“I want the community in general to wear their rights (laminated “Know Your Rights” cards) on their chest. I want mothers, fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, nephews, nieces, and children. I don’t want anyone left out!”
This is the mission statement from Jamal James Modica, founder of the “Tough House Project.” It was in reference to his idealistic goal for the community of San Francisco Bay view Hunter’s Point to combat numerous issues in his neighborhood, including po-lice terrorism.
Community can mean unity for us all, on local and global levels. It begins with the “I” voice, ending with we as a community.
An example is the voices of the Race, Media, and Poverty Scholars (and this Revolutionary Legal Scholar) of POOR Magazine/POOR News Network. Every voice from us empowered our writings in our articles. Art and poetry is fighting, resisting, and healing. Our own self-scholarship developments to challenge "academia courses" and "formal institutions for learning."
Self-empowerment from the workforce apartheid here in AmeriKKKa, via entrepreneurship. Our re-port for, and sup-port of community actions against injustices. Our lives heard, undetermined and deterred by corporate mainstream media.
We hear it within ourselves, then shared with and educated to the world:
“P-O-O-R, scholars till we die! The revolution begins with I!”
(And it ends with we!)
A young man of African Descent origin, by the name of Jamal James Modica exemplifies this as a living testament of sorts stemming from organizing, caring, safeguarding, and loving his community of Bay View Hunter’s Point. A community, non-exempt from poverty, violence, racism, po-lice terrorism, gentrification, institutionalized ignorance, displacement, and demonizing media coverage.
Jamal, however, deeply expresses and displays numerous ideas he has for his community to implement change from the said above. One of them is called “The Tough House Project,” a non-profit grassroots organization he founded in 2001. It is based here in San Francisco Bayview Hunter’s Point. “The Tough House, because there is nothing tougher than growing up in the projects.” Jamal says, wittingly. He grew up in “West Point Projects” in Bay view Hunter’s Point.
Currently, it is under “redevelopment” codified as “gentrification” from Lennar Corporation.
On December 7th, Jamal attended our Indigenous News-Making Circle, the Community Newsroom to share with everyone about the goal for his project. He was accompanied with his comrade and management assistant of The Tough House Project, Tanya Joseph. Jamal was referred to us by my comrade, mesha Monge-Irizarry, founder/director of the Idriss Stelley Foundation, a week prior.
I followed up with Jamal and Tanya on December 21st to get a more in depth detailed overview of the Tough House Project, and about Jamal James Modica, himself. While working on this project he founded in 2001, Jamal also worked full-time as a staff member at the San Francisco Society of Prevention to Animal Cruelty. (SF/SPCA) He loves animals, which prompted him for this position.
Jamal especially loves pit bulls, in which he stated are called “Bully Breeds.” Members of the SF/SPCA often refer this nickname to rottweilers, dobermans, and bull terriers.
Jamal recalled how he was viewed by his co-workers as someone who could “handle the dogs” because most of them were taken from the street. Jamal, himself, is from the neighborhood. “I came from the same streets that the dogs came from. If you don’t know what he (the dog) has gone through, then how can you rehabilitate that dog?” He would sometimes work overtime if necessary.
Jamal would then tell me what it was like for him, within the aura of the atmosphere inside his occupation. He was practically the only young man of African descent origin in this occupational setting. None of his co-workers lived in his neighborhood.“I was the only black kennel attendant there (SF/SPCA).”
He recalls. “It was more or less a cultural shock to me. It was hard to identify with everyone there. They had a negative outlook of the community I call home.” Despite those barriers, Jamal loved his position, and gained numerous skills from this overlooked profession.
Jamal felt that his co-workers had a very negative outlook on his community. He explained to me that there seemed to be a nexus of sorts regarding comparisons: The behaviors, characteristics, and the nature of dogs to young black men. Jamal remembered an issue that arose in 2001 regarding pit bulls attacking people on the street.
The media quickly demonized neighborhoods like Jamal’s by equipping their "news coverages" of negative stereotypes such as “dog fighting” and “bad breeding” by gang members, drug dealers, etc, etc. "The reality is that dog fighting has been taking place for generations" Jamal said.
