away from DCYF (Department of Children, Youth & Families) and will cut medi-cal payments for these people in need. That means children with autism and other mental illnesses such as muscular dystrophy will lose the support they need. It wasn't the fault of these children that their parents were born in poverty and there is no reason why they should suffer for it. There are plenty of places that can be cut instead--prison guard salaries for example. I know this is a sacred cow but it should be looked into. Half the prisoners in jail over the age of 60 should be released to save the government a couple million dollars.

All the times this poverty scholar has worked on proposition 63 (Mental Health Services Act)--including going door to door collecting signatures--wasn't because I liked getting doors slammed in my face. It's about time these millionaires pay their fair share. Prop 1E will cause a ripple effect in time, because these youths under 21 will end up being incarcerated due to the lack of adequate mental care.

Presently the has decided that they will support prop 1A because the overflow in the budget will go towards K-12 education. However, there will not be an overflow because of the huge deficit in this state. Any member who reads this in the Los Angeles area, if you are taking money away from children in Calworks how do you expect them to learn on an empty stomach. This legislation isn't helping anybody, you pay higher medical bills in hospitals and these children can't attend school because they will be too hungry. They will be wandering the steets causing a burden to society.

All voters, please get out on March 19, the assembly has fallen for the Governor's hypnotic trance. After a minority of millionaires held up the budget for a period to bankrupt the state, they still scream that taxes are too high on them. When those three republicans broke ranks to settle the budget after two long days in the torture chamber known as the assembly, they finally agreed on a budget. Some of those people who got I.O.U's from the budget will not get their money back plus interest as they were promised. This part of the budget I will give on further articles, it does not retain too much interest to a normal person

Call your assemblyman if you are in a republican district and tell him he's an idiot.

by Bruce Allison/PNN - Media Faclilitator Thornton Kimes/PNN

When Care Not Cash got started, a training program was begun at San Francisco General Hospital for Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA’s) and Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVN’’s).  This was to help CalWorks clients find a new career and jobs.  This time around, during the budget crunch, the CNA’s and LVN’s are being laid off as too expensive; both being replaced by administrators who may well have not beat feet on the hospital wards as actual nurses in years.

As a former CNA I can tell you this is not an easy job;  aside from the taking of pulse, respiration, blood pressure, temperature, and other tasks (like installing or changing catheter bags), dealing with people who are sometimes confused and angry about their situations is part of the work.  You either love it or you are in Job Hell.

If you like doing this, you become a better person and commit to making the job your career.  You become who you would like to see by your bedside when it’s your turn.  They are never paid their full worth. 

Mayor Gavin Newsome has taken CNA’s and LVN’s from S.F. General, plus the unit clerks who do clerical tasks and are unofficial nurses assisting the professionals and  social workers who direct homeless clients into respite housing until their illnesses and wounds get better or heal. 

Respite beds at Next Door  (Polk and Geary Streets), other shelters and SRO hotels, have been cut in half along with their staff.  A few days ago, this poverty scholar went to a rally for the nurses who have been laid off.   Patients and health care activist organizations gave testimony. 

A heart attack survivor who had been treated at the nationally known and respected S.F. General Trauma Unit (which has also been deeply affected by the cuts) said that he wouldn’t have survived his ordeal without the professionalism, loving care, and badly needed conversation, humor and laughter of the CNA’s and LVN’s;  a social worker from Child Protective Services (CPS) spoke about the children seen in the unit suffering from parental abuse (cigarette burns, stab wounds, and other horrors)—the experienced staff cheer the kids up and make separation from their parents less scary. 

Waiting time in S.F. General’s Emergency/Trauma waiting room, which is no picnic to begin with for any uninsured person waiting to be seen for anything, will increase by at least another 4 hours—as they sit in uncushioned uncomfortable chairs (possibly bought on sale or acquired from the lowest bidder—to put it nicely; designed by the Marquis de Sade if you want to be mildly mean about it).  The nurses stood in a circle at the Emergency Room entrance to say goodbye to their laid off comrads as the rally ended. 

