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Liberate Parker Elementary School in East Oakland! Parker Elementary students & East Oakland youth share with POOR Magazine the story of Parker Elementary and why they are occupying the school & trying to keep it open. By East Oakland Youth Skolaz @ Parker Elementary Zarian, age 12, from East Oakland (originally from Fresno): “Well I’m here at Parker because nobody gave OUSD aka the school board the right to close down this school or really any schools at all.” Samira, age 11, from East Oakland: “I’m here because I want to help support Parker Elementary (my school) – because the district is trying to take it away like they did to other great schools.” AJ, age 13, from North Fresno: “I don’t know. In my opinion about school closures, I think that there’s more schools we can go to. But I guess I think they should not close the school.” Elmer, age 7, from East Oakland: Drawing by Elmer Olive, age 8, from East Oakland: Why are you here? “Because they closed our school but they don’t know we’re here.” Drawing by Olive Eder, age 15, from 7900 East Oakland: Why are you here? “Because uhhh I was bored.” Mele, age 6, from East Oakland: Drawing by Mele Erik, age 13, whose family is from Mexico: “In February, they closed down Parker and tried to make it into a charter school. It is bad because people that live around here don’t have a school.” David, age 14, from East Oakland: “I am here to keep the school open because they are taking learning away from us, the kids.” Zoraya, age 12, who was born in Fresno but now lives in East Oakland: “I’m here to save my school from closing down. I love being at this school with my friends and I love the teachers.” Javien from East Oakland: “I’m here because it’s disrespectful how these people think they can take away learning from kids that need it the most. Me and other parents and students will not let them put hands on our school. All we hear is the same ‘sorry’ but it goes deeper than that – they’re taking away history.” Nasira, age 7, from East Oakland: Drawing by Nasira

Walking down a winding path paved with eggshells. Freedom is a low hanging fruit just out of reach. The sky eats up light and the fog tries to suffocate me, blanketing the path and settling on the tree. My feet move forward at a grinding pace. My body is young and my mind Is old, saturated with experiences I have yet to process. The fog is gravity now, pulling me to the earth, whispering sweet nothings in my ear, promises of love and protection, safety that compromises freedom, comfort that throws away exploration. The only opening I see through the fog is that same path paved with eggshells, that tree with low hanging fruit getting further and further away.

Almost kicked out of my great aunt’s house for taking hormones at 18. Having to lie through my teeth with caution. In order to be housed until I graduated out of high school. All I wanted was to have autonomy for my body. I want to honor what my body wants at the moment. Now as I think of the trauma, it fades in and out like a fog on a sunny morning. Even what hurt me the most was how my father blamed me and told me that it was my fault that I got myself into that situation in the first place, that I made my great aunt mad and disappointed in me. I wanted her to see me for who I am, and I was saddened by her decisions and her reactions to my own autonomy. I still love and appreciate her now with all of my heart. Even when she did what she did. I still want her in my life. The experience that my vessel went through was terrifying and traumatizing. I had to walk around in high school with a backpack and suitcase all day, and even explain to teachers that I was on the verge of being kicked out of my great aunt’s house. I had to make a decision with my great aunt, either I stop the hormones and still live with her, or I honor the hormones and be somewhere else. I found a way, but it wasn’t an easy way. I had to lie in order to stay housed and feel alive. I had to create an illusion with my body. The illusion of the Pre-T self, lowering the dosage to slow the process of my transformation. Hiding my soon-to-be robust voice with high-pitched melodies. Create a smooth surface of my skin that no hair has inhabited. It broke my heart to lie with my tongue to my own great aunt. Who housed me when my own parents weren't able to house me. I did not want to do it but I fear the realities and possibilities. If I was in the streets, my vessel would have been taken advantage of, my vessel would have been raped, molested, and violated by strange men in the streets and in the city shelters. I would have been denied housing because of my own transfaggot existence. I’ve heard stories of trans and nonbinary people having their bodies destroyed and broken by the patriarchal offenders in the community and of the state. Hell, trans and nonbinary people like me are less likely to get housed and be in stable and safe environments. In Alameda County, if we see the data from the End Homelessness website in 2019. Trans people tend to experience unsheltered homelessness at a higher percentage than cis people. In Alameda County, 81 percent of the cis people was unsheltered while 19 percent were sheltered from 2017 to 2019. In contrast, 93 percent of the trans people were unsheltered while 7 percent were sheltered in 2019 in Alameda County. Since 2017, trans and nonbinary people have gradually became more vulnerable to housing instability and the violence of poverty and