I personally concur to his statement.
It’s amazing to me of how it seems to be a metaphorized implant into the minds of many as to how "wild animal behavior" and their characteristics are so swiftly associated with people. Particularly to the eye and mind of the ignorant and racist a black person plus an ape, plus a gorilla and a coon equals imminent danger.
I also feel pitting all animals against another for purposes of profit, and sport is flat out cruel, but not unusual.
Entertainment enslavement: Zoos, circuses, rodeos, cockfighting among others are really no different than slavery for sport in my eyes.
Jamal talked about the importance of protection among the youth by means of having a dog by their side, even at the age of 13. A defense mechanism from harm.
“Because of reported dog attacks, guns are their only option.” He explained. “If you can’t even carry a pit bull for protection, how else do you think people are going to protect themselves?” he asked, rhetorically.
The Tough House Project effectively tackled “dog fighting” issues in his neighborhood. His full-time position as a kennel attendant at S.F/SPCA, however, would end abruptly. The reason, according to Jamal was his refusal to an offer proposed to him by S.F/SPCA of $80,000 in exchange for their ownership of The Tough House Project.
Jamal would later go on to be elected to the San Francisco Commission of Animal Control and Welfare in 2002. In an ironic twist of events, the SF/SPCA sought support from him. “Instead of me asking for a paycheck from them, they were now asking me for a vote for funding.” He said to me, jokingly.
His project has received media attention from outlets such as Dog Fantasy Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, was featured on Kron-TV Channel 4 and KTVU Channel 2.
The painful reality of classism would clash with cultural fashion, as he was sworn in for his elected chair of the commission. Jamal remembers just how the Board of Supervisors was rather “displeased” with the attire he wore. “I was wearing a football jersey bearing my neighborhood name, while they were dressed to impress.”
For me, image says a lot about someone, but it doesn’t say everything about someone and/or everyone.
Undesired images often conclude with unfair immediate judgments, assumption, profiling, and even death. All I know all too well as a victim of racial profiling by members of the San Francisco Police Department, five years ago.
Jamal also wore a “choke chain” (dog leash) to honor all of the pitbulls that were either locked up or “put to sleep.”(Death)
The main objective for the Tough House Project is to give the community a voice. “How do we teach the children in our community about being able to live through violence?” is Jamal’s rhetorical question to the world.
At POOR, we believe that there is more than one way to teach and educate to the masses of people. All youths are scholars.
“There is more than one way to teach political consciousness. The revolution can also come through Hollywood bling, performances, storytelling, poetry, film, and art.” Late great poverty hero, Mama Dee Gray once said.
We heed and feed off of her words each day.
One idea, Jamal presented is through poster art that speaks to violence that undoubtedly will come their way. On the poster are steps he’s implemented for these goals to be successful in ultimately ending violence:
“Rule#1 Stop Right Away! Rule#2 Hands up, Never Touch It! (anything harmful) Rule#3 Walk Away From the Area!” Rule#4 Get Mom or Dad for Help!”
“The Tough Talk Neighborhood Newsletter” is another formulative step of The Tough House Project to give young people a voice they seldom receive in schools and media. “The Team Skills Challenge” is to teach them how to be creative in entrepreneurship and self-dependency. There is also a project in collaboration of “The Tough House Project” by his manager assistant and comrade, Tanya Joseph for relationship counseling.
It is meant to help all young women, and to empower themselves from all sorts of abuse. It was started by Tonya in 2008. “Let go, Let God. Instead of listening to what men tell them, let God lead their heart.” Is the message from Tonya in her words of encouragement from discouragement she offers them.
Jamal is currently in the early stages of steps to combating po-lice terrorism in his neighborhood from the San Francisco Police Department. One is for community members to wear laminated “Know Your Rights Cards” on their chests for every encounter with an S.F.P.D. Po-lice Officer or officers.
Another is the use of armor (bullet-proof vests) to greatly reduce the deaths in Bayview Hunter’s Point from gun violence and unjustified po-lice killings. Far too long now, “Stolen Lives” has devastated poor communities locally and whereas globally. He is optimistic and hopeful that his project can be a model for us all as a community.
