:

From the Global Economy to the Eviction Notice
Edited by Guadalupe Arreola, Alicia Schwartz,
James Tracy and Tom Wetzel
To be published by AK Press, 2009

Summary
In nearly every major U.S. city, the displacement epidemic is destroying communities and reshaping the urban landscape into zones of exclusion and elitism. An avalanche of eviction notices and redevelopment efforts fractures working class neighborhoods, particularly those of color. The causes lie far beyond bad landlords and poor public policies. Twenty-first century displacement is intricately tied to shifts in the global economy, where de-industrialized cities must continually re-invent themselves as high-end construction temporarily replaces the vanished factory, and forced migration and displacement intensifies.

Within this, politicians and policy makers also rely on displacement as a method of policing, thinning, and managing low-income people and the surplus population. Yet every action has its reaction, and people’s organizations challenge and confront the real estate industry. Together, these campaigns call into question exactly who has the “right to the city” and suggest an alternative urban life rooted in economic and racial justice.

Dispatches Against Displacement examines the struggles for the city and asks how they might be combined, strengthened, and critically examined in order to forge an agenda for land-reform within the United States.

The book will have three main sections:

The Crisis
Articles in this section will clearly lay out the causes of displacement; and make links between this and other issues such as the global economy, prisons, class struggle, etc.

Dispatches From the Space Wars
Articles in this section will look at what organizations and individuals are doing to fight displacement in their own communities. It is intended that these pieces will: explore the tactics, strategies, successes and failures used in campaigns and identify parts currents of the campaigns which could contribute to an urban land-reform agenda.

Land and Liberation
What would it look like if the hundreds of disparate organizations and campaigns could coalesce around, and win urban land reform? What shape would the demands take? What changes would be made? Is it possible for any meaningful reform to occur under market-capitalism?

Style and Format
Accessible in tone, yet well-written. While the book will be academically sound, we want to make sure that it finds a readership in the neighborhoods it is written about.

Bring together book smarts and street smarts. We strongly encourage collaboratively written articles. Articles co-authored by activists who primarily do on-the-ground grassroots organizing and activists who primarily work in the academy will receive preference. Talk to people in the community you are writing about, quote them and respect their point of view.

Back-it up! If you say something is so, then give some facts establishing your point.

Please use Chicago Humanities style endnotes, not footnotes.

To submit: Please in Word format, as an attachment, to jamestracysf@earthlink.net by November 1, 2008. We are happy to review queries to determine if a proposal fits the scope of this book.

On May 21st, 2008 over 500 people marched through the streets of San Francisco’s Central City to protest Proposition 98, a measure that would destroy Rent Control. The march and rally was one of the most spirited and alive political events I have witnessed for at least five years; and an honor to co-organize.  I always hesitate before I use the term “diverse” as the right-wing has learned how to mis-use that word. It was obvious however that the key organizations: Community Housing Partnership, Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, and Chinatown Community Development Center had reached deep inside their base communities, activating the passions of everyday people. At times, the march resembled more of a street party. A resident from the Senator Hotel brought his drum and the crowd collectively remixed the chants, which eventually morphed into Spanish and Chinese.

Chant #1: Save, our city, save our state: vote no on 98!

The next generation of freedom-fighters.

Norman Fong (CCDC) and Lashawndra Price (CHP) MC’d the event. This was Lashawndra’s first time as an MC for a demonstration and she rocked the house. Supervisor Peskin is in the background.

Liana, Amina and Ayala Villasenor and Ayesha Cope–up and coming new leaders in SF’s social justice movement.

To assemble the demonstration, we organized a “snake march”-three marches making the rounds through the Tenderloin and converging on City Hall. Bernal and CCDC also did an amazing job of turning folks from their neighborhoods out! Thanks also to South of Market Community Action Network, Senior Action Network, Young Workers United, Poor Magazine, Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Center, Central City SRO Collaborative and Tenants Together for coming through!

I’m only five months late here.

Back in January, Michael Griffith of Bellingham Washington DC died. Michael was a violinist and noise-maker of the finest caliber-performing with the improv duo Noggin and the hardcore band Behead the Prophet No Lord Can Live.

