Story Archives

by Mission Resistors

When the judge granted the department of human services their request that I take a psych evaluation, my heart dropped. I felt betrayed by people in authority. I felt like my world was ending. I felt numb all day. I felt there was a conspiracy to take my children from me and my life was in their hands. I had to obey every thing that they said. As a mother I felt the need to protect my children like an animal that protects their children, but I was human trying to protect my children from the very system that tried to take them away from me. Should I take the psych eval? And let them take my children? Or should I go and get my own psych eval and compete with them? I didn’t want to jeopardize anything. I was afraid like prey that’s been caught in a trap, and knowing nothing but to protect my children. When I looked at the judge, Judge Gargano, I knew in my heart that he was going to grant the request. I looked at him looking at me with his piercing eyes like he was cutting me in two, section by section, saying “You little black nigger, you better shut up or else I will ruin your whole life. You have no rights and you cannot fight us.” I felt nervous I felt like I was by myself even though there were people around me. There was no one I could turn to.

I looked a the judge with his old, pale white face and he reminded me of Scrooge. He was wearing a black cape like the grim reaper. They had no reason, no explanation. Just because I was a mother I went to the right people to ask for help, yet they turned on me. I started talking to some people I thought that I could trust. The very people I thought that would help me: the dept of human services, the judges, the city attorney turned against me. I had to go get help from the Center for Exploited Children. I brought every piece of paeprwork, every doctor’s note, every school papoer from my children, I went to my church talked to my pastor. I went to go see my faimly doctor to ask her to write a note about my character. I asked anyone that knew me or loved me or cared about me to write a note about my character as a parent, as an advocate and I also took my foster child’s paperwork from when I got her even before she was born—-I had them all. I took it to the National Center of Exploited Children, finally someone to listen to me I thought. He put all of that together, read every paper, every doctor’s note, every teacher’s letter, my doctor’s letters, he put it all together in a document. I had another court date to go to finalize the psych eval and I took that paper to my next court hearing. I was told that if I didn’t take a psych eval and went against court orders, I would be placed in jail. I thought that was another tactic to take my children.

They say the squeaky wheel gets oil--I needed to keep talking. So I took that document frm the National Center of Exploited Children to my court hearing and filed it for the judge to see. And to my surprise, it was pandamonium. They said, “Where did you get this from?” I said there is a name there and I said, “I am not taking a psych eval.” There my story started getting worse. I was not afraid as I was before. I didn’t go to jail. They didn’t take my children. They were bluffing me all along to take a psych eval to use their own people, not allowing me to use my own.

But with that, I went through all kinds of horrible things with the system. During that time I hired an attorney named Craig Martin.

He was the only person that I could talk to that I knew could rattle the judge’s mind and authority more than I could. So all I could think was put myself in survival mode for my children because my children are my life and no one could love them like I could. With that, I decided to let him touch me in places I didn’t want to be touched. But as time went on, it got worse. He did what he was supposed to do and do the paperwork and go to court but he used it against me for the simple fact that I was a poor mother with no money. But I thought I was paying him enough with my rent money, grocery money, anything to keep his hand off of me. But that didn’t help. But then I would think about my children and I let him do these things to me. During that time he grew angrier and angrier at me. I tried to tell anoher judge that my own attorney was raping me because I was scared that if I let him go I would lose my children.

by Jennalynn Jazzmyn Stevens/PNN Gender, Poverty and Disability Scholar

I am a Gender, Poverty and Disability Scholar who has dealt with houselessness, discrimination, family rejection, and system abuse. I am a MtF Transgender Lesbian that has never been sexually active, but knows that I am attracted to women. In this column I will be talking about other misconceptions and discrimination that the Gender Variant Community faces. The issues I will be talking about are magnified even more by the fact that many of our community are low-income and in other situations of discrimination. I want to address well-thought out questions and concerns that you might have. You can e-mail them to removing.the.glasses@gmail.com.

What defines a man as a man and a woman as a woman? Is it that women like men and men like women? It is like saying that it is mandatory that cats eat mice. This is one of many misconceptions that a transgender has to deal with.

