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Wednesday, August 29, 2007

gentrification, friend drama

YIIIIIIKES!! I move in 2 days. excited/stressed/ nervous, happy, exanimate, sad, all at the same fucking time.



one fact has become rather self-evident: need to leave new york.
i was in williamsburg yesterday ad it was basically disneyland for hipsters. i saw more whitepeople than people of color!!

and it was like the aquabats video of fashion zombies.


that and i think im unconciosuly distancing myselffrom everyon e in brooklyn. like my body is emotionally preparing for it. regardless when i said bye to eveyrone i was so close to tears, i was barely able to get out without crying.
granted i sniffled my way back to the subway station.
i'm gonna miss some kids. other kids i thought were friends aren't. or maybe im taking drama too seriosuley. idunno. ill get back to it when i calm my ass down.
so much fucking packing to do!!!gaaaah!!!

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Green livin'

I want this book. we used it to make vegan cupcakes. and while in my opinion the cupcakes werent the best, that was because we lack a few ingredients and replaced some with others. But the amazing thing is THE CUPCAKES ROSE! I am so paranoid when it comes to vegan baking cause Im scared my shit won't rise. which is exactly wat happened when I made brownies for Prison Letter writing.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Frustrated.

Today I went to do court support for Mariah Lopez with two friends. The judge wa sso grumpy old man as usual. same depressing shit. Se didnt get a lowered bail, despite suicide attempts, court support, etc.
I annoucned to my friends that I was moving to Illinois. Both told me shitty things about Chicago like the cold weather for example. It almost gave me second thoughts about staying. Thinking how much I'm a msis everyone in New York and activism and thediversity, fucking Chinese food, etc.

Then I went to the FIERCE! meeting. I am so used to being in anarchist settings that to be in a non-anarchist setting seemed so stuffy to me. Not to say FIERCE! is stuff it's certianly not, but it also most defintly isn't anarcho-casual. One thing about them is right on though; THEY GET SHIT DONE.They are very communtiy orietned and organized. I think us anarcho casual folks could learn a bit from them and they can leanr a bit from us (such as consensus).
While at FIERCE!I saw a vide on the Pier. and That just confirmed my need to move from New York. I hate how gentrified it has become. How by enforcing a curfew and such giving the police libertie to keep pushing people out of what was ours. Same thing with the West Village, East Village, Brooklyn. I wouldnt if in the next few years even the Bronx is a hipster playground. Thanks Guliani, Pataki, Bloomberg.

It just reinforces how much I truley feel the need to leave New York.
I keep thinking of how government keeps pushing out queers, people of color, the working class, anarchists from the city systematically the same way they push out animals from their forest homes for profit. How easy that connection is. There are so many paralells on so many struggles.
I dont think Chicago is gentirfication free. But there is no permit law. There is no need for a permit to take pictures.
It keeps getting worst and this uphill battle gets so depressing sometimes because I honetly don't know what to do.
Maybe I need to just not see it for a bit. I don't know.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

i'm so excited

so the only thing i can think of is my fuckin move to Illinois. Today i was at Vanessa's and I realized how much I'ma miss her and wondered how i dealt wit being on long island without this girl.
There's an animal rights potluck at the park on Thursday. I am debating going. One part I do want to go to netwrok and have fun and be all vegan and animal rights-y. On the other hand. I could risk just sulking in a corner for an hour cause I don't really get along with the long island activist scene kids. at least the ones I met. and maybe there will be some rad ones there. so i don't know...
Going to see some kids from Brooklyn tommorow for Mariah's Court Support. Happy about that.


I miss the boy. But I am trying to think of other things to get my mind off of it. It won't work, it won't work, it wont, it won't, it won't!


I could burst with excitement about moving. and I'm sure everyone is sck of listening to me ramble about it. But I'm going to miss so many things, so many people. I hope things don't change.

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Court Support

I'll be there, as will other rad folks including people from FIERCE!
A latina trans activist was arrested and assualted by officers. Herre's info on it:
Transgender Activist, Survivor of Police Abuse and Misconduct

Mariah Lopez
© davidberkwitz.com

My name is Mariah Lopez. I am a young, transgender person of color. I also am an activist who does street-based outreach in the West Village, where I also socialize.

Let me tell you how the police often respond to this.

With verbal abuse.

Sexual harassment.

Unwarranted arrests.

Withholding food, water and medication in detention.

Humiliating and inappropriate strip searches.

Physical assaults.

This is what I have endured at the hands of police and corrections officers - and not just once. What occurs is a systemic abuse of power, one that is seemingly inflicted on whim. For my friends and me, it seems that something as inconsequential as an officer's mood can dictate whether we spend time in jail.

I have been arrested a number of times in the West Village - including as recently as three months ago - always for solicitation, or loitering with intent to solicit. Most of the time I plead "guilty." When you're young, aren't told your full legal options, have no bail money and face abuse, what do you do? You plead "guilty," just to get everything over with as quickly as possible.

Sometimes that's not fast enough.

Here's an example. In April of last year, I was walking in the West Village with friends. Several undercover detectives approached us and told me to leave the vicinity immediately or I would be subject to arrest and prosecution. I refused to comply, as I had the right to be there. Less than two hours later I was arrested and charged with "loitering with the intent" of prostitution.

At the 6th precinct, I was verbally abused and forced to disclose my "real" gender, though my ID clearly states that I am female. I requested that officers refer to me with female pronouns, which is my legal right under the New York City Human Rights Law. They continued to abuse, harass and degrade me, referring to me as "it," "he/she" and calling me by male names rather than my own.