Most recently, Jamal released "Abandoned by Hope, Survived by Faith." It is a three-sectioned film documentary that features the testimonies of community members of Bayview Hunter's Point, and others within the Bay Area. His motivation for the film:
"It is because of all of the broken promises of change for people in poverty in San Francisco and Bayview Hunter's Point."
*For low income/disabled rate, call the box office at 415-643-2785, or buy tickets in person during box office hours.
Sins Invalid is a performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and queer and gender-variant artists who have been historically marginalized within society. Our performance work shows that all bodies are beautiful, exploring themes of embodiment and sexuality that challenge normative understandings of disabilities, so as to instead offer a vision of inclusivity and liberation for all communities. Co-founded by Patty Berne and Leroy Moore in 2006, Sins Invalid offers work unlike any other in the United States. Our work challenges, destabilizes, and reorients common definitions of the body, beauty, and sexuality, drawing the audience into new conversations through the visceral experience of the performance.
In order to expand upon our poignant, seductive, visually stimulating and politically informed performance work, Sins Invalid has launched our new Artists In Residence (AIR) Program, with the intent of fostering the skills of emerging artists with disabilities. Program Director Nomy Lamm, a well-known Bay Area performer, writer and vocal coach, has worked with the AIR participants for the past nine months to develop and produce this performance. Participation in skill building and visioning workshops, artistic collaboration, and one-on-one mentoring has allowed these artists’ visions to coalesce and translate into a stage-ready performance. The participants embody a variety of disabilities and artistic disciplines, and they are all LGBTQ and/or people of color, providing a breadth of experience that is evident within the wide assortment of performance.
Colleen Nagle has scored original music for the show, and performs as Pathces the Girl Pirate, a “crazy” girl plotting her magical escape from a mental institution. Fayza Bundalli and Redwolf Painter have created an interwoven piece exploring familial history and the ways in which experiences of colonization are embodied and passed down through generations. Through the perspective of their travels through health, illness and pain, they explore the nuanced paths through which healing arrives. Lateef McLeod has adapted his poem “Not of This World” into a collaborative piece that reclaims disabled bodies from the stereotypes of being monstrous, alien, freaks, to being beautiful, whole, loved and loving human beings. Matthew Blanchard makes his cinematic debut with “Construct,” an experimental documentary directed by Daniel Cardone as part of the HIV Story Project’s compilation of short films honoring the individual lives of People With AIDS (PWAs), entitled “Still Around.”
On Friday, January 28th and Saturday, January 29th, Sins Invalid and the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco, California will host the debut performance of “Resident Alien.” The show will begin at 8 PM, with tickets being sold at $15/$10* (*low-income/disabled) and ASL interpretation on the 29th.
About the Featured Artists:
Chun-shan (Sandie) Yi makes body adornments for the disabled bodies with metals, fabrics and found objects. Her work examines the potential of art to address the relationship between the body and social standards pertaining to beauty and disability. She has a BFA and MA in art therapy from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. She had worked as an art therapist for four years in Chicago and Taiwan before she began pursuing a MFA degree at UC Berkeley in 2009. She has exhibited in Chicago, Ann Arbor, San Francisco, Berkeley, Prague and Hong Kong. She was featured in PISTIL magazine, Fall 2005 and was the recipient of 2006 Disability Arts and Culture Honor. She recently published an article in an edited book in art therapy.
Colleen Nagle lives in San Francisco where she writes and creates music about the intersection of hope, hardship, and mental health. Colleen's creativity also extends onto the web, where she has been building web sites for nonprofits, small businesses, and community driven projects for a living for the past 13 years. During her artist in residency with Sins Invalid, she has worked collaboratively to create music and words to incorporate into the performance.
Fayza Bundalli is a poet, femme, a healer in a long line of medicine womyn. Vancouver-grown and San Francisco-based, her poetry connects her South Asian roots to her queer identity. Fayza has been published in numerous undergraduate student journals, from philosophy to gender studies, and is currently completing her Masters of Social Welfare at UC Berkeley, where she co-chaired the Diversity Task Force. She interns at the AIDS Health Project in San Francisco.
