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Category: Poverty

Update and mobilization statement from Coalition To Stop Demolitions

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Image description: a large white cloth banner with the words STOP THE DEMOLITIONS. The image is close cropped but several hands are visible holding the banner.

A statement from the Coalition to Stop Demolitions:

The Coalition to Stop the Demolitions would like to thank all allies and supporters throughout the United States and the world who came and stood with us in New Orleans or took action on the streets your city, or who called, emailed, or faxed the New Orleans City Council, Mayor Ray Nagin, Senator Vitter, the Senate Banking Committee members and other public officials. Your support played a pivotal role in helping us attain the victories we accomplished last week in halting the demolition of three of the four major public housing locations in New Orleans.

However, the fight is far from over and we still need your help. Despite our victories in both State and Federal Courts last Friday, we recognize that it is quite possible that we might lose the City Council vote on Thursday, December 20th by a decision of four to three (or perhaps even five to two). We are fairly certain that at least three of the white City Council members are going vote against us, including Jacquelyn Clarkson, Stacy Head, and Shelley Midura. There is a possibility that Arnie Fielkow, the current Council President, might vote in favor or abstain in order to not lose favor with a sector of the Black electorate whom he will need to fulfill his Mayoral aspirations. As for those who may stand with us, there are likely only two members who are solid. These are James Carter and Cynthia Willard-Lewis. The third Black Council member, Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, is definitely a critical swing vote. We need to put pressure on each and every one of these City Council members between now and the 20th (please stress outreach to Internally Displaced Persons in your area and encourage them to call as a priority).

In addition, the Federal lawsuit filed on behalf of the residents of the St. Bernard was transferred from Washington, D.C. to the US District Court – Eastern District of Louisiana. Based on his past behavior, we do not expect this judge will do anything to stop the demolitions.

What this means is that by Friday, December 21st we may realistically be engaging in our second wave of mass non-violent civil disobedience action. Should this be the case, we are going to need all of our allies and supporters everywhere to be ready yet again to take decisive action to stop these inhumane demolition orders.

Things we foresee as being critical this week:

1. We need to blitz the City Council of New Orleans and demand
1. That they vote NO to the demolitions, and
2. That they hold a public hearing on the demolitions in the evening so that more working class people can participate. Information on how to contact the City Council is provided below.
2. We need as many people who can come to
1. Pack City Council on Thursday, December 20th,
2. Be prepared to engage in non-violent civil disobedience in line with the residents council principles (read below) and the coalitions pledge of resistance statement. To engage in this initiative you must register with the coalition at action@peopleshurricane.org.
3. We would also like to encourage Black and other oppressed nationality organizers to come down and help us with outreach, base building, and coalition building work over the course of the next several weeks.
3. We need to continue pressuring Senator David Vitter with calls, faxes, and emails demanding that he support Senate Bill 1668 and allow the bill to move from the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee to the Senate for a vote.
4. We need to pressure Senator Mary Landrieu to demand that the Federal government via President George W. Bush and the Justice Department suspend the demolitions until the Federal investigation of Alphonso Jackson is complete.
5. We need to seize these next three days to reframe the struggle to stop the demolition based on the demands of the Coalition (see below). We need everyone to
1. Write letters to the editor for your local news outlets,
2. Blitz the major newsprint, TV, and cable media networks and demand that they cover the issue, and
3. To write articles on the issue based on the Coalitions demands and post them to as many listserves, blogs, and websites as you possibly can.

Finally, we need some resources to carry out this work. Some of the things we need resources for include:

1. The “Stop Da Demolitions” Mixtape made by Sess 4 – 5, Nuthinbutfire Records, and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement for the Coalition the Stop the Demolition. We need $1,400 to produce and print 2,000 CD’s for youth outreach and education.
2. We also need resources to help with transportation, food, and accommodations for both residents and volunteers.
3. We need resources the cover the Coalitions cell phone expense.
4. We need resources to cover printings (flyers and posters).
5. Finally, we need resources materials to produce banners and other mobilization props.

Donations can be made out to the Mississippi Disaster Relief Coalition (MDRC) and mailed to P.O. Box 31762 Jackson, MS 39286. Please indicate on your donation “Coalition to Stop Demolitions”. All donations are tax-deductible.