From Bruce:
Dear Mayor:  your adversary, this Poverty Scholar so far left-wing he can’t make right turns, wants to know if you are getting this tired old ball of wax rolling again—setting up hopes for another “generation” of homeless mothers to be trained into medical jobs and careers (or the next career fad that comes along), only for them to be crushed and disappointed by the next cycle of economic doom and gloom invented by The People Who Brought You The Sub-Prime Mortgage Meltdown and their proteges?  You’re not getting my vote for Governor!  I have a lot of friends on Facebook and they feel the same way.

by Zackary Whitehead

I believe in Miracles

Since you came along

You sexy thing

--You Sexy Thing, Hot Chocolate

It is 7:15 AM and I’m standing guard at a supermarket. The shelves are stocked with soups, toilet paper, cereals—everything. It is cold and I begin pacing back and forth. I think of tigers in cages. I feel a brotherhood with them although I am not locked in a cage. Music is piped into the store’s overhead speakers. Suddenly I hear the famous guitar riff of the 70’s hit “You sexy thing” by Hot Chocolate. The song was featured in the movie, “The Full Monty” where a group of unemployed steel workers in England—some of whom work as security guards for lack of anything else—devise a scheme to make big money as strippers. The final unforgettable scene shows the group dressed in security guard uniforms stripping at a club before an audience of screaming women.

I look at my uniform and want to dance—to tear my uniform off and dance while cans of soup and other items jump off the shelves and into the pockets and outstretched arms of people who walk right out the door and into the sunshine—no questions asked. I am jolted out of my daydream when the manager calls for a price check over the loudspeakers. People begin filtering in—I acknowledge each with a nod. They are elders, youth and migrants. I’m the first person they see.

My job is to be a deterrent to shoplifting. Would-be shoplifters are supposed to look at my uniform and see me as a symbol of authority--making a 360-degree turn and heading out the door. When I take my 10-minute break I go to the bathroom. I look in the mirror. I don’t see a symbol of authority but a symbol of a bad economy.

It’s been almost 20 years since I last worked as a security guard. To work as a guard you have to be licensed by the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services. I got my “guard card” by taking a class provided by a security officer training school in Oakland. I remember the bold words captured in a frame in one of the school’s offices:

Those who adapt

Survive

Those who don’t

Die

Those words made me think of dinosaurs. I sat through the “powers of arrest” and “duties of a security officer” sections before watching a video on the security implications of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. The class was a cross section of elders, migrants, people of color and ex-military folks. One young man was given an ultimatum by his father, get a job as a security guard or join the marines. Another young man had ambitions of joining the California Highway Patrol. I sat in back of the class next to an elder from Fiji. We looked at each other, he nodded—he knew.

It’s 8:10 AM. More and more people filter in. Many are migrant Raza with families, many are African descended, Chinese and Russian elders. I am part of what is known as Loss Prevention—LP for short—making sure the store doesn’t lose potato ships, toilet paper, and freeze-dried noodle soup. But what of the losses that come through the door, each with a face that tells a story? The list of losses include:

Languages

Lands

Cultures

Identities

His(her)stories

Wives

Husbands

Children

Homes

Jobs

Sanity

Do those losses count--do they ever count? I stand at the front entrance and nod in acknowledgement.

Private security is one of the fastest growing industries in the US. 34 billion dollars a year is spent on private security services to protect private property. This reflects upon the rampant privatization of public safety services, shifting from protecting people to protecting property. In a report by www.themorningcall.com, between 11,000 and 15,000 companies employ over a million security officers—double that of police officers. According to Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the occupation of security officer has a turnover rate comparable to that of a fast food employee. In an economy that is spiraling downward, it is ironic that the only job many people can get relates to the enforcement of laws governing property rights. Prior to my security job, I worked as an employment counselor for a local non-profit. I helped low-income people find work and take part in community organizing campaigns. Now I work as a guard—it’s the only job I can get right now.

There were several candidates applying at the security-company that eventually hired me. All were African descended, a couple elders. One fellow had worked in the Tennessee prison system and had failed the test to become a San Francisco Police officer. His eyes lit like pools of flame when he talked about the starting salary of a SF cop. Another applicant was a woman who wore brown polyester suit with fingernails a deep shade of red. She looked like a muni bus driver but could have easily been my auntie. She expressed frustration of ageism in her job search. She then talked about her daughter who was attending classes at UC Berkeley. "My daughter is so smart," she said, her face beaming.