I come to you out of a desire to inform and educate you on this widely misunderstood concept. It is said, The truth will set you free. I think we need to examine this phrase a little better. When we look at the truth we are often guilty of looking at it through tinted glasses. Most of the time we don't realize it. When we want the truth to set us free, we first need to take off the glasses. This Column is about removing the glasses about transgenders. Now I will talk about misperceptions about the trans community.

First, I will talk to you about the confusion between sex and gender. Gender has nothing to do with sex or sexual orientation. Many people define gender as male and female. They make this determination by physical attributes. There are many problems with this; the biggest one is that there are individuals born with anatomy that is not one or the other. Another complication is that our social structure puts expectations on females and males. Many people have thought processes that do not fit within these limits. These people are Transgender or Gender Variant. Gender Variant people fit into many different groups. The important thing to know right now is that they identify as something other than what they were assigned at birth by society. It is also important to know that there are various different types of Gender. There are Genetic Male, Genetic Female, Cross Dressers, Drag Queens/Kings, FtM's (Female to Male) and MtF's (Male to Female) Transgender {Transsexual} (someone who wishes to completely become a gender other than what they were born), Inter-Gendered {Inter-Sexed} (someone who has natural physical attributes of both), Gender Queer (someone who identifies as no specific gender), and even others I do not know about.

I realize that one definition of sex is synonymous with gender. For the sake of this column sex is about what we do in bed besides sleeping. Sexual orientation describes whom we can see ourselves having sex with. Many people think that because we were born one gender and identify as the other we therefore are attracted to our birth gender. This is not true. The Gender Variant Community has sexual orientations as variant as they are, just like the Gender Normative Community. In both communities there are a whole bunch of options when it comes to sexual orientation. Some of these orientations are heterosexual, homosexual (gay male and lesbian), bi-sexual and asexual (a person that is simply not into sex). There is another sexual orientation that needs some explaining, that would be pansexual. A pansexual is someone that realizes that there are many genders and is open to a sexual relationship with any of them. A person does not need to be sexually active to know what kind of person they are attracted to, in other words their sexual orientation. If you accept that anyone has the right to be attracted to whom they are attracted to, then should that not include everyone? And remember everyone knows what is right and wrong from childhood, and you cannot help what mental gender you are or who you are attracted to.

I hope that this column has helped remove the glasses and clear your perception on the definition of Gender and Sexual Orientation.

by Mission Resistors

It didn't occur to me that the young, black, self-proclaimed thug whose girlfriend I owe three dollars was about to cowardly strike me from behind with a wooden baseball bat. The back of my head and throughout my body was almost without life.

Over three dollars.

I lay there, trying to protect my face. The Barry Bonds of Mission St. continued to reach the all-time record. As the blood and beating continued, the fans accumulated and just stood in awe.

That's all they did.

He finally walked off with a silent standing ovation. He had the nerve to return moments later to say I was making the block hot.

I couldn't move. Warm blood poured over the back of my head, neck, back. I thought my arms and legs were broken. A prostitute helped by putting pressure on my wounds to stop the bleeding from my head. Paramedics soon arrived and asked me to get up on the gurney. They spoke to each other as if around an office cooler.

They released me that night.

I returned and gingerly, but purposely, walked the same block where the incident occurred. As the fans accumulated, I signed no autographs except for one, the prostitute who possibly saved my life.

by Al Giordano/Special to The Narco News Bulletin

US and Mexico authorities claim that neither knew about the "swine flu" outbreak until April 24. But after hundreds of residents of a town in Veracruz, Mexico, came down with its symptoms, the story had already hit the Mexican national press by April 5. The daily La Jornada reported:

"Clouds of flies emanate from the rusty lagoons where the Carroll Ranches business tosses the fecal wastes of its pig farms, and the open-air contamination is already generating an epidemic of
respiratory infections in the town of La Gloria, in the Perote Valley, according to Town Administrator Bertha Crisostomo Lopez."

The town has 3,000 inhabitants, hundreds of whom reported severe flu symptoms in March. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, reporting from Mexico, has identified a La Gloria child who contracted the first case of identified "swine flu" in February as "patient zero," five-year-old Edgar Hernandez, now a survivor of the disease.