In the early nineties I had it in my head that I would either make it as a rock-star or a show promoter. Michael’s bands would tour often and I would book them around the SF Bay Area.  Audiences were always amazed by watching this senior citizen running around like a maniac performing with young punkers less than one-third is age. When I brought my bands (Family Home Evening and Space Masons) to the Northwest his door was always open to us. Mike’s house in Bellingham had the most amazing music room I’ve ever seen–dozens of instruments, many homemade.  In that room his love of fun, improvisation, chaos and collaboration seemed to create a timewarp. He could switch gears from frentic noise terrorist to mellow philosopher. I believe he was the one who introduced me to the writings of Freire and bell hooks.

I last saw him years ago at a show at the Cyclone in San Francisco. There’s not a whole lot else to say except that in a world where few understand the true value of play and joy, Michael got it and passed it on.

This week, debate about kicking the ROTC off of campuses has reached an interesting fever pitch. Here in San Francisco. As my friend, Marc Norton reports in Beyond Chron:

The San Francisco school board voted in November 2006 to end JROTC in San Francisco schools this June. Last December, the school board extended JROTC for another year, until June 2009. However, the JROTC Must Go! Coalition continues to press the board to end JROTC now. (See “JROTC Must Go Now” in the May 14 Bay Guardian

The JROTC Must Go! Coalition represents a shift in strategy for many in the anti-war left. Discouraged by large mobilizations, groups such as these have focused on the local arena: bringing creative tactics to challenge military recruiting at ROTC programs nationwide. These groups succeed in bringing essential information recruiters aren’t going to tell your kids before they sign up. Little details such as the real limits on accessing college funds, fiscal hardships, and of course risks. I have known many an ex-service person who wished they were gotten the other side of the story.

Any sports fan can tell you that any strategy only has a limited life-time. Unless it is remixed and revised, the play just dies. The other side runs interference, having studied its opponents strengths, and learning how to beat back its advances.

This well could be happening to the counter-recruitment movement in the near future. The problem is that every single ROTC program could be shut down, and kids would still turn to the military out of sheer economic necessity.

The ways in which race, class and now gender are intertwined are extremely clear in the case of military service. Approximately two-thirds of service people are working-class white people from rural areas. This is a reversal of the Vietnam-era statistics where working-class people of color from urban areas dominated. Movements such as the Chicano Moratorium and the massive GI Resistance efforts helped to reverse this, which held for many years. As the War on Terror became a disaster even by terms of US Imperial interests, the military has had to ramp up its efforts to recruit in cities, and in communities of color. Young women are being recruited into the military like never before.

So I’m wondering, if cities like San Francisco, Berkeley, and others are really interested in curbing military recruitment–why stop just saying no? What are economic strategies that would provide life-changing alternatives for young people considering military service? Should they create Urban Peace Corps where participants are paid as well, or better than soldiers? Should the anti-war movement be pushing for universal access to four-year education? Programs such as these probably would only put a dent in the conditions caused by the global economy, yet should be explored fully.

One popular left-wing slogan is “One No, Many Yesses,” yet sometimes the demands and complexity of organizing leaves us in the “no” gear for a long-time. This November, it is very possible the liberal president will be elected. This president will be able to sell incursions into Iran and other countries, even as s/he nominally ends a war in Iraq. With this at stake, it is time for us to start figuring out what we’re going to say yes to.

Some thoughts on the Gay Marriage thing….

Godamn right, those people are defiling the institution of marriage!

Or maybe I should say, those straight people…us straight folks?

Two days ago, the California Supreme Court ruled that a right offered to some must be offered to all. That means that this is going to be the summer of love for hundreds of thousands of people who deserve the right to express their love in whatever way they see fit.

The right-wing talk shows were a buzz. You couldn’t turn on the television without hearing the phrase “defiling marriage,” (or similar) every few minutes.

The terrible secret is that the institution of marriage has been defiled for quite sometime now. A normal heterosexual marriage is one of the easiest places to uncover horrible acts of incest, adultery, violence, and good old fashioned dishonesty and unhapiness.