capitalism. There is hope as the trans housing liberation movement has been growing for decades from New York with the STAR mother ancestors Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, to the South with My Sistah’s House in Memphis, Tennessee. Along with other beautiful housing and sheltering medicines. In the Vogue article on the trans housing liberation movement in the South, Kayla Gore, the co-founder of My Sistah’s House, explained, “Trans-led initiatives have always been in existence in some form. It’s just that now with the global pandemic and the uprising, there’s more attention on vulnerable communities, especially within the Black community, prioritizing trans folks.” In the same article above, Mariah Moore, one of the founders of House of Tulip in New Orleans, Louisiana mentions that “as a Black trans woman, I never knew the racism that existed in zoning laws. There are all these hurdles put in place that prevent folks from being able to provide the support that marginalized folks need and deserve,” she says. “We’re still trying to build out a road to homeownership through an infrastructure that helps our community members become self-sustainable.” The Covid pandemic also has been the capitalistic factor of housing instability within the trans and nonbinary community, especially within trans communities of color across the States. In the USA Today article on the trans housing liberation movement in the South, it is said that, “For the transgender community, especially those of color, preexisting barriers and ongoing discrimination have compounded challenges in the middle of a raging pandemic and economic crisis. Approximately 19% of transgender people and 26% of transgender people of color became unemployed because of COVID-19, compared to 12% of the general U.S. population.” It all comes to the reality that transphobia is one of the many spawn that is birthed from the legacy and the cult of whyte supremacy and colonization. In the eyes of colonizers and perpetrators of violence, transness is non-existent. For us, it is our existence. The legacy of creating a home for us, by us. It brings me back to the moment where I was almost kicked out for honoring my body, even if there were risks. I was willing to take the risk to honor my vessel. This hurt my potential love and trust for my Aunt Vickie. But, once I was able to start the healing process of my family lineage. She is family in my eyes again. I still want her in my life, she now understands more gradually about how I exist. It is a process, it is a journey. I now think of a home where the liminal vessel can be housed once more.

“Mama Tiny do you want some stuff?- I know u be helping all of us all the time wit free shit, so let me know, I got shoes, clothes, computers…” Tyler, a 16 year old had been out all night doing what he called “some robin hood-shit” The beautiful-crazy part of this young man’s moves is he and his mama are also currently houseless, so like all of us poor folks, while he is in struggle, he is worrying about other people in struggle. “Hell yea its liberation, fuk that, its what we have been taught, “ said rob, another youth of color who messaged me on instascam before he went out on Sunday night to “get more shit” I had asked him if he thought his moves right now were an act of revolution or liberation and he was clear, “ Every day we are taught that rich people take and get whatever they want and look the other way when our folks are murdered, “ his voice trailed off as he remembered his own uncle who was shot by poLice when he was 5 years old. I have witnessed and fiercely supported every single protest move , and the wite supermacists and the paid informants and the revolutionary People of color leaders and the trying to get in the way wite protestors and the respectful, standing up for Black liberation wite people and all the others in between. I have pondered whether to even write this piece as a formerly houseless, very low-income single mama and poverty skola, because as I have often said, our “poverty crimes” need to stay in-house, but then I watched CorpRape media show the same racist stock photos and videos of young Black and Brown men liberating krapitalist stores who have “looted” our poor communities for years with their billion dollar ad campaigns about $300 shoes that cost $2.00 to make because they pay global south workers $.25 an hour, $800 phones, $3000, computers that are built by poisoning Congolese, Chinese, South-Asian children and poor people, cars assembled by computers or under-paid global south workers, requiring credit that none of us poor people ever have access to so we keep driving broke-down hoopties (cars), which gives more excuses to more murderous poLice to stop and frisk, stop and kill for fake Driving While Black and Brown and Poor violations. Not to mention extracted and stolen chocolate and easily accessible poison like vape pens and cigarettes and alcohol and on and on. And while these stock photos and videos flooded the CorpRape news channels, one after the other, they were accompanied by non-stop voice-overs calling the youth liberators “criminals”, thugs, lawless and “looters” who were single-handedly destroying the fragile krapitalist ekkkonomy which is just barely trying to come back from Covid19. And then cause thats not enough, a stream of politricksters, poLice and lie-gislators and even a lot of conscious people have been adding to the noise with sweeping statements about “destruction” and violence to