Lateef McLeod is a phenomenal black poet with cerebral palsy who just published his first poetry book entitled A Declaration Of A Body Of Love this year. He is also in process of writing a novel tentatively called The Third Eye Is Crying. He was also a cast member of the 2007 Sins Invalid performance. He works at United Cerebral Palsy of the Golden Gate as a grant writer and blogger and for the World Institute of Disability as an intern. He has earned a BA in English from UC Berkeley and a MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. You can gain more information about Lateef from his blog at teefdabiggafigga.blogspot.com.
Matthew D. Blanchard was born and bred a white trash, Euro-mutt, slut, queer American kid, and escaped the double-locked, triple-chained closets of conservative Southeastern Virginia, only to be embraced by the welcoming arms of GAY MECCA’s chaotically corrupt, Crystal-lined, “Tina-torn, AIDS-quilted” community of wanton, woebegone whores & hustlers. The life Matthew has led since arriving in the Bay Area in 2003 contrasts with his former life as a thespian erudite. However, with drug dependency, disease, disfigurement and depression has come the recovery, rehabilitation, reconstruction and resilience of his “last-stitch, last-chance life.” Today, above all else, Matthew is grateful for God’s boundless love of and faith in his own purely imperfect and human desire “for elaborate beautification and solemn self-betterment.”Matthew has studied performance arts in Paris, France, Florence, Italy, and at the College of William & Mary in Virginia.
Redwolf Painter is a two-spirit, mixed blood, heyoka, ex-punk storyteller from Alaska.
Tee is a visual artist living and working in San Francisco. As a person of color, Tee is a fierce social justice activist and likes to facilitate workshops breaking down the systems of oppression. Different topics such as disability, sexuality, gender, and social class are frequently explored in both the arts and during workshops.
Nomy Lamm is a writer, performer, and voice teacher living in San Francisco. Her band, nomy lamm & THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, is a flexible platform for collaboration with everyone and everything. She performs with Sins Invalid, writes an advice column for Make/Shift Magazine, and is currently working on an MFA in Creative Writing at SF State.
“In My Country” is a country that knows no borders; it’s a country of the heart”. Tony Robles, revolutionary poet, nephew and son of many diasporas spoke about his inspiration for the beautiful short story, “In My Country” published in Mythium magazine (www.mythiumlitmag.com) and nominated by Mythium editor Crystal Wilkinson (www.crystalwilkinson.com) for the esteemed literary honor known as the Pushcart Prize--a well deserved honor for Tony, a deeply rooted community story-teller and poet of the people, who follows in the footsteps of his uncle, the late Manilatown poet and historian Al Robles.The Pushcart Prize winners are to be announced in May 2011.
From being a tenant organizer for elders in poverty in the Tenderloin, Mission and Manilatown districts of San Francisco to being the co-editor and contributor of one of the most revolutionary media organizations in the nation, POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE, Tony has never compromised his values, his community or the voices of his multi-racial family of Filipino and African descendent resistance fighters based in the increasingly gentrified San Francisco Bay Area.
This dedication to community, ethics and resistance began as a young child with the teaching he received from his family of brilliant, conscious artistsand organic revolutionaries who, like Tony, supported their families with work in the janitorial or service industry. Through-out his life of work and in the last two years, Tony has worked as a security guard. Through his own lens this “revolutionary worker scholar” as is the title of his POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork column, he has penned a series of brilliant narrative essays and short stories about workers, workplace injustices and peoples struggling with poverty, houselessness and racism in the US.
“In my country was inspired by poverty and migrant scholar Jose Sermeno of the Apollo hotel located in San Francisco’s Mission’s District,,” Tony said as he described his connection to the protagonist from In My Country, Tony went on to point out that Jose was a tenant representative and worked with other migrants in poverty like himself who were working as day laborers.
