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/

a tiny bit of joy for breakfast

Jumping down the steps of my friend’s house in the Mission morning, I nearly bumped into a man steadily pushing a shopping cart.  I heard a clack, clack, clack, and wondered if this was the sound of his cart creaking from its heavy load, or if it was the sound of some industrial song.   As he said, “Good Morning!”  to me, I heard the first few notes of a well-known Salt and Peppa Song, “Push it!” and broke out into a huge grin.

His face lit up as well, and he asked me, “Oh, do you like this song?”

“Yeah, I do!”

“Me too!” he said, and then I danced all the way home, with his smile still in my heart.

Dialogue Dreams

I have been writing a lot, but posting little.  My emotions have been stirred up by so many things that are happening in the media around populations that I care about, and I don’t want them to cloud my ability to have a conversation.

The media craze over the homeless issue in San Francisco is huge and complex.  Over the next several weeks, I hope to examine and dissect some of the arguments being thrown around…

I really hope there can be constructive discussion, and careful analysis, and I really hope that we can all be willing to work.

Senior and Disabled Tenants Defend Their Mission Home

(This was written several weeks ago, but I found it floating around in my drafts. )

It was several months too soon for the sidewalks to be wet from a morning rainstorm. Despite unseasonal wetness, there was a crowd in front of a building just off of 26th Street and Treat Street in the Mission District.
In the window of one of the buildings was a hand-made sign saying, “Stop our Ellis Act Eviction,” while a couple of people pinned a much larger sign to the outside of the building. The sign was made of brown felt cloth, and in pink and orange lettering said, “Comite de Vivienda San Pedro, Sirviendo a la Communidad Hispana de San Francisco. (St. Peter’s Housing Committee, Serving the Spanish-Speaking Community of San Francisco).
Two elderly women appear on the front doorstep to the buildings at 1268-1298 Avenue to face the crowd of supporters. One woman, Luz Moran, 76, in a brown leopard print jacket over cream-colored shirt and brown pants, and simple shoes, stands in front of Maria Moran, 92. Maria Moran, wearing a white polyester dress with red polka dots, and a green button-down sweater vest supports herself against the rail of the front steps. Both Luz Moran and Maria Moran have lived in this building for over 35 years.
Another woman helps Consuello Orellana into a folding chair next to Luz and Maria and hands her blue oxygen tubes to hook into her nose. Orellana has lived in this building for over 38 years.
Lupe Arreola, 29, of the St. Peter’s Housing Committe, spoke and translated for the crowd in front of their homes. “Thank you for supporting these women who are strong, and fighting their eviction.”
By December of this year, the women standing on the steps, are supposed to be gone from the building that has been their homes for the past several decades .
According to a press release put out by the Mission Anti-Displacemnet Coalition, the owner of 1286-1298 Treat Street, Gregory McDowell, bought the building three years ago. When he applied to subdivide the building into three lots, the tenants fought and won.
This victory as short-lived, as their Ellis Act Eviction came in December of 2006. According the the San Francisco Tenant Union’s website (www.sftu.org) the Ellis Act is “a state law which says that landlords have the unconditional right to evict tenants to ‘go out of business’…While there are restrictions on ever re-renting units, there are no such restrictions on converting them to ownership units.”
Is McDowell going out of business?
It seems to be quite the opposite.
Momentarily pulling the oxygen tubes from her nose, so that she could speak into the megaphone, Orrellana said, “We have suffered a lot of violence in this community, but the worse violence is for [McDowell] to come in and say,’I want your building because I can make some money off of it.’”
Frank Romero, 32 grew up in this building. Pointing to the freshly painted sage green and cream front of the building he said, “The landlord has cosmetically cleaned up the building on the outside but has neglected the inside.”
Luz Moran grabbed the megaphone. “What is going to happen if one of us dies? Who is going to be responsible for us?” said Moran, holding back tears with a tight, angry face.
The San Francisco Rent Board’s Annual Eviction Report showed 246 of 1,476 reported evictions to be due to the Ellis Act in 2006. Under the Ellis Act, people who are seniors (age 62 or over) or disabled have 1 year prior notice to their eviction. The residents of 1286-1298 Treat Avenue plan to stay and fight their eviction.
People gathered today in support of their fight to stay, carried signs saying, “Stop Evictions,” “Silence = Consent.” and “Landlords: would you throw your own parents or grandparents out in the streets?”
Why won’t they comply with these legal evictions?
Romero stated, “Our building is composed of low-income tenants, seniors and disabled people, most of whom have lived there over 30 years. We have lived through poverty in our neighborhood and we have bonded with our neighbors and have made this building on Treat Avenue our home and community.”

For more information, visit:

ttp://techforpeople.net/~housingcommittee/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=39

Poop Privilege

 

Its easy to complain about poop on the sidewalk if you have someplace where YOU can go to poop.

