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by Tiny, Daughter of Dee, Mama of Tiburcio, Poverty Skola
Education gentriFUKation –
Thru institutional disguises
stealing our poor communities’ homes, schools and lives
paper work, politricks and back room deals
hidden from our eyes –
This is budget genocide – claiming deficits – and blood-stained paper trailed LIES
Save our schools!
Cuz u may try to stand in the way, politrickster fools
but, no matta what, our Black and Brown and poor people schools will not DIE
“This is a family school – they are tearing families apart. We have to make sure this school stays open for K-8 students. The school board didn’t do an equity analysis on these schools before they put them on a list for closure,” said Misty, a warrior known for her work with Moms4Housing, as she stood outside Parker Elementary School, a powerFULL comeUnity school located in Deep East Occupied Huchiun Oakland, which, along with so many more schools in majority Black and Brown neighborhoods, is facing the insanity of sudden closure.
“How is it that schools like Hillcrest, which are predominantly white schools, get another year and schools like Parker and Markham get 10 days before their schools are closed?” asked Malaysia Williams, a Castlemont High School graduate who, along with her mama, was at the corner of Ritchie and BlackArthur – MacArthur Boulevard – in Deep East Oakland.
The POOR Magazine houseless and formerly houseless family of mamaz, youth and uncles from Homefulness showed up to report and support on Parker Elementary School, which is our neighbor, our folks – the school that has been there for our barrio for years, a school to over 50 percent of the housing insecure or houseless families who are part of Homefulness network and who come thru weekly to Sliding Scale Cafe for medicine, food and diapers and now face yet another part of their community being stolen out from under us by politrickster agendas and the ever-hungry desire for more land to steal for privatization, charter schools and scarcity models.
Twenty-four days ago, the Oakland Unified School District Board of Education suddenly announced a “proposal” to close over 19 schools with a majority of Black, Brown and very-low and no-income students in Oakland. This violent act of what I am calling “education gentriFUKation” and “budget genocide” prompted two warrior teachers from Westlake Middle School, Andres Sanchez and Moses Amolade, to go on a hunger strike.
These two warriors’ act of fierceness was followed six days later by OUSD narrowly approving a measure to close or merge nearly a dozen schools during a contentious meeting that began Tuesday night, Feb. 8, and lasted into the early morning hours Wednesday with over 2,000 people in attendance.
The fake politrickster reasons they have given for these acts of budget genocide against already underfunded schools and communities is to “confront an expected budget deficit.”
Meanwhile, Parker, La Escuelita, Grass Valley and many more schools in majority Black and Brown neighborhoods with very low and no-income and houseless students face immediate closure.
At the same time as all this violent education gentriFUKation, warriors from Black Organizing Project have been fighting for reparations for Black students because of the scarcity models already in place in a politricked Oakland that has bought and paid and pimped and played any politrickster taking the dime from the devil-opers.
Right here on BlackArthur, Homefulness – a homeless, landless peoples’ solution to homelessness – is struggling to open the homes we have spent the last 11 years building for fellow houseless youth and families and have completely been blocked at every turn, while at the same time luxury condos pop up all over the Bay like the greens on a chia pet.
We have a liberation homeschool here on-site at the Homefulness DeeColonize Academy filled with youth and families who have struggled with homelessness, violence and housing insecurity and are very upset by these closures. They have shown up and written reports and spoken up in all our media to resist this violence in solidarity with all the OUSD students. Read their reports here.
For this Poverty Skola, formerly houseless mama and daughter, this entire horrible situation is extremely triggering. If I hadn’t had a school to go to with teachers and free breakfast as a houseless child, I literally couldn’t have made it through my life with mama when we were living in tents and on the street. School for poor and houseless children is not only food and love – it’s sanity, when everything else around us is insane.
“This is a community and neighborhood school. Our children oftentimes have no other way of getting from this neighborhood to other schools – making them travel miles to school will probably mean they don’t go at all,” said a member of our Sliding Scale Cafe family, Juanita C., about her own children, as she worried about the status of La Estrellita, another school planned for closure.
“Do Not let OUSD shut our schools down!” Rochelle Williams, Malaysia’s Mama, shouted out to all cars, people, bicycles and folks walking by on BlackArthur. “Do not let OUSD bully our students out of their education,” she said as a car drove by, one of several that honked in support of these baadass mamaz and students in resistance.
“We will be here on strike as long as it takes,” concluded Malaysia while raising her sign to the sky. And so will we at POOR Magazine, Prensa POBRE and Homefulness – join us at BlackArthur and Ritchie Streets in Deep East Oakland.
From Moses and Andre, hunger strikers, on Friday, Feb. 18
It has been 21 days since the initial leak of school closures across the district. We are feeling strong in spirit and mind and also weak in body and flesh. During this time, we have been educated on how wide this issue reaches and on how disinvested the state and district are in providing safe space for our Black and Brown students.
Not only has awareness been brought to the issues that plague our city and schools – our community has shown up so fearlessly that city officials have stopped by for more humane conversations and, more importantly, there has been some traction in having our demands met.
Being that every day beyond today is medically critical for us, we are starting to sit with the realities of what impact our voice has in this movement. Many elders and wise council have poured into us about the importance of being alive for the longevity of this movement and battle. We listen and honor their voices.
Simultaneously, we listen to our community and honor their voices as well. At this junction, our demands have refocused. Since day one, our goal has always been to humanize the process.
Through this whole process, the hunger strikers have been reminded of the joys and sweet pleasantries of fighting alongside our community. We desire to live and do just that.
That’s why we are sharing these very achievable demands to end our hunger strike, NOW! We want Freedom Friday to be a celebration for Oakland, a celebration for our communities and a celebration of this district.
Here’s what else you can do to help
- Write your district school board director and urge them to end the hunger strike by meeting these demands to postpone all school closures until the end of the ‘22-’23 school year.
- Write the superintendent’s office to end the hunger strike by meeting these demands for a public letter of solidarity from the OUSD Superintendent’s Office for the governor to meet with us.
- Continue to tag @gavinnewsom in all your posts about school closures in Oakland until we eat again.
Follow, love and support these warriors for education @HungerStrike4OaklandSchools on Instagram as well as @poormagazine on Instagram and Twitter, which will be following, posting and standing with this ComeUnity until this resistance is accomplished and all of our schools are safe.
Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia, aka “povertyskola,” is a poet, teacher and the formerly houseless, incarcerated daughter of Dee and mama of Tiburcio and author of “Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America” and “Poverty Scholarship: Poor People-led Theory, Art, Words and Tears Across Mama Earth” and co-founder of Homefulness, a homeless people’s solution to homelessness. Reach her at www.lisatinygraygarcia.com or @povertyskola on Twitter.