In addition to working as a tenant advocate and community journalist, Tony authored two bilingual (English and Tagalog) children’s books, published on Children’s Book Press: Lakas and the Manilatown Fish and Lakas and the Makibaka Hotel. As well, Tony is a teacher and playwright who authored a play, Hotel Voices, which he co-produced with, Lisa “tiny” Gray-Garcia, co-founder and co-editor of POOR Magazine. Hotel Voices is an innovative theatre production which took place in the Single Room Occupancy Hotels of San Francisco and included a 20 week script-writing and performance workshop and was performed to sold out audiences across the Bay Area in 2009.
The phrase “In my country”, according to Tony, means in my heart, and with his heart, the protagonist of the story, like Tony himself, brings his country, his heart and his humanity into the struggle for place, home, memory and justice into the increasingly cold and bereft land where all of us poor workers, migrants, elders and families struggle to dwell.
Rivers of icy wind swirled at my feet. The wet night snuck in through unseen crevasses of our old car and circled up my body, each gust, a laugh of hate against me and my mama who’d been living in and out of our car since I was 11. Those memories flooded through my mind as the soft voice of Myron Standing Bear, a member of the Oglala Sioux Nation explained how he, a hard-working advocate in the community for 17 years, suffering with congestive heart failure was living in his car with his two teenage sons.
Through a story told by Myron, riddled with racial discrimination and un-justice by the San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA) that lasted several hours into that night, our revolutionary crew of legal and poverty scholar journalists began the lengthy process of documenting his case to transform into our special blend of change–making media and in your face advocacy.
“We don’t work with Indians,” Myron had begun his story with the first in a series of discriminatory and unlawful sentences said to him by SFHA when they rescinded his place on the Section 8 wait list. The injustice began in August of 2009, when the family was informed of their approved Section 8 Voucher, a list they had been on for 11 years. Upon finding a home, however, they were told by their SFHA worker that they were immediately being taken off of the Section 8 housing list where they had reached rank #1 and being put on the Public Housing list where they were placed at number 564. Following this horrible beginning there was an onslaught of discriminatory statements said to the Standing Bear family while they tried to get housing justice.
After our first meeting with Myron at POOR Magazine’s indigenous news-making circle in September, we wrote an article detailing Myron’s plight which was published in POOR/PNN and the Bay View Newspaper. POOR Magazine’s Revolutionary Legal Advocacy Project (RLAP) began a correspondence with officials at Housing and Urban Development (HUD), who were embarrassed by the light shed on this situation which eventually resulted in HUD re-opening an investigation about the wrong-ness with SFHA in October of 2010.
“Myron and his family are outside, in the winter, in a car, with a fatal heart condition,” Lisa Gray-Garcia and Marlon Crump from POOR said to HUD agents many times via phone and email correspondence following a meeting with HUD to re-launch the investigation. Several documents were demanded by HUD and produced, most of which were already in possession by a case started by Myron and his family several months prior.
Weeks turned into months. Myron’s condition worsened, he and his boys were still in their car and we realized we had no choice but to give HUD an ultimatum, “If Myron doesn’t get his Section 8 voucher by December 1st, we will have no choice but to seek legal action.
On November 23rd we got the email, Myron would get his rightful section 8 voucher. Myron, Mark Anquoe, a friend of Myron’s and tireless advocate from American Indian Movement West (AIM-WEST) and Marlon from RLAP at POOR all went to HUD on a beautiful day in the first week of December. The bright sun shone on their backs as they entered the lifeless building. Hope was alive for the Standing Bear family.
Which brings me to back to mama. There were so many uncanny similarities between Myron’s family and my own. My mama, an indigenous Taino Boricua elder, had congestive heart failure.She was a tireless advocate for the community.We spent most of my teenage years living in our broke-down hooptie.When we finally got on the SFHA wait list for a section 8 voucher for years and almost gave up hope, my ghetto scholar mama fought the stagnant injustices of HUD and won, resulting in us finally getting a Section 8 certificate.
