Notwithstanding the mayor’s fallacious claims of so-called “crimes” by us poor and working folks on Muni, the trillion-dollar tech-based corporations, Google, Twitter, Apple, Genentech, Ebay and many more, are stealing this city blind, and the mayor has enabled, signed off, and/or crafted the giant theft in his attempt to continue the Manhattenization of this increasingly rich-only city.
While at the same time, City Hall is launching an all-out class war to evict, destroy, beat down, and eventually incarcerate anyone who isn’t part of their Tech Colonizer kingdom. But please don’t be mistaken: This did NOT begin with Rich-people-loving Mayor Lee. Us poor folks have been fighting the increases of Muni for a long time.
Since the increase in Muni fares in 2011 to $2, which several activists fought against, the fare inspectors and police started trolling the bus stops in poor communities of color like the Mission, Bayview and Tenderloin. They have been swarming the stops, getting on buses and incessantly harassing folks who are just trying to get to and fro.
All of these profiled so-called fare evasion crimes on us folks, especially youth of color, Po’ mamaz, houseless folks and disabled elders culminated in the brutal assassination of Kenny Harding Jr. over a $2 transfer on July 16, 2011.
Recently, like the gentriFUKation, Ellis Act evictions and sit-lie citations of houseless folks, the “fare sweeps” have increased and according to Officer Carrasco, the mayor has launched a new harassment/profiling campaign. Funny, I didn’t get that memo.
Tony Robles, co-editor of POOR Magazine, reported a disabled elder being tackled to the ground last week by two officers for so-called fare evasion. Myself and Jewnbug of POOR Magazine have been harassed multiple times with all of the Family Project children, and Queenandi, of POOR has witnessed multiple times the harassment, abuse, profiling and citing of recyclers and houseless elders
The Tech industry has generated more than $37 trillion dollars this year. From the New Machine Age…
So as the trillion-dollar tech industry rides on, in their shiny buses, completely for free, paying nothing, taking more and more real jobs away from real people, giving fewer and fewer people more and more blood-stained dollars to hoard, while also giving our real, union-paid jobs to robots and technology, evicting more and more of us working folks to make way for the rich elite to live, the message is crystal clear, our poor bodies, our children’s bodies, our mama bodies, our elder bodies, our disabled bodies must pay, must leave, or we will all be incarcerated.
Change Won’t Come from a Savior , a Pimp or an Institution – Change will only come from a Poor People-led Revolution… tiny, Po Poets Project 2010
