International Day to End Violence against Sex Workers

Today, December 17th.

In San Francisco, there has been an incredible amount of violence against sex workers.  Last spring, the murder of Ruby Rodriguez a trans woman and immigrant was one that actually made the news.

Issues that sex workers face are complex and multi-faceted.  Often people who become sex workers are people who are already facing some sort of discrimination – be it an issue of class, race, immigration status, or gender.

Sex workers are strong, courageous people who are doing their best to survive.   Sex workers are also smart, beautiful, community minded, and maybe have an experience or two or ten thousand from which we all can learn.

Please take a moment to think about these issues before telling your dead hooker joke, or before assuming that someone who is a sex worker is less of a person.

Supreme Court Ruling on Crack/Cocaine Mandatory Sentencing

Until now, the mandatory minimum sentence for possession of crack cocaine was 5 years in prison.  It took 500 grams of powder cocaine to get the same sentence.  This disparity has huge repercussions against the poor and communities of color…meanwhile, the white hipsters doing lines in the bathroom of the Beauty Bar are not worried about potential incarceration.

Check out the transcript on Democracy Now!:

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/12/commission_makes_thousands_of_prisoners_jailed

C.W. Nevius, the columnist we love to hate

It is probably some sort of  masochism that forces me to read his column, but also it is an attempt to familiarize myself with how the media might be influencing public opinion.

Today, I read his column about the gang injunctions, which basically supports harsh crackdowns on gangs.  The unfortunate affect on this, is that harsh crackdowns don’t get at the larger underlying issues which contribute to gang activity.

This is of course, Nevius’s style.

He repeatedly fails to give community organizations a balanced and fair chance to speak for themselves, and in the meantime rallies the population of San Francisco that is looking for simple solutions and gives them ‘a voice.’

I gave a little cheer for Chris Daly, who, as Nevius made sure to include at the end of today’s column, told Nevius that he had no comment for him.

And maybe I should follow Daly’s example, as well as many community organizations example, and not to engage either.

Nevius claims he wants dialogue, but he doesn’t exactly facilitate a good space for it.  You can’t repeatedly disrespect the community organizations and then admonish them for not engaging in your childish debates.

In the meantime, for a somewhat more inclusive background of the issue, check out  Dan Verel’s coverage of the gang injunctions:

San Francisco Bay Guardian : Article : Injunction dysfunction

San Francisco Bay Guardian : Article : Defying the injunction

The Drug War Today

A couple of days ago the following article appeared in the chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/04/MNHHTNGVJ.DTL

Or if you want to skip the article and go directly to the website full of fact sheets and reports about the huge disparity about who gets incarcerated and why, please check it out:

http://www.justicepolicy.org/index.php

If you look at the history of the drug war in this country, you will see that it has been a racist war, starting with the first laws (passed right here in San Francisco) against opium which were targeted against the Chinese.  Later, the first marijuana laws were in response to the jazz scene where we saw blacks and whites smoking and dancing together

Once we got to the 60’s, conservative politicians responded to activism in the civil rights movement by demanding “law and order,” and hid behind this slogan in order to ignore social justice issues.  This led to the the war on crime, which led to the war on drugs, and eventually led to the war on terrorism.

Of course, the war on crime was focused on ‘crime in the streets’ as opposed to white collar crimes.  And it was during the Reagan administration that those harsh mandatory minimum sentences came about and one of the most telling disparities in the sentencing came at this time:

If caught with 5 grams of crack there was a 5 year minimum sentence.  You need to have 500 grams of powder cocaine to get the same sentence.

So, who uses crack?  Who uses cocaine?  Crack is the drug of poor people, and due to our history of systematic racism, the poor are often people of color.  Who uses cocaine?  The rich, usually white people who can afford to do it in the privacy of their homes or the bathrooms of their clubs.

So yeah, our system is racist AND classist.  And when the government does not want to deal with confronting the deeper issues of poverty, it goes after poor people by putting them in jail.

Look at San Francisco, which is so rapidly being gentrified by the privileged who can afford to buy homes here.   When these newcomers see the poverty in their streets, they get scared, and ask for something to be done.   So the police come and arrest people.  Often they arrest people on drug crimes.  For those who can’t be arrested for drug crimes they get targeted  with other ‘quality of life’ crimes.