It’s 9:50 AM and the traffic in the store is picking up. A houseless man walks in. According to my post orders, I am to ask all undesirables to leave the premises. Our eyes lock. I nod and wait for “You sexy thing” to come over the loudspeaker.

by Irene Marr/PNN Race, Poverty, Media Justice Institute Intern

Carpooling. It's fun with friends, saves on gas, AND you're going green. Many have the option to share their vehicular luxury, but for others, it's a way of life.

Thousands of Californians rely on sharing gas costs and roadway incentives for adding passengers to their car, not necessarily because they're devoted to "sharing is caring"ideology, but because they can't afford not to.

I grew up in Los Angeles, and if you know the "City of Angels", you know that in no way do people have wings and fly--they drive, everywhere. Gas was always an issue, and no matter what people may think, has never been cheap. My friends and I always relied on asking for rides or pitching in on someone's gas tank to go somewhere. For most of us, without this, none of us would have gone anywhere. It's how we went to school and work. It was how we did the things we needed to do 'cause we couldn't afford to buy a car ourselves. My father moved to this country and found himself carpooling from the beginning. He found that it was a way to save on transport costs since he was struggling to establish his new life. Not only that, it's hard to take the bus when you're work is 30 min. by car, up to 45 during rush hour.

For the majority of the laborers in California, carpooling is the only way that they'll get to their jobs and contribute to the State's workforce. The State even fosters this notion when providing carpool lanes and waived bridge tolls for carpoolers. From a policy perspective, this decongests the roadways, helps the environment, and encourages mobility. Economically, the State can not afford to lose out on people traveling to their jobs, especially the blue collar ones.

As the analyzing archaic duo Matier & Ross reports in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Bay Area Transit Authority is looking towards riders to help seal their $140 million budget by raising the bridge toll and even eliminating the toll waiver for carpoolers. Somewhat compromising, the authority proposes a ˜discount rate to still keep a touch of incentive for those who are riding the eco-friendly cause.

What's concerning about this matter isn't that they're hiking up the toll, but who they're squeezing money from. I know for sure that if I were back in L.A., my friends and I would have more of an obstacle getting around. My family and I would struggle incredibly if we had to run around picking up the kids from different schools while running errands without personal vehicles. I also know that the neighboring Beverly Hills would have a lawn and garden crisis. It's hard to fit lawnmowers and weed wackers on a bus, let alone a safety risk.

As families and workers who rely on carpooling personal vehicles to fulfill their daily obligations, this proposed toll increase is going to thicken the barrier of transportation obstacles that hinder their means of financial support. On the other side of the income fence, it's a contradiction to doing things the ˜environmental way". Given this, there is definitely an extreme disconnect between what we perceive as "going green".

The experience of low income people (who are the majority being of color and migrant) is inherently "green" by default. Low income people are reliant on the carpool factor and therefore gain the right of benefiting from no-cost bridge crossings. In opposition, the higher income population would take from it one more price to pay to be labeled "green". In these times of drive hybrid, eat organic, and other types of "green-washing" campaign, we can see that to be an environmentalist, there are ways to direct your money in order to make help the earth. To carpool and be taxed for it is no different. Those who are inherently green can no longer afford to continue their already helpful ways. It's almost as if carpoolers are being punished in many ways.

"For the poor, an increase on tolls is money that can't afford to be taken away", says Vivian Hain, Poverty Scholar and mother of three. "If the toll proposal goes through, I won't be able to come as often. The bridge toll [currently] takes at least a third of my budget. It's the reason why I carpool. If I have to come 2 to 4 times a week, it's not going to work. Gas on top of bridge tolls is going to make it harder for me to do the things I have to do to make ends meet". As victims of American poverty, Vivian and numerous amounts of Bay Area families like hers are going to be limited in their ability to pull themselves out of their financial hardships. If they can't get to work, how are they going to support their families?
Family includes their elders as well. Like kids, they too need to be supported by being taken to doctor visits, the market etc. This reality is all too familiar with the majority of low-income people, one where cultural obligation is stunted by barriers of finance. Like most families, having a car is key to taking your kids to school, your mother to the doctor, getting yourself to work. This is reality for Tiny Gray-Garcia, also a Poverty Scholar and street survivor. I needed my car or I wouldn't have been able to do it. The carpool lane allowed me to cross the increasingly high-priced privatized bridge It also pushed me to stuff multiple other family members in one car instead of multiple cars. Without this cost-saving perk we couldn't afford to go to work and take our elders to the doctor's across the bridge at all. The cost of travel is getting so that only the rich can do it. If the poor travel they end up becoming much poorer.

