Sensitive sentience struggling. The sun rises, we try to be thankful. We try to not take it to heart when we notice societal slights. Try not to overanalyze why the bus driver stopped opening the back door for us, but does for the man or woman who would like to exist out the rear. Try to hope. An unassuming corner store has recently become a gurgling spring of hope, an obscure oasis in this midst of the horrors. The lone corner store employee greets us with an energetic Hello! He makes small talk. He makes sure we know where all the different coffee creamers are hiding. Today he gives me three prepackaged, sweet snacks with our coffees and my sprinkle donut. I stuff them into the side pocket of my light blue backpack, forgetting to share them with my wife.
After dropping my wife off at work, I head to a cafe I haunt, ready to settle into some silent, sustained reading with an avocado sandwich and iced latte. I have with me Pau Hana: Plantation Life and Labor in Hawaii by Ronald Takaki, further broadening my knowledge, taking a break from being a source of knowledge. As I wait at the counter to put in my order, someone from the Coalition on Homelessness says hi and gives me a few Know Your Rights handouts for unhoused people for when they encounter the police. “I can give these out to the people by my building,” I say and thank them, pocketing the fliers.
I get well into Chapter 2 and stop when I feel the tears surface. Reading how purposeful the plantation owners planned to keep exploited laborers divide by pitting different races and cultures against each other is a lot. Seeing a photo of the metal tags with stamped numbers given to laborers because they were not worthy of names triggers thoughts of different atrocities where humans are reduced to insignificant numbers. Time for a walk.
I need to take the back entrance to get inside my building. Three homeless people are resting by the back door under the shade. Each has a suitcase. Each has a need for so much more. The snacks! I pull out the three snacks given to me this morning, and pair them with the Know Your Rights fliers.
“Does anyone want a snack? I have a few extra here.”
“I just ate but he probably does,” a woman says as she points to a man sitting on the pavement to my right. There is a third man to my left and I ask him if he wants one too. He hesitates, looking at the snack pile in my hand, and says, “sure.” I hand one of the sweets to him and the remaining two to the other man.
“Here, take this too. It tells you what your rights are if you encounter the police,” I say, giving each person a yellow flier. They thank me. I open the door and enter my home. This is so wrong. I sincerely, deeply, ardently hate what our society and government has done to homeless people. To so many people.
I show up to 850 Bryant, the jail that Sheriffs oversee. Overseers. Did you know Steven W. Thrasher just released a new book titled The Overseer Class?
Today commemorates the one year anniversary of the Sheriffs committing a mass strip search of women imprisoned in the jail, many still waiting for their day in court. Community organizers and radicals coordinated with non-profits and lawyers for today’s activities. A line of tables stretch in front of the jail educating the community on this matter via free zines, letter writing to imprisoned women and trans folks, screen printing Free Them All art, making Fuck 850 Bryant pins (I learned I cannot for the life of me operate a button-making machine), banner painting, as well as offering free food, water and coffee.
In the afternoon the press conference assembles where it’s announced that the strip search victims are suing the city and Sheriffs:
The class action claim in U.S. District Court accuses Sheriff Paul Miyamoto and multiple named deputies of a pattern of “deliberately degrading” and retaliatory strip searches, in violation of the First, Fourth and 14th amendments, as well as California state law.
A couple victims speak on their experiences of being abused in the jail. Formerly incarcerated women speak of the injustices and inhumanity they endured, survived. We chant that we have nothing to lose but our chains. And yet, the atmosphere isn’t as depressing as you’d think it would be.
I spent the morning painting, chatting with younger folks who are also involved other local efforts like Food Not Bombs. One is a young trans person who is trying out eye liner for the first time, and we all compliment her flattering, sparkly make-up. One has medic skills and helps two homeless people then and there, assessing their foot wounds and bandaging them. One has so much to share about their worldviews and local activities. Others tell me of (impressive!) progress they’ve made providing weekly support to women released from the jail at night. People I’ve met, or who have heard me speak at city hall, extend their hand and say hi. I ask for their name again, hoping it’ll stick this time. Pizza arrives in the middle of the press conference and by the end everyone is enjoying a slice, crowding around the screen printing, chatting and laughing and hugging it up. Today reminds me why I like getting involved. It’s not all angst. There’s care and lightheartedness too. I’ve been drowning in angst for a little while now.
Today, 5/26/26, I show up to city hall for a rally by Poor Magazine, with other organizations in attendance, that fight for homeless people. I like Poor Magazine and their HomeFULLness project because this organization is led by formerly homeless people, with homeless people, and with an anti-colonial, anti-racist lens which means we do not trust the government to solve homelessness because the government is purposefully creating homelessness in the first place. We trust the people who have been homeless, poverty scholars, to lead the way out of homelessness. They have the intimate knowledge and urgency to home people— and to care for people— that no government official will ever have.
I say hi to the couple people I know, and a couple other people introduce themselves to me. I learn more about efforts to help and protect unhoused people in Oakland. I hear more thoughts from a younger activist and writer, and answer questions they had too. I don’t feel very insightful as I am feeling discombobulated during these election-obsessed days. People scrambling to diety-wash their politician. People re-investing in the system. Critical thinking giving way to mob mentality. “There is no right or wrong. This is all whatever we make of it,” I say in summary.
I listen to poems on the cruelty of state violence and homeless sweeps. I hear the statistics about $6 million being spent on sweeps, on the thousands of empty homes that could be used to house people, on the increasing policing and chasing of people without a roof from street to street, city to city. One formerly homeless woman started her own org to help home people. Out of her eleven clients she has only been able to get a bed for one, and it wasn’t long-term. The odds are stacked against those without four walls and a roof. Why do people still believe the government isn’t doing this harm and cruelty on purpose? Because once I really understood what these mayors and supervisors and department heads are intentionally doing to fellow human beings, I became full of an unquenchable rage. My obstacle with this knowledge is how to channel this rage, transform this rage, remain a human instead of becoming a pile of ash?
My eyes leak tears on and off during the speeches. That’s been happening more often these days. But today and the other days I wrote about here have given me a renewed willingness to interact with people. To try again.
I yearn to transform my tears. I hope people show up with buckets of their tears: whether for watering cans or water canons, to nourish or to protect our community from these Heartless Bots Programmed By Technofascist Billionaire Bros aka our local government officials and SF Dems too.
I was present at a homeless sweep at Baker & Oak (SF DMV) on July 29, 2024
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July 31, 2024
I was present at a homeless sweep at Baker & Oak (SF DMV) on July 29, 2024. So was the New York Times and SF Mayor London Breed as a press event for enthusiastically displacing or arresting homeless people. Before the sweep started, I spoke with an older Black homeless woman. This poem draws from our conversation and interactions.
seeing more homeless people, in a city of billionaires
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April 8, 2025
Some things I want to write about right away Some things I wait until I forget not wanting to remember too many details? the pain maybe too much to record? I won't write about two weeks ago yet I will write about today Despite th…
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