By April 15 - nine days before Mexican federal authorities of the regime of President Felipe Calderon acknowledged any problem at all -the local daily newspaper, Marcha, reported that a company called Carroll Ranches was "the cause of the epidemic."

La Jornada columnist Julio Hernandez Lopez connects the corporate dots to explain how the Virginia-based Smithfield Farms came to Mexico: In 1985, Smithfield Farms received what was, at the time, the most expensive fine in history - $12.6 million - for violating the US Clean Water Act at its pig facilities near the Pagan River in Smithfield, Virginia, a tributary that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The company, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dumped hog waste into the river.

It was a case in which US environmental law succeeded in forcing a polluter, Smithfield Farms, to construct a sewage treatment plant at that facility after decades of using the river as a mega-toilet. But "free trade" opened a path for Smithfield Farms to simply move its harmful practices next door into Mexico so that it could evade the tougher US regulators.

by Bruce Allison/PNN

May 16th at 5:25pm, members of SCIU 1021 were taking names as people from SCIU, Senior Action Network, Planning for Elders, Gray Panthers, Tenderloin Housing Clinic, and a community of others, including Access of Love Youth Program, were about to march against the mayor's 70% budget cuts that will cripple public health for the future. The banner was set out, "The Bad A$$! March." As I stood by, I watched the banner go up, and the token politicians stand in the front of the line when they should have been in the back for causing the problem. The politicians were Supervisors Ross Mckeriny (?), and Chris Daly, carrying his young child on his shoulders, as well as others.

The March started, the line kept going and going. There seemed to be about 1,000 people, taking up one lane of traffic, stretching for three blocks, blocking the rush hour traffic as commuters were trying to get home. The March was trying to point out the average amount of chaos that will happen when the poor are affected by the drastic cuts in public health. As I counted to see how many were there, it went on for three blocks. Then, as the only reporter who reports the truth, I ran towards the front to keep track of what was happening: I saw families pushing babies in carriages, and medical personnel in uniforms, just fired two months ago for no apparent reason. I saw SRO residents, and the entire poor community of San Francisco, immigrants, day laborers, and homecare workers. As they marched, I ran past them, up about four blocks. As they marched, I saw the beginning again. They marched into UN plaza, all the way up to the steps at City Hall. The steps looked like the Bastille, surrounded by riot gates, so we held the demonstration at the park across the street. Suddenly, one member of the march jumped on stage and exclaimed, “no justice, no peace!” We shouted that for fifteen minutes, until the last marcher stepped on the green facing city halls. The grass was replaced with people. When you turned around, all you could see was an ocean of people.

Fred, one of the organizers, got up to the stage, and said, "We have been keeping you this long because we wanted to show how many people are involved to the members of the march," she followed by asking, "How many people here are homeless?" Over 300 people raised their hands. "How many people live in the Tenderloin?," she asked again. Another 1/3 raised their hands. Then suddenly, a woman got on stage and said she worked for Tenderloin Health Clinic, she said, "We are now only allowed to be open 2 hours a day, and we take care of over 500 people a day." Another person from Curry Senior Center got on stage and said that their ability to feed seniors will be restricted to the weekdays, that seniors will not get nutrition on the weekends.

As a senior, hot meals are very handy when it comes to living in this expensive city on an income of $900 a month with a rent of $600 a month. Average readers do not realize that this poverty scholar needs to use food pantries. With those resources cut, I need to find another way to get food. There are other things that could have been cut, like overtime for policeman and the cost of drivers for fire captains. I know, as a worker, that social security is expensive, but please, pay the amount you owe, the city will pay the other amount. That will give the city 100 million this year that could go to public health.

by Hans Bennett/Alternet.org

Scroll down for English

"Mi alma llora por todo lo que he presenciado y aguantado," dijo el Pantera Negra Robert Hillary King, al salir de Angola, la infame penitenciaria del estado de Louisiana, en el 2001, despues de pasar 29 anos en aislamiento. King sostiene que la esclavitud persiste en Angola y en otras prisiones de Estados Unidos, permitida por la Enmienda 13 a la Constitucion de Estados Unidos, la cual legaliza la esclavitud en las prisiones como "un castigo para un crimen por el cual una persona ha sido debidamente condenado." Dice King: "Puedes estar legalmente encarcelado, siendo moralmente inocente."