Our Demands

1. City Council needs to vote NO on demolition. The Council meeting should be moved to an evening time to accommodate people’s schedules and allow a full public hearing on demolition before taking a vote.
2. The mayor needs to meet with the faith leaders who have requested a meeting with him about the housing crisis in the city
3. No Demolitions – reopen the existing units and rebuild dignified housing at former public housing sights.
4. Guaranteed one-to-one replacement for all public housing residents.
5. All available public housing units should be made available for the homeless and those likely to face homelessness from the pending loss of rent vouchers and trailer recalls.
6. The Federal government needs to suspend demolition until the investigation of Alphonso Jackson and the contraction process is completed.
7. Rent Control to provide deeply affordable housing so that all will be able to return to the city.
8. Stop the privatization and gentrification of the City.

Resident Principles

1. All Actions should be non-violent.
2. There should be no weapons or drugs at any actions, and no alcohol or drug or weapon possession at any action.
3. No destruction or defacement of resident property.
4. No coalition meetings without resident knowledge and input.
5. No media without residents or resident knowledge.
6. Focus on defending public housing and affordable housing in the city for all.

City Council Contact Information

* Arnie Fielkow 504.658.1060 afielkow@cityofno.com
* Jacquelyn Clarkson 504.658.1070 jbclarkson@cityofno.com
* Stacy Head 504.658.1020 shead@cityofno.com
* Shelly Midura 504.658.1010 smidura@cityofno.com
* James Carter 504.658.1030 jcarter@cityofno.com
* Cynthia Hedge-Morrell 504.658.1040 chmorrell@cityofno.com
* Cynthia Willard-Lewis 504.658.1050 cwlewis@cityofno.com

In Unity and Struggle,
Kali

From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Article 25.

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Whaddaya gonna do about it?

I would be seriously remiss if I didn’t highlight Meowser’s terrific post, at Shakesville and cross-posted at Fat Fu, in response to this comment by Barack Obama:

“If we could go back to the obesity rates of 1980 we could save the Medicare system a trillion dollars.”—Barack Obama during Democratic Presidential Debate, 12/13/07

Says Meowser:

But we have an election coming up next year, and strictly from a fat perspective, I worry about who is going to replace him. When I found out Barack Obama (much like Hillary Clinton, who has made similar remarks in the past) wanted to disappear me solely because of my weight in order to save the government money, I had to ask: Just how far are they willing to go to make that a reality?

No, really, I want to know. I’m willing to sacrifice a lot in order to make life better for poor people, gays, Muslims, waterboarding victims, and a whole lot of other folks who have been personally kicked in the rear a lot more severely than I have by the current administration. I’m willing to sacrifice a lot for a cleaner environment, safer food, no war, no wiretapping or torturing just because you don’t like someone’s mustache, and more affordable housing for all. Which is why I’m a Democrat. They may not be perfect, but at least they make a pass at giving a damn about those issues.

But I still think I have a right to know just how much agency they are willing to remove from people—and especially fatasses like myself—in the name of “health care cost containment.” You’d think the Democrats would be all about personal agency and individual freedom. They damn well ought to be. But I’m afraid that when it comes to nosing around in people’s body autonomy, they’re just as guilty as the people they want to replace; they just want to nose around in a different part of our bodies, that’s all.

Getting the vapors about health care costs and blaming the fatties for driving up the cost of health care seems to be the very latest fashion. And here’s the thing: I haven’t seen one reliable study that shows that fat people, over a lifetime, actually have higher healthcare costs than other people.

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Why demolishing public housing cuts to the bone

Have any of you all ever been evicted? Ever lost a home for any reason? Even if it’s an old house in the middle of the city that could probably use a lot of time and money that you don’t have, it’s still home.

I spent a couple of years on my old blog talking and posting pictures of my old house and my old neighborhood in Milwaukee. People didn’t understand why I stayed–people thought that it must be depressing to be so poor and living in such a poor area. Well fuck yeah, there were plenty of depressing times, but it wasn’t the fault of my neighbors or my house.

People who don’t live in communities don’t quite get how communities work. Communities aren’t all about the suburban folks having a cocktail party (or whatever it is y’all suburban folks do), or some tv drama about desperate white women behind picket fences. I learned all I needed to know about how a community succeeds by living, tumbled down and broke, right alongside people who were careful of me, then accepting of me, and then my friends. Community meant that Ashanti could go to the corner store and the couple who ran the store, who had lived in a flat above that store for 30 years, knew her name and her favorite candy. Community meant that when Kat was wild and running the streets, the prostitutes working the avenue would look out for her and make sure she got home safe. Community meant that if Yolanda next door was cooking rice and beans or making sandwiches or a pitcher of koolaid, she shared with my kids. It meant that when my electricity got cut off I knew I could run an extension cord between my house and Eddie’s house so that I could at least have a lamp on and watch television.