So to the GLBT community—if you can make something more of this failed institution, great! Maybe only those who have been systematically shut out can really appreciate it, reinvent it, nurture it. Heteros have handed you such a damaged, beaten and bruised prize that none of us are qualified to criticize.

I remember when my favorite Aunt and her partner had to move three hours outside of San Francisco due to an eviction. They truly had a love that did not need to be bound by church and state. However, the difference between the rights and respect granted to them in San Francisco County was virtually non-existent in Lake County. This was especially evident when her partner fell ill and needed the “system” to recognize her most loved one’s judgment and place in her life.

In the end, the gay marriage decision will make a big difference in a lot of individual’s lives, and the simple expansion of the freedom of choice is reason to celebrate. The fact that a bunch of people who have built careers on hatred and intolerance (some of them closeted gays anyhow) are reeling in their big dfeat is gratifying in and of itself.

And, as long as we’re living in a system where all human relationships get boiled down to the market place, I’d say…the smart money is on Pottery Barn stock this summer.

THURSDAY MAY 22nd, 7:00

GILMAN STREET PROJECT, 922 GILMAN

SPOKEN WORD NIGHT

OPEN MIC AND FEATURED READERS

Rupert Estanislao from Eskapo
Ananda Esteva author of Pisco Sours on Civil Defense Poetry

Bucky Sinister author of All Blacked Out and Nowhere to Go on Gorsky Press
James Tracy  author of Sparks and Codes on Civil Defense Poetry

I’m honored to be invited to read at City Lights’ grand May Day event, The Strike! It is a sequel of sorts to a reading which happened during the last Presidential election year, entitled Manifesto. Like last time, thirty poets are going to sound-off (three minutes at a time) on the subject of empire, only now we’re supposed to answer the question So what are we gonna do about it? Obviously, the “surge” of poetry isn’t likely to stop the war, but hopefully it might just put a spring in your activist step, and maybe, provide some inspiration to delete the empire once and for all!

A City Lights May Day event
@ First Unitarian Universalist Church 1187 Franklin Street at Geary, San Francisco, CA
Doors open 7 pm; performance begins 7:30 pm
Admission: $12.00 @ door

Join City Lights and friends for an evening of narratives that cut through the core of the neo-liberal agenda

30 local poets, performers, fiction writers, playwrights, and musicians deliver 3 minute pieces offering imaginative responses to the hunger of global capital and its effects upon community

STRIKE addresses strategies of resistance. We pose the question: what serves as meaningful resistance in an age of disaster capitalism? We shall explore the liberation of the commons- through poetry, performance, music, and magic.

Participants:
Charlie Anders
Maxine Chernoff
Justin Chin
Diane di Prima
Camille Dungy
Ananda Esteva
Guillermo Gomez-Pena
Lisa Gray-Garcia
Jack Hirschman
Paul Hoover
Kevin Killian
Joseph Lease
Jon Longhi
Michael McClure
Cameron McHenry
Annalee Newitz
Barbara Jane Reyes
Al Robles
Leslie Scalapino
Matthew Shenoda
Bucky Sinister
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
Amber Tamblyn
James Tracy
Roberto Vargas
Youth Speaks
more to come..

This past weekend at the National Labor College, in Silver Springs Maryland, Iraq Veterans Against the War, VFP (Veterans for Peace), VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against the War), MFSO (Military Families Speak Out), held this generation’s “Winter Soldier” hearings. The testimony was from service people whose tours of duty had taken them to Iraq and Afghanistan. 

I won’t go into detail about the testimony. You can see plenty of that at the IVAW website. Where you can’t see it is most of the mainstream media.  The SF Chronicle, Washington Post, New York Times all seem to have a media blackout on the proceedings. They are always quick to dismiss civilian anti-war activists as kooks, ideologues, and out of touch with the mainstream. When current and former service people speak-up–they are largely just ignored.

Of course, there is some very good coverage of the event in the mainstream media–but you’ll have to find that in websites originating the the Philipines, Italy, and the UK.