Robert King, Albert Woodfox y Herman Wallace se conocen como "los tres de Angola" (The Angola 3), un trio de presos politicos que han contado con el apoyo de Amnistia Internacional, Desmond Tutu, el congresista John Conyers y la Union Americana de Libertades Civiles (ACLU). Kgalema Mothlante, el presidente de Sudafrica, dice que este caso "tiene el potencial de desnudar los defectos del sistema estadounidense entero." Woodfox y Wallace son los dos co-fundadores de la agrupacion en Angola del partido Panteras Negras-la unica agrupacion oficial de los Panteras en prision. Condenados por el asesinato con arma blanca del guardia blanco Brent Miller, Woodfox y Wallace han pasado mas de 36 anos en aislamiento.

La demanda federal de derechos civiles interpuesta por King, Woodfox y Wallace, alegando que el tiempo que pasaron en aislamiento constituye "el castigo cruel e inusual," sera procesada en proximos meses en el tribunal del Distrito Central de Estados Unidos en Baton Rouge, Louisiana. La apelacion de Herman Wallace a su condena por asesinato esta ante la Suprema Corte de Louisiana, y el 18 de marzo, el fue trasladado al penal Hunt en St. Gabrielo, Louisiana, donde esta mantenido en aislamiento. El 2 de marzo, el Tribunal Federal del Quinto Circuito escucho argumentos orales con respecto a la condena de Albert Woodfox despues de que el Procurador del estado de Louisiana apelo un dictamen de un tribunal menor que habia desechado la condena.

Angola, una ex plantacion esclavista de 7,300 hectareas en Louisiana rural, es la prision mas grande de Estados Unidos. Hoy en dia, las condiciones ahi guardan un asombroso parecido a las de la esclavitud antes de la Guerra Civil en Estados Unidos: los Africano-americanos son mas de 75% de los 5,108 presos, los guardias se conocen como "hombres libres," la jornada de trabajo semanal de 40 horas es obligatoria y el salario minimo es 4 centavos por hora. A principios de los 1970s, la situacion fue aun peor: los presos fueron obligados a trabajar jornadas semanales de 96 horas (16 horas diario / 6 dias a la semana), con un sueldo minimo de 2 centavos por hora. Oficialmente considerada "la prision mas sangrienta del Sur" en esos tiempos, tanto la violencia de los guardias como la que existia entre los propios presos fue endemica. Las autoridades de la prision permitieron la violacion sexual de los presos, y segun el ex director Murray Henderson, los guardias ayudaron a facilitar un sistema brutal de esclavitud sexual, donde los presos mas jovenes y debiles fisicamente fueron comprados y vendidos para ser sometidos. Como parte del notorio sistema de internos "de confianza" quienes funcionaban como guardias (responsables de matar a 40 presos y mutilar gravemente a 350 otros en el periodo 1972 y 75), a algunos presos las autoridades les dieron armas para imponer la esclavitud sexual y todas las otras injusticias de esta prision. La vida en Angola fue un verdadero infierno --una plantacion esclavista del siglo XX.

Los Panteras de Angola vieron la vida en Angola como la esclavitud moderna y se resistieron con huelgas de hambre y huelgas laborales no violentas. Las autoridades de la prision se enfurecieron ante los esfuerzos organizativos de los Pantera Negras, y hay contundente evidencia de que tomaron represalias contra los tres organizadores, tendiendoles una trampa e inculpandolos de asesinatos que no cometieron.

