Tag: POOR Magazine

“We don’t work with Indians,” SFHA had told Myron. He began his story with this, the first in a series of discriminatory statements made to him by SFHA. The injustice began in August of 2009, when the family was informed of that their Section 8 voucher had been approved; they’d been on the list for 11 years.

Bayview Hunters Point is a community not exempt from poverty, violence, racism, police terrorism, gentrification, institutionalized ignorance, displacement and demonizing media coverage. With the Tough House Project, founder Jamal James Modica hopes to give this community a voice.

Green waste-bins, green grass, green bottles, green jobs, green futures, green gentrification? As I walked past the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council (HANC) Recycling Center, I noticed there were multi-colored micro-business people carefully recycling their multi-colored bottles and cans into bright green recycling bins debris boxes. They were green like everyone else’s recycling bins, but somehow the HANC bins weren’t green enough to fight the lies of green nimby-ism, green displacement, green classism and yes, even green racism from an onslaught of hate from housed members of the Haight Ashbury neighborhood and beyond who want to get rid of the truly green center of activism and micro-business that is HANC.

“Unemployed workers are lazy welfare queens,” said Sharon Angle, losing Senate candidate in Nevada under the Tea Party, expressing hate for families living in poverty.

“I have been working in the Housing Authority for over 20 years. We do not work with Indians, Indian tribes or the Indian Child Welfare Act. Never have ... never will,” said a case worker at the SF Housing Authority to Myron Standing Bear, father of two and Native American social worker.

I was served with a rent increase of $700. And so me, my son and the other poor mamas and children who lived together in Mamahouse no longer dream, think, rest or live there. I work so hard in my mind and heart every day to not take my son through this sorrow.

District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly, champion of the have-nots in San Francisco for a decade, has passed the torch and endorsed James Keys, his longtime legislative assistant and campaign coordinator, to be his successor. “James was by my side through my toughest battles,” Daly said.

“POOR’s rule from the beginning was to break down the myth of objectivity and the implicit ‘other’ stance of journalism. We accomplished this through the integration of self, the use of ‘I’ in every story,” explains Tiny – Lisa Gray-Garcia. POOR needs your help right now. Become a Revolutionary Donor today!

Last night, July 13, the SF Board of Supervisors held a 10-hour hearing on the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) for Lennar’s proposed 10,000 unit condominium complex, stadium and green tech development at the Hunters Point Shipyard Superfund site and Candlestick Point. The EIR passed with a 8-3 vote.

A small group of poverty and indigenous scholars from POOR Magazine, bleeding internally from our own wounds of eviction, landlessness, budget genocide, racism, po'lice brutality, incarceration and violence, arrived in Detroit on a hot Saturday in June to attend the U.S. Social Forum. Leaving, again we passed the empty homes, silent neighborhoods and shuttered businesses and yet this time I saw something else: real change and land reclamation not rooted in capitalist ownership.

PeopleSkool is a six-week seminar of Poor Magazine, an indigenous, community-based, revolutionary news organization. A group of eager students of all races and ages meet twice a week and share from one another. We learn about migration, about disability, about poverty. Summer Session begins June 15. Register now!

When the gentrifiers come into our streets and neighborhoods and speculate on our real estate, we can see our demise coming and we just might have a chance to stop it. But when the e-colonizers come into our digital communities or e-estate, we can’t see them. E-gentrifying is much more subtle, insidious, less clear.

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors proposes to cut General Assistance (GA) beginning April 1, 2010, to only three months of every year to thousands of unemployed workers living in poverty. Pack the press conference, rally and meeting of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to protest these cuts on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 9 a.m., 1221 Oak St., Oakland.

When I heard about the revolutionary resistance of our South African brothers and sisters in Abahlai baseMjondolo (The Shack Dwellers Union) in South Africa, who successfully overturned the Slums Act, which would have given South African police the ability to legally demolish, destroy and evict poor people from their shacks without notice, I cried.

POOR Press will be releasing its new books and introducing their authors at a benefit – “Talk-Story Circle on Land, Migration, Occupation and Resistance” – at Galleria de la Raza, 2857 24th St. at Bryant in San Francisco, this Wednesday, Nov. 11, at 6 p.m. Enjoy good food, DJ, performance and scholarship for $5-$15 or whatever you can spare.

Prisoners of Conscience Committee Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. will be hitting Northern Cali Nov. 7-13 to talk about the 40th anniversary of the assassination of his father, Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton of the Illinois Black Panther Party, and Defense Captain Mark Clark. Come out to support Chairman Fred, Block Report Radio and the SF Bay View!

October 22nd, National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation, is much more than just a traditional, methodical way to combat police terrorism. We are demanding no more injustice to be served to us by a just-us system. No batons swung at us. No tear gas or water hoses sprayed on us. No dogs turned on us. No guns fired at us. Just like the ‘60s era, our struggle continues in the 21st century. Our once-silenced voices and visible stances are the exchange of fire that guns us down each day.

The first stop on the Ghetto to Gaza Speaking Tour was in Sacramento with the Hip Hop Congress at Capital Garage. The usual Wednesday event is their weekly open mic, but it was altered to feature M1’s experience in Cairo and Gaza. Then we went to East Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley, West Oakland, San Jose, Santa Cruz and Sonoma.

“We want Oakland our way! We demand the right to stay!” Community voices in resistance to the predatory lending, eviction and foreclosure of poor folks of color rolled down 94th Street in East Oakland this week past boarded up houses – remnants of lost families, lost communities and lost cultures.

“I was born here.” Mrs. Patterson didn’t look up as she spoke, her voice inaudible, lost in the cement, concrete, doorways, truck exhaust, honking horns, brick walls and glass storefronts of downtown San Francisco. Her skin, the color of earth and wind, land and nature, was camouflaged in long ago lost clothing, shredded blankets and plastic ware.