Not being able to mobilize on the basis of affordability discriminates the impoverished, people of color, and most of all, a population of people who do a hard day's work to survive, support themselves and their families, and serve their societal duty. To instill a policy where financially fragile people are impacted harder is careless and unfair. People like me, Vivian, and Tiny, who rely on tagging along and bringing people along to accomplish deeds needed to just get by are going to have to yet find more ways to survive and make it work. Maybe I'll start asking people with a Prius for a ride next time.

by Staff Writer

All of you know I love finding musicians with disabilities around the world especially Hip-Hop artists with disabilities. Well it is time to take it to the next level! Read on and pass it along!

My Dream for 2010 is to take Krip-Hop Project and my research on disabled musicians especially Disabled Artists in Hip-Hop to Africa & Europe, face to face to get the artists' stories on paper and on camera!

I got to go! And the goal is 2010! If you know any good deals please hook me up. Plus, I've connected with some amazing disabled musicians and activists in Africa and throughout Europe. I've got to go and 2010 must be the year. If you can assist or put me in the right direction please do! There are so many disabled musicians outside of the USA that I want to meet and get their stories. The internet is cool but nothing is like face to face and 2010 is the time to take my love of finding disabled musicians to the next level!!

I'm on a mission!! If you have any suggestions please hit me back!!

I would love to get some kind of sponsor or grant to do this for 6 months. My dream. All the connections to disabled musicians especially Hip-Hop disabled artists I made through the internet has brought me to this stage and that is to visit all of the artists and write and record their stories throughout Europe and Africa. This would be amazing and has been tugging at me for years. Anyway I need to reach out and tell you anybody that can assist with this vision. Iʼll be writing up a full proposal in the upcoming months and will be asking for letters of support from artists from all over the world that will be apart of my proposal packet. Like I said the connections, friendships and research has been made with disabled musicians throughout Africa and Europe but can you assist in completing my vision?

Stay in contact. Read my articles on disabled musicians on www.poormagazine.org column Illin-N-Chillin, www.kriphop.com and www.myspace.com/kriphop

by By Thornton Kimes/PNN

Part 1: Moi?

I started seriously wanting to conquer my 3-to-5-year cycle of employment-to-crash-landing-and-start-over-from-scratch (from the proverbial grassy roots, the streets) Summer 2008, after the end of the Goodwill job mentioned in “Who’s Budget? Our Budget!”

How does “success” in life, by anyone’s standard, happen when you don’t have a coherent “this is how we do it” handbook in your head—-primarily put there by parents? I was born a middle class white guy. The white’s still there but the middle class status got squeezed out like lemon juice into ice tea over 30 years.

I was allowed to quit and not succeed at many efforts after turning 8 years old and being a Christmas season Nutcracker recital clown. A terrified clown. Boy #3 of what began as 4 boys in a ballet class I wanted to be in for all of 5 seconds of jealousy over my sister being a ballerina. We mutinied at least once. Didn’t work. We lived.

My parents quit too--divorce. College was a family thing and it became my thing too, except that I didn’t understand how much work any success requires at the adult level of the game of life. Didn’t work.

I lived. The silver lining is that like many people I’m stubborn about surviving and finding ways to rescue myself—-with a little help—-from both self-inflicted and Capitalism-inflicted failure and doom and gloom.

The San Francisco version of Economic Doom And Gloom 101 and the Budget Ballet of Horror (you know what I mean—-ballet is at least as mysterious as opera without a guide who speaketh the language), the Gavin Newsom Show—-with or without Stimulating Stimulus Stuff to Stymie Sticker Shock and Giant Sucking Sounds—-makes bouncing back from demolition, disruption, despair, doom and gloom, so much tougher than it has to be.