Which is also why I am scared for Myron and his family.We couldn’t get a landlord to rent us an apartment to save our lives. Landlords often don’t want to touch section 8 certificates with a ten foot pole, between the racist and classist stereotypes about “those kinds of tenants” said more than once to me about section 8, to the paperwork required of landlords, it was impossible for us to get a place in the 90 day window they gave us to find a place.
We looked every day, petitioned for a 90 day extension for the voucher, but still nothing. After our years together through endless poverty and houselessness this was just another little murder of the soul, as my mama used to call it and we gave up, remaining in increasingly unstable market rate housing, in and out of eviction until the day my mama passed on her spirit journey in March of 2006.
Sadly, Myron’s family is not the exception, but rather, the far too common norm for countless poor families caught up in the struggle to get affordable housing from a broken and dismantled system built on an Amerikkkka scarcity model that is not meant to house everyone and barely meant to house some. Families like me and my mama and Vivian and jewnbug and Laure and Ingrid at POOR Magazine and so many other poor families in the US is the reason POOR is launching the revolutionary Homefulness project – a sweat equity co-housing model for landless poor families in the US and beyond.
In the mean-time Myron and his family must be housed, which is where readers and conscious landlords come in. You can make a difference. If you have a 3 bedroom apartment or house available in San Francisco preferably or the greater Bay Area please email POOR Magazine @ deeandtiny@poormagazine.org or call us and leave a message at (415) 863-6306.
Those wet, cold winter winds currently remain Myron's family reality as it was for my po mama and me. Let's act as a community to change this piece of devastating herstory before it kills another landless poor family
Like cracks within the dry, humid, red dirt, scratches cover your hands... callouses are like the rough, dry patches of red dirt... yet when I touch your earthly hands it is like the softest cloud and the silver lining is in our soulful eyes... that brings us overflowing joy as the constant gushing river that is the bloodstream of Mother Earth. It is not everyday I meet a person and feel that I’ve known their soul forever. A person whose spirit and heart is the opposite of what people assume that they are. A person who had everything I did not. A person who has suffered horrendous grief, hurt, and pain but, like Tupac’s rose that grew from the concrete this person is the Ute rose sprung rezcrete. Meet the rose named Louis C. I met Louis in a Ute beardance ceremony, and he was one of the beardance singers. Right when I saw him, I looked at him as if I knew him. When I danced with him it was as if I knew his soul without saying a word. We did not have any conversations, and yet had a deep spiritual connection. While I was stunned with what had just happened, he left. A week later, I met Louis again at a different Ute beardance, and I picked him again to dance. After the beardance, I decided to find out more about Louis. We talked about two-spirited people, energy and how it heals people, and sang traditional songs. We found out we were even both semi deaf in the same ear. That night, I found out about some of the breakdowns in his life. I couldn’t believe that he had those breakdowns in his life and I saw him in his greatness of who he truly is. I have never lost that vision of Louis living out his greatest potential. While growing up, Louis ended up going to different boarding schools, and decided to drop out of high school and went back to his reservation in Utah. There he went through many ups and downs in his life, but one thing always secretly sustained him, his art. As a survivor of rape, abuse, and torture, I knew how important literary art was to me. I would keep a journal that no one else knew existed and write out my hearts desire. There I let out my pain on paper instead of cutting myself again and again. One day, I showed a teacher at the reform school I attended a poem that I wrote. They told me how good it was and so for the first time I let someone keep my poem. The teacher ended putting it in the yearbook. For the first time ever I felt validation as an artist. Just like how I was in high school, I came to find out he is an artist who kept his art to himself. Many people draw what they see but these drawings came from inside his heart and third eye. He would always say this about his artwork, “I just look at the paper and it shows me what to draw and the colors just pop out.” His artwork reminds me of pop art mixed with traditional arts. I am wowed by every time I see his art, it is as if I am looking at his art for the first time and I learn something new about myself. I started to see a transformation in Louis based on experiences and trainings he was going through. I saw a young man who was heartbroken, hurt, and feeling alone turn into a