Albert Woodfox y Herman Wallace

Condenados por el asesinato con arma blanca del guardia blanco Brent Miller el 17 de abril de 1972, Albert Woodfox y Herman Wallace han logrado recientes victorias importantes que podrian resultar en su libertad. Como respuesta, el director de Angola Burl Cain y el procurador James "Buddy" Caldwell hacen todo lo posible para evitar su salida y mantener a los presos aislados. Por contraste, la viuda del guardia Miller, Leontine Verrett, ahora cuestiona la culpabilidad de Woodfox y Wallace. Entrevistada en marzo del 2008 por el noticiero NBC Nightly News, ella llamo a una nueva investigacion del caso. "Lo que quiero es la justicia. Si estos dos hombres no lo hicieron, creo que deben salir."

Woodfox y Wallace se encontraban en Angola, cada quien condenado por un robo distinto, cuando fundaron la agrupacion del partido Pantera Negra en Angola en 1971. Woodfox se habia fugado de la prision de Nueva Orleans y huido a la ciudad de Nueva York, donde conocio a varios integrantes de los Panteras Negras, incluso "los 21 de Nueva York," antes de ser atrapado de nuevo y enviado a Angola. Wallace habia conocido a unos integrantes de la agrupacion de Louisiana de los Panteras, incluso "los 12 de Nueva Orleans," en la carcel de esa ciudad.

El 19 de septiembre de 2006, la Comisionada Judicial del estado de Louisiana Rachel Morgan recomendo la revocacion de la condena de Wallace porque las autoridades de la prision habian ocultado informacion al jurado mostrando que el testigo de cargo principal fue sobornado para dar testimonio falso. Sin embargo, en mayo del 2008, en un voto 2-1, el Tribunal de Apelaciones estatal rechazo la recomendacion de Morgan y se nego a revocar la condena. La apelacion de Wallace ahora esta ante la Suprema Corte de Louisiana, donde esperan una decision en los proximos meses.

El 10 de junio de 2008, la magistrada federal Christine Noland recomendo la revocacion de la condena de Woodfox, en base de pruebas de representacion legal inadecuada, conducta improcedente de la Procuraduria, supresion de pruebas exculpatorias y discriminacion racial. El 25 de noviembre, el juez federal James Brady del Tribunal de Distrito avalo la recomendacion de Noland, revoco la condena y autorizo la salida de Woodfox bajo fianza. El estado de Louisiana respondio con una apelacion al Tribunal del Quinto Circuito federal. En diciembre, el Quinto Circuito nego su salida bajo fianza pero decidio agilizar la apelacion, indicando simpatia para la revocacion. Escribio: "No estamos convencidos de que el Estado haya establecido una probabilidad de exito basada en las cuestiones de fondo del caso." El 3 de marzo, los jueces Judges Carolyn Dineen King, Carl E. Steartm y Leslie H. Southwick, escucharon la apelacion y se espera que daran su dictamen dentro de seis meses. Si el panel de tres jueces afirma la revocacion de la condena de Woodfox, el estado tendra 120 dias para aceptar el dictamen o enjuiciar a Woodfox de nuevo. El estado ha jurado enjuiciarlo de nuevo si es necesario. Si el Quinto Circuito acepta los argumentos del estado, la condena de Woodfox sera restaurada.

Ira Glasser, ex integrante de la ACLU, critico a Caldwell, explicando que despues de que la sobrina de Woodfox anuncio en octubre de 2008 que ella estaba dispuesta a recibirlo en su casa si lograba la fianza, Caldwell "emprendio una campana publica de miedo semejante al tipo de histeria incendiaria utilizada para provocar a las turbas enardecidas de linchamiento. Caracterizo a Woodfox como violador violento, aunque el jamas fue acusado, y mucho menos condenado de la violacion; envio correos electronicos a los vecinos [de la sobrina de Woodfox], diciendo que Woodfox era un asesino y violador violento e insto a los vecinos a firmar peticiones contra su salida. Al final, su sobrina y familia estaban tan asustados que el mismo Woodfox rechazo la propuesta de vivir con ellos al estar libre bajo fianza." En su dictamen del 25 de noviembre, el juez Brady critico la campana de intimidacion: "Aparentemente, la organizacion de vecinos no fue informada de que el senor Woodfox es fisicamente debil, que su salud es delicada y que el tiene un record de buena conducta durante mas de veinte anos."