I’m reminded of what it was like to be homeless in San Francisco in 1989 and 1994. Gavin Newsom has re-set the computer clock back to the Bad Old Days that got us the Gospel of Social Services According to Frank Jordan, Art Agnos and other Patron Saints of Not Allowing The Dirty Horrible Aggressive Panhandlers And Other Bad Poor People To Spend Our Tax Money The Same Old Same Old Way blah blah blah alakazam alakazotz Care Not Cash not lots of care and cash not lots.

The only difference is now all the shelters that exist (which, of course, aren’t enough) are linked by computer, and all the shelters that exist are under the thumb of you-know-who and the staffs of all the shelters that exist are so demoralized and overworked (remember that word “decimation” from “Who’s Budget? Our Budget!”?) they don’t have much reason to accurately count empty vs. full beds—-so we have a constant low-intensity-conflict war of words over beds and people wanting to fill them often don’t.

Part 2: Us!

In 1989 and 1994 I wandered the streets with crews of homeless friends met by happy accident until I respectively left town and decided I’d had enough “vacation time” the hard way and it was time to do what I had to do to get employed, housed, etc. Several times in ’94 it seemed like my bed for the night would be cold concrete except for 10 or 11p.m. late night luckiness for me and other folks leading to floor space at what is now Next Door Shelter.

The only time I’ve actually slept out was one night in some bushes in a park in Denver, CO, after a friend of a homeless friend went Mini-Me Incredible Hulk on us for some reason probably having to do with alcohol, and destroyed the door of his apartment we’d been hoping to crash in for the night.

by Staff Writer

“Redemption? Who is being redeemed? And who is doing the redeeming?"
Gloria Esteva, migrant, poverty scholar in residence, recycler/worker
and reportera de Voces de Inmigrantes en resistencia at POOR Magazine
looked at me sarcastically as we sat with a large group of poverty
scholars and staff writers from POOR Magazine in the 1st
congregational church of Oakland at a showing sponsored by the Poverty
Truth Commission of The Graduate Theological Union to view the new
movie, Redemption, by Amir Soltani.

Gloria’s plaintive question synthesized many of the feelings of anger
and depression that were lodged in my heart and throat after the 20
minute film finished--lodged so deeply that I was unable to speak in
the few minutes of Q& A with Amir after the film before an oddly timed
break where most of the audience departed, never to hear the voices of
the recyclers in the film, the revolutionary lawyers from Homeless
Action Center (HAC) and POOR Magazine’s poverty and worker scholars
who talked about a proposal to decriminalize recycling and support the
recyclers as independent contractors.

Redemption, the movie, is focused on the recyclers (read: workers from
POOR Magazine’s perspective) located in West Oakland, ground zero of
gentrification in Amerikkka. Once a thriving Black community
reminiscent of the Harlem renaissance, in the 1950’s, West Oakland’s
thrival was bled away by a seemingly city-sponsored decimation
program: the easy access to liquor licenses. By the 1980’s, between
the government sponsored access to crack, alcohol and lack of economic
opportunity, the area and its residents were in deep poverty. It was
called Blight. This Blight made it accessible for the default
gentrifyers, the white, middle-class art school students, to people in the
bombed out lofts and industrial property because it was cheap and easy
to afford.

by Staff Writer

Krip-Hop Nation, Art-In-Action & the University of California at Berkeley bring you the first ever panel/performance event highlighting two upcoming movements in Hip-Hop: Krip-Hop (Hip-Hop by artists with disabilities) and Homo-Hop (Hip-Hop by artists who are queer). "Diversifying Hip-Hop: Krip-Hop & Homo-Hop" will be held on Saturday April 11th

BACKGROUND

Hip-Hop has a rich expressive history, and at the same time it is now heavily commercialized. Who defines Hip-Hop? Who controls what its image will be? This program explores two emerging offshoots of the Hip-Hop movement, "Krip Hop" and "Homo Hop." Bringing together academics, performers and community activists, the event will explore these sub-cultures, gathering leading figures from both cultural phenomena to examining their place within Hip-Hop culture(s) and their invitation to a more diverse audience. The goal of "Diversifying Hip-Hop: Krip-Hop & Homo Hop" is to bring the margins front and center, to expose the struggle of difference, as has always been the legacy of hip-hop.