stores versus “peaceful protests”. I know this is a controversial perspective and I know that some of the stores that have been “destroyed” are in communities of color or POC owned like Chinatown in Oakland and beyond. But I also know racism across communities is real too and more than people realize daily anti-black and anti-poor, anti-houseless micro and macro-violence is constant, incessant and amounts to torture and comes from many of these POC owned establishments. Slow, sick torture that grinds peoples psyches down to the end of our breaking points. Looting versus “property damage” To get extremely clear, since the beginning of the protests there has been the weird hater klan members setting fires, smashing windows and causing shit - but then there is looting and it is a different move - targets were decided based on the products, accessibility and the poLice terror perpetrated by that place. The youth are very clear that this is not a casual move and again its not something that people who have never missed a meal may ever be able to overstand, so I respectfully ask you to stop judging with the same krapitalist infused gaze. The other reality is low-income young people of color were already in struggle. The Pandemic called poverty, and the way that Covid19 stole some of the small crumns that were in place all away was complete violence. Schools, closed jobs dried up , non-profit youth centers and programs and spaces, the few that where there are gone. Whats left? What do you think young people have to do? This time has been extremely hard on very low-income young people in a way adults and elders can barely fathom. I only know because POOR Magazine has the blessing of having a large poor youth following and I work with poor youth everyday. Isolation and sheltering in place when you have no place, no healthy food, no fun, means what ? Means we have little to live for. Rules created by people who use, abuse, incarcerate and hate mean nothing either. Whats the point? And like Rob said, this is what we have been taught. Looting as anyone knows are colonial created tactics. Launched with the original looting of Turtle Island and then Black and Brown bodies looted so wite supremcists, wealth-hoarders’ buildings and bridges and world could be built and exploited. From this original looting wrapped in a carefully perpetrated PR campaign and re-named “discovery” was then followed up by brutal and murderous genocide that has continued to this day. Throughout herstory the looting, rape and murder continued, with the looting of Mama Earth, to the looting of our communities when we tried to participate in their violent economic models. From the “gold rush” to Standing Rock, From Black Wall Street to Chinese Exclusion Act, from redlining to gentriFUKation, every attempt of indigenous, poor and people of color to participate in their killer economies is met with some kind of covert or overt violence. Young people see this and overstand it And to make it even deeper, the protectors of the wealth-hoarding looters who steal mama earth and call it “real estate speculation” steal our money and call it “mortgages and payday loans, steal our housing and call it foreclosure and eviction and profit and taxes are the poLice, PoLice or “Lice” on the po’ is a concept I came up with in 1999 after my brother Leroy Moore and I reported on the poLice murder of a houseless, disabled elder from LA Margret Mitchell for nothing but being Black and houseless in LA and which plays itself out in brutal stories like the 2016 poLice murder of Luis Demetrio Gongora Pat, killed for being Brown and houseless in gentriFUKation city aka San Francisco Krapitalism is a violent and brutal system rooted in looting, but the real looters, the real estate snakes, the scamlords and the hoarders are never charged, they are protected. By poLice who kill poor people. So I know that at the end of the day, maybe you don’t agree with me because you don’t agree that krapitalism is an inherently violent system. Maybe you do believe that if you just get your piece of the pie you will be ok. That you don’t agree that Mama Earth needs to be unSold so we can end the perpetration and the eviction and the homelessness tomorrow. That you inherently believe that somehow we all have a chance and all we all need to do is work toward equality and fight for “justice. But maybe you need to examine the reality that while you fight for poor peoples of color justice, you have a home and job to go home to after your day of “protesting”while thousands of young, no-income youth of color have nothing. I will say to all the people de-crying the “violence” the theft, the ruination of krapitalist stores, are you really defending the system you decry and create strategic plans about overthrowing, changing, and/or resisting ? Are you really working toward our collective liberation? Or does your liberation and mine end at the end of your workday. And lastly that I need to remind adults right now, that this isn’t your fight. These young people and specifically poor young people need to have their own agency, and maybe you need to move out the way and realize they are inheriting this shit called amerikkklan and tortured Mama Earth. And their tactics are their tactics and its ok if they aren’t your tactics and to recognize sometimes “controlling the moment/movement” is an oxymoron and rather, you could try to respect what this generation has to bring to this moment which isn’t the same as what you brought, but no less powerful.