Later I was arraigned; I pled "guilty" and was sentenced to ten days (of which I served seven). Upon intake at Rikers Island, I was told that I couldn't get alternative housing based on my gender identity, which would have provided safety from other inmates (all of whom were male). I had to undergo an embarrassing and degrading strip search and was badgered about the size of my genitalia and for having breasts. Next a nurse examined me in an open, clinic-based setting with no regard for patient confidentiality, where she surmised out loud that I must be HIV positive or have AIDS.

I was placed in a cell for several hours with no food, water or access to a bathroom. I brought this to the attention of the corrections officer; in exchange, the officer assaulted me, leaving me with severe bruising and abrasions. His justification? Claiming that I was being disruptive, all because I demanded my basic rights.

I was then transferred into a dorm with other inmates, which led to a week of physical and emotional abuse, as well as sexual harassment, at the hands of inmates and corrections officers alike. The inmates ordered me not to use the open showers when they did; to avoid trouble and for privacy reasons I requested to shower early in the morning or late at night. Corrections officers denied this request. They also refused to intervene when the inmates repeatedly threw hard objects at me - even after an object slammed into my face while I was reporting the incident.

Finally a more responsible area captain took note of my bruises, and I was moved to alternative housing - just one day before my release, too late to offer relief from what I had been through. According to her, this housing had been available all along.

I am here today because no human being deserves this treatment. I am here today because what happens in New York is replicated in Los Angeles and cities and towns across this country. I am here today because one more LGBT person suffering police abuse is one person too many.

I know for many it is easier to give in than to struggle. I've been there. Sometimes you feel so disenfranchised, so damaged by constant rejection, abuse and scorn, that you don't realize there is power behind your voice - or that you are worth the fight.

But I am evidence of that power, and we are all worth the fight. Others have voices as big as mine, as loud as mine and as effective as mine. Change can happen, sometimes with less effort than people realize. The launch of this report will help, especially if we join forces to insist upon a society where police protect all human beings. We cannot rest until that time comes.

Thank you.

Details on getting there:
Tuesday, August 7
Criminal Court, 100 Centre St., Part B on the fourth floor (all the way to the right)
The time is never sure, but it will probably in the late morning—be there by 10:30!

Please come if you can—your presence will increase the chances that Mariah will get out of jail and cut short the abuse she’s facing there!

Gabriel Arkles
Staff Attorney
Sylvia Rivera Law Project
322 8th Ave. 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10001
(212) 337-8550 ext. 113
fax (212) 337-1972

Friday, August 3, 2007

Moving Away

It's official I'm leaving for Galesburg, Illinois in 25 days. Iwill be a train ride away from Chicago. Meeting new people, making new connections, networking, traveling, learning, living on my own.
Finding new communities.
I can't wait. I will be going to Knox College, this itty bitty liberal arts college that has a radical contingent of students, fair trade vegan options, lots of queer wimmin, and a beautiful campus.

My college experience in general has been wacky.
I first went to Earlham College in Richmond Indiana. which was due to a free ride. I got there and it had gloomy gray skies and humidity that made my face break out into monstrous zits. This, my friends, was a sign I didn't belong there.
It was like being in the twilight zone. I felt like Wednesday Addams when she goes to camp and everyone is singing Kumbayas. Lots of liberals, no radicals. Lack of queer presence, diverse but segregated.
And every one of the liberal upper class white students reached peace and non-violence for all, blind to the possibility that peace isn't always an option (I'd like to see yr non-violent priveleged ass in the hood for example) . So I hated it.
That and indie hipsters annoy me and they grew from trees there.
So i dropped out and everyone raised hell over it.
Next I went to Queens Collelge which honestly wasn't too bad at all. Itwas diverse, there was an SDS and had for the most part a great faculty.
Through Queens I had the privelge of being a subway ride away from the city, so I got to meet really rad people who I will never forget. Some of these rad people have traveled a lot and have lived in the boonies and through thos experiecnes have networked and changed their life.
So I started rethinking being a die hard New Yorker ("I'ma never leave New York!") and looked around to see the fact that people are traveling and everyone is leaving new york. Shit's changed a lot around here. and I think leaving wouldn't be bad at all. Not forever. But to experience something outside of New York. and I need to not live with my mom anymore. I lvoe her to death. But she's always gonna be a mama. And I'm too grown right now to have my mama living with me without suffocating a bit. There's just not enough room.


And now I'm at Knox.
It will be my second semester of College and I have already been to three schools. Oh dear.

First Post!

So I got a blogger not to be pretentious but because Vanessa has one and she is rad, so I thought if I got a blogger I could be rad too.

quick background on me:
I was born in Peru and came to the United States when I was 5 due to the political turmoil in Peru at the time. My family moved in with my aunt and my cousins in the abyss that is Long Island.
Although I am a half hour away from New York City, I feel trapped and stifled in my hometown. But then again, who doesn't?
I became political concious when I was 9 and my aunt told me to send Christmas cards to political prisoners and my couisn came home form college with Rage Against the Machine's Evil Empire in his cd player.
Jigsaw Youth the zine by Kathleen Hanna introduced me to Riot Grrrl. Riot Grrrl and DIY punk introduced me to feminism and anarchism.
Punks introduced me to animal rights and veganism.
Experience taught me about racism.
Girls showed me what true love really is.
Chuck Pahalniuk's novels changed the way I look at the world.

And now I'm here. Trying to get a good start at the game of adulthood while keepin' it real and never growing up.