"Diversifying Hip-Hop: Krip-Hop & Homo Hop" will consist of a showing/discussion of two documentary films, Kathleen Kiley's "Halfasoulja" and Alex Hinton's "Pick Up The Mic: The Revolution of Homohop"; live performances; and a panel of speakers.  Artists and speakers will be coming from as far as Atlanta, GA., New Mexico, Houston, TX, and Los Vegas and as close to home as the San Francisco Bay Area.  Performers include George "Tragic" Doman, the King of Handicap-Hop; King Montana, who is the first quadriplegic Hip-Hop artist to secure a global distribution deal with DEKA Records and his song, and video, "Freedom Fighter" will appear in an upcoming documentary, "Cycle of Life" with Carlos Santana, Miss Money, who is in the documentary "Pick Up The Mike: The Revolution of Homohop" and who has a radio show in Houston;  NaR, a queer Arab hip hop crew of Oakland, CA;  Deadlee of LA., who was recently featured in the LA Times, talking about the rise of Homo-Hop; Juba Kalamka, who served as curator/director of PeaceOUT World HomoHop Festival from 2002-2007, an event featured heavily in Hinton's "Pick Up the Mic"; and more leading voices of both movements.
 

The moderators of the event will be Khalil Amani, the author of "Hip-Hop Homophobes,." who bills himself as a spiritual advisor to gay hip-hop, and Leroy F. Moore Jr., founder of the Krip-Hop Project and community relations director of Sins Invalid.
 

"Diversifying Hip-Hop" is sponsored by the Disability Studies Program, the Division of Arts and Humanities, the Departments of Art Practice, Theater Dance & Performance Studies, Katherine Sherwood's Art, Medicine & Disability class and African Diaspora Studies at U.C. Berkeley. The organizers also acknowledge the support of Poor Magazine, Turf Unity, Homo-Hop Radio and the Doreen Townsend Center Working Group for Hip-Hop Studies at UCB.
 

by Staff Writer

"I need to see your license and registration," It seems like such a simple question, a routine traffic stop I think it's called. Just another tool of the Criminal UN-justice in amerikkka. So why was I consumed with terror? Why did flashes of grey steel and 18th century locks, urine stained wooden benches and holding cells the size of someone's smallest closet flood every inch of my terrorized brain. Why did my mind go to suicide, homicide or at best, fraud, anything, but go back to jail or more crimes of poverty.

Me and my houseless mama were barely existing in the fringes of Oakland at the time. It was 10:00 pm and we were driving around trying to find somewhere to park and sleep for that night.

The deaths of Lovell Mixon at a routine traffic stop, and the four humans who were part of an ongoing military occupation of Oakland brought back this and several other acts of po'lice terror perpetrated on me, my mama almost all of the other POOR Magazine/PNN staff writers for the sole act of being houseless, poor and of color in Amerikkka.

I did lie to the cops that night and ended up getting an 18 month jail sentence which was later reduced to 18 months probation due to the extremely revolutionary lawyering of an attorney who advocated for poor folks. That said, even with my "lie" our car was seized, I was taken to jail for the 4th time that year, leaving my disabled mama on the street as I was dragged away.

There is constant talk about the fact that Lovell was a "parolee", an ex-offender, a criminal, this knowledge always added to the corporate media stories about the case, seemingly as a way of rationalizing that Lovell's death was less important than the officers who died. This is odd, I thought, considering the murder of three job holding Oscar Grant, whose only crime was coming home from a party on New Years Eve and being African Descendent. Strange that Oscar didn't get flags woven at half mast, a visit from Schwarzenegger and a multitude of corporate media pieces about the histories of genocide by the perpetrators (po'lice) who killed brother Oscar.

The prison industrial complex has created militarized zones out of our communities of color and poor communities leading to the rise in the murder of youth and elders alike everyday. Consider the case of 73 year old, disabled, African Descendent elder, Bernard Monroe of Homer, Louisiana, shot dead earlier this month on his own porch at a family barbeque by white po'lice officers (read: military). His only "crime" was being black, alive and living in racist Amerikkka, in a militarized zone called, "a poor neighborhood."

People have told me not to be so angry, to come with love for everyone, I'm not sure im able to do that, as long there continues to be an undeclared war/attack being perpetrated on poor people of color all across Amerikkka. I don't know what was going on in Lovell's mind, but it has been said that he was afraid to go back to prison and I, for one have been that afraid, more than once.