I have been an outreach worker for two and a half years, and over the course of that time, I have seen less and less people out in the streets.   I would like to think that its because solutions are being created in terms of quality affordable housing available to EVERYONE.  But that is not the reality.  The reality is that the streets get swept:  Police come in huge vans to arrest people.

Drugs are simply an excuse, and prison is the garbage can solution for poverty.

The Problem with Mainstream Journalism

When I first lived in New York, I read the New York Times nearly every day.  Then, as the paper changed hands and the political climate continued to shift, I watched the coverage in the Times become more and more conservative.  There was also less hard news and more soft news.

Ideally newspapers are supposed to be objective and cover all sides of the story, but that simply is not happening.  My frustration with this reality actually eventually forced me to stop consuming mainstream news.  I turned to alternative publications for my news.

Then, particularly through my work as a harm reduction outreach worker with the St. James Infirmary, I have come in contact with parts of daily city life that rarely get covered in the mainstream media:  people living and working in the streets and SRO’s.  Countless observations of interactions with the police, in which rights weren’t being read, or people were being needlessly harassed, as well as being in touch of the harmful affects of police sweeps on this population motivated me to start this blog.

These things do not get reported in the news.

But then, of course, I found myself somewhat regularly reading the Chronicle, mostly because I was following C.W. Nevius’s problematic column, which largely took the side of homeowners who don’t find it to be their job to deal with the social problems that affect the place where they can afford to buy a home.

He focused on the poop on the sidewalks, and the incidents of violence coming from the homeless populations.   These are all real problems, and yes something needs to be done.

However,  he has failed to cover the more complicated side which would involve exploring the issues behind why people may be resistant to services, or the social issues which lead up to homelessness.

Nevius tends to take the easy way out on that one, claiming that there is a very strong advocacy group for the homeless, but there is an entire population without a voice….those poor homeowners.

In today’s column, ( http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/04/BASLTNJRG.DTL ) he congratulates himself for the effect of his columns in sparking a debate, and examines the effect of his columns.

Unfortunately, the Chronicle tends to represent the views of only a certain population.  Many community  organizers, including the folks from the Coalition on Homelessness are fed up with the inadequate coverage in the Chronicle and don’t read the paper.  Many people, who disagree with the Chronicle’s coverage do not wish to support the newspaper by engaging in its online forums.

Therefore, the more complicated debate is actually happening in many arenas, and is no way contained in the online comments section of sfgate.

Who reads and supports the Chronicle?   This is an important question to ask when looking at the validity of its coverage.   Amongst many of the people who I know, the Chronicle is not the preferred periodical.  Unfortunately, this means that many voices and views on an issue, in this case the homeless debate, are not present.

Hunting the Now: Mission Neighborhood treasure hunt through History and Gentrification

Today, my friend and I bundled up and went on a Mission treasure hunt created by local artist Mabel Negrete.  At 14th and Valencia, we found Mabel’s table and where she proceeded to arm us with a disposable camera and a map of 15 destinations written in both Spanish and English.

Over the course of several hours ( half-way through we took a detour to the Crafticon at Modern Times)  we zig-zagged back and forth over the blurry line of gentrification  between Mission and Valencia Street hunting down historical and social landmarks.

We took pictures of the gates of the armory building which sparked a huge debate between sex workers and community organizations when it was sold to kink.com (I included the button from my friend’s bag saying, ’sex work is real work’ in the picture).   We paused on the corner of 17th and Valencia to imagine what the area looked before the Lake of our Lady of Sorrows was filled in to become the popular shopping destination that is Valencia Street.   When we took pictures of the future condos that will stand on Mission and 18th, we tried to capture the way the bare pipes and scaffolding made the construction site look like a prison.

The treasure hunt was a brilliant hands-on collaboration and dialog with artist and audience through the social issues ever so present in this beloved neighborhood.  Personally, I was both educated and given the opportunity to also creatively express my anger about the gentrification of this neighborhood.  It was also a really fun way to spend a beautiful fall Saturday outside.

http://www.thecounternarrativesociety.org/