Mesha

with a picture of her son, who was shot by the police at the Metreon in 2001.
 

  

 
Notes from Mesha's first lecture

Part I – October 15, 2007

California spends $43,000 per inmate in its prisons.
The policy of Managed Mayhem feeds this prison system

Shift in spending from social services to building mega-jails
From restorative justice (including substance abuse treatment and perpetrators making amends to victims) to punitive justice

Nationally, 72 percent of African Americans have been incarcerated at least once.
Contract Labor in prison  (companies like Microsofts, Toyata, K-Mart and WalMart
Santa Rita, hourly wage = one cent/hr
San Quentin = 11 cents per hour
They don’t have to work but if they want an extra blanket or not be forced to have sex or their head pushed into a toilet, they must have extra cash
Would paying them more be a problem?
Shouldn’t we make it as uncomfortable for them as possible?

Death Penalty
There are 35 million CA residents; 34,000 SF Bayview residents or .01 percent of total
If the SF8’s death penalty gets upheld, then SF residents will become 5.65 percent of the total number of people on death row.

Grassroots activity – from the ground up
Not like the Peace Corps, which goes into other countries and tells them what to do
But policy and solutions for the community from that community
Grassroots politicians:Cynthia McKinney running for President; Cindy Sheehan running for Pelosi’s seat; Ahimsa Sumchai running for mayor of Sf
Grassroot newspaper: SF Bayview
Grassroots nonprofit: Idriss Stelley Foundation
Grassroots actions: Jena 6

Positives: more direct, no middleman; more democratic/authentic; can communicate quickly through the “grapevine”; disorganized
Negatives: not a lot of resources; if you get arrested it is often an economic hardship for your family; too local/too radical; disorganized

Grassroots activity is not a hobby but a state of one’s soul

Managed Mahem is a deadly net to serve the rich. Certain neighborhoods become appealing (e.g., Mission, Bayview, VisValley) so they get ethnically cleansed,  land confiscated through policies such as “beautification”  and

 “Gang injunction.”  This targets a specific neighborhood that is both being terrorized by a gang and a neighborhood that the government wants to ethnically cleanse.
The very first SF gang injunction was imposed on the Bayview. There is an injunction against the “Oakdale mob.” Police are legally allowed to arrest anyone within a defined perimeter after “curfew” that has dreds, is wearing a white T-shirt and bling—that’s  a gang!!?
First strike = $1,000 and 6 months in jail
There are lots of gangs in many neighborhoods in SF. Asian gangs in Chinatown; Armenian gangs in the Richmond; and white supremacists in SOMA and Upper Haight. The Mission is now impacted by a gang injunction, and one is coming up in Visitation Valley.  Downtown has identified these three communities—bayview, mission, visitacion valley— for “gentrification.”

Gentrification = tearing down affordable housing and building new “affordable housing.”  Problem is that the new affordable housing is only for a group whose median income is $75,000 a year.

Police Precinct (Neighborhood) Newsletters = spiteful, terrifying language used to criminalize poor, e.g., full of “smelly dude” references. 

Police are not properly trained to deal with poor and homeless so end up terrorizing them, hospitalizing them or arresting them.  A police record is now one more obstacle to getting a job.

Social workers in other cities issue one-way tickets to SF to the homeless or mentally ill. These people arrive in SF and overwhelm the Tenderloin’s psychiatric services.