By AudreyCandyCorn aka SistahSaveASoul June 9th 2022 I remember being a little girl growing up in Oakland California, the home of both of my parents. I am an Oakland child, even in my being an adult I am the product of Oakland's finest. I am that diamond in the rough, my family are diamonds covered in darkness. I remember my grandparents making comments on how the world is changing. And now I make comments on how the world has changed in the 38 years that I have been living on this Earth. I remember my grandmother Audrey speaking on how she can taste the difference in the foods she ate on a regular. My grandfather Charlie Brown, he grew his own fruits and vegetables, and he didn't live in Oakland like I thought he did. He lived in Fresno with 2 white dogs he loved. Grandpa had a country side to him and one hell of a green thumb. But everyone else was Town bound. My parents are from Oakland, my extended parents are from Oakland, my grandparents’ children are from Oakland, my cousins aunts and uncles are from Oakland and many of us don't want to leave, have never left Oakland and we'll die here in Oakland... Is there LIFE OUTSIDE OF OAKLAND? Sure there is. But Oakland is truly all some of us will ever know. . . Part of it comes from being taught to have pride in who you are and where you live, because it's where you come from that shapes who you are going to be possibly. Environmental Key Lessons That Only Can Come From Oakland Town Bizz Scholars: Living in Oakland is a whole experience. Only the strongest survive. If you take notice, Oakland California is the 10th most deadly City in the world. In fact, Donald J Trump—the president currently, what a clown of a joke by the way—has specifically claimed Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf to be dumb, he said. Irresponsible and cannot control her city. He called out the town name Oakland, called out the citizens and the uniforms and administration that runs it. All this was done on TV, all social media the news picked it up. No, f*** picking it up, Donald Trump talking specifically to the press about this dangerous Oakland California. Bad news sure does travel faster than good news. What Donald Trump didn't know, due to him not doing any research, simply talking out his ass as he does—he would have known there are core teams like drones embedded into the tapestry creating a love life culture. Because if he had done research, he would have come across Donald Lacy, the Ambassador of Oakland and its rich connection to family and healing. For over 20 years this man has dedicated his life. During Barack Obama's time to serve as president, Oakland took a lot of changes. Some were for the good, some were for the worst. However, during the switch of presidents, Oakland natives have continued to work for the healing of our city, to be restored to the people of the land. And to prove it, there is a sign that gives the number of people who populate the city, and you can usually find the signs at the entrance or the exit of each and every city, town, and state. The background normally is green, and there's white or yellow writing giving the accurate information of population. Well, thanks to Donald Lacy and his LoveLife Foundation and the many people who have believed in him supported him and push his vision, now when you enter or exit Oakland, San Leandro, Richmond, or Emeryville, we have several population boards that say Welcome to Oakland. Your LoveLife City changing the narrative of the former curses of our town It then has the population number of the people...with Yellow Doves on some. And that is not easy to do--we had to fight City Council Administration Frank Ogawa Plaza 250 downtown Oakland on Broadway. There were many meetings, lies, backstabbing, and straight up blockage even from those who you would never expect it from. However, Donald Lacy has been successful with his Love Life message. Creating and healing in love, providing platforms for children, teens, young adults, adolescents, everybody. I wonder who will take notice and remember the pillars of our time. Will the newcomers know and understand the layers of Oakland? Which Brings Me to Lisa tiny Garcia, who also has put in work for over 20 years liberating children, mothers, grandfathers and homeless, houseless folks right here in Oakland. Tiny is another key pillar in the tapestry of Oakland Bay Area, building links. Poverty Scholars from across the waters to the level ground. The work of being the Love Life work in ACTION, never KNOWING OR MEETING Donald Lacy... Lisa Tiny Garcia Paves the way. That’s a total of over 40 years of creating a better life for our new culture to sustain. Raising a new generation and breaking the curses plaguing Oakland citizens, Understanding and teaching that Mother Earth is not to be sold and bought... LoveOlutionary Lisa tiny Garcia believes that human beings are not to be swept like trash... The times have changed from my Parents’ & grandparents’ days. Even for my time in the sun has been shaded. Lisa tiny Garcia is THE HEART BEAT OF OAKLAND. Oakland's movement FUTURE depends on these 2 selfless human beings’ will to keep on keeping on, moving in their purpose and honor. Spiritually, these 2 work side by side in their missions. Yet have only caught whispers of each other's name, yet on one accord making waves through change, being the change you want to see. You see, it takes the sharing of stories, information, and knowledge of you and me. Together, strategically we can overcome the evils of the world's evildoing workers. Every generation has a crisis the government has implemented onto the peoples. Whether it's the war on our food (GMO), the putting guns into our communities, the pumping of the crack rock into our mothers’ and babies’ bodies, destroying families, separating them by the incarceration of the fathers, and last but not least the airborne diseases like CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 that is currently in all 50 states, that's GLOBAL... THIS means the world is impacted and this has not been the first time nor will it be the last time. This is why I write, blog, journal and document my life along with others who have dedicated themselves to leaving behind important information for those left to dwell on Earth until God comes back for us all... And so I am grateful to have had the opportunity to be at the tables, Hearing conversations of adults who have lived through their time, took notice of the shifts for the new times that they may not live to see and chose to share what they could while they could when they could before taking that last breath... THE INFORMATION: We’re going to need it. There is nothing new under the sun, this is all warmed up soup. Beware—what goes up must come down, what goes around comes back around. The Lessons, if you catch on to what our elders warned, go a lil something like this: We are impactful beings destroying ourselves and the land. Be NOT Of this WORLD, let it not consume you. The government is corrupt and we are in spiritual warfare. Trust your instincts. It is by your faith, not by your Sight You will be COVERED. And I'm reminded to remember just that. My life depends on it, and yours do too I Remember...