Here’s community: one morning Yolanda came running to my house to let me know that the city tow truck was outside getting ready to tow my car for unpaid tickets. I wasn’t dressed yet so I threw her my car keys and she ran out to the street, unlocked the car door, and jumped inside. Cuz see, the tow truck couldn’t tow my car as long as there was somebody in there. And by the time I was dressed and outside Yolanda had argued so strenuously with the tow truck driver that he agreed to leave without my car.

This is poor people looking out for each other. I was often the only one on the block with my phone turned on, so I was the person who made and accepted phone calls for my neighbors. If I heard Mattie and her boyfriend’s argument starting to get out of hand, I could stick my head out the window and let her know I’d call 911 if she needed me to. Often that was enough to get the boyfriend to cool it.

This is a community of poor people who struggle and look out for each other. Lot of times folks don’t understand exactly how that works. You watch the news and you think people in inner cities are too busy shooting guns and smoking crack to actually have friends and family that they love. You think poor means stratified, disconnected, a world of distrust and violence. If you think it’s that simple then you’re wrong.

When my disability got bad enough that for a couple of years I rarely left my house, my neighbors would stop by on their way to the store to see if I needed anything. When I got my scooter and became mobile again, people I hadn’t seen in years cried and kissed me on the cheek and hugged me because they were so pleased for me.

Poor people, y’all. Poor brown and black people living in a city that is famous for violence and racial segregation.

And I have a good friend who grew up in the projects in Chicago, the famous Harold Ickes (the “Ickes) projects, who remembers her childhood with great fondness. Her grandma still lives there to this day. And when the Chicago Housing Authority made plans to demolish the Chicago projects, there was enormous outcry from the residents, even as the wealthy salivated at the prospect of getting their paws on all that prime real estate. I went to protests and community actions trying to keep the projects from being torn down. And what happened to the residents of the projects that were demolished? Gone to the suburbs, cut off from each other, torn apart. Lost to the communities that had sustained them.

Talk about ghettos and slums and the inner city all you want. Let the media lie to you and tell you that poor people and people of color can’t work together, can’t create vibrant life together. Live in ignorance. But I tell you, if all that is true, then why are the scattered, displaced residents of New Orleans so desperate to come home? Why the outcry, the grief, at the loss of the New Orleans public housing?

This is why: because people who are poor need each other. We need each other because we know exactly how it feels to be down to your last $10 and it’s only the middle of the month. We need each other because we speak each other’s language. We need to be around people like us so that we maintain our humanity and our hope.

And poor people have a right to housing. Housing is a human right, like enough food and water and safety from violence. And if the bad men who want to finish the job of destroying New Orleans succeed in tearing it down and rebuilding it in their own image, there is nothing to stop them from doing the same thing in any poor neighborhood in the country.

Housing is a right. I deserve it, and so do you. And so do the people of New Orleans.

A Thanksgiving Story

A week ago, it was the Transgender Day of Remembrance. A couple days later, of course, it was Thanksgiving. Two annual events that I often have rather mixed feelings about. Obviously I’m almost a week late in writing this post, but more stuff kept happening last week, so it’s only now that I’m getting around to telling the whole story.

The Day of Remembrance has never been my favorite anniversary. I know a lot of trans people who feel the same way: why is the only day devoted to talking about trans issues all about people who have died? All too often, TDOR events have felt to me like some kind of semi-obscene pity party, an opportunity for many LGBT politicians, community leaders, and other professional gays to express their solemn condolences about all the dead trannies before going back to whatever they were doing the next day and mostly ignoring all the most vulnerable parts of the trans population: the poor, the youth, the homeless, sex workers, the HIV positive, people with many overlapping oppressions, and a whole lot of trans women of color.