Cuando la Radio Publica Nacional (NPR) informo sobre el caso directamente desde Angola en su serie del 27-29 del octubre pasado, la reportera Laura Sullivan se mostro horrorizada por las patentes imagenes de supremacia blanca y esclavitud, observando que "hay cien hombres negros en el sembradio con el cuerpo doblado, cosechando jitomate. Un solo oficial blanco montado en caballo los vigila con escopeta sobre las piernas...Se veia igual hace 40 anos, hace 100 anos." Al comentar que muchos de Angola, "al parecer, quieren enterrar este caso en un lugar donde nadie lo va a encontrar," NPR reporto que el director Burl Cain y otros oficiales se negaron a comentar. Sin embargo, Caldwell le dijo a NPR que esta convencido de que Woodfox y Wallace son culpables y jura que el va a apelar el caso de Woodfox hasta la Suprema Corte de Estados Unidos. Afirmo: "El es una persona muy peligrosa. Es la persona mas peligrosa del planeta."

Tal como fue documentado por NPR, no hay evidencia fisica que relaciona a Woodfox o Wallace con el asesinato. Una huella digital sangrienta fue encontrada en la escena, pero no hay comprobacion entre esta y las huellas de Woodfox o Wallace. Es indignante que las autoridades de la prision siempre se han negado a comparar esta huella con las huellas en su propio banco de datos. Caldwell promete continuar esta practica, comentando a NPR: "Pueden sacar una huella digital de cualquier lugar...A nosotros no nos van a enganar."

Caldwell tambien le dijo a NPR que el cree el testimonio del testigo ocular de la procuraduria, Hezekiah Brown, un violador en serie con sentencia de cadena perpetua sin la posibilidad de libertad condicional. Al principio, Brown les dijo a las autoridades de la prision que no sabia nada, pero despues testifico que vio a Miller apunalado a muerte por cuatro internos --Woodfox and Wallace, mas otros dos, ahora difuntos: Chester Jackson (testigo de cargo quien se confeso culpable de un cargo menor) y Gilbert Montegut (absuelto despues de que un oficial le dio una coartada).

Perdonado en 1986, y ahora difunto, Brown siempre nego haber recibido favores especiales de las autoridades de la prision a cambio de su testimonio; sin embargo, numerosos documentos de la prision revelan el trato especial que recibio, incluso buen alojamiento y un carton de cigarrillos cada semana. Al dar testimonio en el juicio de Woodfox, el ex director Murray Henderson reconocio haberle dicho a Brown que si el daba testimonio para "resolver el caso," seria recompensado y que Henderson haria cabildeo para un indulto.

Aislamiento por el "Panterismo Negro"

A principios de 2008, una peticion con 25,000 firmas iniciada por la organizacion ColorofChange, llamando a una investigacion de las condenas y del aislamiento de Woodfox y Wallace, fue entregada al gobernador de Louisiana Bobby Jindal por Cedric Richmond, el presidente del Comite Juridico de la Casa de Diputados estatal, pero Jindal todavia se queda callado.

by Mission Resistors

It came without warning!

I was going to be homeless with nowhere to sleep but the unpreditible streets of San Francisco, filled with drug addicts, mentally ill patients turned away from treatment centers, and roving bands of gangsters vying for turf space.

There had been a full-blown shoot out in front of Ella Hill the previous Fall, and a murder inside the shelter itself a couple months earlier, a man shot during an afterschool basketball game in front of his young daughter.

Ella Hill Hutch, the shelter I had stayed at for the last 1,000 days
was being shut down, the staff member at the front door informed me
as I entered that cool night last Spring.

“Can you believe that?” he exclaimed in disbelief.

I could hear the fear in his voice and realized that it not only meant that we would be losing our place to sleep, but he would be losing his job as well.

“We have a petition over there on the table you can sign if you want to try to keep the place open,” he said.

by The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign

The following open letter to US activists is a response to Ben Ehrenreich's "Foreclosure Fightback," published February 9 in The Nation.