PowerFULL event on May 15th landless/houseless/indigenous people solutions to homelessness which included Luis Rodriguez, Ayodele Wordslanger, Cob on Wood and so many more landless houseless warriors to bring attention to the insane blocking by the city of Oakland

By Amir cornish /youth poverty skola , co-builder and resident of Homefulness and co-founder of the TAZ foundation As a little kid I never really cared about having a clean home. At least we had a Roof over our head and we was always on the move. When we used to open the big black heffy bags, it was like looking into a mirror back into the past of my family history going through the generations. . I always had what we needed just in case we ever got kicked out onto the streets. I started to think to myself and realized that the big black hefty bag was a part of me. Not really had a stable home but my home was them bags and as a kid me and my older brother would play on them big plastic bags and I would imagine myself on mountains climbing the great walls. For me, cleaning is not hard. What’s hard is just having a place to keep clean for a long time but I could never fully grasp it. Like reading a book, you don’t get the answers quickly you’re wrestling to fully understand it. I feel like people shouldn't be kicked out of their house just because they don't know how to keep a place clean. For me, having a black bag was home. Postscript -Join us in the prayer circle to open Homefulness for Houseless and poor Mamaz and families in June -email poormag@gmail.com for details

City of Oakland still blocks a homeless peoples solution to homelessness we call Homefulness By Tiburcio Garcia- /Youth poverty skola reporter for POORMagazine/co-builder and resident of Homefulness 40,000 dollars is enough to buy a car. 40,000 dollars could feed my family for 10 years. I have never seen that much money in my life, yet the only way I can move from a couch to an actual bedroom, along with my Homefulness family, many of whom are in far worse living situations than I, is to fork over 40,000 dollars to the City of Oakland’s Building Dept. What I don’t understand is why after listening to our pleas of leniency, and after many years and many thousands of dollars we have paid, that the City of Oakland is holding us by our sneakers upside down and shaking us to see what falls out of our pockets. I am 18 years old, and since I was 10 we have been fighting the city to get Homefulness, a homeless peoples solution for homelessness, or houselessness as we call it, officially launched. They have not given one concession, one inch of ground that we didn’t fight tooth and nail for. All of the rings of fire that we jumped through these years have burned us and hardened our hearts, attempting to crush our hopes. However, as it becomes obvious to the City of Oakland and the world that despite all of the insurmountable obstacles that have been put in front of us, we are nearing the finish line, the rings of fire that we have gotten used to have turned into walls of fire, taunting us with one option. Walk through, and get burned in the process. “[In 2019] before the holidays, [the City of Oakland] shut down the Homefulness building process all together, saying we ‘took too long’ to build, and assessed an ‘impact fee’ which is supposedly to support low-income housing projects, as well as told us we had to start all over again,” those are the words of my mom, Tiny aka Lisa Gray Garcia, talking about the City’s reason why we have to pay these 40,000 dollars. The twisted thing about them using this excuse to keep us from housing the houseless community is this money will supposedly go to people who create low-income housing, housing that makes it easier for houseless people to be housed. Ok, that sounds good, so the impact fee of 40,000 dollars we pay to the city will go back to us right? Oh and also all the impact fees of all the corporations who have been gentrifuking East Oakland will go to us also right? If the City of Oakland operated the way they said they did, if they lived up to the image that they display in public, any and all impact fees would be going to Homefulness and other non-profit organizations that create templates for housing houseless people, templates that don’t hurt anyone and even benefit the previous owners of the land of the new Homefulnesses, but that isn’t the case. The City of Oakland is fleecing us for more than we have, they are closing down much-needed already underfunded public schools, and building an 850 million dollar A’s stadium that is completely unnecessary seeing as we already have an A’s stadium that connects to the Coliseum BART Station. Actions speak louder than words, and those actions tell us volumes. The City of Oakland is charging us 40,000 dollars for an impact fee that we can’t pay, because we are late to a project they keep delaying, but we aren’t stopping. We aren’t fighting for some mighty cause or trying to prove a point. We are houseless people trying to house ourselves and other houseless people and we won't give up until, like my mom says, we Homefulness the world. Postscript In June 2022 we are moving in the mamahouses with or without the city’s permission—we hope u join us in a prayer circle for Houseless mamas being homeful -email poormag@gmail.com for dates