Recently, during an outreach shift, a woman living in the streets started crying about the conditions with which she lives. She pointed to a public toilet less than a block away and said it hadn’t been working properly for a month. If someone tried to use it, the cleaning system would come on and the person would get sprayed. She hated the fact that she was forced to use the alleyways as a toilet. Its so humiliating, the conditions under which she lived, and the daily humiliation which comes in so many forms –from cops, and home-owners, to public toilets that don’t work, was also depriving her of any hope for a better existence.

 

The Chronicle has been rallying against homeless people with an onslaught of articles targeting syringe exchanges, while supporting street sweeps and the victims of ‘quality of life crimes.’

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/09/MN9RSMAJ9.DTL

 

Liberals are angry because the people they have effectively ignored when walking down the sidewalks of the Mission, SoMa and Tenderloin are getting to be too much for them.

 

They are complaining about the poop on the sidewalks, and the fact that they have to contribute to organizations who serve the homeless. People are angry because they can afford to buy the high-priced homes which often formerly housed working class families, and though they don’t have to see the people who were forced out by real estate, they still are forced to see that their actions still have consequences on people –the people in the streets who have been failed by the very system that allows for some people to buy those expensive San Francisco homes.

 

The new residents of San Francisco are tired of being faced by their consciences. Instead of contributing to organizations that do some small amount of something about the homeless, they would rather have laws that require people on the streets to go somewhere else.

 

When someone does not have a home, and shelter conditions are far from ideal, and they are not allowed to rest any one place for very long, how do you think this is going to affect that person? And then if you take away funding from the places who are giving them some options- giving them a place to go for a while, a little bit of health care, warm meals, safer methods of living their lives – you are going to make things much worse for that individual.

 

And if you don’t want to think about the individuals living in the streets, at least think of how that affects the community. Creating more tension between the privileged and the less privileged will create more violence, more disease, and more general social unrest.

 

 

The city is not offering great options either. Services are great, but are service providers respectful? Maybe there are reasons why people would not want to go with street-sweeping outreach workers. Maybe these are not respectful, safe options for people living in the streets. Who would willingly want to go to jail? Who would willingly work with the police, if they get harassed by the police on a daily basis. And can city service providers provide solutions for the huge problems which lead up to someone living in the streets?

 

There are larger social justice issues at stake. And they are not easily remedied by jails, or by rounding people up and moving them somewhere else. There are huge societal factors that lead up to the problems of homeless. Perhaps if there was sufficient, quality, housing available for everyone, perhaps if there were respectable, living wages and work available to everyone, perhaps if everyone were fortunate to live a life in a world free of racism, classism, homophobia, and transphobia there would not be people puking on themselves outside of your home, or pooping behind your car.

 

Another Complicated Step: Legalization in Hungary

In Hungary, sex workers are now part of the tax-paying population:

Hungary Gives Permits to Prostitutes

Legalization is such a complicated issue.:

Hooray for sex workers getting some more equal rights as people who work in other professions. Hooray for some sort of recognition of sex workers.

Though I understand that sex work is not for youth consumption, the ways in which it sex workers are limited in where they can work (which rings of former New York mayor Giuliani’s re-districting laws), and the ‘regular medical check-ups’ can be degrading. Hooray for health-care, and access to health care, but when one is required to get regular check-ups when others are not, it can be problematic. And there is also the cultural question of why don’t the clients get tested? Complicated yes, for those clients to get tested, but maybe if one group is required to get tested, the whole community - that is everyone who is sexually active can be required to get tested. Besides, sex workers are often the leaders in safer sex education - they probably know more than the doctors who are poking them with needles.

While there are problems with legalization - in that it only supports a portion of the sex worker population (what about immigrants, what about other marginalized populations where their relation to sex work is more complicated, and an issue of not being able to find other work, if they wanted to?), the second-wave feminist link of sex work to human trafficking is tiresome. While trafficking is an issue, and definitely a problem, NOT ALL SEX WORKERS ARE FORCED INTO THE TRADE AS SLAVES! Trafficking and sex work are not the same thing.

The article points out, “Human Rights groups have said legalization and decriminalization of prostitution and the sex industry does nothing to address the violence of prostitution and does not help prostitutes”

SOME human rights groups say this. Yes, it is true that legalization does not solve all the problems facing sex workers. However, it does address some of the violence against sex workers, by legally removing some of the stigma from the work.

But arguments against the second-wavers can go on forever.

Let us return to the fact that Hungary has taken a small step towards the cultural need to recognize, honor and respect people who are working in the sex industry.

Go See This Show!

Holy Crap, this show renewed my hope for the value of performance.    It is political, dark, and exquisitely beautiful.  It drew me into a dream-like otherworld that very much seemed to be the subconscious of the people struggling in the world today.  Clowning, areal performance, and other circusy talents are used to tell heart-breaking stories….the many layers, the music, and the imagery are endlessly captivating.

There are only four performances left…

http://www.circozero.org/performances/solniger/index.html