This isn’t to say that the downcast faces and sorrow aren’t real, or that people don’t know folks who have really died. At some TDOR events, it’s friends and loved ones who are reading the list of the fallen, as opposed to a well-meaning white lady who can’t quite pronounce the names (yes, it’s happened). It’s important to commemorate the dead, to draw attention to the incredible murder rate of trans people–14 times the national average in the US, according to one estimate. 2007 was the year when Erica Keel was run over repeatedly by a man who threw her out of his car, a man who wasn’t even brought up on hit and run charges, much less murder. This was the year when Ruby Ordeñana/Rodriguez was found strangled on a San Francisco street corner, then was subsequently called a “psychopath” for no reason by a radio shock-jock, and had her funeral hijacked by the Nicaraguan embassy, who ordered the funeral home to dress her like a boy at her father’s request. This was the year when at least nine other trans people were murdered or died from lack of medical treatment and a year when odds are we’ll hear of at least a few more.

But why has the TDOR become the key “trans day” of the year? It’s an evening where trans people gather with our friends and family and allies to light some candles, read some names of victims that most of us didn’t know, and then disperse to go home in the night. I couldn’t possibly put it better than Little Light did:

I think it breaks most of us a little, knowing that sometimes the only time in a year we all get together is to read a thick stack of names of those of us who have been ground into the ground, punctured, stolen, crushed and rent apart, all in order to satisfy someone else’s ideas of what the world ought to be–and to tell all the rest of us, look out. You could be next.

I’ll leave the beautiful eulogies to a natural priestess and poet like LL. As for me… I mostly just get pissed off.

So I was thinking about a lot of things last Tuesday.

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International Day of Action Against the Northern Territory Intervention

Via Laurelhel and BFP, today is the International Day of Action Against the Northern Territory Intervention. The Northern Territory is a territory in Australia that is sparsely populated and largely made up by Aboriginal people, whose ancestors were the original inhabitants of Australia and the victims of white colonization.

The Day of Action is based around a hugely racist and imperialistic “intervention” on behalf of the Australian government in Aboriginal communities, purportedly designed to combat child abuse, but instead resulting in gross human rights violations.

I wouldn’t expect most people who have not lived in Australia to be familiar with the history of Australian Aboriginals — many Australians themselves aren’t, and though I lived there three years I’m not nearly as knowledgeable as I should be. But I have put together a very brief, very simplified overview of the negative “highlights,” because the current actions cannot be divorced from historical oppression. I invite anyone who is more knowledgeable to fill in the blanks and, though I have taken care with accuracy, to correct me if and where I am wrong.

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Housing Is A Human Right

Bint shares the bad news that all public housing units in New Orleans are set to be destroyed. If you’re in Louisiana or the surrounding areas, or if you want to make the journey to engage in some civil disobedience, contact action@peopleshurricane.org with your response to the pledge copied below:

A major human rights crisis exists in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. It is a crisis that denies the basic rights to life, equality under the law, and social equity to Black, Indigenous, migrant, and working class communities in the region. While this crisis was in existence long before Hurricane Katrina, the policies and actions of the US government and finance capital (i.e. banking, credit, insurance, and development industries) following the Hurricane have seriously exacerbated the crisis.

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Just because you call something satire, doesn’t mean it is.

Kat passed along to me yet another example of a “satirist” taking a stab at “A Modest Proposal” and failing, miserably, because said “satirist” fails to understand satire. This has been rampant at college papers lately; the latest was written by a high-school boy. The twist here is that the school paper, evidently staffed by editors equally as uninformed about satire as the author, published the piece. The principal, after having read the piece, seized 500 undistributed copies and created a newspaper advisory board. As a result of this, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution decided to run the column, meaning that Justin Jones’ poor excuse for satire has now been taken up as a freedom of speech issue.

For a millennium, the world has been plagued with stupid people corrupting society and bastardizing the value of life for all of mankind.

The intellectually handicapped have been reproducing at a substantially greater rate than those with a fully functional brain.

The problem of the unintelligent reproducing is, and has been, a serious threat to society that has gone unchecked for far too long. It is the responsibility of man to solve this problem before a reverse Darwinism takes effect.

It is depressing to think (especially at the high school age) that people with a high IQ are generally stereotyped as “geeks” or “nerds” because they choose to do more intellectually stimulating activities like homework, and reading, instead of those activities preferred by their peers like power lifting, full contact football without head protection, or crushing cans on one’s head. So while the intelligent are exiled from the masses, the ignorant are cherished and embraced.

Due to the substantial amount of low IQ reproduction and relatively low amount of high IQ reproduction, the intelligent become fewer and farther between.