From the old City By Bee From the old city called the “new flower” Addis Abeba False borders, false citizenships, false documentation Pleads for asylum to the countries that caused such instability, Cause a stress so real as I fill out government forms for my first-gen mama, Cause a disconnect in community I have continued to know And now it is something that is more familiar than the family I no longer know Where am I now? I see modernized displacement all around me Sweeps, incarceration, police surveillance against me and my loved ones destroyed communities we are rebuilding I sit on the court hearings of my loved ones as well as my own, And I see hundreds more poor folks brought in from the jails, Shamed by judges for “bad decisions,” Attacked by prosecutors Fines added Bail doubled Sentences lengthened Charges added Labeled an “inmate #” and “case #” They want you to feel dehumanized and ashamed “Beth vs. the State of Washington” They make it clear this is a war–one waged against the poor By a nation-state empowered by its false borders and protection of the elite And it’s even clearer to me That they are the public safety hazard. I belong to Earth By Dawson I belong to earth And earth belongs to me However I’ve been deprived my right to belong on earth By segregation And poverty And left me no choice besides being homeless This is from every Borderline alive and dead By Kaiyah This is from every borderline Both alive and dead I welcome you inside my borderline head The disease most stigmatized and most ignored by doctors “Come and look at the person who was created by monsters!” I’ve been called “crazy,” “toxic,” and “emotionally extreme” But that’s because, my dear, I have BPD I only think in black and white Only feel joy, rage, or horror Because I was so young when I got sick I’ve never really seen the world in color I only know how to shut myself down and think out of order Which gave me the diagnosis “borderline personality disorder” I go bad and when I’m full of rage Like an inferno in my soul and body Within its cage, I destroy everything around me And when everyone who fled wakes up and see the damage cause by my borderline head I want you to understand that the evil is not me I am full of love, kindness, joy, and empathy with people I am alive but when I am alone I escape to my bed To escape from pain in my borderline head So give me the strength to survive tonight because I am closer and closer to losing this fight I am tired of the crying and feelings of dread The chaos that’s happening in my borderline head This piece is about an artist who discovered abstract art within bipolar treatment. I suffer from grandiose delusions so I’m very grand. By Kk How to Pollock a masterpiece? Jackson, question, ordinary positions changes– that’s a given– On a drawing, of course, Ordinary people is a given, Crayola helps show the true colors What’s a fake color? Pollock shamble? Question Painting the industry? Question Pollock would like electric cars painted like pennies In shambles I tell you! Jackson asked me “What’s a nonrenewable resource?” I tell him, “A tale of more than two cities” Trying to also swallow keys The industry I tell you! Extra, extra! Get your newspapers! Forever Being Judged By Phonixx Some might ask about what it is like to be homeless. To be homeless and living on the streets is something most have never experienced and some have never seen. Forever being judged, humiliated, photographed, and recorded! For what the pleasure of having us exploited, made to look like animals in the jungle, wild and untamed. “No human decency or morals” so they say. We are humans too, we have feelings just like you. There is no reason to fear us. Maybe instead of being violent towards us, you should have some compassion and not judge for once. So the next time you see us walking down the street, on the corner at a red light, laying on the sidewalk, show a random act of kindness and say “hi”or just smile and wave. You never know, it just might make their day. Being homeless isn’t easy. It’s the hardest journey I've ever been on in my life. But I’m thankful for this learning experience and this life lesson. Because I now know what it is like to have nowhere to go, wonder where or when your next meal will be, how you’re gonna stay dry and warm, when the rain, wind, storms, snow, and freezing temperatures hit. Thankfully, I ended up meeting the most amazing group of volunteers and campers at a protest on the City Hall Lawn for housing for the homeless. They are the most caring, compassionate, dedicated, hard-working, give-you-the-shirt-off-their-back types. They continue to show up for us day in and day out. Rain or shine, even in the snow and through every bad storm we endured. Making sure we had all the necessities and then some, to continue surviving the winter together. -- PHONIXX

