So Many Deaths from the Perp called Swept
- POORMAG
- May 27
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 2
A ComeUnity Demolished, a relative dead
So many deaths
From the perp called swept
Swept and swept and swept to death
From East Huchiun to West
til we have nothing left
No belongings, no homes,
no tents, no phones
From Shannon to Desiree
From James Oakley to JT (John Thomas) to my Mama Dee
From Cornelius Taylor to someone we dont know or havent yet seen
Bulldozers and backhoes coming for us
Our houseless bodies percieved always as
Not enuf
These relatives Killed by the violence of sweeps
To maintain the settler lie of CLEAN Streets
The war rages on as u look from your sun-drenched window
With scorn
Shaking your head
Why i gotta look at these people who r poor
When the backhoe came for me and mom
She barely looked up
said i dont really care - i guess we done
her heart drenched with fear
Bring the bulldozers and the backhoes near
Take me away cuz the loss is just too great
And i can’t pick up all my belongings fast enuf anyway
tired of searching
tired of running
They want us dead -
Bring it
Im done with the dread.. When the backho came by tiny
People moved slowly. A relentless beep-roar of multiple bulldozers and back-hoes provided a violent symphony to a man and two helpers dragging a mattress, blankets, sheets, two pillows, a tiny end table, a mini-frig and a threadbare chair out of a 10x 20 foot rectangle house solidly resting on the medium on East 12th street in East Huchiun(Oakland) into a nearby moving truck.
The siding of the house was a tan colored tarp attached very securely and carefully to a plywood outer wall . Everything was geometrically precise. No superfluous material or unfinished corners. There were two perfectly placed windows facing out and the roof was carefully constructed out of metal sheeting with roofing shingles on top. A soft wind blew below us all.
A relentless Backhoe filled with a mattress munched away in the background.
“On this medium here…People have been living for over 10 years - this is an obvious war on people who don’t have the money to pay rent or buy a house,” said Satya, one of the Sweeps Defense warriors who along with Jaz and many other love-warriors show up everywhere the city poltricksters are perpetrating more of the violent sweeps on our houseless bodies, “This house here,” Satya said, motioning toward the home being evacuated, “is bigger than the temporary rooms being offered to a few of the people displaced from here.”
Launched on May 12th one of the largest comeUnities in occupied Huchiun (Oakland) was violently “Swept” by the City of Oakland. Which with the accompanying armed poLice officers, CHP and DPW workers cost Oakland taxpayers several thousand dollars per day, $90,000 or more, to put a fine point on it, just to remove people to nowhere.
There were dozens of humble well constructed homes viciously destroyed by the arsenal of machines hell bent on demolition. Cloaked in lies about “safe work zones” and a pretense at offers of housing, a thriving comeUnity was scattered to the wind. Literally.
There was no excuse for that destruction. The city literally has nowhere to house us. We are builders. We are architects. We are designers. We create homes that last. We just need our own self-determined spaces on Mama Earth to mamaFest these dreams.These solutions …solutions like Homefulness..
As reported before by me, there was one jail-like motel charged with housing residents from three swept and dismantled comeUnities in Oakland and when it came down to it, there were only 16 beds left, which hadn’t previously been registered for the meager 79 beds earmarked for East 12th street. Temporary beds, I must add, with a 1-2 year expiration date and no guarantee for a referral elsewhere.
Sweeps Kill- We lost a Warrior
“Im kinda lost without JT. I don’t know. He kept us all together,” said Doe, at a prayer procession and ceremony organized for his brother, J.T., a lifelong resident of Oakland lost to the sweeps violence and all the ancestors of these violent sweeps.
In addition to destroying peoples homes, these violent City funded, hater demanded, removal policies of sweeping houseless humans like we are trash, has destabilized and caused the death of a longtime resident of the East 12th Street Comeunity.
On Monday, May 19, 2025 JT aka John Thomas, a long-time resident of East 12th street was found deceased in his camper after the City of Oakland had taken all of his belongings and RV where he resided houselessly for several years. He was found by friends from Sweeps Defense and Oakland Homeless Union, when they came to try to save his last remaining form of shelter, because it too was scheduled to be towed away.
“His faith in humanity and his compassion for others was unwaivering, despite the repeated disappointments he experienced on the part of the City and those who were supposed to be serving him. Said Freeway in a LoveUary she wrote for POOR Magazine
“He was a soldier, he knew how bad this was and he was always strategizing different ways to survive, to navigate the system and to help other people,” said Satya speaking at the ceremony for JT from Oakland and James Edward Oakley from so-called Vallejo and all the ancestors of this non-stop War ON the poor.
The beautiful prayer procession down the now empty East 12th street was led by all of us youth and elder prayer warriors from POOR Magazine, Deecolonize Academy and Homefulness along with organizers and comrades from Oakland Revealed, Sweeps Defense, Oakland Homeless Union, Love and Justice in the Streets, Wood Street Commons and so many more.
We prayed, we shared words and we lifted up all the ancestors all across this stolen land.
Little sister warrior and student of Deecolonize Academy Anniyah Zepeda, 11, closed the ceremony with a short prayer. “This is a prayer for JT and for all the houseless ancestors and for mama Earth,”
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