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One woman’s whinefest is another woman’s tragedy

… Or something. Such is what I gather from reading Megan McArdle’s post on the NYT income-anxiety piece, which Jill posted about here. Shockingly enough, I actually agree with The Artist Formerly Known As Jane Galt about one thing:

It’s hard to overstate the fundamental silliness of this story. This is not a “trend”, except insofar as this whole “women in the workplace” idea you’ve been reading so much about is really starting to take off.

This much is true. But the piece does speak to a certain ingrained anxiety that a lot of men have about dating women who make more money than they do, and a certain ingrained anxiety that a lot of women have about outearning the men they date. By the time we hit the age when we’re dealing with the work world and the dating world at the same time, we’ve got decades of cultural conditioning under our belts telling us that this is what we’re supposed to expect, that this is what’s right, what’s The Order of Things.

Of course, Megan dismisses all this as the simple whining of entitled white women rather than as the product of a culture that still treats women as accessories:

Yes, if you make a decent salary, some of the men you meet will make less than you. But many more will not. And any lingering problems in this department can be readily overcome by letting go of the fairy princess fantasy where Prince Daddy provides everything worth having; or, alternatively, by not dating men who make less money than you do. If this is still not enough–if you want to date sensitive artistic types who still play the role of Big Earner–well, then, it should be a relatively simple matter to find a lower paying job.

Er, wait — is it really such a good idea to date men who make less than you do, Megan?

Speaking as the Emissary From Your Thirties, you know that amazing guy who just got back from Africa and tells hilarious stories and dates, like, everyone you know? The one your best friend quit her job to go to Tuvalu with? The one who’s been working on a really titanic novel for four years that he never quite finishes, and can’t seem to hold down a long-term job? His dating prospects start heading rapidly downhill by his thirtieth birthday. By his late thirties, his studio apartment is getting very lonely at night. If he does get married to a woman more successful than he is, it’s likely that their relationship will be controlling, resentful, and involve enduring quite a lot of contempt from her friends and family.

Shorter Megan: Suck it up and marry down, ladies! A controlling, resentful and contempt-filled marriage with a loser is better than being single!

But here’s where we come to the really fun part of Megan’s original post: her prescription for What’s Wrong With Poor People:

There is a growing male/female education and income disparity. But it is occurring several rungs down the SES ladder from the precious princesses in the story, clipping off price tags and hiding shopping bags lest He realize that she shops at Prada. This problem is afflicting mostly poor women, particularly black and latino women, who have seen their earnings prospects improve dramatically relative to those of the men in their communities. For a paper as liberal as the New York Times to take their plight–which is real, and troubling–and turn it into an exposition on how hard it is to be a female corporate lawyer, is really pretty embarassing.

Well, yes, something’s embarrassing.

Could it be Megan’s blithe and breezy assessment that income disparity among poor women and men is somehow tragic? Could it be her assumption that if poor women gain, poor men lose? Could it be the idea that, after having mocked the concern over women making more money than men in her own socioeconomic and racial strata and dismissed women who worry about such things as Prada-hiding princesses, that she can wail and moan and castigate the New York Times for not calling attention to the dire, desperate problem of low-income women whose incomes are marginally higher than those of the men in their communities? Could it be that she apparently buys into the idea that marriage is a cure for poverty, and that all those poor women might not be poor anymore if they could just find someone to marry them, but how can they do that when they earn more money than their men?

Could be. I love what Roy had to say about this paragraph in the context of the two linked McArdle posts:

In this demimonde, women suffer from the “problem” of improved earning power, while in the surface world we have companionless loser males with their Soup for One dinners and unfinished novels, clinging forlornly to precious memories of Tuvalu. It seems win-win, or lose-lose, depending on your perspective.

For all its confusion, this analysis clearly posits marriage as the ultimate prize. I wonder if the many citizens who fall in and out of marriages, and in and out of economic stability, see it that way. No doubt many of them do — which is why they keep trying — but some may have determined that life’s a bit messier than that. If the prospect of penury and an unattended deathbed disturbs them, so too might the prospect of a job they despise and a “controlling, resentful” relationship. One of the glories of a free society is that we may pick and choose our regrets. In econometric circles, where marriage, income per capita, and procreation are exalted data-points, this does not signify. But if you have found some happiness in this world despite your lack of resemblance to the ideal, you may know what I’m talking about.

McArdle, BTW, is an Objectivist and an economics nerd. Which explains a lot about why nearly every one of her posts involves some kind of CBA and a lot of huffing about people who aren’t fitting neatly into her model.

H/T: Lauren.