All the beautiful places settlers steal.. To make their vacation homes real… Sharp blue skies Water lapping at rocks powder clouds stars up so high in side a moonlit carpet sky Thick moss blanketing mamatrees Aint never seen trees like these.. Sails waving in with soft brushes of ocean breeze Clear creeks massage manicured feet four-legged relatives Carrying ancestors messages Houses for one with yards for none on top of sacred sites with stolen daughters and Suns Mama Earth’s water squeezed from mama’s tit lifted and CONsumed Extracted for oil, gas with deadly drill bits All the beautiful spaces that settlers steal Let’s b real After they’ve destroyed all they have Search for new spaces Leaving roads and towns In rubble after they disCOVER something new to steal and Tear down (This poemCast from a poverty skola Goes out to all the 1st nations relatives cut and ripped From all over Mama Earth )- but today focusing on the settler town they call Bellingham, Ferndale, Lyndon “Ometeotl … the copal rose slowly from the backyard of a settler home in so-called Bellingham. My brother,Muteado Silencio, danzante, word-warrior, co-builder/co-founder of Homefulness and youth poverty skolaz/co-suns, Tibu, Amir and Akil and Israel Munoz, all residents of Homefulness, elder Elephant council co-leader Momii Palapaz and myself, tiny, were opening with prayer for Mama Earth and ancestors of this territory as we launched the Land Liberation fundraiser for Homefulness to come to Bellingham. Bellingham, a “beucolic” town like so many other settler towns in occupied Turtle Island washed and erased of its histories of 1st nations genocide, removal, murder and terror. Now occupied, stolen and settled, Lummi, Nooksack, Samish and Semiahmoo territory filled with rich wite people, and billed by the Tourist extractive industry as one of the “ best places to play” “best place to retire” for it’s beautiful landscapes and multiple waterways and close proximity to rich peoples sports industries like “skiiing” snowboarding, hiking, etc Louis Washington, 11, “half-breed” indian, runaway from “school” Solis Allen, 10, half-breed” indian, runaway from school (From 1905 Northwest Sheriffs “Records of Arrest”) What is barely, if ever spoken about in tour guides and chambers of krapitalist commerce is the violent and brutal genocide known as boarding schools that existed all across Klanada and the United Snakes- many of them in Bellingham and surrounding counties. And all the fake treaties, massive colonial terror of women and children, the subsequent land theft, and the enslavement and torture of children like Louis and Solis and so many more who would try to run away from the dangerous abusive “schools” filled with pedophiles and predators known as Missionaries, charged with “killing the indian and saving the man” For five consecutive generations, from roughly 1880–1980, native children across the US were taken from their families and sent to residential schools. More unspoken Herstory In addition to the brutality of boarding schools was the violence against all peoples of color trying to live and work, muchless survive in this town. In 1907 a mob of 500 wite settlers beating, terrorizing and kidnapping of over 200 South Asian workers to “scare” them out of town which in addition to the ongoing and brutal attacks on Chinese, Japanese migrants, fueled the codification of a multitude of anti-asian lie-gislations. The implicit and explicit approval and enabling of slavery by following the Dred Scott decision that said descendents of slaves could not be citizens of the United Snakes. It is into this racist stolen herstory that we humble poor, houseless, Black/Brown, disabled and indigenous peoples from POOR Magazine/Homefulness walk into. Moving in prayer to ancestors and Mama Earth always and lifting up voices of houseless, disabled poor people always intentionally silenced and sharing the medicine of Radical Redistribution, ComeUnity Reparations and Homefulness with fellow poor and houseless youth and elders so they can build their own self-determined solutions to homelessness. “PoLice have moved us multiple times,” said Autumn, one of the powerFULL roofLESS radio reporters and houseless survivors of a campaign to sweep and harass every houseless person out of Bellingham, one of the many reasons we were invited up to to so-called Bellingham, with its bloody racist herstory to help poverty skolaz up here launch a Homefulness “Hi my name is Polly, I am from the Lummi Nation” In 2021 we were first invited up and we did a WeSearch investigation (poor people-led research) our terrifying findings confirmed the sick violence of settler genocide, over 60% of the houseless population getting swept, holding on by a thread , struggling with addiction, homelessness and poverty in so-called Bellingham and nearby towns were the first people of this land that were originally stolen from. “They are closing the only warming shelter in the snow,” formerly houseless poverty skola, resident of Bellingham, mother of two, POOR Magazine reporter and singer “Sin”shouted to me in one of our poverty skola writing workshops, “its so much violence… “I