POOR Magazine

(Photo Credit: PoorNewsNetwork)

Day 1 (Yelamu) San Francisco

"This is an order to evacuate…” The mechanical PoLice voice rang out - sailing through the morning air, through the medicine of the Danzantes drum, above the heads of a thousand bodies, colors, cultures and souls in resistance to hate, white supremacy,racism,violence and white terrorist threats descending on this occupied indigenous territory.

“Everyone in the hotel was saying how happy John was, that he would never have ended his own life,” power-FULL, superbabymama Stephanie Grant said through tears over the phone. Stephanie, who like John Visor, was a witness to the San Francisco poLice murder of Luis Demetrio Gongora Pat over a year and a half ago, was discussing the increasingly suspicious death of her long-time boyfriend and comrade John in the Mission hotel last week.

Other than the terrifying 21st century hetero-patriarchal kkklan-colonial violence I couldnt tell what else bothered me about Charlottesville and Berkeley and all the other sites of this recent wave of amerikkklan hate.

“Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are already dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done; discover your humanity and your love in revolution.”

Back in the late 90's I and Lisa Tiny Gray-Garcia​ had the honor to present our work in San Bruno jail.  In July of 2017 I had another opportunity to present  my work, this time, Krip-Hop Nation under Poetry For the People's teacher Amalia Alvarez​. The men responded great to the videos, songs and talk all about Black disabled issues from Hip-Hop to police brutality but the spark was the song by Keith Jones​ and I entitled SSI Dollarz.  We ended the class by writing what they thought of the presentation and a cypher.

Youth Poverty Scholars Investigative Team #100 - Sahara, Seven, Zosia & Sasha Findings

In Deecolonize Academy/POOR Magazine summer camp, we researched food from a local liquor store in our black and brown community. We broke into two investigative youth groups and we looked at, the healthy and unhealthy benefits in the food.