To: All poor Americans and their communities in resistance

The privatization of land--a public resource for all that has now become a false commodity--was the original sin, the original cause of this financial crisis. With the privatization of land comes the dispossession of people from their land which was held in common by communities. With the privatization of land comes the privatization of everything else, because once land can be bought and sold, almost anything else can eventually be bought and sold. As the poor of South Africa, we know this because we live it. Colonialism and apartheid dispossessed us of our land and gave it to whites to be bought and sold for profit. When apartheid as a systematic racial instrument ended in 1994, we did not get our land back. Some blacks are now able to own land as long as they have the money to do so. But as the poor living in council homes, renting flats or living in the shacks, we became even more vulnerable to the property market.

It is chilling to hear many people today speak with nostalgia about how it was better during apartheid--as if it was not apartheid that stole their land in the first place. But, in an obscure way, it makes sense. Back then in the cities there was less competition for land and housing. Because many of us were kept in the bantustans by a combination of force and economic compulsion (such as subsidized rural factories), the informal settlements in the cities were smaller and land less scarce.

But in the new South Africa (what some call post-apartheid South Africa and others call neoliberal South Africa), the elite have decided it is every man--or woman or multinational company--for him or herself. And thus, the poor end up fighting with the rich as well as with themselves. The elite use their wealth and their connections to all South African political parties in the pursuit of profit. There is very little regulation of this, and where there is regulation, corrupt and authoritarian government officials get around it in a heartbeat. People say that we have the best constitution in the world--but what kind of constitution enshrines the pursuit of profit above anything else? They claim it was written for us. That may be. But it obviously was not written by us--the poor. So, the recent realization that there is a financial crisis in the US (we think the crisis has been there a long time, but was hidden by economists) reminds us of where we ourselves stand. While our neoliberal government has touted growth and low inflation figures as proof of the health of our country, 40 percent unemployment has remained. While Mandela and Mbeki were in power and the economy grew, poor South Africans had their homes stolen right from under them. For our entire lives, we have been living in a depression, and at the center of this crisis is land and housing.

As the poor, we gave the African National Congress government five years to at least make some inroads towards redistribution. But instead, the land and housing crisis has gotten worse, inequality greater, and we are more vulnerable than ever. So, in 1999, 2000 and 2001, farms, townships, ghettos and shack settlements all across South Africa erupted against evictions, water cutoffs, electricity cutoffs and the like. We have been fighting for small things and small issues, but our communities are also fighting two larger battles.

The first is embodied in the declaration we make to the outside world: We may be poor but we are not stupid! We may be poor, but we can still think! Nothing for us without us! Talk to us, not about us! We are fighting for democracy. The right to be heard and the right to be in control of our own communities and our own society. This means that government officials and political parties should stop telling us what we want. We know what we want. This means that NGOs and development "experts" should stop workshopping us on "world-renowned" solutions at the expense of our own homegrown knowledge. This means we refuse to be a "stakeholder" and have our voices managed and diminished by those who count.

In the 2004 national elections and again in this year's elections, we have declared, "No Land! No House! No Vote!" This is not because we are against democracy but because we are against voting for elites and for politicians who promise us the whole world every five years and, when they get elected, steal the little we have for themselves. Elections are a chance for those in power to consolidate it. We believe this is not only a problem of corruption, but also a structural problem that gives individuals and political parties the
authority to make decisions for us. We reject that and we reject voting for it.

Second, while our actions may seem like a demand for welfare couched in a demand for houses, social grants and water, they are actually a demand to end the commodification of things that cannot be commodified: land, labour and money. We take action to get land and houses and also to prevent banks from stealing our land and houses. When a family gets evicted and has nowhere else to go, we put them back inside. (In Gugulethu last year we put 146 out of 150 families back in their homes). When government cuts off our electricity, we put it back on. In 2001, we were able to get the City of Cape Town to declare a two-month moratorium on evictions. We break the government's law in order not to break our own (moral) laws. We oppose the authorities because we never gave them the authority to steal, buy and sell our land in the first place.