struggled with mental illness and drug addiction, i am now sober, writing poetry and getting things done,” said Kaiyah, a houseless youth poverty skola and newest member of the Po Poets Project who came to our first Po Poets workshop at a youth Drop-in Center in so-called Bellingham. All the beautiful places settlers steal… there is no compassion in Krapitalism.. In a place known by colonizers for “the best place to play”...In the powdery snow covered mountains near the Klanada border, as people drop thousands of dollars a day on a ski trip, how would there be space for compassion in krapitalism. On stolen land, built with stolen lives and stolen resources- how is there any room for the people who were removed so you could be there… . There has never been any room in the settler colonial terror myth called the American Dream” for any of us they stepped on to build it… Nation-wide, half of the children did not survive the experience, and many of those who did were left permanently scarred. The resulting alcoholism and suicide, and the transmission of trauma to their own children, has led to social disintegration with results that have been described as genocidal (Ward, 2008). The impacts of this inter-generational trauma, along with the broader impact of colonization, are ongoing…excerpt of Bellingham Racial History Time-line The resulting genocide of the residential (school) terror system, the endless and violent sweeps, structural wite supremacist violence, ongoing and violent gentriFUKation, displacement and eviction can’t begin to be repaired with mere apologies, corpRape housing devil-opments, about us without us politricks or settler lies. This is ancestral trauma. This is causation for addiction, incarceration, poverty and homelessness.This is murder. This is ongoing colonial terror. This can only begin to be healed with settler reparations, UnSold Mama Earth, LandBack, multiple and real commitments and truth commissions for generations of time.. All the beautiful places settlers steal…and all the people who had to die to make their vacation homes real… BuckUp Love Up - Group Up Family we have just begun UnSelling, praying, bringing, teaching, sharing, interdependence and loving Homefulness Bellingham into life. To see some of the powerFull Houseless youth and elder poets work from the Po Poets /RoofLESS radio Street Writing Workshop go to PoorNewsNetwork on Youtube To Listen to this and other PoemCasts from a povertyskola - find them on Spotify, itune or Iheart apps

Guns, WeaPONs SO much FUKING FUN How many can I kill- Are there still people Alive still- I mean monsters, I mean avatars I mean the aliens up in the stars I mean animals driving cars I mean TechNOLOGY I mean Streams I mean These Guns come to me in My dreams I mean no-one like me I mean I can buy gadgets and bullit- proof vests- I can show up online - always fine and right on time I mean I don’t have to write, or think, or pick up a dirty dish, Or learn how to do Ish I don’t have to speak I can just eat And sit and never do shit I mean I do do shit I write on waves And drive sports cars with babes, And live in Mansons Ad fort- night caves and if things get really boring And I just cant stand it anymore I can make a new avatar with a new story Cuz I have a purpose - I have a gun And I am gonna get better im gonna I learn how I can go out and kill everyone These guns come into my dreams Ive had a Nintendo since I was three Isn’t

8 year old Londin Thomas was with her Parents at Tops shopping for a Birthday Surprise. They were buying grilling supplies, ingredients and cake mix. "We were buying some cake mix for my mama. She did not know. She was at the meat section so we could grill," Londin said. She was with her dad when the shots started. Lamont Thomas, Londin’s dad, grabbed her and ran to hide in a cooler. Shopping is a necessity in everyone's lives, I go almost every week. It's not a place where anyone should be worried about their lives. The shooter was a young self proclaimed white supremacist. His name is Payton Gendron, he is 18 years old and responsible for killing, 10 people: Roberta A. Drury, 32, Margus D. Morrison, 52, Andre Mackniel, 53, Aaron Salter, 55, Geraldine Talley, 62, Celestine Chaney, 65, Heyward Patterson, 67, Katherine Massey, 72, Pearl Young, 77, Ruth Whitfield, 86, Most of the victims were elders, who prolly couldn't run or take cover fast enough. One of the victims was the security guard of the store. Payton Gendron had planned this for a long time, He had customized weapons with extended clips and many attachments. He wanted guns that would stand out in his video he would stream with his go pro to twitch. He did stream for the first two minutes of the massacre, But why does this happen, why is someone my age killing 10 people, going out of his way to kill these people. Growing up in this society of no culture and just confusion. Culture here is violent, art is violent, games are violent, schools are violent, lifestyles are violent, Violence is the Culture. The idea of division, The idea of hating the unknown, the different, the misunderstandable.