courageous, loving, intimate man who was as vulnerable as a ballerina. He told me his vision was to go heal and help all the people he had hurt in his lifetime. That is the most courageous act a person can do is face themselves and the hurt they have caused and transform into being the source of healing for the same people. Louis’s spirituality speaks through the energy he creates and sends out to nature. I remember one time him sitting outside on a cloudy day and he told me “I just kept thinking for the sun to shine through the that cloud.” Then a hole appeared in the clouds and the sunshine through. That day became sunny and brought happiness to all the creatures in nature. One night I was with Louis and my stomach started to cramp. I was in a great deal of pain and tearing from my eyes. Louis saw me in pain and all of the sudden he put his hands on my stomach and just within a few seconds the pain was gone. Louis’s art was affected and popped off the paper, canvas, or walls even more while he was going through his transformation. He came down to the reservation I live on and supported a youth mural project. This mural project was part of my vision for about 1 year. It is the only youth graffiti tobacco abuse-free mural in this county. He painted the Uintah and Ouray Mountains and animal tracks from his reservation after the kids would leave for the day. It was his first time ever on a public mural project and stated, “I am just so lucky to even have this opportunity to work for the youth to have some of my art on this wall.” Louis taught me the value of silence and being in it. Just to be silent with nature and to listen to what it is saying. He told me, “Too many people are so busy talking and forget to listen to the silence. Why can’t they listen to the silence?” He would take me on road trips where for hours we would sit in silence and he would every now and then point to an eagle, hawk, deer, elk, or another animal. He taught me to be comfortable with the silence that surrounds my life and to let it heal me. While I am writing this article I am evoking Louis’s silent spirit by being surrounded by silence and for the first time in a long time finding pleasure in the silence and not having fear associated with it. So many times we honor people after they died and they never know the impact they make on our lives. We thank them in their death for what they have done for us. I choose to honor a young man named Louis for all the things he taught me about his journey, art, and spirituality. I honor him for the greatest potential he is and his commitment to standing as the source of positive energy. Life is too precious for me not to honor an indigenous scholar such as Louis, and to honor his mother from whom he came from. As my friend Tiny says, “Without her (Mom) there would be no me”, this is true of Louis and his Mama. She raised a loving, spiritual, lucky young man. Thank you Debbie, for raising Louis to teach me lessons as he gives his gift of art to the world.
(The above pics are Los Angeles County Sheriff’s investigates men sexually assulting disabled women)
Hate hate hate
It seems like every day
State to state
I was profiled in New York
Fredrick hung in Mississippi
Disabled women assaulted in LA
Hung, Shot & Assaulted
Protect & Serve
Black & Blue shot shot shot
Wheelchair user with a knife
He was a threat to public safety
As a Black man I never feel safe
Getting hot in December
Nothing new in a new year
Brothers & sisters
Hung, Shot & Assaulted
Life halted
Break out your cell phones
Get everything on video
Sell it to ABC, NBC, and CBS
Doesn’t spell justice for the victims
Budget cuts
Lead to hate
So we all bleed
Dig deep to the seed
Pull out the roots
Changing our attitudes
Things don’t change
Until it happens to you
But that is way too late
Politician was shot today
Rich & poor are getting hot
Time for radical change
Hung, Shot & Assaulted
Can’t see the bigger picture
When the media’s frame is crocked
Don’t need a band-aide
Beyond reform
We are all in this storm
Will we reach out for that hand?
After all of this still can’t understand
Why disabled people are still
Hung, Shot & Assaulted
By Leroy Moore Jr.
1/9/11
Note: according to US statistics a person with a disability is 4 to 10 times more likely to be a victim of a crime than a person without a disability. 60% of women with hearing impairments, 59% of women with visual impairments, 57% of women with learning disabilities, and 47% of women with mobility impairments will be physically abused in their lifetimes. 81% of people with psychiatric disabilities have been physically or sexually assaulted. Research consistently finds that people with substantial disabilities suffer from violent and other major crime at rates four to ten times higher than that of the general population. Estimates are that around 5 million disabled people are victims of serious crime annually in the United States. There is no figures of national rate of police brutality against people with disabilities but October 22nd Stolen Lives Project put out a book including people with disabilities.