Combined these are battles for a new emancipatory structure where we are not stakeholders but people; where land is for everyone and where resources are shared rather than fought over. This anti-eviction movement you are waging has the potential to help build a new kind of liberative politics outside of the political parties. We have found that these politics must be about the issues (including land and housing). It must not be about personalisation of the struggle. No politician or political party can or will fight the struggle for you. As a hero of your past once stated: power concedes nothing without a demand. Being in the struggle for over nine years, we have learned the following:

- Beware of all those in power--even those who seem like they are on your side.- Beware of money, especially NGO money, which seeks to pacify and prevent direct action.- Beware of media, even alternative media
written by the middle class on behalf of the poor. Create your own
media.- Beware of leaders, even your own. No one can lead without
you. Leaders are like forks and knives. They are the tools of the
community and exist to be led by the communities.

When you build your "Take Back Our Land! Take Back Our Houses!" movement, build from below. Build democratically. Build alternative and autonomous ways of living within your community while fighting for what is yours. Build your own school of thought. Make sure poor communities control their own movements because, as we say, no one can lead without us. Make sure you break the government's laws when necessary, but never break your own laws which you set for yourselves. Most important of all, do not forget you have much to teach us as well. We all have much to learn from one another.

Amandla Ngawethu! Power to the Poor People!

The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
South Africa

by Uncle Anonymous and Friends

In The Beginning Was The Number

San Francisco City Hall just did another homeless census, as usual not even interested in the individuals and families living in cramped quarters with friends and, if any, family, who would easily increase the pitiful official numbers annually reported.

The Mayor's sitting lap dogs (I don't know if the Chinese Communist Party still calls people like this "running" dogs, they never seem to exert much physical effort despite the incredible damage through propaganda they do) faithfully downplay the numbers of people and what those numbers of people really mean.

Here is a little bit of what it's like for folks in two of the homeless shelters in San Francisco; today and yesterday (a few years ago).

A Few Years Ago

I (Uncle Anonymous) met my Next Door Shelter case manager early one morning at the Carl's, Jr. fast-food place at 7th and Market Streets before I went to work. It was a surprise visit. He panhandled me.

There is nothing new in the fact that many men and women have gone from poverty and homelessness to careers in service to people just like them. That didn't prepare me for the sight of this tough love-dishin' dude reduced to a shambling shadow of himself. Somebody said it wasn't the first time, the pressure of being a role model knocked him on his ass, or maybe it was the pressures of trying to do the right thing by people needing help in a system that isn't designed to help them.

The staff at Next Door meant well, but they didn't know all the moves in the find-a-place-to-move-to dance, including going to SRO hotels run by non-profit organizations like Tenderloin Housing Clinic, Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp., CoHousing Partners and whatever else is out there. We were often incredibly confused about what to do, where to go.

My job helped me more than Next Door staff did. Even then, the day I was actually supposed to begin the process of moving out my case manager was asked to do something else and I wouldn't have found out until he didn't make it to our appointment if we hadn't run into each other an hour earlier and I asked if the appointment was still happening. I got sandwiched anyway the next day, two people blaming me for lack of communication!

It was against the rules to re-charge your cell phone. People still did it. You can do it now, though with the new no-more-6-month-stays (unless you're an emergency medical case) regime that may not be so... or just not worth the effort.

What really stunned me was the staff person who thought responding to a friendly "Good morning!" was an admission of weakness one of us might exploit. She seemed to go out of her way to put shelter clients "in their place," telling me I couldn't sit in the brighter light--and read in one of the comfortable chairs in the lobby early in the morning just before breakfast (men going through the 30-days-of-do-you-really-want-to-be-here initiation stayed on the ground floor just to the left of the lobby).

I heard her say something to a colleague, in an aggrieved tone of voice, that she was "just keeping it real." I try to keep it real too, but there's a fine line between "real," "rude," and worse.

TODAY

Anonymous Cubed did time in the (ECS) Episcopal Community Services' Sanctuary shelter at 8th and Howard Streets until recently. A.C. told me about many assaults and fights happening there daily and nightly. Many staff members are too intimidated to deal with the incidents, and even when one or both combatants are evicted they return within a day or three after appealing the evictions.