The Democrats were largely silent on this as well. John Kerry said not a peep. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as well. The message is: vote us in, let us take care of getting the nation out of Iraq. It ain’t gonna work that way. Remember, the Vietnam War ended under a Republican Administration. That was because of the resistance of soldiers and the Vietnamnese people, and the anti-war movement.

It was the day after Christmas, and President Bush signed a budget bill, handed to him by Democratic Party-led Congress, that only the Grinch could love—a budget bill that provides another 70 billion for war.  Democratic Presidential candidates have learned to talk tough on the horrors of the Iraq occupation that has claimed 1,165, 204 human lives—yet ignore the collaboration that their own party has in the ongoing carnage. So jumping up on your high-horse and criticizing the Republicans for scuttle-butting an expansion of health-care for children means very little when your party has just signed off on war-spending that could have achieved the unthinkable—insuring not just the children, but their parents as well!

Have you ever wondered exactly what the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost your community? Thanks to the National Priorities Project (www.nationalprioritiesproject.org) you don’t have to spend hours pouring through the federal budget to figure it out. For those of us who were products of the post Proposition 13 California Public Schools, the help with the arithmetic of tragedy is appreciated.

Based on what each city has paid for the war up until now, lets take a look at what this war is taking from my home, the San Francisco Bay Area:

San Francisco

• 632,683 People with Health Care OR
• 2,744,841 Homes with Renewable Electricity OR
• 28,661 Public Safety Officers OR
• 22,972 Music and Arts Teachers OR
• 236,568 Scholarships for University Students OR
• 117 New Elementary Schools OR
• 4,611 Affordable Housing Units OR
• 574,609 Children with Health Care OR
• 182,819 Head Start Places for Children OR
• 23,240 Elementary School Teachers OR
• 20,592 Port Container Inspectors

Oakland

236,029 People with Health Care OR

 1,023,994 Homes with Renewable Electricity OR

 10,692 Public Safety Officers OR

 8,570 Music and Arts Teachers OR

 88,254 Scholarships for University Students OR

 44 New Elementary Schools OR

 1,720 Affordable Housing Units OR

 214,364 Children with Health Care OR

 68,203 Head Start Places for Children OR

 8,670 Elementary School Teachers OR

7,682 Port Container Inspectors

I originally published this in Left Turn Magazine, October 2007.

Leroy F. Moore, Jr. is a radical Black organizer in the disability and racial justice movements. He works with Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization, Poor Magazine, and Harambee Educational Council, an organization for parents, advocates and young adults focused African Americans with disabilities. Long a fixture in the anti-police brutality and homelessness efforts nationwide; he is now taking on the hip-hop industry with a groundbreaking compilation of disabled rappers: Krip-Hop. He is also a member of the Molotov Mouths Outspoken Word Troupe.

Leroy

LT: Tell me a little bit about your background, what led to your politicization?

LM: I was born with cerebral palsy into a family that was and still are activists. My father was a Black Panther and my mother was an independent thinker. I had no choice but to be an activist.

My experiences in both communities-Black and Disabled, and how they treated, or better yet, not treated both of my identities gave me a real eye-opener on how society treats Blacks and other people of color with disabilities.

Racism in the disability movement and services for people with disabilities became clear when I was mainstreamed from my all Black Special Education class to a majority White non-disabled mainstream class. From that point onward, I had the question of race and disability in my head.

LT: You talk about the “intersection of race and disability” How exactly are these entwined? Some present disability as color-blind, something that could happen to anybody.

LM: The reality of race and disability has been with us since day one. Disability is a part of our fabric of our being, just like race, all the way back to Moses. People of color have found themselves in situations where the onset of disability is delivered by the oppressive society we live in. From robbing the land from Native Americans to slavery to the Tuskagee Experiment, to today’s budget cuts in mental health, hospitals, and the violence we seemed to live in at home and abroad, this country’s action and policies have helped increase disability in POC communities.

Continue reading ‘Nothing About Us, Without Us! - Interview with Leroy Moore’